Column 27: Behind the (Omaha) Music
Why is VH1 sniffing around town?

Just when you thought that every media outlet already had passed though our fair city looking for the Next Big Thing, out of the blue comes an e-mail from Eli Lehrer of VH1 Development.

Seems Lehrer had been sicced on Omaha by one of the powers that be at the cable station to find out all he could about the Omaha music world. Lehrer wanted to know if I, too, would be willing to share my breadth of knowledge with him.

Turns out I wasn't the first person that Lehrer had contacted. Far from it. He'd already talked to a number of local scenesters and musicians, and they all wanted to know the same thing: What does VH1 want with Omaha?

Sure, the Omaha indie music scene is now world-renowned thanks to Bright Eyes, The Faint, Cursive and the rest of the bunch at Saddle Creek Records, but isn't indie just a tad bit off the mark for a station whose prime demographic appears to be 30- to 40-year-old housewives? On the other hand, I admit that I watch VH1 tons more than MTV and its embarrassing menu of sophomoric "real life" humiliation plays, bling-bling-powered look-at-my-shit "Cribs" shows, and 24/7 T&A spring-break extravaganzas, none of which have anything to do with music. VH1 is now the closest thing to "music television" on Omaha cable -- from the classic "Behind the Music" series to last year's "Bands Reunited," which I proudly programmed into my TiVo Season Pass list.

After a few back-and-forths, Lehrer and I finally met over the phone, where we talked for a couple hours about the Omaha music scene beginning back in the '90s through the glamorous present. It quickly dawned on me that Lehrer and his unnamed VH1 Sith Lord had something different in mind than the usual New York Times/Fader/Spin magazine pieces that only looked at Omaha through Saddle-Creek-colored blinders. In the past, whenever a national journalist called for expert perspective, they weren't in the least bit interested in anything beyond Saddle Creek. Every time I listed a dozen or so other great local bands, the writer would clear his throat and say, "That's nice, but what's Conor really like?"

That didn't happen with Lehrer. In fact, most of our time was spent talking about Omaha's incubator-like environment for creating unique singer-songwriters who seem uninterested in "making it big." Instead, they're busy trying to line up a gig down at O'Leaver's, or figuring out ways to get studio time or buy a van for their next tour.

Like the half-dozen or so that spoke to him before me, I pointed Lehrer in the direction of a half-dozen others who I thought could add their own perspective to the Omaha story. Though weeks into his research he said he still hadn't spoken to anyone from Saddle Creek -- yet another sign that this wasn't going to be just another Conor lovefest.

But what exactly was it going to be? The Fabulous Life of Matt Whipkey? I Love The '90s Omaha-style? An Episode of Storytellers featuring Simon Joyner? Lehrer didn't know and couldn't even say if anything would ever come of the interviews.

But one thing's for certain -- the project isn't over yet. Lehrer said he'll be visiting Omaha sometime in the next couple weeks to put faces to names. When I told him I was writing a column about his research, he became skittish and quickly called me, imploring that I not make a big deal about it, emphasizing that the odds are good that nothing will ever come of it.

But, of course, something already has. Whether or not a VH1 camera crew ever lands at Eppley, the fact that the channel is interested in Omaha music -- and not just Saddle Creek -- is a pretty good sign that people are beginning to wonder what undiscovered treasures lurk in Omaha that Saddle Creek hasn't discovered.

Column 26: Heavy Rotation
Has The River changed its course?

It may be time to turn the radio back on again.

I turned mine off years ago, when all I could find on the dial was freedom rock, goon rock, C&W warblers and gansta hate-hop. Why should I devote even a scintilla of my time to that noise when I have a CD player and an i-Pod in my car? The irony about Omaha radio has always been that we live in the nationally recognized indie rock capital of the world and can't hear a single indie band on a local station.

But then the other day as NPR was bringing me down with yet another report about third-world child rape camps or the extinction of another life form, I twisted the dial to 89.7 The River. On came the latest by none other than Omaha's very own Bright Eyes. Was I dreaming? Moments later, up popped the new one by Nine Inch Nails, which was followed by a track by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, which was followed by something from the yet-to-be-released Criteria CD.

What the hell was going on? Could this be the same 89.7 The River that I've known and loathed for its tooth-drilling metal and agonizing Cookie Monster grunt rock?

I asked station program director Sophia John if I was dreaming. We talked at Sokol Auditorium the morning of the station's sold-out Mudvayne show, where John was busy wrangling a crew of young grips setting the stage for the night's performance.

Seems Ms. John indeed has slowly been working indie tracks into The River's regular rotation for months. And people are just now beginning to notice. "We're trying to mix elements of rock, pop, indie and even rap into the playlist," she said.

No, The River hasn't turned into a CMJ station. You're still going to hear grunters by Slipknot, System of a Down, Kottonmouth Kings and, yeah, Mudvayne. That's where John's job becomes a real balancing act, because indie shoegazers will immediately turn the dial when Slipknot comes on, just like metal heads will rifle straight to The Z rather than suffer through Tegan and Sara. Going too far either way could mean ostracizing a portion of the station's listeners.

John knows this all too well. She's been inundated by amateur program directors telling her she should be playing everything from 24/7 metal to 24/7 CMJ. "If I did that, I wouldn't be doing what's best for everyone," she said. "I want to bring the masses what they really want while opening their minds to something different."

She admits that even she doesn't like every song on the play list. "If you understand the basic breakdown of music, there's a pop element to everything, even hardcore and metal," she said. "If you hear something you don't like, it'll only take two or three songs before you hear something you do like. If you don't like The White Stripes or System of a Down, just wait awhile."

Working indie into the mix hasn't been easy. Saddle Creek Records' spate of new releases last year helped her logically work the local label into rotation. But getting Trail of Dead on the air took sheer chutzpah. "We wanted to see if we could open doors to people who don't know the band yet, and change the attitude of those that listen to bands like Trail of Dead but never expected to hear them on the radio."

It seems to be working. John said The River has gone from having a 3.8 share when she arrived over a year ago, to a 5 share in the latest book, which equates to roughly 170,000 listeners at any given moment (and being ranked No. 7 in the Omaha radio market).

Sure, I'd be happier if The River only played indie rock, but I'm smart enough to know that such a severe program shift would only kill the station. And then we'd be left with nothing but freedom rock, goon rock, C&W warblers and gansta hate-hop. I can withstand a little Slipknot as long as I can have my Garbage, too.

Column 25: Opening the ol' E-mail Bag

One does get mail.

And though The Reader appears to get none of its own -- or at least never prints any of it -- I get more than my share, probably because I ask right at the bottom of the column for you to send your love/hate mail to tim@lazy-i.com.

In addition to those kind words from the faithful readers (thank you for your support, it keeps me going), the most common (and voluminous) mail comes from hopeful bands making sure that I received their CD for review. Since The Reader doesn't print CD reviews, I'm pretty sure this e-mail is generated from my website. As stated online, I do my best to listen to everything that's submitted, but a man only has two ears, and with feature-story deadlines breathing down my neck, the time for absorbing CDs is scant. Patience, grasshopper.

The rest is hate mail.

First and foremost, last week's Tegan & Sara column prompted a long, non-apology apology letter from Sara Quin herself explaining why the band never got back to us after countless rescheduling attempts following their interview cancellation and no-show. "We would have been happier with a friendlier welcome to Omaha, but we understand that maybe we hurt your feelings. But you hurt ours too. Don't write off young bands so soon! Some of us really do care about this world and music we are making in it." I'm told by people who were at their show last week (I wasn't because I was under the weather) that Sara sarcastically dedicated the set to me from the stage. Nice.

Look, my gripe was more with their publicist then the band, who had four days after my run-in with their answering machine to get back to us if only to say that the interview was off. Instead, she was too busy revvin' it up at Coachella. Sorry, that's just bad biz. I will add this caveat -- T&S aren't the first band to do a no-show, and they won't be the last. It comes with the territory.

A reader who goes by the initials "AES" was "slightly aggravated" by the April 23 column that highlighted how only the rich and lucky are able to take advantage of so-called "top-drawer" acts performing at the Qwest Center these days (U2, Paul McCartney, etc.). He thinks the ticket prices are fair.

"I think you are MORE upset at the fact that the Qwest Center did not give you a pass to 'Get to know the band' or 'front center seats'… I think the attendees to the U2 show would rather have you walking around Sokol's dirty halls, griping about what you know is right and is cool, and the piss smelled bathrooms full of 'cool coke heads' than have you at QCO ruining their opportunity to see a band they like."

Ol' AES missed the point. The biggest problem concerning these shows is scalping -- not the tickets' face value. With scalpers making a flush living off the current system, only the lucky and determined few have a chance at paying face-value for tix. It's turned into a game that I'm not willing to play. I would have been happy to pay the tickets' face value to see Bono and The Edge, but not $2,000.

