Now online, a massive feature/interview with Tilly and the Wall. The Tilly crew talks about where they've been and where they're going, as well as their new album and their new musical direction (though they say there's nothing really different about O; I say otherwise). Read it here, or pick up a copy of this week's Reader, where it's the cover story. The piece was written in support of Tilly's official CD release show, which is happening at Sokol Auditorium Thursday Aug. 7. Tix are $13, get them now. Opening are New Zealand Sub Pop band The Ruby Suns and our very own Go Motion.

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Tonight at The Waiting Room, legendary Omaha hardcore band Hercules is playing with Alphabet and Capgun Coup. I have heard from, well, a ton of people how amazing Hercules is. I'm told they prefer playing all-ages shows, which is why they haven't played a lot of gigs at the usual places around town. Here's a chance to check them out. $6, 9 p.m.

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Just placed online, a feature/interview with the guys from Fromanhole (read it here). Daryl, Doug and Roach tell us who they are and what they're trying to accomplish playing in one of the most intense bands in the Midwest. The story is a lead-up to Friday night's Fromanhole CD release show at Slowdown Jr. that also features Little Brazil, The Life and Times and Nueva Vulcano. Go read the story, then buy a ticket to the show (it's only $7).

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There's a few interesting things going on tonight. Down at Slowdown Jr. it's cutesy indie rock four-piece Harry and the Potters, renowned for such hits as "Wrath of Hermoine" and "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock." They fancy themselves practitioners of "Wizard Rock," or WRock, a musical movement (according to their Wiki entry) that consists of at least 450 bands that play songs about Harry Potter. Right. Laugh all you want, but the joke's been going on since 2002 when the band first formed. Musically, it's run-of-the-mill slacker indie rock with whiney vocals about giant spiders and Malfoy. Opening are Math The Band and Uncle Monsterface. $12, 7 p.m.

Meanwhile, over at The Waiting Room, singer-songwriter Kevin Devine opens for a couple fellow singer-songwriters I've never heard of: Jesse Lacey and Brian Bonz. Devine is a first-class Brooklyn-area musician and singer who's come through Omaha a number of times, supporting his last album, Put Your Ghost to Rest, which was originally released on Capitol in '06 before being re-released on indie label Procrastinate! Music Traitors. $15 (SOLD OUT), 9 p.m.

Down the road at The Barley Street, Tomato a Day is playing with Reagan Roeder and Ben Sieff. It's a free show that starts at 9. Word got around yesterday that Barley St. got busted by an ASCAP representative for playing records in the bar -- a no-no for any commercial, public establishment that hasn't paid the licensing fee to the ASCAP organization/mafia. As a result, Brad Hoshaw's Tuesday night Viva La Vinyl showcase -- where anyone could in and play their albums -- is no more. Here's hoping Brad finds a new home for the vinyl showcase.

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I got very little bar time in this past weekend. I did manage to catch the Malpais CD release show at The Waiting Room -- but only Malpais thanks to the 2 1/2-hour Batman film. It was very well-attended (I'm guessing around 200?), all there to see Greg Loftis and his crew perform songs off a CD that I'm told has received a 4-star rating from Alternative Press -- a rarity for a self-released album. From what I heard on stage (I still don’t have a copy of the disc) AP got it right. The band knows its way around a solid indie rock melody. My quibbles are with the house sound -- very muddy, and Loftis' vocals were lost in the mix. One of the bar's regulars told me that it wasn't the sound-guy's fault -- Loftis just doesn't sing very loudly. Maybe so, but I've heard him do a fine job belting out a tune at O'Leaver's before. As much as I enjoyed the gig, I think Loftis is the kind of guy who could do even better in an acoustic singer-songwriter setting. The title track of the new CD -- "Luke Is Leaving New York," which I've heard on Myspace -- is a sweet little acoustic guitar-fueled ballad. The live rendition -- performed by the full band -- paled in comparison. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for a simple melody…

Lots of content this week on Lazy-i. Tomorrow, instead of the usual column (no column this week!) look for a feature on everyone's favorite noise-punk band, Fromanhole, who are having a CD release show of their own this Firday night at Slowdown Jr. And then Thursday look for a gi-normous interview with Tilly and the Wall (which also will be the cover story for this week's issue of The Reader).

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Here's what I see for the weekend:

Tonight at The Waiting Room it's the CD release show for Malpais' new disc, Luke Is Leaving New York. I'm listening to the title track now -- a pretty little acoustic ballad reminiscent of Bookends-era S&G. I'm told that the rest of the CD is much more raucous in an indie sort of way -- we'll find out tonight. Opening is Sleep Said the Monster, The Beatseekers and The Paper Airplanes. $7, 9 p.m.

Tomorrow night, O'Leaver's is hosting a benefit for the Omaha Bike Co-op (also known as the Community Bicycle Shop). Participants in their program earn a bike by refurbishing and repairing one from the shop's donated inventory while completing nine volunteer hours and a basic bike safety course. The shop is located at 525 North 33rd Street. It's a program worthy of a benefit show featuring Now Archimedes!, Ideal Cleaners and the amazing Stay Awake. It'll probably cost $5, but why not double your donation for this worthy cause? 9:30 p.m.

Finally, on Sunday night, it's the return of Afrobeat sensations NOMO at The Waiting Room. I've seen them at O'Leaver's a couple years ago and they blew me away. Then they played at The Waiting Room in June 2007 and while it was still a fun show, it lacked the gritty energy of that O'Leaver's night. Will they be able to match the intensity of their debut performance? Opening is Satchel Grande. Get your booty shaking. $10, 9 p.m.

