Slowdown Virginia circa 2010, from left, are Matt Maginn, Tim Kasher, Stephen Pedersen and Casey Caniglia. Photo by Bryce Bridges.

Slowdown Virginia b/w Polecat
Two legendary Nebraska bands reunite for one night only.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

When Jason Kulbel and Robb Nansel opened Slowdown in the summer of 2007, it was inevitable that there would be a Slowdown Virginia reunion on the stage of the club named after the legendary band. But when that reunion would happen would come down to timing.

“We had the idea in our heads around the time Slowdown opened, but the schedules didn’t work out,” said Slowdown Virginia bass player and sometimes vocalist Matt Maginn from the dining room of guitarist Stephen Pedersen’s stylish midtown home. Sitting across from Pedersen and Maginn was drummer Casey Caniglia. The only one missing from this evening’s Slowdown Virginia reunion was frontman Tim Kasher, who was somewhere on the road touring in support of his debut solo album. And his absence was indeed, a problem.

“So we talked about a reunion off and on and then time and space aligned,” Maginn continued. “Tim (Kasher) moved back to Omaha in July. Cursive is in a writing phase and not touring, and it was the first time we saw an open window, which has now closed. We’d already confirmed the show by the time Tim’s solo tour was booked.”

“We’ll be fine,” Caniglia said.

“We decided a couple practices ago that we didn’t need Tim,” Pedersen quipped. “We’ll call people from the audience, and they’ll handle the singing.”

The funny thing is, there’s a good chance that the band could get away with that. A sizeable chunk of local talent — including most of the bands that would eventually make up the core of Saddle Creek Records’ all-star roster — likely will be in the audience Dec. 23 when Slowdown Virginia makes its celebrated return to the stage some 18 years after its debut.

Recalling the history of the band was a challenge, thanks in part to the passage of time and the glasses of dark red wine that Pedersen continued to pour throughout the evening. But Maginn was determined to get the record straight even when small arguments broke out over little details, like who Slowdown Virginia played with back in the day, circa 1994.

Maginn ticked off the names. “There was Mousetrap, Polecat, Frontier Trust, Mercy Rule…” What about 311? And Ritual Device? No one could quite remember.

“It gets confusing,” Maginn said. “We were friends with these bands and hung out with them at shows, but did we actually play with them? I’m not sure.”

Vintage Slowdown, from left, Caniglia, Maginn, Pedersen and Kasher.

It started sometime in 1992 when all four were at Creighton Prep. “We recorded our first five songs after the band was created out of another band, March Hares,” Maginn said. “We knew we needed something recorded to leave at shows.”

March Hares was a five-piece fronted by vocalist Jim Robino. After that band broke up and Robino moved on, Kasher slid into the frontman position and the new band became Slowdown Virginia, presumably a tribute to Kasher’s cat, Virginia, who was named after the song “Yes, Virginia,” by another local band, The Acorns.

Anyway… The band recorded those first five songs at Junior’s Motel, a ramshackle chicken coop converted into a recording studio in tiny Otho, Iowa, about 100 miles northwest of Des Moines run by Kirk Kaufman, former member of ’80s power-pop band The Hawks.

“We mixed the tracks at Digisound, which was overpriced,” Maginn said. “So we made the cheapest cassette covers we could using Stephen’s brother’s computer.”

Despite losing their asses financially on the cassette tape, the band kept trudging out to Otho to record, taking full advantage of its low-budget rates and Kaufman’s habit of letting them take over the studio after 9 p.m. “We continued to write and always had stuff to record,” Maginn said. “We’d record six or 10 songs and come home and mix them ourselves.”

By 1994, the band began working with a couple of producers — Melvin James, who was a friend of Kaufman’s, and Shimmy Disc founder Kramer, who mixed some of the tracks that eventually became Dead Space — the band’s full-length debut and the first CD ever released on Lumberjack Records — the label that would eventually be renamed Saddle Creek Records.

“It was Ted Stevens’ idea to put out the CD,” Maginn said. “He had heard every track we ever recorded at Otho. He talked me into it while we were driving around in his Cutlass, this long, red two-door that looked like a Monopoly car.”

“It was actually a Monte Carlo,” Stevens said a few days later. “I remember we all thought they were being courted by this label, and they were — by a couple labels, actually. Word on the street was they were saving these recordings for a record deal, but we had a feeling that the manager they were working with didn’t like the songs and wouldn’t put it out. We reached a point where even Conor (Oberst) had put out a tape, and Slowdown still hadn’t done anything in years.”

Slowdown Virginia, Dead Space (1994, Lumberjack Records)

Listening to the tracks today, it’s easy to understand why Stevens was so eager to see Dead Space released. There’s something young and exciting and brazenly unchartered about the album, from the opening salvo “Supernova ’75” where Kasher spits out the lines “It’s automatic / It’s systematic / It’s hydromatic / It’s kind of tragic,” to the banging pop of “Whipping Stick,” where he screws his voice into a bizarre adolescent yowl, howling “Yeah, yeah I know you’re sick of me by now / Well thanks a lot for hanging ’round.” Throughout the disc, the music is equal parts chiming guitars and pulsing bass and drums, always taking an unexpected turn into some strangely different rhythm or tone. It was punk, it was post-hardcore, and yeah, it was emo, but it was the good kind of emo, the Rites of Spring/Minor Threat kind of emo.