And yes, I'd much-much-much prefer to see U2 (or even an old has-been like McCartney) at a piss-scented Sokol than at Qwest. That, of course, will never happen. However, I am able to see tomorrow's U2 (Kasabian, for example) at Sokol today.

Keep them cards and letters coming, folks.

Column 24: Searching for Tegan
Sometimes being a rock star means never answering your phone.

No one ever said it was gonna be easy.

I know that. I've always known that. You think the rock journalism thing is just a walk in the park clutching a handful of free CDs and all-access laminates? Think again. It means dealing with overworked publicists and burned-out "rock stars" in a lame attempt to glean a scintilla of profound insight on their music, whether there's anything profound about it or not. That is if you can get them on the phone.

You'll notice that there isn't a feature on Tegan & Sara in this issue of The Reader. It wasn't an oversight by the editors. They know T&S are hot stuff. The dynamic duo currently are opening for a sold-out Killers tour. No, yours truly is to blame, but not entirely, actually maybe not at all.

Let me explain something: When the editors throw out the assignments to us lackey writers, I'm always the first to say "me-me-me" when it comes to covering the hot under-the-radar indie musicians. With my experience why not try for the big fish like U2 or Paul McCartney or Neil Diamond? Because even if I was lucky enough to get them to talk (and not their faceless drummer or bassist), the interviews are so canned and formulaic that they add nothing to the story. They're not going to give up anything they haven't already given to Rolling Stone or Spin or The New York Times or any other national rag that is more important than The Reader will ever be.

Up-and-coming indie musicians, on the other hand, are another story. They're just getting used to talking to the press. Being interviewed by Rolling Stone is beyond their wildest dreams. The Reader may not be CMJ, but at least it's distributed in the city that they'll be playing in the coming weeks, and the last thing they want is to show up to a roomful of crickets at O'Leaver's or Sokol Underground. On top of that, these guys are still excited about the whole rock 'n' roll thing -- they feel lucky to be living in their own feces in the back of a shitty van, driving 10 hours a day eating nothing but Slim Jims and Red Bull, pissing in empty bottles so they don't have to stop on the way. All for the chance to share their music with the masses. Translated: They're not rock stars yet.

Tegan & Sara seemed to fit into that category. Sure, they landed the Killers tour, but for the most part, they're veritable unknowns, recognized only by the hip few who read Magnet, shop at The Antiquarium and listen to college radio or watch MTV2's Subterranean. I had my hand way up when the assignment was offered.

Here's what happens next: We figure out who their publicist is, snag a press kit which includes a copy of their latest CD, and schedule a phone interview (i.e., "a phoner"). The Reader's hard-working super-talented assignment editor, Alissa Martin, took care of the first half as she always does. I eagerly e-mailed a request to Sheila Breen at Tag Team Media begging for an interview. She lined it up -- noon PST Saturday April 23.

With the date in my book, I burned Tegan & Sara's latest, So Jealous, onto my i-Pod for intensive all-purpose listening. It's hardly a chore. The CD is amazing -- a retro-tinged classic that melds Til Tuesday and Missing Persons pop with a modern-day indie sensibility. And it rocks. Next up, research -- study the press kit and glean info from the Internet all to find that one thing to hook the interview around. Maybe it's the fact that Tegan and Sara Quin are twins, or that they're both lesbians? Pretty obvious stuff. Or how 'bout the fact that they're from Canada and record on Neil Young's record label? Maybe ask them how the Killers tour is going and why Omaha was dropped.

Then out of the blue, Sheila e-mails and cancels the Saturday interview. Seems the band will be in the middle of a photo shoot at that time. Can we reschedule? Sure, I say, anytime after 5:30 p.m. CT (I have a real job, you know). She immediately proposes 2 p.m. CT Monday. I explain the hour limitations again, and we reschedule for April 28 at 6:30 p.m. CT. I get the cell number, the time arrives, I have my questions in front of me and make the call… only to get a message that says, "Hi, this is Tegan & Sara, we're away from the phone now…blah blah blah." I leave a message and tell them I'll try back -- maybe they're just out of cell range. But 10 minutes later I get the message again. And again and again. And after an hour, give up.

My pleading phone messages to Tegan & Sara, alas, went unanswered. As did my reschedule requests to Sheila Breen. Then it dawned on me. Maybe I misjudged Tegan & Sara. Maybe they're bigger than I thought. Maybe they've crossed that unmarked boundary that divides the bands that need The Reader, from those that don't. Maybe they're rock stars after all.

Another O'Leaver's weekend… – April 29, 2005 –

It starts tonight when Lincoln invades Omaha with The Killigans, Floating Opera, Tangelo, and Icarian Bird all on one bill for $5. It's part of starcityscene.com's Scenefest 3. Tomorrow night it's back to the basics, with The Third Men (ex-Sons of...), Left is West (Des Moines) and Mal Madrigal. Both shows are at O'Leaver's. And that's about it for the weekend. Note to O'Leaver's management -- update your friggin' online calendar!

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Column 23 -- Legends among us... – April 28, 2005 –

The day after I wrote this piece, the new Rolling Stone arrived in my mailbox explaining how scalpers have made buying tickets to huge concerts like U2 and McCartney nearly impossible. It explains how McCartney could sell out in 14 minutes. It doesn't explain peoples' bad taste in music. By the way, there are eight main floor McCartney tickets on E-bay now with a "starting bid" price of $3,500. What are you waiting for?

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Live Review: Criteria, The Sword, Trail of Dead… – April 27, 2005 –

You got to hand it to Trail of Dead. Last time they were through they drew fewer than 300 downstairs at Sokol Underground. Last night they drew around 700 upstairs, evidence that they've crossed that imaginary line that divides the men from the boys on the indie circuit. The tour buses parked on the south side of the building was more evidence. Somehow throughout their rise, I've managed to completely miss this band.

I made an effort to get there early, but still missed the opening band. Not Criteria, but a fourth band that was comprised of some Trail of Dead people and roadies doing acoustic numbers, or so I was told by one of the merch people. It must have been a quick set, because Criteria was on stage by about a quarter to nine. In all honestly, they were the reason I came out last night, hoping to hear some of the new songs off their upcoming Saddle Creek release, which Steve Pedersen announced from the stage has a scheduled street date of Aug. 23.

And play new stuff they did. Though in some ways distinctly different than the old material, fans of the band's debut, En garde, will dig it. The new stuff feels heavier, with thicker melodies and counters. Still, the basic recipe remains the same -- intricate, chugging 5-count riffs repeated in 6/8 or some other triplet meter (count 1-2-3-1-2 / 1-2-3-1-2 over and over). It's these rolling waltz counter lines -- that feel like being on a boat on a rough, wavy sea -- that differentiate Criteria from the other angular punk outfits. That and Pedersen's clear, throaty caterwaul -- vocals that sound like no on one else on the radio, reaching what seems to be an octave above the guitar lines. Pedersen pushes his vocals on every song, his face contorted and red. I don't know how he's going to pull it off night after night over the course of three months or more. I hope to god he's had vocal training to deal with the strain.

The fact that Pedersen's law career kept him off the road when En garde was released gives the band an interesting advantage. The new material while different isn't a great stylistic leap from the old material. It all blends together rather seamlessly. Hence the band will be able to effectively tour as if they released two CDs simultaneously, in many ways more effectively than Bright Eyes can tour its two CDs. I'm assuming that Creek will rerelease En garde along with the new one. Ka-ching!

Regardless of being their first live performance in a lot of months, it was one of the better Criteria sets I've heard. They took full advantage of the huge sound system. And you know what? That AJ Mogis just sounds better and better on vocals. He's becoming a regular Michael Anthony up there. I thought the mix was too bassy, but that's quibbling. It'll be interesting to see how it all sounds down in the Underground May 21.

Next up was Austin band The Sword playing run-of-the-mill Bevis and Butthead-style bass-heavy metal. It sounded like something from the '80s without the high-end opera vocals. Instead, the vocalist flatly moped though his uninteresting melodies while everyone else did their best Steel Dragon moves. Why is this band touring with Trail of Dead?

Then after about a half-hour break, which included 10 minutes of stage smoke and Styx singing "Mr. Roboto," on rolled Trail of Dead -- a six-piece rock band featuring keyboards, two drum sets (though I only saw them played at the same time once) and that weird, pudgy looking lead vocalist. Maybe it's because I haven't followed this band from the beginning, but I just wasn't feeling it last night. At times their music held a sense of drama, but it wasn't enough to keep my attention, and I left after six songs. Maybe it got better. Anyone who hung around, feel free to post a review and tell me what a lunk-head I was to leave early. The crowd seemed to love 'em (but then again, they seemed to love The Sword as well).