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I tried to get an interview with Neil Diamond in support of tonight's show at the Qwest Center. Omaha being a songwriters' town, and Diamond now releasing two albums of stripped-down singer/songwriter fare produced by Rick Rubin, the interview would have been a natural. It would have been a chance for Diamond to talk about the thought-process behind his new album and why he's decided to go in a more subtle, less bombastic direction. But there was no convincing his publicist. Neil isn't doing interviews, he said. And think about it, why should he? He certainly doesn't need a story in an Omaha alt-weekly (or one of indie music's most-read online resources) to sell tickets to the great unwashed masses, who could give two shits about how he and Rick worked through the arrangements on, say, acoustic waltz "Act Like a Man" off the new album. In fact, those ticket buyers don't even want to hear "Act Like a Man" or any of the new material. No, they want the Big Stuff. They want "Cherry Cherry" and "Forever in Blue Jeans" and, by God, "Sweet friggin' Caroline." And something tells me that's exactly what they're going to get. But they're going to have to sit through some of the new stuff whether they like it or not, or at least wait until the new stuff comes on before they grab a smoke or a hot dog or return that phone call. Once you've gone Vegas, Neil, there's no turning back. Still, Home Before Dark did chart at No. 1 on Billboard…

I'm not going to Neil. Instead, I've got an interview tonight at eight. And maybe afterward, I might drop by O'Leaver's, where The Copyrights, The Fonzarellies and The Killigans will be kickin' it for just $5 (starting at 9:30 p.m.). Also tonight, Chairlift and Talkin' Mountain are opening for Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti at Slowdown Jr. $8, 9 p.m.

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I'm back from Breckenridge. Nothing to report musicwise. I think I said the last time I went up there -- you don't go to Colorado for the music unless you're "into" that sort of lifestyle. All of the radio stations have the same play list -- Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, Widespread, Blues Traveller, Dead, then repeat continuously until your brain falls out or you're properly stoned. Since I don't smoke the hippie lettuce, that only leaves the music. I listened to the ol' iPod a lot and to the new Silver Jews record, which I highly recommend (along with the new Does It Offend You, Yeah? disc). Nightlife in Breck is the same sitch -- bad local jam bands and/or white-guy blues acts. There is no original music to be found anywhere. It all goes back to the origins of the Omaha music scene -- the founding fathers (Baechle, Kasher, Oberst, etc.) have always said that their music grew out of Midwestern boredom. Conversely, in Breck, with 14k mountains, roaring rivers, skiing, i.e. outdoor entertainment year-round, who has time to write a song? Better to learn how to play the latest Dave Matthews/Jack Johnson bong hit. There is no real culture in the Rockies, but they don’t miss it. You want culture? Move to NYC or Chicago or some other urban dirthole. You want a back-to-nature brain-dead paradise? Move to the coast and become a surfer. Or move to the Rockies and get lost in the ski/mountain culture. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Which brings us to this week's column...

Column 183: Help Wanted, Rights
OWH Gags on 1st Amendment

I write this from Colorado, where the trees are dying in the mountains. You can thank the Mountain Pine Beetle, an industrious insect whose entire life is dedicated to boring under the bark of ancient lodge-pole timbers that, in their effort to fight off the attack, starve themselves by cutting off the food supply to their limbs. They turn brown; they die and the beetle moves on, to the next tree. The beetles are winning. From a distance, the forests in and around Breckenridge, Colorado, look like a middle-aged man's salt-and-pepper hair, the gray slowly defeating the color of its youth, until there's nothing but white, and then nothing at all.

It is from the balcony of a Breckenridge condo while on vacation that I received an e-mail from a member of the band The Good Life with an attached PDF file. It was an article -- an editorial -- that appeared in the July 15 issue of The Omaha World-Herald, a parting shot taken at the band a few days after they opened for Feist in Memorial Park.

Flavorlessly titled "Saturday, in the Park," the editorial is a tsk-tsk indictment of the band's behavior from the Memorial Park stage on the early evening of Saturday, July 12. The writer (who, like all OWH editorial writers, shall remain anonymous as s/he presumably speaks for the entire newspaper staff) was aghast that Good Life frontman Tim Kasher had the audacity -- the utter contempt -- to say what was on his mind concerning the upcoming presidential election.

Says the OWH: "…early arrivals got more than they bargained for when a local band, The Good Life, started its opening set with a two-minute diatribe about being embarrassed by red-state Nebraska and how the crowd should buck their parents and vote for Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama for president."

The editorial went on to say how embarrassed we should feel for Mayor Fahey -- by God, his name is on the marquee as a sponsor for an event that cost private sponsors $70k, not to mention your tax dollars to pay police to patrol the park. But that's not all. Kasher, the OWH said, "proceeded to scream a song with the F-word so prominently that children in Dundee and Elmwood Park probably heard it. What a shame!"

I'm not making this up.

The Omaha World-Herald -- our local bastion of free speech -- actually published an editorial that attacked Kasher for exercising his First Amendment rights, asking in the editorial, "Does (the city) need to specify that on-stage political statements are unwelcome, to the point of voiding pay?"

Would Omaha's great gray lady have been as upset if Kasher had expressed, say, his devotion to Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior? What if Kasher had gone on for two minutes extolling his pride in the good work of our Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan? Would there have been an editorial printed a few days later criticizing those points of view? One wonders, despite the fact that both comments are very much political statements.

It's embarrassing -- if not bizarre -- that any newspaper would be concerned about someone exercising their First Amendment rights, whether it be spoken to the person next to them or from a stage. God forbid that the minds of our area youth be polluted by thoughts and ideas that differ from their parents' -- or from the Omaha World Herald's -- thoughts and ideas.

The Omaha World Herald has a right to disagree with Kasher in their editorial, but to ask that he and future artists be gagged on stage with threats of voiding their pay should they voice a view that differs from theirs is regretful and sad and very, very small town. Now I know one of the reasons why Kasher moved to Los Angeles.

As for the concerns about use of the "F-word" (How childish does that term sound when read in print?) in a song -- I have to think that someone involved in putting this concert together had to have at least a modicum of knowledge about the artists they were booking. The "F-word" appears in many a Good Life song because that's the language the artist uses to express his art, his ideas. It would be like asking to display Tom Wesselmann's "American Bedroom Painting #25" -- a modern still life in the Joslyn Art Museum collection that depicts a piece of fruit, a telephone and a woman's breast -- but asking to have that boob covered up or removed from the painting. We can't have our kids seeing that. Here's a little news flash to the OWH: Kids use the "F-word" all the time, every day, and you and their parents aren't going to stop it. Certainly curbing Kasher from singing "fuck fuck fuck" isn't going to stop it either.

