by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Water Liars enjoy a smoke.

RIYL. That stands for Recommended If You Like, and it’s used by lazy journalists like me to describe bands by comparing their music to another band’s or performer’s music. It’s handy, but frowned upon by a lot of artists because it’s thought to marginalize and diminish their own creativity efforts.

Here’s how it works. Water Liars are playing tonight at Slowdown Jr. RIYL: Will Johnson (Centro-matic), The Bruces, David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), M. Ward, Okkervil River, Will Oldham… and so on. The duo’s new album, Phantom Limb (released by Misra Records) is pretty fantastic. This show flew under the radar for me, I had no idea it was coming up. Go. Opening is Midwest Dilemma. 9 p.m., $7.

* * *

Sometime in the middle of the night when I was fast asleep, my phone blooped/bleeped with the following tweet: “Bret Vovk took your column to heart and stepped it up a notch tonight. Guitar, piano and loops making a lush set.” The tweet came from O’Leaver’s Pub. I’m not sure who owns that account, obviously someone who works/lives there. When I saw it this morning I thought, “Good for him. I wish I would have been there.” Then I thought, “Why doesn’t he do this for all his performances?” There are a lot of musicians out there who make fantastically dense, creative albums with multiple tracks and layered sounds and then go on stage and perform them with just an acoustic guitar. I know, I know… it’s difficult and sometimes impossible to replicate the album’s sound live. It not only takes technology, it can take additional musicians to help bring the songs to life, which takes time and money, whereas it’s faster and cheaper to throw your guitar in the back seat and go to the club and just do them solo. Because it’s about the songs anyway, right? I get it. But… if you can add just a little more than your guitar and voice, if you can get just one or even two of your pals to help you on stage, if you can come a little closer to the target, especially when that target in no way resembles its solo acoustic counterpart, why wouldn’t you? Vovk’s got two advantages over a lot of local singer/songwriters: 1) He writes good songs, 2) He has a good, unaffected voice. Why not showcase both as best you can every time you perform? Because I’m afraid the next time Underwater Dream Machine plays live — and I’m able to go — it’ll just be Vovk and his guitar again…

* * *

BTW, I think there are something like 1.26 billion people playing solo acoustic shows somewhere on any given night.

* * *

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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

I’ve been meaning to write a formal review of Underwater Dream Machine’s new album, A Very Lonely Dream About Space, since it came out months ago. This is what I can tell you about it: It’s like a drug-induced lullaby to Andy Kaufman sung by an ex-member of the Up With People Choir who jumped parole after being arrested for running a prostitution ring while acting as the leader of a wilderness cult that lives on a small armed compound just north of Kennard. It’s weird. Maybe a little bit too weird at times. Maybe a bit distractingly weird, especially when you consider that songs of such singular beauty as “Revolution” and “Already Gone” are so good that Wayne Coyne has put a sizable bounty on the head of UDM frontman Bret Vovk. That’s a long-winded way of saying that this album is already on my short list for being one of the best locally produced records of 2012. Now the question is whether Bret can replicate these songs’ gorgeousness in a live setting. We’ll find out tonight at O’Leaver’s when UDM plays with Pearl and the Beard. $5, 9:30 p.m.

Based on what I’ve seen from their website and Facebook page, Brooklyn band Your 33 Black Angels has about 33 members, or at least more than a half-dozen. How they’re all going to fit on the tiny Barley Street Tavern “stage” tonight should be an interesting challenge. They call their sound psychalternativepopsoulpunk, but I just call it twang-rock with a healthy dose of The Kinks thrown in for good measure. Opening is the always interesting, always evolving Dim Light and maybe one more band that’s TBA. $5, 9 p.m.

Also this evening at 7 p.m., it’s the third installment of the Record Club at the Saddle Creek Shop, where folks can sit around, flip through the bins and listen to a classic LP in its entirety and then chat about it afterward. Tonight’s record is Magnetic Fields’ new one, Love at the Bottom of the Sea. The music starts at 7 down at the Saddle Creek Shop in the Slowdown complex. Go here for more info.

* * *

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 © 2012 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.