And maybe when Stevens listened to those Slowdown Virginia tracks he could hear echoes of the future. The guitar and vocals at the beginning of the anthemic “Blame” and the laid-back “Another Sip” clearly hint at things to come in just a few short years.

Maginn said Stevens along with Conor and Justin Oberst, helped raise the cash needed to press 500 CDs at a cost of around $1,500 — considerably more than what it costs to produce a cassette tape — but worth it for this new technology. “Back then the conversation wasn’t ‘How many CDs did you sell?’ it was ‘We’re putting out a CD,'” Pedersen said. “That alone was the accomplishment. We had no idea what we were going to do with 500 of them.”

“We didn’t sell them all,” Maginn said. “I remember helping with inventory control in the Oberst attic. But we eventually sold enough to pay back the investors.”

If sales were slow it might be because the band rarely played outside of Omaha or Lincoln. The one road trip they remembered was a gig at a biker bar called Joe’s Pub in Council Bluffs. “The promoters gave us money to leave early because the crowd was going to kill us,” Maginn said.

Little did they know how big of an influence Slowdown Virginia would have on the future of the Omaha music scene. “Well, I’d say they had a pretty major impact,” Stevens said. “It’s hard to get a perspective of what their sound was at the time. It seemed so unique, but it was a pretty major influence. A big group of us would listen to Slowdown and get kind of weird. Looking back, we were geeks about it.

“Toward the end, after we met Todd and Clark Baechle (who would go on to form The Faint) and a lot of the Westside crowd, people started coming out to their shows,” Stevens added. “I never had the feeling they were very popular, but they had a die-hard set of followers.”

It was all over by the spring of ’95. Despite recording enough material for another CD, Slowdown Virginia played its final show at the Cultural Center in Lincoln that April. Maginn said the breakup was inevitable. “Tim was leaving town, he was going to go to school at the University of Kansas.”

Caniglia also had had enough. “I was 21 and out,” he said. “I could take it or leave it.”

But there was no stopping the rest of them. A month later, Pedersen’s other band, Smashmouth, which included drummer Clint Schnase, would combine with Slowdown Virginia. The merger resulted in a little band by the name of Cursive.

Skinning a Polecat

While all of that was happening, Ted Stevens was involved in a band of his own. Stevens formed Polecat after his high school band, Gravy Train (which also included Pedersen and Schnase), broke up when he left for college at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“I wound up at Abel Hall in a dorm with a bunch of people from Omaha,” Stevens said. “I was introduced to Boz Hicks, who lived a floor below us.” Hicks and Stevens were both fans of free-wheeling tractor-punk band Frontier Trust. “I think it was Gary Dean Davis from Frontier Trust that tipped me off to Oli Blaha.”

Blaha was the drummer in Lincoln band Hour Slave that, like Gravy Train, broke up when its members graduated from high school. “I remember seeing them play at Duffy’s and thinking they were pretty cool,” Stevens said, “so I cold called him.”

Polecat, Dilly Dally (1994, Lumberjack Records)

With Hicks on drums, Blaha on bass and Stevens on guitar and vocals, Polecat headed to the North Platte basement studio of Mike and AJ Mogis in November 1993, where they recorded the tracks for their first cassette, Dilly Dally, released on Lumberjack Records the following spring. It was followed by their first 7-inch — “Saddle Creek” b/w “Chinese Water Torture” — released jointly by Double Zero and -Ism Recordings.

Polecat’s sound was lean, mean Midwestern punk rock covered in a thin layer of prairie dust. Like its predecessor Frontier Trust, their music had a rural flair, but unlike Gary Dean Davis, Stevens could actually carry a tune, even when he was spitting out angst-ridden lines like, “It’s hard to repay all the tears that you give to me / To see the inside jokes turn outside in.” Driving their sound was the trio’s superb balance — no one member outshined the other. Polecat was a perfect corn-fed rock ‘n’ roll machine.

The band quietly built a following by performing constantly in Lincoln, Omaha and Western Nebraska. “Boz had bought this conversion van and we were young and having a good time,” Stevens said. “We traveled all through Nebraska — Kearney, Hastings, North Platte.”

Unlike Slowdown Virginia, Polecat even played out-of-state gigs. “I started a relationship over the phone with Dave Dondero and Russ Hallauer of the band Sunbrain,” Stevens said. “We ended up driving down to Atlanta to play with them, followed by Charlotte, North Carolina.”

Ted Stevens in Polecat circa 199?.

Polecat eventually cut a split 7-inch with Sunbrain that was jointly released by Lumberjack and Hallauer’s Ghostmeat imprint. Ghostmeat would go on to include Polecat on a number of the label’s compilation CDs.

By 1995, Polecat was entering the studio with AJ Mogis again to record an 11-song follow-up to Dilly Dally slated for release as a CD by Lumberjack. But the album never saw the light of day.