It's called the free flow of ideas. It's what keeps a culture alive and thriving and moving forward. You may not agree with something someone says, but he or she has to be allowed to say it -- in public, from a stage, to your children, to you. The OWH should be encouraging this type of discourse, not trying to prevent it.

Because once you start cutting off ideas or blocking them from being spoken and being heard, you cut off your culture's food supply. And slowly, the green turns brown, the gray turns white, and eventually there's nothing left.

Stephen Colbert's favorite band, Apples in Stereo, hit the Waiting Room stage tonight with those lovable spazzes from Poison Control Center and Big Fresh. $12, 9 p.m. It's good to be home.

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On the side of a mountain, checking to see if I have signal, I got an e-mail from Jason Kulbel saying Saddle Creek just signed yet another Canadian band -- Land of Talk. I've never heard of the band. Their last album, a 7-song EP released in April 2006 on Dependent Records called Applause Cheer Boo Hiss, got a 4-star rating by AMG. A trio, lead singer Elizabeth Powell's voice has been compared to Chan Marshall's and Sarah Blasko's. I've listened to a couple songs on their myspace page and thought she sounded like neither, more like Emily Haines (of Metric). It's pure, upbeat indie, and I could see these folks touring with fellow Canucks and labelmates Tokyo Police Club. Says Kulbel, their debut full-length, Some Are Lakes, comes out on Saddle Creek October 7. The album was recorded in Montreal with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). The band spent the better part of 2006 and early 2007 on the road, touring throughout North America and Europe with such acts as The Decemberists , Tapes n’ Tapes and The Rosebuds. I'll see what more I can find out about why/how Creek signed them when I get off this mountain…

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Interesting fact about David Matysiak: He works as a producer at KETV Channel 7, which requires that he get up at 3 a.m. every morning. It just so happens that I watch Channel 7 for about five minutes every morning when I'm fetching my coffee -- if only to see what Doppler Storm Team Member Andrea Bredow is wearing. It amazes me that Matysiak is able to pull off Telephono, Coyote Bones and maintain a serious, career-style full-time job with demanding hours. You'll never hear me complain about getting up at 5 a.m. again…

Column 182: One Ringy Dingy
David Matysiak goes from Bones to phones.

I know that The Reader just ran a story last week on David Matysiak's Telephono project (in the Arts section), but I still didn’t quite understand how the whole thing worked.

Matysiak, the frontman for local indie band Coyote Bones, created Telephono as part of his residency at The Bemis. It's described as being based on the ol' telephone game, where one person whispers a secret into another person's ear, who in turn, tells another person, and so on. What comes out the other end is totally different than what went in.

Telephono worked off that same principle. Matysiak created an audio track, then sent it off to someone who could either add to it, edit it, or record over it entirely. For me, that's where the confusion came in.

To archive the effort, Matysiak is releasing a limited-edition (of 200) 5-record box set of 10 Telephono tracks on 7-inch vinyl. One track, "Ferret Escapes the Wheel," is credited on the test pressing to Darin Coelho of Placerville California band Loomfixer. But in fact, musicians in the song chain included Matysiak, Alessi Laurent-Marke and Adrienne Beatty of band Coal Beautiere. So why just Coelho in the record's credits? Because, Matysiak said, Coelho scrapped everything that came before him and did his own thing. If you go online to telephono.org, you can hear the Alessi version, titled "Little Ferret's Fork" as well as everyone else's. (Matysiak wrote me after the interview to say that the final version of the record will, in fact, credit everyone even though you won't hear much of Alessi and Beatty).

Losing a musician's contribution along the way is part of how Telephono works -- collaborative art can be a brutal game. But even if the tracks are wiped, just having heard the previous version influenced the final product. At least that's how it's supposed to work.

The best results came when musicians truly built on each other's contributions. The track "No Souls," for example, started with Matysiak and includes contributions by Dayve Hawk of Philadelphia band Hail Social and Cursive's Tim Kasher. The final version is a trippy rock song with Kasher singing breathlessly into a distorted microphone. "Banning Gold in Suits" is Matysiak, The Faint's Clark Baechle, UUVVWWZ's Teal Gardner and Anderson Reinkordt of Lincoln band Man's Last Great Invention. The record sounds like an urban industrial dance track that evolves into static-noise space sounds.

For every melody-friendly song on Telephono, there's a weird noise-art experiment. And as interesting as the vinyl sounds, it's even more interesting to go to telephono.org and hear how each track evolved, paying close attention to every nuisance along the way.

Telephono truly is a "labor of love." Matysiak not only coordinated the project, but it was his idea to put out the box set, which he paid for out of his own pocket. "I haven't been out to a show in months because I've put every dollar into it," he said. "It's expensive when you do all the hand-screened stuff and then print a limited run of seven inches. In 10 years, I won't remember that money, but I'll remember the box set."

He's celebrating the box's release Thursday night, July 17, at a free special listening party at The Bemis Underground (Studio C) starting at 8 p.m. Artist Jadon Ulrich (of Saddle Creek Records) will provide visual interpretations of each song. The box will be available for $29, and also can be purchased at The Antiquarium Record Store.

One by-product of Telephono, Matysiak said, was the way it changed how some collaborators approach song writing. "The people who benefited the most are the ones who told me that it broke them out of a writer's block or made them think differently about their own song writing," he said. That includes Matysiak, who said that he and the rest of his band had become "burned out" playing Coyote Bones songs from their album Gentleman on the Rocks.

"I feel disconnected from that album now," Matysiak said, adding that playing the album over and over "took a toll on us. And personally, I feel like if you're not 100 percent feeling it (on stage), you shouldn't be up there. Times are tough. People who are shelling out $8 to $10 to see a show expect it to be great. We had to take a step back and analyze what we were doing as a band."

New Coyote Bones material, which he hopes to record later this year and release early next year, is a reflection of Telephono, Matysiak said, though it builds on the success of Gentleman on the Rocks, which sold close to 500 copies -- not bad for a self-released CD with no distribution. "It was all touring and Internet," Matysiak said. It also was a lot of press. Few Omaha artists have received the amount of attention from publications like Pitchfork, indie music's online authority, as Coyote Bones, which has left a few local musicians burning with envy.