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Trail of Dead, Criteria tonight… – April 26, 2005 –

Never underestimate the power of a good band name… or a bad one. I honestly believe about half of this band's fanbase was derived from its name alone. …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead -- or simply Trail of Dead -- sounds bad-ass right out of the box. It sounds cool when you say it: "Dude, you going to Trail of Dead tonight?" Sounds like you're going to see a death metal band instead of, well, an indie jangle-pop band. Their T-shirt sales must be massive.

I'll probably go to Trail of Dead tonight. My main motivation is seeing opening band Criteria, who are bound to unveil some of the new material from their soon-to-be released Saddle Creek CD. Don't know if they're playing before or after The Sword (probably before), so I recommend you get their early. Show starts at 8 and tix are $15. I'm surprised it isn't sold out yet, quite frankly.

If you don't feel like venturing downtown, mathy art-noise power trio Fromanhole is playing at O'Leavers' tonight after a somewhat lengthy hiatus. Also on the bill is St. Paul's V9R9D and local band Life After Lazer Disc.

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Hella tonight with Darren Keen's other project – April 25, 2005 –

I have made the unkind prediction that tonight's Hella show at Sokol Underground will be 1 Percent Production's smallest Underground show of the year, bordering on O'Leaver's territory regarding crowd size. The show has three strikes against it: 1) No one's heard of Hella, which in and of itself isn't much different than a lot of shows down at The Underground, but Hella is on a whole different level, attaining no airplay anywhere 'round these parts, with no members of the duo being "formerly a member of..." a more well-known band. 2) The duo disc the band is supporting is borderline unlistenable, and 3) It's a Monday night, with Trail of Dead tomorrow upstairs. That said, here's what I wrote as a "calendar pick" item for The Reader about tonight's show:

What could save the show is the opening bands: Lincoln's Thunderstandable, a band that includes members of Her Flyaway Manner; and Gloves, the madcap side project of The Show is the Rainbow's Darren Keen. Keen does nothing halfway, which makes this unveiling of his "rock band" worth the price of admission ($8).

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Live Review: Aqueduct, The Golden Republic; Q & Not U/The Apes tonight – April 24, 2005 –

How did I manage to make a choice among the three shows going on last night -- The Stay Awake at The Niner, Aqueduct/Golden Republic at O'Leaver's and M. Ward at Sokol Underground?

The Niner was immediately disqualified because, well, it's the Niner. Bad sound and nowhere to sit on a typical Saturday (the only night they have live music) makes for no fun. And it's always more fun to be at a venue when you know someone there, and I don't. Looks like I'll have to wait to see The Stay Awake, again. I was told that M. Ward had sold 200 advanced tickets, which means it probably was sold out. Sokol Underground on a sold-out evening can be a blast if the act is high-energy. M.Ward is anything but. I've seen him a couple times before and wasn't in the mood for a night of solo acoustic confessionals (which is a nice way of saying I think he's boring live). I wouldn't be surprised if his buddy Oberst took the stage for a guest vocal. If anyone was there, please let us know how it went.

So the decision was actually pretty easy. O'Leaver's bands at least played upbeat rock. When I arrived at around 11 I ran into about a half-dozen people, all of whom asked why I wasn't down at The Underground. Seems the 70 paid had the same idea as me. Last night's show was the last on the Aqueduct/Golden Republic tour, with the bands returning to Denver and Lawrence respectively afterward. It made for a nice bon voyage, and probably explained the somewhat sloppy, if not happy-go-lucky, performances. Aqueduct was more laid back than when they opened for United State of Electronica a few months ago. Upbeat and tuneful, they played somewhat standard indie rock fare. The crowd favorites, unfortunately, were covers of Geto Boys' "Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta" and Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" -- lots of drunk people with their fists in the air.

This was my first exposure to Golden Republic, and they came off as sort of a poor man's Spoon, which is probably exactly what they weren't going for. Lead singer Ben Grimes vocally does a spot-on Britt Daniel, and some of the songs even had Spoon-like "ewws." Dance-y indie rock appears to be in vogue these days. Their best song was the set closer highlighted by a long repeated riff, one of the few times I got into what they were doing.

Tonight is Q & Not U and The Apes at Sokol Underground. If I get my column written, I might drop in.

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The weekend in preview; Creek talks Slowdown downtown... – April 22, 2005 –

Lotsa shows this weekend, mostly at Sokol Underground. Tonight it's a hip-hop offering with Atmosphere, Grayskul and P.O.S. -- Atmosphere, I'm told, is at the epicenter of the underground hip-hop movement, part of the Rhymesayers Entertainment crew. Personal critical mentor Robert Christgau gave their just released Headshots: Se7en a "B Plus," saying "Slug is so excited to discover how much rhyme he has in him that his creative optimism revs Ant's subtle tracks. He's not inventing alt-rap. But he might as well be." $15, 9 p.m.

If you're in Lincoln, Scenefest 3 is going on at Duffy's featuring For Against -- that band alone is worth the drive down.

Not such an easy decision tomorrow night with three quality shows worth checking out. The top of the list is M. Ward at Sokol Underground with DeVotchKa and Norfolk & Western. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some "special guests" showing up for this one. $10, 9 p.m. Meanwhile at O'Leaver's, Kansas City's The Golden Republic is playing with Aqueduct, who were just here with United State of Electronica last month. More people danced for USE, but Aqueduct was the better band (see review). $5, 9:30 (cheap!). Then there's the sleeper show: The Coast of Nebraska and The Stay Awake at The 49'r. The Stay Awake, featuring renowned musician/soundman Steve Micek (Mariannes), has been rather elusive throughout its career, and I wouldn't be surprised if something weird happens and this show gets canceled or moved or something. SomedayNever says this show is $3 and will get going around 9:30 (I doubt it, try 10:30).

Oh yeah, for all you tree-huggers out there, Earth Day festivities are going on noon to 6 in Elmwood, with Anchondo, Anonymous Americans (sic), Michael Murphy, Nifty 250, and Surcos slated to perform. Pick up a free tree while you're there.

Sunday is Q and Not U, The Apes, Food For Animals, & Manhunter at Sokol Underground. I originally wanted to write a feature on The Apes for The Reader but they nixed it. The Apes are a D.C. garage punk band that toured with The Liars back when The Liars were good. They recorded a couple CDs on Frenchkiss before moving to Birdman. $8, 9 p.m.

Those of you who don't read the Omaha World-Herald every morning may not know that Saddle Creek announced that it's looking to build Slowdown -- their bar/music hall/office megaplex -- downtown as part of the so-called north-downtown development project. The article (you have to register to read it) doesn't give hardly any details that we didn't already know. Creek manager Jason Kulbel acknowledged that he was excited by the "possibility" of being part of the revitalization project, and the article said that if "all goes as planned, Slowdown could be open sometime in 2006." Then Kulbel added, "It's not a done deal by any means."

The north downtown location has been rumored practically since the day after the Metcalf Park neighborhood association ran the Creek crew out of their neighborhood. One rumor had it being located near 14th and Webster on a piece of land that's dissected by a rail spur. A more recent rumor has it located further west, near 19th and Cuming. My guess is no location has been set in stone and that the City just wants some sort of commitment from Creek, and are willing to give away land to get it. The whole downtown development project, unveiled earlier this week, seems pretty iffy to me -- especially the new baseball stadium, which would leave a lot of people scratching their heads over why we're keeping the mammoth Rosenblatt Stadium empty 48 weeks out of the year...

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Column 22, rehash for further study... – April 21, 2005 –

This week's column is a rehash of Sunday's blog entry -- a review of the Mercy Rule/Frontier Trust split 7-inch release show at The Brothers last Saturday. If you're a daily reader, you might want to skip the rest, however a few additional comments are thrown in while other stuff was cut due to The Reader's word-count limit. I include it here again for the sake of completeness, and to give you a chance to compare and contrast the blog style with the column style (all of this, of course, will be on The Final, which will be a take-home essay. I expect Blue Books on my desk by the last day of the semester…).

If you own a record player you really should pick up a copy of this single. The Mercy Rule track was recorded during the Flat Black Chronicles sessions at Madison's Smart Studio and captures the band at their full-throttle best. The Frontier Trust track was recorded at Lincoln's Whoop Ass Studio -- the precursor to Presto! Studio -- by one of the Mogis brothers (or maybe both, there is no engineer/producer credit in the liner notes). Both songs were remastered for this release by Doug Van Sloun at Studio B. Liner notes by The Monroes' bass player/attorney Mike Tulis, and artwork by Mercy Rule drummer Ron Albertson (as testimony to Ron's artistic genius, there are no fewer than three Albertson originals hanging in my house). More info at the Speed! Nebraska website, though you still can't order the single from there...yet.

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Locust at Sokol; Mars Black at The Ranch – April 20, 2005 –

A couple wee shows tonight. The Locust brings the noise to Sokol Underground tonight with Lincoln phenom The Show Is the Rainbow and Luminoso Lashikar. That show's $8 and starts at 9. Meanwhile, Mars Black is playing a tune-up show in prep for his upcoming opening slot on the Bright Eyes/Faint tour. Also on the bill: Jamaaz, Breathless, Surreal, Buck Bowen and Humanity's Last at the soon-to-be-closed Ranch Bowl. $6' 8:30. That's all for now...