“I sure got a lot of grief about it,” Stevens said of the breakup. “We weren’t getting along in the studio very well. I was a little hard headed, and it’s my fault the record never came out. It never sounded right to me. Now I think it’s the best stuff we ever recorded. I’ll take a lot of credit for the band breaking up.”

As luck would have it, the day after Polecat disbanded, indie record label Bar None called Stevens about his other band, Lullaby for the Working Class.

“Mike (Mogis, a member of Lullaby) had been networking with manila envelopes and 8 x 10 promo photos of the band,” Stevens said. “I remember we were all in calculus class, and Boz was bummed out while AJ (who also was in Lullaby) was beaming because we were about to get signed. It looked bad.”

Lullaby for the Working Class would go on to garner international praise for its unique brand if indie chamber pop, culminating in a European tour — something unheard of for a local band at that time. But eventually Lullaby would break up, too.

By 2000, Stevens would wind up as a guitarist/vocalist in Cursive, joining Kasher, Maginn and Schnase. He replaced Pedersen, who quit Cursive when he enrolled in law school at Duke University. Pedersen would eventually form two more bands — The White Octave in 2000, and Criteria in 2003. He’s now an attorney at Omaha’s most prestigious law firm — Kutak Rock.

Despite the unfortunate timing of their breakup, it didn’t take long for Boz Hicks to forgive Stevens. In fact, Polecat had its first reunion show 10 years ago. “At the time, I knew we’d do it again,” Stevens said. “I don’t know why we’re doing it this year. It might have something to do with the Lullaby reunion (which took place this past summer) and how good that felt to be in that band again for the night.”

Stevens said he’s been spending a lot of time with Hicks, who works at Slowdown and plays drums in a number of local bands, including Her Flyaway Manner.

As for Oli Blaha: “When Oli left Lincoln, he really left,” Stevens said. “He went to Edinburgh and then Anchorage. He’s really a jet setter. Now he’s married and living in Oklahoma City where he goes to school.”

With Blaha returning to Nebraska to spend Christmas with his father, Stevens said everything fell into place for a Polecat reunion. And what better way to do it than with Slowdown Virginia at Slowdown?

“When Slowdown opened, I knew the reunion was inevitable and that I better start drumming again,” said Caniglia, who works with his father, Jerry, and his Uncle Chuck at Venice Inn. “Everyone I know has no idea that I was in this band.”

But can they pull it off with Kasher not coming back into town until Dec. 19?

“We’ll be ready,” Pedersen said. “I’m having a blast. It’s all brand new again, and part of that is because my memory is crap.”

“For us, the real fun has been being together again,” Maginn said. “I’m smiling the whole time I’m down in the basement.”

Slowdown Virginia plays with Polecat and DJMBowen Thursday, Dec. 23, at The Slowdown, 729 No. 14th St. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $10. For more information, call 402.345.7569 or visit theslowdown.com.

Published in The Omaha Reader Dec. 22, 2010. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved. Photo by Bryce Bridges, used with permission. Vintage photos of Slowdown Virginia and Polecat supplied by Rob Walters.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Tim Kasher at The Waiting Room, Nov. 19, 2010.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Friday night at The Waiting Room.

Conduits are poised to be a next-level success story, that is if someone is smart enough to sign them. But in this day and age, getting signed isn’t necessarily the most important thing that can happen to your band (but it certainly helps). Conduits has something just as good as a record deal — people are beginning to notice them. They’re being associated not only with Omaha but with Saddle Creek, thanks in part to Roger Lewis’ connection to The Good Life and Tim Kasher, who made a special guest appearance during their set for one song that was obviously a Kasher composition. It sounded nothing like the rest of their set, which continues to evolve into a series of epic masterpieces, tonal ambient journeys into dark yet familiar worlds decorated in ’90s shoe-gaze, low-hum dream-noise. It’s moody and effective, each song taking on a life of its own. It’s only a matter of time before the whole set bleeds together into one 45-minute epic soundscape.

I don’t think second-slot filler Darren Hanlon could have been a bigger contrast. The Aussie singer/songwriter performed a solo set that was a cross between Billy Bragg and John Wesley Harding — long story-songs played on guitar or banjo set atop a backdrop of crowd noise that came roaring from the back of the room, which was ballooning to well over 300. Hanlon’s songs were… cute. Late in the set they were propelled by guest drummer Craig D (Tilly and the Wall), who even provided an improvised drum solo.

Finally, it was Kasher’s turn. The biggest compliment I could give his set: At one point, I realized that I wasn’t paying attention to minuscule details, I wasn’t mentally taking notes, I became lost in the performance and the songs, which for me hasn’t happened in a long time. Kasher played most of the songs off his new album, The Game of Monogamy, punctuating each phrase with a knowing glance or gesture, trying to connect the music to the audience. The usual chatty Kasher said very little between songs, only once talking freely about the making of the album, saying that he was listening to a lot of David Bowie while up in Whitefish, all as an intro to a very Kasher-ian cover of Bowie’s “Soul Love.” The rest of the covers were Good Life chestnuts that seamlessly fit into the set. As you would expect, Kasher’s backing band was amazing. The standout was Lewis Patzner on cello — the best sounding (and mixed) cello I’ve heard on any live stage, it added a layer of drama that these songs yearned for. If Patzner’s name sounds familiar you might be thinking of his brother, Anton Patzner, who performed with Bright Eyes circa Cassadaga. Talent with strings obviously runs in the family.