"I spent 10 years not getting press," Matysiak said. "I shoveled every dollar I had into (former band) Jet by Day and touring all the time and nothing happened for us. We worked with (record labels) Kindercore and Future Farmers and it all got f***ed up. People can say what they want, but press is a game. I guess the hang-up for a lot of people is in how you approach it: Do you seek it or do you let them come to you? I sat for 10 years waiting for it to come to me and it never did."

They're coming now. In the past few weeks, Telephono has been featured in USA Today, Paste, The Atlanta Journal Constitution and National Public Radio. And now twice in The Reader.

After all of that, I'm going to miss the Telephono listening show because, as you read this, I'm driving across Nebraska, headed to the Rocky Mountains for some R & R.

That means I'm also going to miss Black Diamond Heavies and Bazooka Shootout at O'Leaver's tonight ($5, 9:30 p.m.), as well as Talkin' Mountain and the rest of the I'm Drinkin' This Records roster performing at Slowdown Jr. ($5, 9 p.m.).

It'll mean I'll miss the OEA Summer Showcase Friday night at music venues throughout Benson. Details and a schedule are at the OEA website. This was a lot of fun last winter and well worth the $10 wristband.

It also means I'll miss two great shows Saturday night: Ladyfinger and Fromanhole at The Barley St. Tavern ($4, 9 p.m.) and Back When, Art in Manila, Paria and Orphan Choir at Slowdown ($8, 9 p.m.).

And let's not forget Ween at the Stir Cove ($25, 8 p.m.), though I've never been a Ween fan.

There may be updates in my absence, though I highly doubt it.

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Here's a little more on Saddle Creek's recent signing of Sebastien Grainger, former drummer/singer of Death from Above 1979. Asked how it went down, Saddle Creek Records executive Jason Kulbel said, "His manager got in touch with us shortly before SXSW. As I recall we had a few rough tracks before going down, liked them and made sure to check out a set in Austin. We liked that, too, and just kept going from there. I think he likes what we do and we like his music. So yeah...kinda boring story but that's how it happened." Boring indeed, unlike the track I heard on the Creek site. Go there and take a listen.

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So one joins the Creek family while another says goodbye. One of the best-selling CD's for a label in the Saddle Creek family in 2006 was Jenny Lewis' solo debut, Rabbit Fur Coat, released on Conor Oberst's Team Love Records (and distro'd through Creek). By the end of '96, the disc had sold more than 97,000 copies. So what about the follow-up? Sorry Team Love. Lewis' press people announced today that the follow-up, titled Acid Tongue, will be release on Warner Bros in September. "Some of Lewis' most steadfast collaborators appear on Acid Tongue: Johnathan Rice, Farmer Dave Scher, Jason Boesel, Jason Lader and M Ward," sayeth the press release. "She also invited other notable musician friends into the fold, including Elvis Costello for a duet ('Carpetbaggers'), Chris Robinson (of The Black Crowes), Benji Hughes, Zooey Deschanel (of She & Him) & Vanessa Corbala (of Whispertown2000) on backing vocals, Paz Lenchantin (A Perfect Circle / The Entrance Band) and her sister Ana provided strings, Davey Faragher (of The Imposters) on bass, as well as Laurel Canyon's own Jonathan Wilson on guitar, and even members of Jenny's own family. Her sister Leslie Lewis provided backing vocals on two songs while her father, harmonica virtuoso Eddie Gordon makes a star turn on rumbling bass harp."

Looks like Conor has no hard feelings about Jenny fleeing Team Love. She'll be touring with Oberst for his solo shows beginning with the Sept. 20 Anchor Inn gig here in Omaha.

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Noise rock LA quartet Health plays tonight at The Waiting Room with The Show Is the Rainbow and Perry H. Matthews. $8, 9 p.m.

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Son Ambulance drew a respectable-sized crowd Friday night despite competing with a Conor Oberst/Good Life concert at The Barley St. It didn't matter that I was standing at the bar at Slowdown at 11 p.m. People still kept coming up, asking if I was going to the Barley St. to see that show. "Well no, I'm here," I'd say. "I mean, hasn't it already started?" It probably had, but that wasn't going to stop people from leaving halfway through to drive cross-town to see Kasher and Co. perform the day before he was going to perform again. I hadn't known that Oberst was going to play an opening set, but it wouldn't have mattered. The Barley St. is hot and packed on any typical weekend for bands that you and I have never heard of. I could only imagine what it would have been like Friday night, especially at 11 p.m. Though it hadn't officially sold out, there had to be a line, and if I'd gone I'd have ended up missing Son Ambulance and The Good Life (That said, I have used my size and demeanor to bully through lines at Sokol before -- stoned indie kids always move out of the way assuming that I'm either a Sokol employee or a cop or an angry parent looking for his daughter. That wouldn't work at The Barley St.).

I managed to catch only one song of Jennifer O'Connor's solo acoustic performance and was distracted the entire time trying to get a beer. O'Connor, who records on Matador, is a super-talented singer/songwriter, and Son Ambulance told me they felt lucky to be touring with her. Later, I found myself talking to her outside between sets, not realizing who she was until someone came up and congratulated her on her performance -- a very sweet, funny young lady.

Son Ambulance came on at around 11:15 and sounded great. The band's secret weapon is saxophonist James Cuato -- just an amazing horn player. Cuato, however, doesn't stop with the saxophone. He switched instruments throughout the set -- actually, throughout songs. There's Cuato starting off with a blazing tenor line, dropping the sax to pick up tiny bell mallets, picking up a flute before strapping on a guitar. On and on. He played at least a half-dozen different instruments, but his strength is his sax playing, which adds a whole new, earthy dimension to Son Ambulance.