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Quiet week; love and hate on the Internet – April 19, 2005 –

No feature tomorrow, and this week's column will be a rehash of The Brothers' show review I posted Sunday. And it also looks like a quiet week for shows, which means I'll be focusing on CD reviews for the rest of the week. Anyway, here's some Internet stuff for your perusal:

-- I just discovered a rather negative review of Todd Grant's Duffy's show earlier this month (read it here). Looks like our friends at the Daily Nebraskan aren't fans.

-- Glancing at the SLAMOmaha calendar, looks like the folks in Shelterbelt are on a tour of some of the hardest hardcore polka cities in the country -- Ames tonight, Cedar Falls tomorrow, Waukesha and Madison Thursday, Oshkosh Friday, Green Bay Saturday, Des Moines Sunday. Grab a brat for me, boys.

-- They're loving ol' Conor down under. Here's a review of the April 5 Prince of Wales show. "We love you Conor!"

-- Pitchfork dismembered the new Mars Black CD, giving it a 2.5 out of 10 (here). Ouch.

-- And critical mentor Robert Christgau's latest Consumer Guide went online at the Village Voice (here). He can't get enough of those Rhymesayers artists.

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Live Review: Mercy Rule, Frontier Trust – April 17, 2005 –

It seems only fitting that The Brothers was the venue for last night's Mercy Rule/Frontier Trust split 7-inch release show. Tre and his wife are the last bastions of the '90s punk-rock scene in Omaha, living reminders of The Capitol Bar and Grill, looking and acting no different than they did back in the day. The Brothers, however, is no Capitol, and has no intention of every being The Capitol. Instead, it's your typical laid-back hang-out lounge, with the best jukebox in town and a permanent odor that's a combination of smoke, sweat, piss, spilled drinks and bathroom cleaner -- i.e., it smells like an old lounge. It's a far cry from a live music venue, and when this show was first announced, with Bill Hoover and Ted Stevens/Mayday opening, I figured it would be uncomfortably crowded, smoky with spotty sound.

In fact, it wasn't that crowded at all. I found some friends hanging out back by the pool table and leaned against it all night, providing a perfect view of the pseudo stage set up in the far back corner beneath the dart board. I got there just in time to see Hoover's last couple songs (I missed Mayday completely). Hoover is sporting a rock band these days, with Lincoln Dickison (The Monroes) on guitar, and they're pretty good. I have no idea what he's going to do with it; if it was a one-off thing or a new project. Afterward, the drumset was dismantled and the area cleared for Frontier Trust, which was really Half Trust, featuring only Gary Dean Davis and Bill Thornton. No bass player, and our man Double Joe shacked up somewhere in Portland (though he apparently called in and heard part of the set via a held-up cell phone).

The weird, funny thing about it was that Gary didn't sound or look any different than he did a decade ago; he still has that same off-pitch bellow which he yells into a microphone gripped like he's strangling a bunny, yelling right in its frightened, furry face words about politics, unemployment, girls, swimming holes and race cars. A slightly shaggy Thornton hadn't changed much either, sporting the same walkabout stroll as he peddled his axe with a smile. It was easily the longest Frontier Trust set I've ever seen (and I've seem more than my share over the years). Davis and Thornton dipped into their full body of work, from all the singles off One Hour, Caufield, and Faye, as well as the full-length (including everyone's favorite, the one about the swimming hole). The crowd ate it up.

Although it goes without saying (but I know there are a few out there who haven't heard Frontier Trust before), Davis' current incarnation, The Monroes, is a natural progression from the Frontier Trust days, just like Frontier Trust was taken from the loins of Pioneer Disaster. That said, if you own a Monroes CD you'd be well-served to pick up the new split, available at Antiquarium, Drastic and probably Homer's.

Mercy Rule didn't get started until 12:30, probably because they had to set up those famous floor lights that became their trademark "stage look" throughout the years. For this gig, it was only Heidi Ore and Jon Taylor. As Heidi explained from the microphone, "Ron is in New York, where he's making money, has a girlfriend and has a band." That comment was met with plenty of whoops and laughter. The time machine has been good to Heidi and Jon. Heidi looks like she just walked off the stage at Harry Mary's circa 1993, Jon's put on a few pounds but carries it with vigor, looking like a farmdad with his crewcut and nerd glasses.

You have to remember why Mercy Rule was so important to everyone in Omaha and Lincoln back in the '90s. Along with Frontier Trust, and a few other bands like mousetrap and Ritual Device, they were doing the impossible; they were putting out music that was uniquely theirs, and doing it on a national label -- Relativity -- and performing it all over the country. I always thought they were going to be the next break-out act from the Midwest because their songs were so powerful, yet personal. The trick to Mercy Rule's music was the combination of guitar angst, Albertson's hard-fisted drumming all offset by Heidi's throaty girlie voice singing lyrics that were personal but not necessarily confessional. They were anthems to individuality, love songs about hope that any schmuck could understand and identify with, without a sticky layer of sentimentality or treacle. The fact that Relativity screwed them didn't stop them from putting out a career-topping LP, The Flat Black Chronicles, on Caulfield. After that, they could move on, comforted in the fact that they created a masterwork that stands as an icon to mid-90s Nebraska music and as good as anything released nationally at the time.

Seeing them on stage again was a thrill for everyone there. Oh sure, it was great to see Gary and Bill playing the old favorites again, but Mercy Rule... well, it may never happen again. Heidi and Jon's lives have moved in a direction where rock and roll is only an interesting tangent, a direction that they've chosen even though they still have the chops and voice to make a go at it again if they wanted to. Heidi never sounded better, and Jon was in his usual maniacal form, his guitar slung to his knees, bent over, chopping like a steam locomotive pushrod in full throttle.

The set lasted until around 1:30. They played songs off Flat Black, God Protects Fools, Providence and the singles. It was fun, though Ron was sorely missed. I never realized just how much he adds to these songs, and now realize why no one could ever replace him. Their track on the split single, "Don't Let It Go," is a real treasure, among the better songs from their oeuvre, pure pop-punk with huge, chiming guitars, a great mid-song break featuring Jon and Ron, and Heidi belting out the line "Never let it walk out the door / Never let it leave your life." A fitting message for what will likely be the last song they'll ever release.

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Live Review: Beep Beep, Precious Metal; Mercy Rule/Frontier Trust tonight… – April 16, 2005 –

I walked around after the Dapose/Precious Metal set and asked as many people as I knew what they thought of it. The reactions were somewhat mixed. Most people didn't get it, certainly not the ones that never heard this style of music before. One guy told me it was the worst thing he'd heard so far this year, but that guy likes bands that resemble the Black Crowes, so what does he know? I asked one guy that I know is a real metal fan, and he dug it, said it was more "black metal" than "death metal." Another guy told me the music conjured the vision of a snake that had just been run over by a car, spastically flipping and turning onto itself, writhing in pain until it flopped over one last time and stopped.

For me, Precious Metal was unnerving, unsettling and somewhat disturbing, which I suppose is what it was supposed to be. Dapose stood on stage in his red Wolf Eyes T-shirt with downturned, bouncing head and played his electric guitar like it was violin, his fingers making odd contortions, stretching to pull notes from either end of the fret board. Meanwhile, a lap-top computer played prerecorded dark, distorted synths and rhythms that moved at about a million miles an hour -- faster than a machine gun and 100 times as loud, the beats rattled my chest and made me feel slightly nauseous. Above it all, Dapose would lean into the microphone and do a voice-of-doom growl that was indecipherable except for its assumed anger. Who knows, maybe he was singing about how much he loves Panera Bread or the joys of spring.

I asked the soundguy if this is what death metal sounds like. He said it was closer to industrial, which I could understand. Dapose's prerecorded cacophony was almost analytical in its approach, derived by breaking down 4's and triplets to fractions of a beat and stringing the pounding evenly throughout each movement very mechanically, cold and precise. The hyper-sonic guitar lines were strings of minor-key arpeggios and distortion, like an avant guard classical pastiche. About halfway through the set, Dapose played a series of sustained notes that changed the dynamics briefly, like watching the eye of a hurricane slide overhead, knowing the worst part of the storm is always on the back end.

I am the last person you or anyone should ask about death metal. That said, this isn't what I expected. It left me queer-headed and off-balance, like drinking caffeine until your hands shake (and mine were literally shaking afterward). That said, I thought the mix was rough. At times I couldn't hear the guitar, which was too low throughout the entire set, drowned out by the hyper-staccato backing track. The vocals also were lost in the midrange haze. As disarming as the rhythms were, I'd like to hear Dapose play it all again with only his guitar and vocals.

Bemberger's Mary Janes.