Blue Bird at The Barley Street Tavern, Nov. 20, 2010.

Saturday night at The Barley Street Tavern.

Part of the fun of The Lepers’ set was watching the reaction from a crowd that probably had no idea what sort of music they were in for. These friends of Blue Bird certainly weren’t prepared for a two-man freak-out noise collage. I’ve seen Lepers more times than I care to remember, and this performance was right in line with all of them. Their music is tribal and borders on disturbing, an obvious progeny of Sonic Youth noise rock. For it to succeed, it can’t be confined to the Barley Street’s PA limitations — in other words, it needs to be loud, so loud that it generates confusion and fear, that it forces people to be trapped inside it, for better or worse.

I didn’t time it, but it seemed like it took a full half-hour for Blue Bird to get set up after Lepers, and for most of that time, the crowd (which continued to grow and grow to a staggering 40 or 50) were treated to Ben Sieff’s bass noodling along with assorted violin and clarinet tuning — I thought to myself, “Oh, so this is hell. I thought it would be so much warmer.” After 10 minutes of stage noise I was ready to pull my hair out, but it takes a long time to get eight people set up. That’s right, eight people — Blue Bird’s total inventory included two keyboards, guitar, drums, bass, two backup singers (one of them was Megan Morgan, who’s not a permanent member of the band) and that violin.

It’s an ambitious line-up that heralds back the days when Bright Eyes was towing a U-Haul filled with 16 musicians while touring his Wide Awake album. The days of huge ensembles are long gone in an era when bands don’t make any money and are looking for ways to cut costs. Except of course for Midwest Dilemma, and now Blue Bird. You have to hand it to frontwoman Marta Fiedler for finding a way to make it all work, though you have to wonder if a band that large could ever really afford to go on tour.

Was all that firepower necessary for Saturday night’s show? Probably not. What stood out most about Blue Bird was Fiedler’s pretty Midwestern voice that was accented by a slight country-western lilt. She indeed sounds like a Nebraska version of Jenny Lewis on songs derived from the indie-Americana template. You’ll be reminded of Lewis and She & Him and The Mynabirds and all the other women-led bands that seem to be making a mark on indie these days — especially locally, when was the last time we had so many women contributing so much musically? Fiedler has an advantage over a lot of them in how she writes songs — there was always something in the compositions that surprised me. Maybe it was just her own voice slipping through.

As a whole, the band did fine — they made it work. This was, after all, their first gig playing together in this ensemble (almost all are veterans of other bands). The set had a rough launch due to a Fiedler’s malfunctioning microphone that kept shorting out — I can’t imagine anything worse happening during an opening number. Fiedler responded like a real pro, singing through the technical difficulties as the sound guy brought her another mic. Despite the annoying pre-show noodling, Sieff played the role of godsend, placing a solid foundation for everyone to build upon, along with drummer Rob Mathews. It’s hard to judge the rest of the ensemble, especially considering The Barley Street’s obvious limitations (There’s so little space on its “stage” that it seemed like a couple members of the band were pushed right into the crowd). The violin was perfectly played, but unnecessary, along with the backing vocals, and it doesn’t get any better than Carrie Butler and Morgan. Ian Simons’ place is behind the keyboard, not the clarinet. Oh, he played it just fine, but I think there should be a law that says clarinets shouldn’t be allowed in rock bands. They tend to turn every song into a Bah Mitzvah. I’d like to hear what these guys sound like in a venue with a real sound system (Slowdown, The Waiting Room); and I’d love to hear these songs preformed as a trio.

Finally, Landing on the Moon closed out the evening at just before 1 and uncorked their usual fine set. Their centerpiece continues to be their anthem to the Omaha music scene, “California” — a dyed-in-the-wool crowd pleaser if ever there was one.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The hot ticket for the evening is Tim Kasher tonight at The Waiting Room. Kasher’s band includes Patrick Newbury on keyboards and trumpet, Dylan Ryan on drums and Lewis Patzner on cello and brass. Who knows if anyone else will be joining them. Opening the show is Austrailian singer/songrwriter Darren Hanlon, whose latest album, I Will Love You At All, came out on Yep Rock this past September. Also on the bill, Omaha’s own Conduits. Expect a crowd. $10, 9 p.m.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) is the stage debut of Blue Bird at The Barley Street Tavern. The band is fronted by Marta Fiedler on piano, guitar and vocals. Fiedler’s last gig was with Lincoln’s Hymn for the Hurricane. The six-piece ensemble is rounded out by vocalist/keyboardist Carrie Butler (Eagle*Seagull, Beauty in the Beast), drummer Rob Mathews (Apostrophe, Surfer Rosa), bassist Ben Sieff (Silicon Bomb, Nightmare, solo acoustic), violinist Samantha Brock, keyboardist/clarinetist Ian Simons (Thunder Power) and guitarist Vince Giambattista (Old Boy Network, Mandown, Secret Weapon). Talk about a diverse line-up. Also on the bill are Landing on the Moon and The Lepers. No idea what the order will be, so just get there at 9 and soak it all in. $5.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Tim Kasher dines with a "special friend."