Joe's voice never sounded better, but what stood out most during the set were the arrangements. I've been listening to their new CD heavily for the past few weeks, so when the band decided to stray from the record, it could be a bit jarring. Some of the shifts were due to necessity -- there was no other way to recreate the music that had painstakingly been created in the studio. But other times the changes were purely decisions by Joe and the band, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, and would probably go unnoticed by those who haven't been living with the CD. Their arrangement of album centerpiece "Yesterday Morning" (played as an encore) was the most noticeable in that Joe curiously changed the vocal lines in a few spots, leaving me wanting to hear them the way they sounded on the record. Chatting with the band afterward, it sounds like no two nights of this tour will be the same, as the band will constantly be trying different ideas. It should make for a fun tour. I'd like to hear them play again after it's over to see what comes out the other side.

Saturday was Feist in the park. I had planned on swinging down there at around 7:30, and then it dawned on me as I was watching news coverage on Channel 7 -- a live shot at around 6 showed a mostly empty field behind the reporter who said the music was about to start. "The openers include a local band called The Good Life." A local band called The Good Life? Of course, that made sense. The people organizing the concert had no idea that Kasher and his crew are one of the more respected indie bands on the circuit these days. To them, The Good Life was just another local band that probably played every weekend at one of the many clubs around town…which meant that they'd play first instead of right before Feist. I hadn't thought of that.

The band was well into their set by the time we got down there and found a spot along the ridge of the bowl. Here are my notes from the show, taken on my iPhone:

Crowd looks like around 3,500. The weather is perfect. The sound is great. The Good Life is playing "You Don't Feel Like Home to Me." The guy next to me has no idea who the band is, nor does he care.

Kasher is a speck from my position up on the hill under a tree. Probably 1,000 people are crushed in front of the stage. Kasher stands out in his green pants. Mr. Green Jeans. He's trying to get the crowd into Obama, admitting that he knows that Obama isn't going to take Nebraska this November, asking how great it would be if CNN could report incredulously how strong the democratic vote had been in Omaha, in the heart of a staunchly conservative state. I have a feeling Mr. Kasher is going to be disappointed.

Their set ends at 7 with "The first time that I met her I was throwing up in the ladies' room stall." The crowd is pleasantly appreciative, even though no one knows who they are. People around me clap aimlessly while they watch their kids play in the grass.

The "Argentinean sensation" doesn't go on for almost an hour. I enjoy some delicious $6 nachos. When she does finally come on, she's doing a solo acoustic world music thing that's somewhat boring and monotonous and is going on way too long. People are restless.

By 8:30 there's about 5,000 people half-filling the bowl. It's another long, tedious hour before Feist finally comes on in pitch darkness singing a cappella from behind a screen -- just her silhouette can be seen. Is she nude, wearing only a hat? We should be so lucky.

The guy next to me who never heard of The Good Life comments: "She sounds just like the Argentinean chick."

She gets to "Mushaboom" third in the set. We have a bet going as to when she'll do the Apple commercial. I say she'll wait until the encore. Others say sometime after the fifth song. One guy says it'll be late in the set.

We're already on the sixth song and I realize just how sleepy Feist's music can be. The guy who said "late in the set" knew what he was talking about. Once she sings that song, there will be an audible roar of lawn chairs folding up throughout the bowl. It's already almost 10 p.m. and the lightning bugs and skeeters and annoying multicolor light sticks are out in force.

Feist's voice, while good, doesn't really stand out to me. There are times when she sounds like Ricki Lee Jones, and other times when she reminds me of Karen Carpenter (but no one sounds like Karen Carpenter really, no one ever could). Her knack is for writing kicky little anonymous pop songs, cute and inoffensive.

The crowd is respectful. Clearly those around me have never heard of Feist but the weather's so nice, why not spend the night in the park? I can't help but imagine what this scene would be like if instead of Feist, the concert would have been someone like The Pretenders (circa 1984). While Feist is a huge improvement over Plain White T's, I have to wonder just how well she'd do if she played at Sokol Auditorium. Hell, she might have a hard time even selling out Slowdown for that matter. The city needs to find a common ground between shitty oldster bands like .38 Special and bands that also appeal to a younger crowd. Seriously, who doesn’t love The Pretenders?

The prettiest song so far is the one sang only with a guitar. After 10 songs I lost count of where we are in the set. Strange. as the night gets darker, the field seems to get brighter, thanks to a glowing 3/4 moon. There's not an ounce of wind, but it's still getting cold.

She's finally singing it at 10:08. Time to go…

We folded up our lawn chairs and listened to Feist and her band as we walked back home down J.E. George Blvd. The plan had been for the concert to end by 10:30 so that the rangers could get people out of there by 11 (when the park officially closes). But I could still hear the concert going strong standing in my back yard watching the dog pee at 10:45. According to the OWH, the show didn't wrap up until almost 11. "Fahey spokesman Joe Gudenrath estimated attendance at 20,000," the article said. "He said it was the largest crowd to attend the city-organized concert since 2004, when the band 311 drew an estimated 25,000 to 30,000."

Joe apparently forgot how big that 311 show really was -- not only was the bowl filled, but so was the field on the south side of the bowl. Feist, on the other hand, didn't come close to filling the bowl. You could walk within a hundred feet of the stage. Others I asked agreed that the crowd probably stood at around 5,000.

As a testimonial to how good our seats were -- that couple in the central photo on the cover of the Midlands section of Sunday's OWH -- seen in silhouette seated in the lawn chairs -- is Teresa and me. It may be the only time you'll see a my photo in print -- even from behind I'm recognizable by my gigantic, melon-sized head.

* * *

It has been ages since I've seen Latitude Longitude. They're playing tonight, opening for Film School at Slowdown Jr. $8, 9 p.m.

--Got comments? Post 'em here.--

Just posted, an interview with Son Ambulance's Joe Knapp and Jeff Koster in anticipation of SA's CD release show tomorrow night at Slowdown Jr. (and Saturday night at Lincoln's Box Awesome). Joe and Jeff talk about what happened to SA after the release of Key in late 2004 and how the band slowly regenerated itself to its current glory. Check it out. The marathon interview focused almost entirely on the making of Someone Else's Déjà Vu, which very likely will make my year-end list of favorite albums of '08. Sitting in on the discussion were two new members of SA, bassist Dereck Higgins and multi-instrumentalist James Cuato. I've been a fan of Son Ambulance stretching back to the first time I saw Joe perform (along with Landon Hedges and Matt Whipkey) at McFoster's back in 2000. Here's hoping that this new one gets the attention it deserves.