I have to believe that if more people knew that last night's Beep Beep show was the last show the band would be playing in 2005 that more would have shown up instead of the 153 paid. That was the announcement that Chris Hughes made from the stage after their first song, that this was the last time the band would be playing songs off Business Casual, maybe forever, but certainly for '05. With bassist Joel Petersen headed out on the road to play with The Faint and Bright Eyes throughout the summer, and then drummer Mike Sweeney headed out this fall with Criteria, Beep Beep won't be seeing any stage action, instead Hughes and Bemberger will write the next album, which they've already started, and which they say will be better than Business Casual. Cocky words.

Like the rare professional athletes that end their careers at the top of their game, Beep Beep closed out the year at the top of theirs. Anyone who hasn't seen this band since the fall of 2003 is missing something special. The road has honed their sound as tightly as two clenched -- if not somewhat sissy -- fists. Bemberger's stage outfit adds new meaning to the word "fey" -- glittery breast-revealing girl's top, slacks and shiny black Mary Janes (FYI, I could see no visible panty lines). One guy who doesn't understand fashion yelled from the crowd "nice sweater" -- the chump. Add to the wardrobe Bemberger's dinosaur-arms swagger and retarded-guy snarl and you got yourself the most unique stage performer since the New York Dolls. I will miss seeing this band, and now have another reason to look forward to '06.

Tonight: A show of historic proportions at The Brothers: Heidi Ore and Jon Taylor of Mercy Rule along with Gary Dean Davis and Bill Thornton of Frontier Trust performing together again for the first time since probably the mid-'90s. The event is the release of a Mercy Rule/Frontier Trust 7-inch on Speed! Nebraska Records. It's not a reissue, as the songs have never been released before. I don't want to hype this show too much because getting in will be tough enough as is. The openers alone are worth $20 let alone the $5 cover: Ted Stevens a.k.a. Mayday and Bill Hoover. I'm told that Tre will be particularly careful not to go over the room's limit -- which is around 150. That means getting there early -- it'll be a long night of rock.

At the same time, there are two other very hot shows going on tonight: Kite Pilot and The Philharmonic at The 49'r; and the Sarah Benck CD release show with Anonymous American at Mick's. As good as those shows are, I doubt they'll siphon any of the draw from The Brothers.

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Precious Metal, Beep Beep tonight; Happy tax day – April 15, 2005 –

As mentioned Wednesday, Precious Metal is Dapose from The Faint's one-man death metal project, which you can read about in detail here. He opens tonight's Sokol Underground show featuring Bombardment Society and Beep Beep at 9 p.m., which means you have to get there early. Beep Beep's Jan 28 show sold out, and this one will likely do the same. The only other show in town: According to The Reader, Charlie Burton and the Dorothy Lynch Mob are playing at Trovato's.

A brief reminder that today is tax day. There is nowhere to hide where they can't find you, so just pay up.

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Column 21: Ranch Bowl Redux; Mastodon tonight – April 14, 2005 –

Maybe the most interesting information from my brief, 5-minute phone call with Mike Brannan was the fact that he's working on a couple new band projects. Prior to backing Todd Grant down at Sokol Underground a month or so ago I hadn't heard him play guitar in years. He's good. He said his new projects are a bit twangier than his usual stuff. Like everything else involving Brannan, we'll just have to wait and see what materializes.

Tonight, go out and buy yourself a set of industrial-strength earplugs because Atlanta grindcore band Mastodon hits the Sokol Underground stage with Burning Brides and Early Man. The band's 2004 voice-of-doom epic, Leviathan, has been heralded as being on the forefront of heavy heavy-metal's inevitable return. $14; 9 p.m.

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Precious Metal a.k.a. Dapose (you know, the one from The Faint) – April 13, 2005 –

Most of the interviews used for the Precious Metal story that I just put online (read it here) were actually conducted last October, shortly after The Faint completed a European tour in support of the then just-released Wet from Birth. I had intended to write a feature on The Faint exclusively for Lazy-i (The Faint article for The Reader in support of Wet From Birth had, in fact, already been assigned to a different writer), but didn't want to run it until a week before a talked-about winter Faint show that was to be held at a venue other than Sokol Auditorium. That show never materialized, and neither did the story. Then along came this Precious Metal show, a project that Dapose and I had spent most of the interview talking about along with his background in death metal. I did a brief follow-up interview Sunday, and voila! here we are.

Needless to say, a ton of the original 2,500-word interview wasn't used, including more detail on how Dapose got involved with The Faint and how that band approaches rehearsals as more than just a band practice, but as a way of communicating art, culture and other interests among themselves. It's already formatted as a Q&A, which I'll probably put online in its entirety sometime before the upcoming Faint/Bright Eyes show in May.

Left out of this piece from the follow-up interview is Dapose's description of what you'll be seeing from Precious Metal on Friday night. Though he's among the team responsible for the videos used as part of The Faint's live shows, there won't be any multimedia elements used for Precious Metal. "I never even considered doing a multimedia thing for this project," Dapose said. "I really want it to be about the music -- the performance of man and machine."

So I asked him if he'd be nervous standing up there all alone surrounded by equipment instead of band members. "I suppose so," he said. "It's not a normal thing for any band to have just one person. I guess I feel comfortable with the music. I'm looking at it as if I'm the piano man at a bar, though it'll definitely have a different feel from that." In other words, don't expect to hear Dapose belt out a cover of Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman." A word of warning -- get to the show by 9 p.m. If the order stands as posted on the One Percent Productions site, Precious Metal will go on first, and Marc and Jim have been rigorous about starting their shows on time this year.

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Assorted notes... – April 12, 2005 –

It's a quiet week as far as shows are concerned. Nothing really worth mentioning until The Mastodon show Thursday, which is followed by Beep Beep on Friday and the Mercy Rule/Frontier Trust reunion show at The Brothers on Saturday. Speaking of the Beep Beep show, look for an interview with The Faint's Dapose, a.k.a. Precious Metal, online here tomorrow morning. Precious Metal will debut as one of the opening acts for Beep Beep, along with Bombardment Society.

Headlinewise, looks like our boy Bright Eyes has been invited to play the Glastonbury festival, along with Kylie Minogue, Coldplay and The White Stripes. He'll be on the "John Peel Stage" for emerging acts, including Ryan Adams and Willie Mason. Read about it here. In other Conor Oberst news, seems he's become the posterchild for the so-called "hipster gay" look, according to this item in Metro Weekly.

That's it for now, other than I've been grooving on the new untitled E.P. by the Pomonas that showed up in my mail this weekend. Someone should sign those guys or at least get them another show at O'Leaver's.

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Live Review: Okkervil River, Kite Pilot – April 11, 2005 –

Point of fact: When it rains, it's hot inside O'Leaver's. Crazy hot. Humid. Smoky. Unpleasant. Thank god I only wore a t-shirt. I could have used a pair of shorts, though. The pouring rain and the fact that it was a school night didn't deter fans from coming out -- it was pleasantly crowded -- but not crazy crowded -- just crowded enough to raise the temperature inside the club to sweat-inducing proportions. Apparently it's still too early in the year for O'Leaver's to crank the A/C.

Enough about the weather. I got there just as Kite Pilot began cranking into a set that a featured a couple new ones mixed in with songs from last year's EP, which were met with cheers of recognition and even a few people singing along. Instrumentally, they were on the mark, with drummer Corey Broman behind the set once again. The vocals, however, were more off-key than usual, maybe due to the band's enthusiasm at playing to such a large crowd. Afterward, I watch Broman tear down his drum set -- he was soaked to the skin.

Between sets, people crowded around the open doors, hoping to get a breeze but staying out of the soaker. I began remembering last year's Saddle Creek floods and kept an eye on my car for fear that it might float down the street. Surprisingly, a handful of people left before the six-man version of Okkervil River took the stage at around midnight. Apparently they hadn't read The New York Times article that came out Saturday heralding the band as a return to literate rock, written by Saddle Creek head cheerleader Kelefa Sanneh. They opened with a song I never heard before that fed into "For Real," the pounding opener from their new CD. Frontman Will Sheff looked like a wet, inebriated cat, his wig-like hair eventually sticking to his forehead. Like any good crowd, people kept bringing him shots, which he gulped with gusto. By the time they got to their traditional closer, "Okkervil River Song," Sheff was a slurring mess, while the rest of his crew looked primed ready to tear the place apart.

I figured most of the set would be dedicated to their new CD, but I only recognized a couple songs from the new one, maybe one from Down the River... while most of the set came from Don't Fall in Love... (their defacto a signature album), including "Red," "Kansas City," "Westfall" and "Okkervil Song." Sheff topped the evening off with a solo acoustic number. By the time I got out of there, the rain had stopped.

