You strike true, sir. Only a barbarian would call me a “douchebag,” because the more even-tempered among us will note that I’m really only a bit of a douchebag. And you are only a bit of an idiot.

But, for your sake, I will attempt to expand me [sic] knowledge of music. Why don’t you send us yours?

Places We Slept: one minute and nine seconds inside the void

“Sorry Wrong Number (He Blew It)” is a romantic comedy that follows the unlikely friendship between a crust punk and his two rednecks, Wayne and Garth.

After presumably being denied by the girl of his dreams, Places We Slept slays a party whilst being showered in confetti. This is the classic story of “man loses girl; man parties with his dudes and realizes there are more important things, like rolling tires down a hill.” Clocking in at just over a minute, this video manages to say “listen to me” and “but I don’t care if you don’t” at the same time:

Grungy clothes and pop music? The naïve listener might expect to find this band playing a Hot Topic in-store. Don’t be fooled—these kids don’t like whiny music, they just play it.

Type B: the apology is anticipated

Job market got you down? Type B, a white Creighton-core rapper, is currently interviewing for a new spokesman. It appears that he pays exclusively in 80-proof grain alcohol. His widely acclaimed arthouse film, “Apology,” eschews club-scene logic and rave night booty-shaking for a more intimately confessional vibe. Try not to cry:

If you didn’t watch the video, here is a re-cap: Type B spits hot fire while shaking his hips on a gravel road. These shots are cut with a mysterious blue chair sitting alone in a field of grass (what is that chair doin’, we wonder). There is also a part where Type B stares sadly, longingly, at what appears to be a bunch of photographs taped together and glued to a wall. We assume that these are probably photos of an ex-girlfriend.

Spoiler alert: by the video’s end, Type B sits in the mysterious blue chair (thus immersing his corporeal body within a veritable signifying network; the chair is wood-worked humanity vis-a-vis Stevens’ “Ode to a Jar;” the chair is not sitting, but is an empty space waiting to be filled, as we all wait to be filled [female] or to become meaningful [male]; the “sitting act” supervenes femininity upon masculinity in the inhabitable womb-space of the chair, thus allowing Type B to re-enact the moment of his own conception [becoming his father and banging his mother]; yet his cathexes quiesce only after insisting that—just as his self-birth is a false re-birth, reconstituted as a misprision’ed wholeness via camera apparatus—his apology is a false apology: born into language but, like language, insistent upon its own self-negating subconscious. Is the pen a metaphor for the penis? Well, boy howdy!).

We also discover that the pastiche’d photographs were not of a girlfriend, but instead were a bunch of half-naked dudes presumably clipped from 3-5 years’ worth of Cosmo magazines.

If you thought Type B would apologize for being himself, well, now you know.

Icky Blossoms: a gang of sexual carpetbaggers

I think we can all agree that Derek Pressnal is a better puppeteer than singer, and at this moment his puppeteering fist is about elbow-deep inside singer Sarah Bohling. Hey, he’s made some pretty catchy tunes issue from her mouth:

Icky Blossoms are what Madonna wanted to be, Beyonce should have been, and Lady Gaga may yet become: “gay.” We, the listeners, may not be homosexual (or we might be), and I can’t speak for Derek + Sarah & Company, but their liquid gender identifications and 60’s-era sexual liberatory championing is good for a strictly vicarious experience. If I’m a woman but I don’t fuck women, all I have to do is listen to Sarah Bohling hail her attraction at the entire female populace and think, “I danced to ‘Babes,’ so I’m pretty much a part of the club.”

Is this “I-can-find-another-woman-attractive-without-being-a-lesbian-but-hey-if-I-am-a-lesbian-that’s-cool-too” attitude an instance of empowerment for the LGBT community? Or is it some new-wave sexual gentrification? I guess I don’t know. The video, at least, is more embarrassment than empowerment; sure, it flips the binary, but you can’t idly chant, “Girls girls girls, women, women, Girls girls girls, women, women,” without sounding like a clitoral punching bag (I know, I know—it’s not the lyrics, but the dancey-ness. For example, “Perfect Vision” is extremely catchy. But they milked it for 7 minutes, and now the ballad-cow’s teats have grown raw. It’s all cultural manipulation par excellence. These songs are probably better if you’re high in the afternoon, and right now I’m drunk in the evening. Wrong time, wrong place. Cool, cool, cool).

Conduits are part of what Tim McMahan called the “next wave,” the new darlings of Omaha music. Which sucks, because I hate darlings.