Last week I posted the Pitchfork review of Déjà Vu (here). Now the good news. All Music posted its review, and gave the disc four out of five stars, declaring it an "AMG Album Pick" (read the review here). Popmatter just gave the CD an 8-out-of-10 rating, here. Crawdaddy also gave it a positive nod, here.

* * *

O'Leaver's is unveiling its new fancy/schmancy beer garden tonight -- a good thing. The new no-smoking policy impacted O'Leaver's more than any other club I've visited since the ban began. It's not affecting their business -- it's affecting their... smell. O'Leaver's needed that smoke to mask the bar's unique, um, aroma. Now with the new beer garden, you can step outside and get some fresh air all over again. I'm told there could be a new routing situation in terms of how you enter the bar -- i.e., the old entrance is now the beer garden entrance, so that entrance by the pool room will be the new front entrance. Don't know if they implemented that yet or not. Guess we'll find out at tonight's show, featuring Dance Me Pregnant, Minneapolis' Vampire Hands and Daughters of the Sun. $5, 9 p.m.

Also tonight (next Thursday, oops.), David Matysiak's Telephono Project (described here) is celebrating the release of its 5-record set at the Bemis Underground at 8 p.m. Local artist and Saddle Creek Records designer Jadon Ulrich will be doing live visual interpretations as the records are playing in sequence.

Meanwhile, tonight at Slowdown Jr., Jake Bellows and McCarthy Trenching are opening for touring band I Was Totally Destroying It. $5, 9 p.m.

--Got comments? Post 'em here.--

I've had a subscription to Magnet for a long time. Over the years, I've also subscribed to Option, Rolling Stone, SPIN, Volume, CMJ, Alternative Press, The Big Takeover, Raygun and a few others that slip my mind at the moment. The only two I still get at home are RS and Magnet. Like the sampler, Magnet also is beginning to outlive its usefulness, thanks to the Internet. But I'll keep my subscription as long as they keep printing it…

Column 181: Audio Polarity
Remembering the glory days of the Magnet sampler.

It's been a slow week with little to report so humor me for a few moments as I rasp romantically on the past and point out yet another way that discovering new music has changed forever, thanks to the Internet.

The journey up to the family farm in Fort Calhoun is 20 minutes of over-hill-and-dell driving. For the trip this past Independence Day, I brought along a CD that arrived in the mail the prior day with the latest copy of Magnet magazine.

Magnet, for those of you who aren't obsessed with college music, used to be the bible of indie rock, the arbiter of all things good in the indie music world, a saddle-stitched signpost that revealed the latest and greatest music that you'd never get a chance to hear on your radio if you lived in a backwards town like Omaha, where the only thing on the FM dial is Freedom Rock and screamo goon metal.

Magnet was the Pitchfork of the late '90s. Getting into the pages of Magnet was like getting into Rolling Stone. Actually, if you were in an indie band, it was even better, because people who read Rolling Stone could give two shits about indie music. Magnet readers, however, were the laser-targeted demographic of every indie band. A good review in Magnet meant CD sales. A feature in Magnet meant you probably were already a well-established band that had toured the U.S. a couple times. Making the cover of Magnet put you on the same league as Elliott Smith, Guided by Voices and PJ Harvey -- the next step was either signing to a major label or breaking up (or going solo).

Like the College Music Journal and the pre-metal version of Alternative Press, Magnet began to mail free sampler CDs to its subscribers, adding real-life Technicolor to their reading material. Look, you can describe music all you want, but no written word can capture the actual audio experience. And back in the '90s, getting a free CD was big deal, a substantial bonus. My how things have changed.

The first Magnet sampler was issued sometime around 1996 or '97. I'm not sure of the exact date because there's no date on the generic cardboard CD sleeve which I hold in my hand. Glancing at the band list is a head-jerk trip back through time. Vol. 1 included Knapsack, Cranes, Ex-Action Figures, Danielson Family, Dots Will Echo and Number One Cup. Things got even better with Vol. 2, which came out a month or so later: Walt Mink, Beth Orton, Novocaine and a little-known Omaha band by the name of Commander Venus -- the track, "Jeans TV," also was the opener for their one and only full-length, Uneventful Vacation, released not on Saddle Creek Records, but on Thick Records. Inclusion of the track on the Magnet sampler was probably the band's biggest exposure to that point.

It was through Magnet sampler CDs that I discovered artists like The Wrens ("Pretty OK" from Vol. 4), Caustic Resin ("Once and Only" from Vol. 5), Eels ("Last Stop: This Town" from Vol. 5), Cobra Verde ("One Step Away from Myself" from Vol. 8) and Pinback ("Tripoli" from Vol. 10). Where else were you going to hear bands like Radar Bros. ("Open Ocean Sailing" from Vol. 9) and Enon ("Believo!" from Vol. 10)?

Sure, there were plenty of duds on each volume. But it wasn't as if the editors of Magnet were painstakingly selecting the tracks themselves. Labels paid to have their bands included on the sampler, and it wasn't cheap. But it was an effective way to get your band heard before they climbed into the van and hit the road. So for every Tom Waits ("Chocolate Jesus") and Friends of Dean Martinez ("Ethchlorvynol") there were duds by Marky Ramone and the Intruders, The Fly Seville and Garmarna. It didn't matter. You made a note of the best songs, and then checked to see if The Antiquarium or Drastic Plastic had a copy of the full length. In my case, I used my computer to send something called an "e-mail" to the label, and lo and behold, they usually sent back a promo copy. Being a music critic had its privileges.

I know what you're thinking -- the Internet was very much alive in 1998 (in fact, '98 was the year that I launched Lazy-i.com). But bands and labels had yet to fully embrace the technology. There was no such thing as MySpace. Today, there's too much MySpace. Free music doesn’t mean anything to anyone anymore, and bands and labels certainly don't need to look toward old-fangled technology like a compilation CD to get their music heard. Or do they?