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Weekend Update… – April 8, 2005 –

The shows ahead for this weekend worth checking out:

-- Tonight: Anonymous American, Five Story Fall, Kyle Harvey at Arthur's, 80th & Dodge. Growing up, Arthur's was the meat market for the older crowd -- that meant scoping-out 30-ish tail, back in the day when 30 seemed so old. Anyway, it's been brought to my attention that this will be the last original live music show for Arthur's. $5, 9:30.

-- Saturday: The Monroes, The Diplomats of Solid Sound, The Spring Hill Mine Disaster at The 49'r. They're calling the showcase "Estrus vs. Speed Nebraska! Episode III: Revenge of the Scythe" and for good reason. Monroes are on Speed! while The Diplomats have a new one coming out on Estrus. No pricing information for this one, but it'll probably be $5 and start around 10. More details here.

-- Saturday: VHS or Beta, Electric Six at Sokol Underground. A night of guitar-fueled disco rock a la Duran Duran. $10, 9 p.m.

-- Saturday: If you're heading east, you might want to check out The Street Urchins with Axes to the Sky and Filthy Few at Mike's Place, 162 W Broadway in beautiful Council Bluffs. I've been told by a couple folks who've played at Mike's that it's actually a pretty decent venue. $5, 9 p.m.

-- Sunday: Okkervil River, Kite Pilot, Fizzle Like a Flood at O'Leaver's. Needless to say, the "show of the weekend," and it's only $5.

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Column 20: Donovan Vs. the Goat; Ranch Bowl rumors; Handsome Boy tonight – April 7, 2005 –

A few notes before we get to this week's column. It appears that someone identifying himself as Ranch Bowl operator Mike Brannan has posted on SLAM Omaha -- Omaha's music scene gossip board -- that the Ranch Bowl will finally be closed and torn down. "Yes, we have made a deal to redevelop the site, it was finalized Monday," posts mb/ranchbowl. "Closing details will be released as known and we will share them asap... I look forward to putting the first proper mid sized music venue online in Omaha. I think it's long overdue..." Apparently plans to renovate the old facility were scrapped because they "lacked the local goodwill required for us to make the additional investments required."

If it's true (and everything seems to indicate that it is), it could mean some big changes for the Omaha music scene. Rumors have been rumbling that Brannan has already identified a downtown site for a new mid-sized music venue (and he also recently purchased Caffeine Dreams at 45th and Farnam). Add to that talk of yet another new indie-rock venue being announced this month by another developer and you have a veritable music revolution on your hands... More to come.

Tonight, Handsome Boy Modeling School with Buck 65 and Rondo Brothers at Sokol Underground. I'm told that this version of Handsome will include Prince Paul and Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, which make this a must-see show for any alt hip-hop fan. Interestingly, the Handsome Boy site says the show will be held at Sokol Aud, but I'm told it will, in fact, be down in the Underground. This is an early one: 8 p.m., $15.

Speaking of Sokol, this week's column is a tale spun from last week's Mountain Goats show, drawn from a number of sources, not the least of which is Matt Whipkey, mentioned in the column.

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Criteria signs to Saddle Creek; Okkervil River interview – April 6, 2005 –

Rumors that Criteria signed to Saddle Creek were flying all over the place at Saturday night's Tim Kasher show at O'Leaver's. Criteria frontman Stephen Pedersen all but confirmed the rumor that night, but I still wanted to get the word from Creek itself. It came yesterday when label guy Jason Kulbel confirmed that Saddle Creek Records will indeed be releasing Criteria's next CD, which is already in the can. No firm release date yet, though it'll probably drop sometime in the late summer/early fall. Asked to comment, Pedersen simply said "Criteria is very very very... excited." And why not? Pedersen had said Saturday that being the label was a dream come true. But make no mistake about it, the signing also is a coup for Saddle Creek. It's no secret that labels have been sniffing around the band since they flew out to New York for an industry recon mission more than a year ago. Criteria fills a hard rock void created at Saddle Creek when Cursive went on what some are saying is a permanent hiatus. Rumor has it that the new Criteria album is one of the best things to come out of this town in a long time. We'll have to wait to find out though I'm sure we'll get a sneak preview of the tunes when the band opens for Trail of Dead at Sokol Auditorium April 26.

Now on to this week's "cover story": I just placed online an interview with Okkervil River's Will Sheff (read it here). Will, one of the nicest guys I've ever interviewed, talked about the band's new CD, Black Sheep Boy, and their ongoing struggle to stay financially afloat despite being critics' darlings. Since I first interviewed Sheff in 2002 (read that one here) the band has emerged as a real force in the indie-folk world. I figured they'd become big rock stars, but in fact, Sheff says they've never been poorer, which is a shame.

Some details that didn't make it into the story: Brian Beattie, the guy who produced their benchmark album, Don't Fall in Love with Everyone you Meet, is back behind the knobs for Black Sheep Boy. Beattie charges a one-time fee for recording, which all but eliminates the clock ticking on the studio meter. "You pay up front and you can take as long as you want," Sheff said of Beattie's studio. "And if you don't like it, you fix it. His studio provided a real organic environment. We had some tracks where we all played simultaneously. Some of my favorite albums, like Neil Young's On the Beach, were all tracked live, which provides a lot of grit and humanity to the performances."

Is Black Sheep Boy a concept album? Sheff says he guesses it probably is. "A lot of times concept records don't work," he said. "Pink Floyd's The Wall, for example, really doesn't hold together, while Lou Reed's Berlin feels more complete and evocative, with elements that go in other directions. I didn't want this record to tie together into a nice little package. I let it be messy and unfinished. You can be really familiar with the artistic process, but a lot of it comes from places you don't understand. In my mind, I didn't try to create a story or try to figure out who the Black Sheep Boy is; I thought about how the songs fit together and how the imagery could be woven throughout all the songs."

Fair enough. This is the fourth time Okkervil River's been through Omaha. The first two times were gigs at The Junction, which Sheff said was "crappy." Then they played an impromptu gig at California Taco before finally landing a show at Sokol Underground. "I said to myself 'We finally made it.'" That said, Sheff was concerned that maybe the band took a step backwards with O'Leaver's, that is until I told him that Tim Kasher, The Silos and a host of other great bands have played there recently. "Wow, that's good news," he said "Now I'm psyched." The show is this Sunday. Don't miss it.

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Happy election day... – April 5, 2005 –

Those of you in Omaha, make sure you get out there and vote. End of public service announcement.

Look for an interview with Okkervil River online right here tomorrow morning. The band's new CD, Black Sheep Boy, goes on sale today. It's a return to the tuneful songwriting that was heard on their first Jagjaguwar release, Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You Meet, and hence, is a must-have.

A few other observations on this warm April morning;

-- I noticed that Kasabian has already sold their hit, "Club Foot," to Pontiac and that it's being used in new commercials, one of which aired last night during The Finals (Congratulations Roy Williams and the Kansas Jayhawks! er, North Carolina Tarhills! I had you going down two rounds ago). I predict we will all quickly get sick of this song now, unfortunately. I also noticed that Kasabian has rolled out a live version of "Club Foot" on video that's receiving airplay on MTV2 (I have a feeling they won't be bringing that gear to Omaha). You add it all up, and the May 29 Sokol Underground show is going to sell out. It's only April, and Kasabian has arguably released the single of the year. Oh yeah, the band is currently selling out all of its UK shows. The new Radiohead?

-- CMT -- that's Country Music Television for all you Yankees -- is showing a "Behind the Music"-style documentary called "Controversy: Johnny Cash vs. Music Row," which is a must see. The hour-long "rockumentary" was broadcast last night and is a scathing criticism of Nashville's treatment of Cash throughout his career but especially during his Rick Ruben years, when the CMA and country radio failed to recognize his American Recordings releases as "country music," though they arguably were some of the most important C&W records released from the mid-'90s on. It's being rebroadcast this Friday at 7 p.m. CT.

-- The first REM/Bright Eyes reviews are in from Australia, including this brief one from theage.com. They like our boy down under.

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Live Review: Tim Kasher, Todd Grant, Luke Temple, The End of the World – April 3, 2005 –

I got there early and dug in for the evening along the railing with my Rolling Rock and I'd be damned if I was going to move a foot all night. It was already crowded at around 10 just as the first band -- a wonky indie outfit called The End of the World -- was about to take the stage. Within an hour the place was at capacity and then some. People crushed ass-to-crotch from my railing to the bar to the back wall, all to see a rare acoustic set by The Good Life's Tim Kasher. All the "cool kids" were there, including about half of Saddle Creek Records' stable). Temple, who I featured last week (here), knew it was going to be packed, and knew very few if any were there to hear his music. Still, why not take advantage of the situation like any other sane up-and-coming singer/songwriter?

The End of the World's music was standard indie rock fare, with a stylish frontman and a backing band that seemed ill-at-ease on stage. Most of their songs were influenced by the usual indie-rock suspects (Pixies, Strokes, My Bloody Valentine) and the vocal lines sounded like they had been improvised during band practice, gliding over the chord changes with little variance. The drummer was barely audible other than his cymbals and his rat-a-tat snare like a kitten running across the roof of a car.