Specifically, Hearnebraska’s Samuel Segrist wrote a review for Conduits’ album, Conduits. This review was published about two months ago, but I live (furiously) in the past, so let’s talk about the first paragraph of that review:

A young artist once asked his father who was also a painter for advice on how to advance his craft. The father pondered the question for a while before responding, “Paint the same tree a thousand times.” True artistry, the father implied, comes from attempting to capture the same subject as many ways as possible.

I applaud Mr. Segrist’s method for introducing the album by invoking a second sense—sometimes, in order to shrink the gap of abstract incomprehensibility, art is described by its flavors (“spicy” or “saccharine”), or fashion is described by its sounds (“He is wearing a very loud shirt”), or tonight’s chocolate/syrup dessert is described by its sexual potency (“Orgasm in my mouth”).

So, this is good. Good, Mr. Segrist. Excellent.

But, somehow, Mr. Seacrest’s strictly musical descriptions fall short. He goes on to envision a soundscape of “tremulous reverb-drenched guitars,” “tribal beats,” “pulsing basslines,” “ambient keyboard drones,” and “haunting vocals.”

If that description didn’t make you yawn, then I know a music video you might like. Generic, un-meaningful. What a bummer of a wordsmith.

But if you look closely, you’ll see what Mr. Seacrest has done here. It’s the same joke that Team Love Records (who pressed Conduits) and Cursive (who took them on tour) played on the entire world.

That joke? They didn’t actually listen to Conduits. Nobody did. Ever. No one has ever listened to this album. I am writing this review two months after its release, and still no one has listened. They have tried, but halfway through the 8-minute snooze track, “The Wonder,” they started to do some “wondering” of their own—how will Tim McMahan spin this into a “warm” “drony” love story? do I have to present that COMM 101 speech this Thursday or next Thursday? did I turn off the oven? should I turn off the oven? would anyone miss me?

Yet, even if we can’t listen, we can still learn. We’re going to have to follow Mr. Seacrest’s route to find other ways to categorize this music. I have taken it upon myself to more fully communicate his sensory/extra-sensory itinerary. Some people might not think I am qualified for such a round-up, especially since I have never listened to an entire Conduits song all the way through (I did, however, see their live set—by its end I had aged noticeably). This following is, of course, only my opinion, but it is aided by the fact that my opinion is right:

What does Conduits look like? The same tree, over and over again. It’s like walking through an enchanted forest, in a very small circle. It takes a writer of Mr. Seacrest’s rare talent to call a band “boring” like it’s a good thing.

What does Conduits taste like? Vodka.

What kind of vessel is Conduits? An hourglass-shaped bottle of vodka.

Where does Conduits come from? As a model of clarity, unequaled in character, Conduits is made from pristine American grain. Oh wait, I’m thinking of McCormick Vodka.

What movie is Conduits? Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, because it’s dark, spacey, and 40 minutes too long.

What other movie is Conduits? To be fair, if we’re judging a book by its cover, then it’s Avatar. To compromise, I “avatar”-ized Stanley Kubrick’s face and superimposed it here:

(you didn’t actually think that humans wrote this music, did you?)

Which professional sports team is Conduits? The Yankees, because they’re a bunch of old people from other teams who used to be good.

What gender is Conduits? There is no penis beneath that kilt.

What sexual position is Conduits? Abstinence (though Missionary was a close second—not because she’s a moral creature, but because she is the ne’er-touched wife of a swarthy ship’s captain, or a truck driver).

What book is Conduits? Let me answer this question with a question: Where’s Waldo?

What genre of music is Conduits? Bad.

What does Conduits sound like? Take one of your old Faint records and play it backwards, slowly (caution: if you play the same record forwards at 3x speed it sounds like the titanically negligible Icky Blossoms. You’ve been warned).

What? What’s that you say? “But I don’t own any Faint records!”

Neither do I. Don’t despair. Here is a Faint song that I reversed and slowed down, then combined with an a capella cover of Enya’s “May It Be.” Enjoy:

What type of candy is Conduits? A bittersweet, morose Littmus Lozenge.

What song is Conduits? “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” The whole thing, start to finish. Recorded at ARC Studios. Richly textured and, according to Team Love’s website, “an often continuous flow of music that transfixes the audience until the last drum beat, feedback loop, or final vocal collapse.” Take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall …

What superpower is Conduits? Time travel. Drummer Roger “L” Lewis somehow manages to play drums in reverse AND insist that we include his poetic middle initial in the pronunciation of his name—at the same time!