As we drove through Washington County last Friday, we listened to Magnet New Music Sampler Vol. 49, with Teresa giving thumbs up or thumbs down as we skipped through forgetful tracks by Victorian Halls, The Fervor, Rachael Sage, Hopeless, Mr. Gnome and 15 other bands I'll never hear again. Teresa's thumb stayed firmly pointed in the downward direction.

Except for track No. 10, a quiet, clever folk song by a band with the unfortunate name of The Boy Bathing called "The Questions Simple." We went back and listened to the song again. It was pretty good. The next day I went online to find out more about the band and listened to a few songs on their MySpace page. And I thought to myself, how else would I ever have found these guys? Not by aimlessly clicking through millions of MySpace pages. Certainly, not on my radio. In an era when free music has become the norm, the sampler CD -- as a medium -- still has a few years left in it. Let's hope the same can be said for publications like Magnet.

You may or may not have heard that The Good Life is opening for Feist at this Saturday's concert in Memorial Park, which I predict will have a higher attendance than normal due to the storm that wiped out the .38 Special/Kool and the Gang concert a couple weeks ago. People who would have never gone to this will just to get their fix of free outdoor entertainment. The Good Life also will be playing a warm-up show at The Barley St. Tavern the evening before the park show. Barley St. has a capacity of, what, around 75? Expect this $5 show to sell out quick. You can get your tix here, for now. Unfortunately, it's the same night as the Son Ambulance CD release show at Slowdown Jr. More on that show tomorrow…

--Got comments? Post 'em here.--

My only comment about last weekend: The Song Remains the Same needs to lose the Beatles/Aerosmith interlude in "Communication Breakdown." Go ahead and keep "War Pigs" though. There seemed to be mild concern among TWR staff when it became obvious that the band wasn't going to get through their last-song medley before 1 a.m. The new sound guy ran up and told Weber-Page that they had to stop. They somehow managed to get through it all without Jim pulling the plug…

Glancing at the coming week. There's an early in-store show tonight at The Antiquarium Record Store featuring cosmic S.F. headtrip rockers Sic Alps (Siltbreeze), Iowa City experimental noise band Wet Hair, Omaha screech-punkers Yuppies and Mr. Wizard. Show starts at 7 and you're asked to drop some cash into the hat for the touring acts.

Wednesday The Waiting Room has This World Fair, a Minneapolis indie band that's clearly targeting a major-label alt rock career. Their claim to fame is a song on the Disturbia soundtrack. Opening is Barcelona. No, not the Arlington, Virginia, New Wave band who recorded such classics as "The Downside of Computer Camp," "I Have the Password to Your Shell Account," and "Studio Hair Gel." That band broke up in 2001. This Barcelona is from Seattle and sounds like another run-of-the-mill alt rock band. Too bad. Comedian Todd Barry is at Slowdown Wednesday, and while I don't go to stand-up gigs, I applaud Slowdown for trying it out. Are rock clubs the comedy shops of this generation?

Thursday is coming together shaping up nicely...

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I don't know nuthin' 'bout booking no nightclubs, but I always think it's odd that there rarely are any shows booked on the night of holidays that are followed by day's off. Tonight is a typical example. It's a Friday night, most of us have had the day off and have tomorrow off, too. Sure, we'll be bushed from lighting off all those fireworks and drinking all that beer, but that wouldn't stop us from seeing a show at one of our favorite nightspots (after we've made sure no stray skyrockets have landed on the roof and caught the house on fire). And yet, tonight there are no shows going on anywhere. Why isn't Ladyfinger -- a band named after a firecracker -- at least playing a gig at O'Leaver's? Instead, nothing.

Well, I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow night, when Satchel Grande and The Song Remains the Same light up The Waiting Room (9 p.m., $7) or The Whipkey Three and Brad Hoshaw play at Mick's ($5, 9 p.m.).

--Got comments? Post 'em here.--

Catching up with the Internet:

Billboard reports (here) that Conor Oberst will be recording a collaborative album with Jim James and M. Ward sometime in the near future. Wonder who's going to put it out?

* * *

Pitchfork weighed in on the new Son, Ambulance album. You guessed it -- they didn't like it. Rating: 5.4 -- consistent with just about every other Saddle Creek release Pitchfork has reviewed over the past few years. Oh well. Read it here, and go ahead and skip the review's obtuse, poorly written first paragraph.

* * *

Newsweek has a great interview with Billy Corgan about the nature of rock stars and the lack of them these days. I was never a big Smashing Pumpkins fan. Corgan's voice is what Carol Channing would sound like if she were a man -- shrill and annoying. But you can't deny some of his more catchy stuff ("1979" "Drown," "Tonight, Tonight" come to mind). Or the fact that Corgan is one smart sumbitch.

Excerpts:

On the next icon: "What we're going to see now is a different archetype rise up. It's not going to be the Elvis archetype; it's going to be something we can't even imagine. It's going to be someone, maybe, who's more spiritual, somebody who doesn't want anything to do with corporate industry. Somebody who's an Internet star. Some kid who makes tapes in his bedroom and says, 'F---the world. This is my version of it.' And then people will latch on. All the music factories in the world can't manufacture that kid."

On culture: "When everything is everybody's, then nobody owns anything. This culture, I don't think, values the song. It doesn't value the icon. It values the moment and whoever feeds that moment. But we lose that it's human beings creating the moment. And when the culture thinks that it's the puppet master, then, of course, why wouldn't you have 'American Idol?'"

Read the whole thing here.

* * *

Speaking of icons, tonight at Slowdown, '90s icon Black Francis a.k.a. Frank Black plays the big stage. Opener is Omaha icon Brad Hoshaw. 9 p.m. $15. Also, at The Waiting Room, it's the return of Stillwater, Okla., band Colourmusic (you remember, they opened for British Sea Power back in March). Opening is Oui Bandits. $7, 9 p.m.

--Got comments? Post 'em here.--

You can read the SPIN feature here (see page 118).

Column 180: Omaha Spin
Another national looks at our scene.

It's been a while since I've been able to say this, but the Omaha music scene has made it into the pages of a national magazine (again). This time it's the July issue of SPIN, in the form of the rag's monthly "Rock City" feature.