Tim Kasher: Games People Play

Going solo, Kasher rolls the dice… on love.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Will we ever know the real story behind the songs that make up Tim Kasher’s debut solo album, The Game of Monogamy?

Probably not. “Some friends and family — people who really know me well — try to guess which songs are accounts of my life, and they’re always wrong,” Kasher said while on the road in Dallas. “To me, that’s great. That means I’m getting better as a writer.”

I, too, tried to pry the real meaning behind bitter-worded songs like “Cold Love” (The sheltered life of a couple / Is like living in a bubble), “No Fireworks,” (I thought love was supposed to spill from our hearts / I can’t feel it, no fireworks, no twinkling stars), and “There Must Be Something I’ve Lost,” (When I was young I believed in love / But hey, I also believed in God), which aren’t so much about monogamy as much as the agony of living in monogamy.

“That’s why calling it The Game of Monogamy is so crucial,” Kasher said. “I don’t feel the record is about monogamy. I still yearn for that concept, which is why I call it a game. I also think we could sit here with a panel and they’d all agree that it is a game. It’s not easy, and isn’t it also a pain in the ass?”

But where, exactly, did Kasher’s cynical view of long-term companionship come from? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that in the fall of 2009 the singer/songwriter frontman of successful indie bands Cursive and The Good Life seemed to be a happy fiancé, only to become unattached again just a few months later. Kasher, who once admitted that seminal Cursive album Domestica was about his failed marriage, won’t talk about that recent engagement, nor say if it supplied meaning for this record.

“To me, the album is like (The Good Life’s 2004 release) Album of the Year, where I was chronicling the bulk of my experiences over a year,” Kasher said. “I kind of did the same thing with this record. There are specific references to my own life; I can’t deny that, but there’s so much other stuff, too. The story as a whole is a fictional account. That’s what you do as a writer — you base it on your own experiences, and then fictionalize it.”

Tim Kasher, The Game of Monogamy (Saddle Creek Records)

Kasher said he started writing the songs for The Game of Monogamy two years ago when Saddle Creek Records label-mates Azure Ray invited him to play solo at some of their reunion dates, back when he still lived in Santa Monica, California. “I thought it was a good opportunity to start writing my own record, which I always planned on doing,” he said. “I did do that once, back in 1999, but that became a band (The Good Life). This is me starting over.”

In late 2009, Kasher moved from Santa Monica to Whitefish, Montana, after his pal, Stefan Marolachakis of the band The End of the World, told him what a great time he had recording up there. Kasher compared the area of northwestern Montana to the bucolic land seen in the 1992 Robert Redford-directed film A River Runs Through It. “I wrote about half the record in those four months in Whitefish,” he said. “I was really lucky.”

Maybe splitting the songwriting between Santa Monica and Montana explains why the music on The Game of Monogamy comes in two distinct flavors. Acoustic heartbreakers like “Strays” and “The Prodigal Husband” and epic closer “Monogamy” are balanced out by some of the best pop songs Kasher has ever written, including the brass and electronic-handclap driven “I’m Afraid I’m Gonna Die Here,” and simple, swinging “Cold Love,” both of which would be radio hits in any other universe.

Kasher can’t help but be proud of those perfect pop gems. “I wouldn’t say ‘proud,’ I’d say I was pleased, for lack of a better word, with writing ‘Cold Love,'” he said. “It seems like a ridiculous concept that as a musician and songwriter you spend so much time trying to make things so complicated, and spend so much of your life trying to find ways to simplify things. I get more comfort from trying to hit those pop peaks. I love pop music, and those songs are just me being more willing to see them through.”

Backed by a solid band that includes Patrick Newbury on keyboards and trumpet, Dylan Ryan on drums and Lewis Patzner on cello and brass, Kasher had no expectations for this, his first solo tour. “No one knew what to expect, so we all prepared for the worst,” he said. “We never had any false assumptions that people were going to show up because they knew my name.”

But, thankfully, they have. “After 10 years of fairly consistent touring, here I am touring more than I’ve ever toured,” Kasher said. “I thought I’d slow down at some point, but touring is such a huge part of staying afloat.”

So are his other projects. Kasher said he’s working on new Cursive material as well as another solo record. He’s even written a couple more screenplays despite being unable to get his first screenplay, Help Wanted Nights, produced. “The long and short of it is that it didn’t work out, but I’m still feverishly trying to crack into the (film) industry,” he said.

With all that under his belt, the only thing he’s missing is writing the Great American Novel. Kasher just laughed. “If everything went incredibly well, that would be the third chapter of my life.”

Tim Kasher plays with Darren Hanlon & Conduits Friday, Nov. 19, at The Waiting Room, 6212 Maple St. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $10. For more information, call 402.884.5353 or visit waitingroomlounge.com.

