Just posted (here) is a brand new feature / interview with Ladyfinger. The band talks about their new album, Dusk, and how they hope it performs better saleswise than their debut, Heavy Hands. So what went wrong with the first one? Beyond basic quality issues, who knows why one record sales well and another doesn't. The assumption was that HH would sell much better than it actually did, based on sales of the band's self-released demo and the fact that they had Saddle Creek backing them. Add to that months and months of touring, and you had a recipe for success -- or so everyone involved thought. The sales numbers outlined in the story are bracing, but do they reflect a new reality for the indie music business? I don't think so; I certainly hope not.

I didn't have room in the article to talk about the words within the music. Ladyfinger frontman Chris Machmuller writes all the songs' lyrics, and we went through a handful during the interview. The standout is "Plans," which would be my pick for the first single. The song opens with the lines: So much for plans / So much for heavy hands to take / The hopes we had were bound to break. "It's about an ex-girlfriend and close friend of the band who died of a cocaine overdose," Machmuller said, adding that they got the sobering news about her death the day after Halloween while in Belgium on tour. The song epitomizes the more thoughtful, more layered approach Ladyfinger has taken with this album. Check it out.

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Val Nelson at Slowdown is asking that anyone interested in how downtown Omaha evolves over the next 20 or 30 years attend a meeting tonight between 6 and 10 p.m. at The Embassy Suites at 10th and Howard. Val says it'll be the first opportunity to see where the Master Plan is headed, and a chance to let the City know where you'd like it to go. If you care about downtown, you'll be there.

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