by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

The review of Friday night’s Lincoln Invasion fest will be online in tomorrow’s column (w/pics), so check back. My only other “music experience” last weekend involved a West Omaha bar where a cover band rumbled though a selection of ’80s hair metal songs while grossly overweight people sat on broken picnic tables outside in a grassy knoll surrounded by chain-link fence smoking cigarettes and watching as cops arrested a young perp on a DUI bust. Slumming? Maybe…

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A couple follow-ups on last week’s blogs: I’m told the Concert for Equality Deluxe tickets, which went on sale Saturday morning, sold out in less than an hour (despite problems with the One Percent Productions website). Deluxe ticket holders get access to The Waiting Room for an after-concert concert that will include the Lullaby for the Working Class reunion and some other surprises which I’ve been told would be “well worth my $50 per ticket.” We shall see. BTW, some jackhole is selling a pair of deluxe tix on ebay here for a buy-now price of $299 a pair (another individual ticket has been bid up to $81 with 7 days left on the auction). The $20 general admission tickets, which get you into the outdoor concert, are still available, but I’m told that they’re going fast.

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When I ran into Justin Beiber at Westroads the weekend before last (blogged here), I had no idea that I was witnessing the genesis to an urban music masterpiece. Bieber has since immortalized his trip to the mall in a toss-off hip-hop recording called “Omaha Mall,” which has been a trending topic on Twitter for the past couple of days. You can hear this thought-provoking musical journey, with such “fresh” lines as “I’ve been to LA, New York I’ve done it all / But none of it compares to the Omaha mall”  here on YouTube. Thanks to reader @collinmatz for the head’s up.

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Saddle Creek Records announced last Friday that it’s releasing the debut solo album by Two Gallants’ Adam Haworth Stephens, We Live on Cliffs, Sept. 28. Produced by Grammy Award Winning producer Joe Chiccarelli (Radiohead, The White Stripes, The Shins), the album features guest musicians including Patrick Hallahan and Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket), Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Nine Inch Nails), Joey Waronker (Atoms for Peace), Cody Votolato (Blood Brothers / Jaguar Love), Mike Daly (ex-Whiskeytown), Petra Haden (Decemberists), Andy Cabic (Vetiver) and current band members Jen Grady, Matt Montgomery and Omar Cuellar. Stephens is playing at The Bourbon in Lincoln Aug. 11 with Blitzen Trapper.

Meanwhile, the other half of Two Gallants, Tyson Vogel, has his solo project, called Devotionals, coming out today on Alive! Records. Vogel puts away his drum set, picks up a guitar and plays with violinist Anton Patzner, who’s worked with Bright Eyes.

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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.

Well, Nick Carl’s new band, The Meadowlarks, was not on hand last Saturday night at The Barley St. Tavern, due I’m told to scheduling and transportation-related issues. No matter. Carl did the show alone, and like the last time I saw him, laid down a good set of simple acoustic love (or lack of love) songs sung in his easy-going coffee-shop folk fashion. I dug it, and so did the 15 or so people in the room. Singer/songwriter Nick Jaina and his band closed out the evening with a rowdy set of crash-bash folk rock featuring stand-up bass and trumpet along with the usual instruments. Jaina sort of reminded me of Elvis Perkins, though his music swings closer to folk than Perkins’ dusty Americana.

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Tyson Vogel, one-half of Saddle Creek Records band Two Gallants, announced that his solo debut, Devotionals, is being released July 13 by Alive Records. “Devotionals music is based around Tyson’s guitar compositions, with Anton Patzner (Judgment Day, Bright Eyes) invigorating the musical space with his violin mastery, and they are joined by various guests and collaborators,” says the press release. “The result is a unique combination of simplicity and raw emotion that will delight new and old fans of Two Gallants, a kind of street music with nods to Rachmaninov and John Fahey. The recording is entirely analog.” Really? Wonder if it comes in cassette and/or 8-track tape format. BTW, Two Gallants’ last full length for Saddle Creek came out in 2007.

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Tonight at The Slowdown, it’s red hot indie band Blitzen Trapper with The Moondoggies. $12, 9 p.m. It’s also Slowdown’s third birthday (remember this article?). Stop on down and buy the staff a round. They deserve it.