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It’s a psychobilly explosion tonight at The Slowdown with Detroit’s Koffin Kats (Stomp!) with The Empires, Rumble Seat Riot, and Omaha’s very own The Filter Kings. $10, 9 p.m.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Tim Kasher’s solo outing, The Game of Monogamy, dropped today on Saddle Creek Records. The album just got reviewed in Pitchfork, which gave the disc a slightly better than mediocre rating of 6.6 (out of 10). The writer seemed to like it, though his final extremely long sentence somehow makes the disc sound less than inviting: “Still, if you want to take yourself to the edge of emotional catastrophe while maintaining a safe distance, Kasher’s got the best shit in town: I’m always hesitant to use the term ‘guilty pleasure,’ but I’ll stop short and suggest that the pleasure that Monogamy provides is at the very least unhealthy, a controlled substance that packs less buzz with each use and that Saddle Creek should at least have put a warning on saying ‘do not combine with alcohol or listen to while operating within heavy relationships.'” Read the entire review here; then read the Lazy-i review, here. And there’s more: Aversion gave the disc three stars here; A.V. Club rated it a ‘B’ here; SPIN online gave it 7 out of 10 here; Consequence of Sound gave it four stars here; Austin Town Hall gave it 2 1/2 stars here; and BLARE gave it four stars here.

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Tomorrow, Guster Pt. 1.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Column 287: Five Above Earl

Reviews of Arcade Fire, new Saddle Creek releases…

I write this crammed into a window seat flying straight into the heart of a hurricane named Earl, but I’m not worried. NYC will protect me. It always has. So if there’s a sense of impending dread throughout these five reviews — a look at the hottest indie release of the year, along with four new, strong albums from our friends at Saddle Creek Records — I blame the weather and anticipation of my long-deserved vacation (or demise). See you on the other side of the storm.

Tim Kasher, The Game of Monogamy (Saddle Creek). Out 10/5/10.

Tim Kasher, The Game of Monogamy (Saddle Creek). Like most of Kasher’s confessional catalog, it’s an examination of his ongoing struggles with guilt. Guilt about his inability to commit, guilt for taking the easy way out, guilt over his unwillingness to accept contentment (“I’m Afraid I’m Gonna Die Here”) and guilt over his unwillingness to change in the face of that dreaded contentment (“Cold Love”). Lucky for him, with that guilt comes numbness as a symptom of middle age. There’s a certain sense of inevitable desperation that underlies this entire album, but don’t feel sorry for poor Kasher. He knows (as we all do) that whatever misery he suffers, he brought on himself. Musically, it veers closer to The Good Life than Cursive. Fine. The differentiator is the baroque strings, the upbeat brass that reminds me of Madness, and the cool electronic claps on “Gonna Die Here,” which would be a radio hit in any other universe. His tendency to occasionally throw too many words into a phrase makes for some clumsy moments, but those are few and far between. In the overall Kasher oeuvre, this is a minor, simple, but ultimately satisfying guilt trip.

Azure Ray, Drawing Down the Moon (Saddle Creek). Out 9/14/10.

Azure Ray, Drawing Down the Moon (Saddle Creek) — The question: Is the sum better than its parts? When Azure Ray split up all those years ago, we thought we’d get twice as much goodness as when they were together. Instead, we were treated to some hit-and-miss releases that allowed the girls to experiment with some things they wouldn’t have tried together. Now they’re back, and they’ve brought the best of their separate experiences along with some interesting electronics. Both dabbled with beats (none moreso than Fink’s O+S), and those clicks and pops have given us one of the more upbeat AR albums in their catalog. Even more noticeable is Eric Bachmann’s production and arrangements, especially on those rollicking guitar-picking numbers (“Shouldn’t Have Loved,” “Make Your Heart.”). But in the end, it still comes down to the same soothing, whispering harmonies that defined them from the beginning. The underlying theme: Just getting by, with or without someone else’s heart alongside theirs (Though they’d surely prefer the former. And who, other than Kasher, wouldn’t?). And if you know their personal back stories, it’s fun to try to connect the dots, whether they’re singing about familiar old (and current) boyfriends or not.

Adam Haworth Stephens, We Live on Cliffs (Saddle Creek). Out 9/28/10.

Adam Haworth Stephens, We Live on Cliffs (Saddle Creek) — AHS is half of Two Gallants, the singing/guitar playing half. We love 2G songs for their reckless drunken sea-shanty style mixed with wry story telling – sort of like an American version of Pogues meets Gordon Lightfoot. Well, the sea balladeering is long gone on this album. Instead, AHS has opted for a more streamlined, straightforward, AOR approach both in the songwriting and arrangements. In fact, the second track, “Second Mind,” creeps dangerously close to Jack Johnson territory. My take: This solo effort was an opportunity for Stephens to turn things down, smooth them out and try for a more peaceful, easy, mainstream feeling. When he does turn it up, like on driver “Elderwoods,” he can’t help but hold the leash a bit too tightly. The result is a pleasant record that will makes 2G fans yearn for a return to that drunken, piss-soaked pub by the sea.

Land of Talk, Cloak and Cipher (Saddle Creek). Released 8/24/10.