Rock City highlights a different town's music scene every issue by compiling its Local Heroes, Bars and Clubs, History and Bands in a two-page spread tucked away in the back. The Omaha version of Rock City, written and reported by former Reader editor Tessa (We miss you) Jeffers broke it down this way:

In the Local Heroes section, Simon Joyner (troubadour/genius), Marc Leibowitz & Jim Johnson (1% Productions), Robb Nansel and Mike Mogis (Saddle Creek/ARC Studios), Lallaya and Trey Lalley (The Brothers, Capitol Bar & Grill) and true godfather of the Omaha music scene, Dave Sink, were the subjects.

Under Bars and Clubs, the once-active now-fading Sokol properties got the money shot, followed by The Waiting Room, Slowdown, O'Leaver's and Barley Street Tavern. In the History category, Tessa wrote about the late, great Cog Factory, the Wal-Mart-ed Ranch Bowl and Omaha's historic jazz scene, while the featured bands included Tilly and the Wall, The Show Is the Rainbow, Outlaw Con Bandana, Sarah Benck and The Robbers and Ladyfinger (NE).

It's a terrific article -- a serious, accurate summation of Omaha music's highlights and little-known gems. But what really made this feature stand out among the dozens of "gee whiz, ain't Omaha cool" articles that have appeared in pubs like The New York Times, Filter and Time is how it mentions people, places and things that reside outside of the usual Saddle Creek scene-o-sphere (despite the fact that the article's "tour guides" were Tilly and the Wall's Neely Jenkins and Jamie Pressnall, who, though not on Saddle Creek, fall into the Creek classification by default since they're on Conor Oberst's Team Love label).

Now here's a back story behind the article. SPIN editor David Marchese originally approached little ol' me to put this piece together. He apparently found me by stumbling upon my website, Lazy-i.com. E-mail was exchanged. Eventually I sent an outline, which either was never received or (more likely) was rejected, as weeks and weeks went by without a response. Eventually Tessa told me she got the gig, which was a good thing since she did a much better job than I ever could.

So what did I propose to SPIN? Under the Local Heroes category, which Marchese said should focus on "non-musicians who are integral to the city's music scene" I suggested Sink and the guys from 1 Percent and Creek, but also included Homer's Records President Mike Fratt and 89.7 The River's Sophia John.

Marchese said featured bands shouldn't be well known outside Omaha. "Bright Eyes is a no-no. If possible, a mix of different styles is good here… shouldn't be five earnest indie rockers." I figured Tilly also was a no-no -- they've been on Letterman, after all. My list:

-- Eagle*Seagull. "Actually, it's a Lincoln band, which would disqualify them if we're only considering Omaha. They play here all the time, however."
-- The Terminals -- "A garage-punk band, their last album came out on Dead Beat Records."
-- Capgun Coup -- "Recently signed with Oberst's Team Love label. Touring all over the country. Has 'next big thing' status."
-- Brad Hoshaw -- "Under-the-radar acoustic singer/songwriter."
-- The Monroes -- "A self-described 'tractor punk' band."
-- Honeybee -- "A female-fronted indie five-piece, on upstart Slumber Party Records (distro by Saddle Creek)."
-- The Whipkey Three -- "A twangy Americana band."

Sarah Benck and the Robbers and The Show Is the Rainbow were the only two Tessa and I had in common.

History, Marchese said, should include "some interesting pieces of local music lore." As an example, he cited Rock City Toronto, where the writer talked about the El Mocambo rock club where the Stones played a secret show recorded for a live album. Like Tessa, I suggested The Cog Factory (how could you not?), but also included The Farnam House.

"This small apartment building was home of Omaha's mid-'80s era punk scene, and hosted shows by Millions of Dead Cops, The Adolescents and a variety of Omaha punk bands," I explained. "In the late-'90s, the house became Gunboat/The Jerk Store and was the home to Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), Clark Baechle (The Faint) and a handful of other Creek bands, who hosted regular house shows. Today, the house is known as Hotel Frank and is the indie scene's central house-show venue for traveling and local bands, including Capgun Coup and Flowers Forever. Gentrification could force it to stop hosting shows in the very near future."

Some young millionaire needs to buy the Farnam House and declare it a local landmark and safe haven for up-and-coming musicians. Conor, are you listening?

I also suggested The Lifticket Lounge, saying it "was a central Omaha club that hosted, among others, Nirvana (circa Bleach), Soundgarden and a ton of other national grunge and punk acts. It closed later in the '90s and became a biker bar. It reopened last year as The Waiting Room, a primary music venue."

Finally, for Bars and Clubs, Marchese asked for "places you might catch some of the bands you mentioned."

Along with Slowdown, TWR, O'Leaver's and Sokol, I added The Brothers ("Not a live music venue, but the center point for everyone involved in the local music scene") and Mick's ("Acoustic / folk venue, also located in Benson").

Tessa and I could have suggested a dozen more in every category. But the problem with these "list" stories is that, inevitably, something or someone misses the cut. Ironically, this time the bands that got left out are the ones our scene is known for. Something tells me, considering all the press they've received over the years, that they won't mind.

--Got comments? Post 'em here.--

Some random notes…

Tonight at The Waiting Room it's Maria Taylor with Johnathan Rice and Nik Freitas -- one of the best line-ups I've seen in a while. And for just $9. I'm surprised it hasn't sold out (yet). Starts at 9 p.m.

The Omaha Arts and Entertainment Awards -- or the OEA's -- have announced the bands for their July 18 showcase. Judging by the list, they've either moved away from indie music or indie bands decided not to register for the showcase. Midwest Dilemma and Sleep Said the Monster are the only two indie acts I recognize on the list. Take a look.

Finally, The Boston Phoenix has published its inaugural 50 bands/50 states list, where they select each state's all-time best band, best solo artist and best new band. For Nebraska, Bright Eyes was named all-time best band, Elliott Smith (yes, he was born in Nebraska) was named best solo artist and Tilly and the Wall took best new band honors. The first question that came to mind upon seeing this: Who cares who The Boston Phoenix thinks is the best band in Nebraska? I guess it's time for The Reader to come out with its list of the best all-time bands in 50 states, too. Anyway, see the entire state-by-state list here.

--Got comments? Post 'em here.--