(Find this list unsatisfying? Read this article from The Reader that, despite a number of interviews, actually manages to say nothing interesting about the band.)

Serious retrospective: This album is as exciting as a heated staring contest. I recommend it to anyone who needs help meditating, or is fresh out of melatonin.

See, almost every song on Conduits connotes some kind of epic-ness. But they’re all slow and shoegaze-y. This combination is not as bad as it is ignorable. Each song is (intricately?) varied, but the changes are subtle, static—”Misery Train” shifts, but we cannot decide where, exactly, or how, precisely. Suddenly we are someplace new. This organic wholeness (i.e. this notion that each part of each song is somehow necessary and beautiful and artistic, and that every note plucked from the guitar gives meaning to all the other notes which subsequently pump their meaning back into the original note, in a big happy fucking circle) is nice, but ideologically horrifying. Conduits does not give its treasures to us, but demands that we give ourselves to it.

For example, some tracks (“Last Dirge,” “Top of the Hill,” “Limbs and Leaves”) have points of high (melo)drama that almost pay off—they are good, and they are tense, twisted, knotty, emotional (see what adjectives can do/not do for you?) moments, but they rely on a lot of painstaking work in the 3-6 minutes of each song surrounding said (melo)dramatic moments. At their best, these songs are excellent background music. At their worst (“The Wonder” and fucking “Blood”), they’re a waste of energy.

It’s like studying art. It’s Conduits for Conduits’ sake. Maybe you’ll get a rewarding feeling of accomplishment, or develop a deeper connection with the music. But who has that kind of time? Not me. If I want to solve a puzzle I’ll buy one from Target. And then I’ll misplace all the corner pieces after guzzling multiple six-packs of beer.

N.B. Conduits is lame but Jenna Morrison is a mega babe.

A local journalism student re-blogged my last post. Oh god, student journalists:

“Hey, I recognize your name. Don’t you write for the school paper? I loved your review of the new Kid Cudi album. You’re so right, it was ‘confusing.’”

Does that sound familiar? Probably not, because it has happened literally never.

So, some word-savvy Narcissus re-blogged my last post, calling it one of the “best critiques of local music written in a while.” He said that, or something like that, but I can’t be sure because he un-re-blogged it after Karen Deen questioned his journalistic integrity. What a hero.

But it wasn’t enough for him to put his greasy smut-prints all over my blog. He challenged me on my own turf by writing this whole fucking article for the Daily Nebraskan. I guess he didn’t expect anyone to actually read the article, but I read it, and I must admit, it was pretty good. It was written, in the English language, probably written somewhere on the UNL campus, probably hand-typed in between pats on the back that lasted just a little too long.

After experiencing a strange, bordering-on-sexual fascination, I decided to track down some of his other articles. What I discovered may not be appropriate for those readers who are still slaves to the Man. As it turns out, this guy is in a handful of ska/pop-punk bands, which makes him an authority on the local scene. His column is called “Musings From the Mosh Pit,” and before you read it, I suggest you check your yuppie pretension and lame, 9-to-5 job at the door. Slip on your old NOFX t-shirt and grab a warm washcloth (that barbed-wire tattoo isn’t going to press itself around your upper bicep), because things are about to get XhardXcoreX.

To kick off our magical misery tour of Moshpit Musings, I begin with this in-earnest assessment of Rihanna and Lady Gaga’s lyrical/thematic avoirdupois. For him, these divas are too darn repetitive! Over and over and over, never changing a thing. Gosh.

If this taste of local-scene sludge has you thirsting for more, then try this pensive consideration of Katy Perry, in which he urges her to “cheer the hell up. There is more to life than romantic partners. I am sure there is life after what’s-his-name hipster broke your heart.”

Yeah. Whatever, Katy.

But we can’t stop now. We’re just starting to own this pit, dude. So peruse this thoroughgoing recap of how Mac Miller’s high-energy performance saved his show at the Zoo Bar. If you don’t know who Mac Miller is, here is a photograph:

Chase these insights down with this followup column. He employs the sophisticated theoretical model established by his Mac Miller review to slam Katy Perry’s Letterman performance. Spoiler alert: some unexpected props are given to a Panic! at the Disco set that he caught at River Riot.