I thought Temple was going to do a mostly solo acoustic set. Instead, the world-enders acted as his backing band. At one point, there were four guys playing guitars on stage. Who knows why. Temple's music, though somewhat ornate and flowery on CD, is relatively simple and doesn't require a lot of guitars. The times when the fewest people played along were the best. By the end of this set, the crowd had grown to maximum largesse and had the proper roar to accompany it. Temple ignored it completely, despite being drowned out during his closer.

Then came Todd Grant and Kasher. I didn't even know that Grant was supposed to play last night, and he sounded like he didn't know, either. Though the two came on stage together, they played separately -- Grant doing a set of six or seven songs, starting with an apology about his inebriated condition. Even in that state and though struggling to get the crowd's attention (a lost cause), there was a heartbreaking quality that burned through his songs, almost as if the alcohol and crowd frustration added a necessary layer to his music's down-and-out pathos. There is something great and tragic about Grant and his songs.

Kasher didn't get behind the microphone until at least 12:30, and he didn't sing a note until about a quarter to one. I think I've mentioned here before that although I've interviewed every band on the Saddle Creek roster -- some of them three or four times -- I really don't know these guys. I don't hang out with them, I don't party with them. They're all nice guys and gals, but I just don't fly in their circles, only occasionally bumping into them at Sokol or O'Leaver's shows. That said, I couldn't tell you if Kasher was loaded or not. He seemed loaded, but his slight slur and slouch could just have been his natural solo-performance posture.

The whole time while Grant was struggling with the crowd, Kasher had sat right off the side and listened. And burned. When he finally got up there, he was in no mood to put up with the noise, which by then had reached soccer-crowd proportions.

I can't remember everything he said or exactly how he said it. It went something like, "There's a good thing going on musically in Omaha these days. But there's also a 'scene' that's grown up around it. And now people are coming to shows to be part of that scene, not to listen to music, and it sucks." Again, I'm paraphrasing here. "I know a lot of you came here to get laid and I'm all for getting laid, but some people actually came here for some music." And "Screw it. Being a musician means playing for yourself, so I'm doing this for myself." Etc, etc...

Then he introduced his first song, saying he'd just finished writing the lyrics that day. That it was a quiet song. That it required a certain quietness from the audience. He began playing the first three chords, and playing them and playing them and playing them, then said something like, "You get the gist of the song? I'm going to keep doing this until I get people's attention." Zero impact. He kept playing the chords for a few more minutes while continuing his rather funny diatribe aimed at the roar in the back of the bar. It was like watching an Andy Kaufman routine, and Kasher was in true Kaufmanesque form. Finally, he quietly played the song, a classically simple Kasher tune with central the lyric "Don't leave me hear hanging on this picket fence."

Then Kasher turned it up a notch, challenging the bar to a fight, saying he had planned on buying everyone a shot if the show went well, but that now he just wanted everyone to shut the f___ up and he didn't care if he pissed anyone off, that he wasn't afraid of getting bruised in the face or a few broken ribs. He's 30 now, he's seen it all, been there/done that. His Kaufman rant turned into a Henry Rollins routine delivered with a smile. At one point, Grant went up behind him and mock hit Kasher in the back with his guitar, telling him to shut up and sing.

By 1 o'clock, Kasher had sung maybe three songs, all very quiet numbers, all held their own in the cloud of bar noise. See, I don't know if the whole thing was a joke or if he was pissed (both emotionally and physically). He'd warmed up as the crowd began to settle down toward the end. When he finished his last song at around 1:20, the crowd had finally died. Kasher had won, sort of.

It was a weird, wild ride, and in retrospect, probably exactly what Kasher had in mind. Or maybe he hadn't. Either way, it was memorable.

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A brief look at the weekend ahead… – April 1, 2005 –

Hey, what gives -- I don't go to Maria Taylor Wednesday and I skip The Mountain Goats last night? Just catching up on some sleep, kids. Like I said yesterday, anyone who has a couple minutes and the inspiration please give us a brief review of last night's Mountain Goats show here. I do plan on attending a show or two this weekend, but not starting tonight. Tomorrow night is Luke Temple at O'Leaver's with The End of the World and Tim Kasher. Should be a mob scene. Then Sunday night is a five-band show at Sokol Underground with Juliana Theory, Zao, Open Hand, The Takeover UK, & Sinai Beach. Emo band Juliana is now on Epic after being on Tooth & Nail for years. According to AMG, Zao is a Christian band. I've never heard of the others. Is this a Christian punk rock show? Well, it might be appropriate, considering that the pope is apparently on his last leg...

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Column 19 -- SXSW: entrepreneurs and rock stars; Mountain Goats, Kyle Harvey tonight – March 31, 2005 –

As a sidenote to this column, it seems like the number of bands from Nebraska that get accepted to South by Southwest continues to dwindle. This year it was only Statistics and The '89 Cubs, and the Cubs canceled. Last year it was Statistics and Criteria. A few years ago Saddle Creek hosted a SXSW showcase, but it's been years since the label has done anything that (though they had initially intended to do one this year). I just don't know how relevant SXSW is anymore, but it still sounds like a good time:

Big show tonight at Sokol Underground featuring The Mountain Goats with The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers and Kyle Harvey. $8, 9 p.m. Don't miss it. I didn't make it out to see Maria Taylor last night (if anyone did, please give us a review here). I did go to the Todd Solondz film Palindromes at the Dundee Theater. It wasn't sold out but it was close to it. And it was very much like going to a Creek show at Sokol -- I saw members from four Creek bands in the audience, and well as other local hipsters, not the least of which was Academy Award Winner Mike Hill. Despite what you may have read in The New York Times, the film is far from a senseless, grueling downer; but I'm sure my viewpoint was skewed screening it with this audience, which laughed at damn near everything. Solondz took questions afterward for about an hour, sounding like a young, even more neurotic version of Woody Allen. The Dundee should try to do this sort of thing more often.

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Luke Temple interview online; Maria Taylor tonight – March 30, 2005 –

I just placed an interview/profile of singer/songwriter Luke Temple online (read it here). He talks about his origins as a musician, his music, etc. I mentioned to Temple that even though so far on his tour he might have only played for small crowds to expect a SRO attendance at his O'Leaver's show Saturday. "Yeah, I've been told that," he said, already aware that Tim Kasher was the opening act. Seems Kasher is pals with some of the guys from The End of the World, Temple's co-headliner/touring band.

Tonight's main attraction is Maria Taylor (Azure Ray), Steve Bartolomei and Dan McCarthy at The Goofy Foot (10th & Pacific). If I go, I'll give a rundown on the whole place in tomorrow's review. But there's a good chance I won't make it down there tonight. The Todd Solondz film Palindromes his having a special showing tonight at The Dundee Theater with Solondz in attendance answering questions following the screening. It's only $5, but I don't know if you can buy advance tickets (and knowing the dark themes in the film, if you'd need to, anyway). Then there's Mike Tulis' monthly Movie at O'Leaver's night tonight, featuring We're All Devo. Read about the film and event here.

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Update: Turbo A.C.'s cancel; Cops, Brazil, Harvey instead … – March 29, 2005 –

Well, it appears that tonight's Turbo A.C.'s show at O'Leaver's has been canceled. Tomorrow night's show will replace it, which means The Cops, Little Brazil and Kyle Harvey will be playing tonight at O'Leaver's. Tomorrow night is Mike Tulis' monthly rock movie night at O'Leaver's featuring the film We're All Devo. Read about it here.

Bits and pieces; Turbo A.C.'s tonight… – March 29, 2005 –

Welcome back from another long, boring Easter holiday. When will Easter become a drinking holiday like New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day? It can't happen soon enough…

I spent mine writing CD reviews. Check out the Reviews Matrix for about 20 new capsule reviews. Look for the symbol for the latest ones. Many more to come.

A feature on Seattle singer/songwriter Luke Temple goes online at Lazy-i tomorrow morning. Temple is playing at O'Leaver's Saturday night with co-headliners The End of the World. Oh, and Tim Kasher (The Good Life) just happens to be opening. Damn, and I wanted to go to this one -- looks like another evening spent in the parking lot…

Speaking of O'Leaver's, New York's The Turbo A.C.'s are playing there tonight with 7 Shot Screamers and Zyklon Bees. Turbo plays "The finest surf guitar-injected punkrock since 1996" according to their website. Their last record, 2003's Automatic, was produced by The Dwarves' Blag Dahlia and was released on Gearhead. Rockabilly/horrorbilly band 7 Shot Screamers hails from St. Louis and loves The Cramps. This is another last-minute O'Leaver's booking, as the show doesn't even appear on Turbo's tour page (They play at Hairy Mary's tomorrow night).