Land of Talk, Cloak and Cipher (Saddle Creek) — Saddle Creek has its first dream-pop act with these wily Montreal-eans led by dreamy front woman Elizabeth Powell. Their first Creek release, 2007’s Some Are Lakes, was a sneaky comer that required repeated listens before locking in. Not so this follow-up, which leaps out of the gate with its dense, bouncy title track where Powell croons in her husky, sexy voice the indecipherable code: “I won’t redeem another / Lose that.” What’s it mean? Who knows? Just like on the pulsing “Quarry Hymns,” where she coos “Leaving on the hottest day / To sink this quarry under,” you never know what she’s singing about, and you won’t care because you’ll be lost in the layers of the trio’s beautiful pop. There will be the inevitable comparisons to the usual suspects: The Sundays, The Cranberries, Fleetwood Mac, but Land of Talk brings its own mystery to your headphones, its own intensity that none of the others can match.

Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (Merge). Released 8/3/2010.

Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (Merge) — Mewing frontman Win Butler may be too smart for his own good — a sad, tortured realist, he’s stuck in a rut, dwelling on the past, on the future and on our current state of affairs. And yet, his music on this, his third album, is as inventive as anything on 2004’s Funeral, certainly moreso than the disappointing Neon Bible. The album is so radio-friendly (in an ’80s sort of way) that it almost slips out of an indie classification into the mainstream. But it’s the songs’ consistently bleak lyrics that will keep any of them from becoming household anthems. The themes: Boredom, lost opportunities, futility, modernism, isolationism, instant nostalgia, and some unforeseen looming apocalypse. All that desolation wrapped in such a pretty package. So yeah, it’s an endearing bummer that’s appropriate for these bummer times we live in, a perfect snapshot of an uncertain world, and dead accurate, but that doesn’t make it any more fun to listen to. My advice: Hang on for the ride and pay attention to the lyrics at your own peril — you may never want to get out of bed in the morning.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Just as I posted the item yesterday saying Tim Kasher wasn’t touring anywhere near Omaha, he released a full tour itinerary that includes a date at The Waiting Room Nov. 19. You can read the full schedule at the Saddle Creek website, here.

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Someone e-mailed yesterday asking for more details on the 5th of May recording after having seen this week’s column in The Reader (No. 284). The respective blog entry with links, etc., is here. Check it out.

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It’s looking like another O’Leaver’s weekend…

Tonight at fabulous O’Leaver’s Dim Light is headlining a show with Leeches of Lore and Comme Reel (No Blood Orphan). $5, 9 p.m. And then tomorrow night at O’Leaver’s, The Stay Awake is headlining a show with Honey & Darling and Millions of Boys. $5, 9 p.m.

Also on my radar screen is a special birthday bash for Filter Kings‘ frontman Gerald Lee Meyerpeter at The Barley Street Tavern tonight. Performing at this festive event are Lash Larue, Alex McManus, Whipkey/Zimmerman/Sing, and of course, Lee himself. Show starts at 9, no idea what it’ll cost you to get in. Drop down and buy Lee a shot of Thunder Chicken…

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

My mailbox is becoming crowded with fall tour information. You can check out the Merge tour schedules on the webboard here. There are only two Omaha dates — The Love Language opening for Local Natives Sept. 30 at The Waiting Room, and She & Him at The Anchor Inn Aug. 28. Arcade Fire has no Midwest dates.

HitFix has an interesting list of “10 Indie Rock Tours to Get Excited About.” No. 1 is Conor and the Felice Brothers.*yawn* The most intriguing is No. 3, Sufjan Stevens. How’s those states albums coming along, bro? The closest he’s coming to Omaha is KC’s Uptown Theater Oct. 17.

Tim Kasher also announced some tour dates — four to be exact, nowhere near here (though since he lives here now, you never know where he might pop up with a guitar) — along with releasing his first track from The Game of Monogamy for streaming, called “Cold Love” (listen to it here). It sounds like a Good Life song, right down to the mopey lyrics, which Kasher told SPIN,  are “mostly, [about] really boring sex, couples who have run out of steam in their relationships, whose sex life is reduced to going through the motions,” and that laments a “vanilla existence.” Yikes. Ever wonder what would have happened to Kasher’s career if he’d gotten married and had three kids and lived in a big house in Dundee? Thankfully, it sounds like he’s miserable, which, of course, means more music for the rest of us (what would he possibly sing about if he were happy?).

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Two shows tonight:

Tapes ‘n’ Tapes are playing at The Waiting Room tonight. Just as interesting are the openers. Broken Spindles — Joel Petersen of The Faint’s “side project.” And Touch People, a new electronic project that has a new vinyl-only record out on The Faint’s blank.wav label, which you’ll likely be hearing tracks from tonight. $12, 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, down at Slowdown Jr., Midwest Dilemma is headlining a show with Kyle Harvey that’s also a CD release show for ukelele singer/songwriter phenom Rebecca Lowry’s project All Young Girls Are Machine Guns, whose debut, Secret Attic Recordings, is being released by Harvey’s Slo-Fi Records. Backing Lowry on stage is drummer Scott Zimmerman and upright-bass player Travis Sing. $5, 9 p.m.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Looks like Conor’s doing press for Saturday’s Concert for Equality in Benson. KETV posted an article and video yesterday (right here) where a newly bearded Oberst is interviewed and basically repeats what he’s already said about the Fremont immigrant law — “It’s a human rights issue,” “It’s un-American, it’s unconstitutional and it’s immoral,” and so on. They never get to the actual reason why Conor is involved in this cause. Oberst explaining his real motivation would give all of this a strong emotional anchor that it’s currently lacking. Maybe Kevin Coffey of the OWH will get the real story when his interview with Conor goes online “later this week” at Omaha.com. KETV also spoke with Susan Smith of the Nebraska Advisory Group, who supports the Fremont immigrant legislation. The report says that she’ll be at the concert, protesting. But unless she and her followers bought tickets, I’m skeptical that they’ll be “at the concert.” Maybe outside the concert… It’s easy to discount people with signs that read “Deport Conor Oberst” as a bunch of loons, but these days, with the Internet, a bunch of loons can turn into a movement. Just look at the Tea Party.

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Spinner yesterday posted a nice review of Tim Kasher’s solo set at Tonic Room Tuesday night. TK apparently ran through a number of songs off his forthcoming solo album The Game of Monogamy. Said critic Anna Deem: “Utilizing only trumpet, keyboard, drums, bass and violin, Kasher’s new songs were more reminiscent of his previous records with the Good Life rather than the more hard-hitting sound of Cursive. As always, his commanding howl was the real fixture of the hour-long performance, resounding throughout the entire bar with force.” She said Tim ended the performance saluting the audience with, “You’re a bunch of sweet ass motherf—ers.” Nice. Read the whole review here. The new record comes out Oct. 5 on Saddle Creek.

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Tonight at The Waiting Room, Sub Pop space-rock trio Happy Birthday is playing along with LA pop rockers Residual Echoes (Holy Mountain). $10, 9 p.m. Meanwhile, at fabulous O’Leaver’s, Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship headlines a show featuring Mumfords, Utopia Park and Adam Robert Haug. $5, 9 p.m. And The Sydney is doing a rare during-the-week show tonight with Down with the Ship. According to the recently redesigned Sydney website, the other bands on the bill are Where Astronauts Go to Hide, and OK Hemmingway. On the other hand, SLAMOmaha’s calendar says the undercard is Minneapolis band Holyoke and Cass Fifty and the Family Gram. Either way, it’s $5, 9 p.m.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

The Ground Tyrants at The Sydney, OEAA Summer Showcase, July 16, 2010.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

So where’s the review of last weekend’s OEAA summer festival and the Speed! Nebraska showcase? You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow’s column, where the reason for the delay will be revealed. Until then, above is a lovely photo from the OEAA’s of The Ground Tyrants playing at The Sydney. Of the bands that I saw on Friday (including Civicminded, After the Fall and Jes Winter), The Ground Tyrants were the clear winner. Too bad they lost to mediocre R&B act Voodoo Method, who will now perform at The MAHA Festival. But I’ll talk more about that decision tomorrow.

Also in Lazy-i this week, look for a MAHA overview/interview with board member Tre Brashear and an extensive feature story/interview with Superchunk. Those stories go online Thursday and Friday.

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Among the spectators at O’Leaver’s worshipping at the alter of Speed! Nebraska Records Saturday night was Cursive’s Tim Kasher, whose solo debut, The Game Of Monogamy, is set for release Oct. 5 on Saddle Creek Records.  Recorded this past January at a rental home in beautiful Whitefish, MT, and also at SnowGhost Music, the album marks the first time Kasher has written, recorded and produced an album under his own name, according to publicist, Cobra Camanda. Sayeth the press release:

The Game Of Monogamy is more of an arranged record than any of Kasher’s past releases, filled with theatrical arrangements and lush instrumentation to create his own blend of classic pop. Ornamented with strings, harp, oboe, flute, and trombone, among other instruments, the songs vary in sound from vibrant and catchy (“Cold Love,” “I’m Afraid I’m Gonna Die Here”) to sweeping and grand (“No Fireworks,” “Monogamy”), and from hushed and spare (“Strays,” “The Prodigal Husband”), to urgent and fraught (“A Grown Man,” “Bad, Bad Dreams”). This moody orchestral pop evokes a 1950s-esque, conservative atmosphere, setting the stage for a dilemma that remains thoroughly modern.  The protagonist’s arc in The Game Of Monogamy spans the wide range of distinctly human emotions tangled up around relationships in a starched shirt society.  Call it the score for our collective sexual plight: expression routinely becomes repression in the name of romance.

If you say so, Amanda. Kasher enlisted Patrick Newbery (trumpet/keys for Cursive; also of Lacona and Head of Femur) to help with the arrangements, the production, and to play on the record. Erin Tate (Minus The Bear) and Matt Maginn (Cursive) also stopped by to add some drum and bass parts, respectively, and members of the Glacier National Symphony were recruited for the classical instrument parts.

The only question I have is: Where’s my promo copy?

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Tonight at O’Leaver’s, it’s  Watching the Trainwreck, The Goodnight Loving, Peace of Shit and The Prairies. $5, 9 p.m.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2010 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.