Catching up on some old e-mail, our friends Anonymous American got a brief write up in the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages (read it here). Now that they've conquered Minneapolis, AA needs to book a few days in New York and L.A.

What else…

Rumor has it that The Goofy Foot down on 10th and Pacific (the old Neon Goose) is becoming something of a hot-spot. Le Beat played there last night and Maria Taylor (Azure Ray), Steve Bartolomei and Dan McCarthy play there tomorrow night. I haven't been there yet, but have been told that on any given night you can't swing a dead cat in the place without hitting a Creeker or Creek-related scenester. What could this mean?

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Ladyfinger at O'Leaver's; Third Men/Little Brazil at The 49'r – March 26, 2005 –

Two hot shows tonight: Ladyfinger with Stnnng and Falcon Crest at O'Leaver's. Gotta believe Ladyfinger will open since the other two bands are out-of-towners. For all the info you need, go here. The other show is Seattle's The Cops with Little Brazil and The Third Men at The 49'r. I'll be at one of them... probably.

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Neva Dinova, Ted Stevens tonight, Motorhead upstairs… – March 25, 2005 –

Our pals Neva Dinova will be showcasing their new CD, The Hate Yourself Change, tonight at Sokol Underground. I still have yet to hear it, despite the efforts of various publicists and Roger Lewis. And I'm still not sure what label it's on. Roger has insisted that Crank! didn't release it, but if you go to www.crankthis.com you're met with a full-screen ad for the CD. Niz in yesterday's Omaha World-Herald also reported that Crank! was their label (in this story). Meanwhile, go to the Sidecho Records site and there it is as a Sidecho release. And then there's Rolling Stone online, who says the CD was released by Sony (see here). So who knows. I always thought it would be released on Saddle Creek, but obviously that never happened. I guess it doesn't matter what label you're on if you can grab the opening slot on a Bright Eyes tour, as they did recently.

Also on tonight's Sokol dance card are Ted Stevens playing a solo set -- expect to hear some stuff off the new Mayday CD, which will be released by Saddle Creek -- and Lincoln's The Golden Age. $7, 9 p.m.

If you're going to Sokol tonight, you better get there early, folks. Motorhead is playing an all-ages show upstairs at Sokol Auditorium with Corrosion Of Conformity. Parking could be tough. I'm thinking of curling up to some NCAA action at The Brothers, which -- with these two shows going on -- will be nice and vacant.

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Live Review: The Silos – March 24, 2005 –

Sometime in the future, maybe 20 years from now when I'll probably still be propped up behind some sort of machine that's used for writing, I'll look back fondly on O'Leaver's and recall last night's show as a prime example of that tavern's golden age. Maybe 40 people were there last night, plenty of room to walk around, grab a beer, talk to fellow drinkers/music-goers as we waited for The Silos to get started. And the whole time wondering why more people weren't there, no crowd anyway. Here was a band that is arguably one of the inventors of what's come to be known as "alt-country" -- veritable legends -- playing in a bar with a capacity smaller than a mid-town Denny's. I shake my head in disbelief. While every local rube is whining about the hundreds they doled out and the personal ordeals suffered trying to glom onto a pair of U2 tickets so they can be corralled like cattle into a blimp hanger and assaulted by shitty sound while watching a band well past its prime perform on big-screen monitors -- for five bucks they could have seen a band that is as good -- if not better then -- they were 15 years ago while standing mere feet away from the lead singer.

But I digress. The Silos were nothing less than pristine last night. Every aspect of the trio's performance was honed to pure perfection; playing music that was more rock 'n' roll than anything I'd consider "alt country." Frontman Walter Salas-Humara played an amped acoustic guitar and sang like he's been doing it for 20 years but with a passion of a kid playing his first gig. The burley, bespeckled bass player seconded on pedal-steel, and also happened to sing perfect harmonies on almost every song. And then there was the drummer -- at least 15 years younger than Salas-Humara, he was some sort of rhythmic god, a super-realistic portrait in precision, a wunderkind of dynamics so freakish in talent that the crowd just stared in awe.

Was it the best performance I've heard at O'Leaver's? Probably. The sound guy, who's been through countless nights of shows there in the past couple years, said so. We chatted afterward, wondering why The Silos never made it big like Uncle Tupelo only to admit that Uncle Tupelo never really made it big, either, at least not while they were still together. They were big only to the people that knew them. And to a certain extent, so were The Silos. It was only due to the later success of Wilco that Tupelo is now considered a legendary band. Meanwhile, as the '90s waned, The Silos were quickly forgotten, though the band continued to soldier forward in one form or another all these years.

They played a lot of songs off their new CD, When the Telephone Rings, but also a few from The Silos record (the only one I own) that I recognized, including "Caroline" and "Commodore Peter." (While buying a T-shirt in the back of the room after the set, I noticed among the stack of CDs a plain-packaged one that said, "The one with the bird on the cover" which, of course, is The Silos. I asked Salas-Humara what happened to the artwork and he said RCA still owned the rights. He was unashamedly selling bootlegged copies of his own record.) In addition to my old favorites, the highlight was a song called "Let's Take Some Drugs and Drive Around" -- the title says it all. And the set closer, a solo number called "Susan Across the Ocean" that featured that amazing drummer, up from behind the set singing harmonies -- a real goose-bump moment.

It'll go down as just another special performance at O'Leaver's, another in what's become a series. It's a shame that none of these shows have been recorded, if only for posterity's sake. It would be nice to have a Live from O'Leaver's CD to remember all these great shows, but I guess my memory and these blog entries will have have to do.

Tonight, yet another good show at O'Leaver's -- former Thrasher photographer Nik Frietas and his band, Kite Pilot, and our old friend Mr. Kyle Harvey.

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Column 18: A mess o' CD reviews; The Silos tonight – March 23, 2005 –

This week's column is a recap of some of the better stuff that's made it through the i-Pod during the first quarter. I'll probably do something like this every quarter as space dictates.

A reminder about that Silo show tonight at O'Leaver's. They're the opening band and, according to their website, will be going on at 9 p.m. sharp! See you there.

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The inventors of alt-country at O'Leaver's Wednesday night – March 22, 2005 –

Seems like there are a lot of alt-country bands these days, so much so that alt-country has become a cliché term. People now call it Americana or Roots Rock or some such thing. But back in the day, the only term for twangy, rural-fied rock was alt-country. I was never a big fan of the style, mainly because I don't much care for the yee-haw grinnin' quality of country music. Or, as the owner of The 49'r once put it, country music makes me car sick. That it does.

That said, whenever an alt-country act would roll into town someone would ask me if I was going to the show. My reply was universal: "I'm not really into alt-country, except for maybe The Silos." I usually got a blank stare in return. No one had heard of The Silos, and around here, most consider Uncle Tupelo the originators of the genre. But five years before No Depression came out, The Silos had released Cuba, which pretty much defined alt-country, for me at least. In fact, they followed it up five years later with their RCA debut, The Silos, which is one of my favorite records. But though they won their share of critical huzzahs, The Silos never really caught anyone's attention, instead being overshadowed by Uncle Tupelo, which became Son Volt and Wilco, and so on.

So time passes and I'm clicking through the O'Leaver's website the other day, looking at the calendar of upcoming shows, and lo and behold, what's listed for tomorrow night but The Silos (O'Leaver's website appears to be down for the count right now, so you're gonna have to trust me on this). When I read it, I laughed out loud thinking some poor local schmucks took the band's name not knowing who The Silos were. It had to be a mistake, especially considering that The Silos were the opener for a bill headlined by The Dead Science (ex-Xiu Xiu) and local phenoms Le Beat -- neither of which have anything at all to do with alt-country. But just for kicks, I googled "The Silos" to see if they had a website, and of course discovered that the band playing Wednesday night is, in fact, "The Silos" (see for yourself). The band is just returning from a tour of Germany and an appearance at SXSW (playing at the GBV Hoot at Emo's no less). Of course, there hasn't been one iota of press about this show, and maybe that's a good thing considering O'Leaver's tiny capacity, etc. I beseech anyone who has even a scintilla of interest in alt-country to catch a band that really helped define the genre. You may never get another chance.

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Porn (Men of) tonight at The Brothers… – March 21, 2005 –

If you don't know it already, frontman and head pornmaster Tim Moss is one of the godfather's of Omaha punk rock, having glowed brightly during the city's golden age with gutter-groove band Ritual Device before being exiled to San Francisco and all its glammy decadence. The new Porn album, Wine, Women and Song, on stoner label Small Stone, continues Moss's travels into grinding, tonal, sludge metal/noise with double-digit-length songs designed to drain you of your will to live. This time out he has veteran drummer Dale Crover (Melvins) and bassist Billy Anderson (Sleep, Orange Goblin). Read about the band's history and the last time they came through Omaha here. Local metal giants Bloodcow open. I expect this to be a monster show. $5, 10 p.m.

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