Want to know what’s weird, though? I am not stretching the content of these columns. If they sound vapid or ill-placed, it’s because they are. If he sounds like a naive supplicant to some mystical, pre-Enlightenment belief that society values “talent” and “truth,” it’s because he is. One of his pieces is titled, seriously, “Former Fall Out Boy lead singer exhibits musical genius.” He uses the word “genius”—a distinction typically reserved for geniuses—to describe this singing polar bear:

That’s why I am publicly calling for the end of this columnist’s tenure at the Daily Nebraskan. Ian Sacks (Editor-in-Chief) and Chance Solem-Pfeifer (Arts + Entertainment Editor), hear my plea. When Mr. Moshpit isn’t writing overwhelmingly negligible-at-best columns about what he saw on TV last night, he is abusing his ability to force himself down readers’ throats. Nobody notices because, besides his copy editor, I am the first person to have ever read these articles. So take it from me, an expert. This man is getting paid to take advantage of his position. Just read this article, which explains how his band gained fans all over the country by putting music on the internet. Or this article, about how some local fashionistas didn’t stick around to see his band. Or this article, about how nebraSKAns don’t appreciate his band.

Or this article, my personal favorite. It’s about how he dropped out of a prerequisite photography class, then had his “artistry and creativity stifled” when he wasn’t treated like a superhero. He becomes so frustrated he threatens to drop out of school altogether.

I have an idea. Since he ripped off my blog without attributing me, I’m going to adapt this column into a screenplay without consulting him.

Establishing shot: thunder, lightning, a dark and stormy night. A teary-eyed Mr. Moshpit is writing in his studio, candlewax dripping onto the paper:

“Dear Diary, I’ve had it. I’m dropping out. That will show them!”

He leaves the university, only three measly credits away from graduation. One day he accidentally chokes on some Cheeseburger Sliders at Applebee’s, sending him into a persistent vegetative state. After 3 weeks, his parents do the humane thing and pull the plug. They use the money they’ve saved on hospital bills to purchase breast implants for his mother, a divorce lawyer for his father. Nobody ever notices that he left the art program.

Roll credits. End of movie.

Of course, the cherry on the mopshit cake is his article about music critiques. Ian Sacks, you can go ahead and just mail me that royalty check, thanks. I have a P.O. Box located on the corner of “Suck my Butt” and “Poop Urethra.”

If anything, Mr. Mopshit owes an apology to Karen Deen. He was mature enough to thinly veil his potshot:

“If an artist becomes so riled up by my critique or thoughts on their music that they refuse to speak with my publication any more, it’s a mark of immaturity.”

Hold on, let me put some editor’s notes on that last one:

“If an artist [meaning Karen Deen] becomes so riled up by my critique [which would be weird, because there was no critique] or thoughts [equally weird, because he has no thoughts] on their music that they refuse to speak with my publication any more, it’s a [skid] mark of immaturity.”

Giving this kid a forum to grind his own, awkwardly-shaped axe is an excellent allotment of Daily Nebraskan funds. Ian, you know what to do. The vegetative state is now. Pull the plug.

But, alas, I have become carried away with Mr. Mopshit’s writing. I began this post with the intention of reviewing his bands. Unfortunately, things have taken a nasty turn toward the macabre, and I’m afraid that anything I say about his band(s) might be misconstrued as a hate crime.

Instead, here are some links. I don’t know if Mr. Mopshit is still associated with these bands, or if any of them are still active:

The Lucky Losers
The Heat Machine

More terrible articles that I only read a few words of:

Peer Pressure is so 2010: this “Jack and Coke, Hold the Jack” rock-and-roller values personal health and safety over partying.
Punk Rock Girls Deserve More Credit: claims that Henry Rollins was the best member of Black Flag. Admits to googling other members.
Band Breakups Hurt Like the End of a Family: Come on guys, let’s get the band back together.

In Lincoln there is a man. Nay, I call him a mere “man,” but truly he is more than that, for he produces the music of ten men. Some of you know him. Some of you have seen him naked. I cannot reveal that name, God-given to this man of whom I speak, so let’s just call him Karen Deen.

Karen is a visionary man of concepts. He’s the mastermind of several musical/multimedia projects, the most reputable of which involves him playing up-tempo, electronic videogame music while whipping flecks of froth from his cutthroat-red mop (which extends from his head down to his belly button and, I assume, even further). He displays images through a projector, and then he dances and sings until he is a dank sponge of sweat. Let’s call this act, “The Show is the Grainbelt.”

I really enjoy The Show is the Grainbelt, conceptually. Especially the performances.The recordings are what they are: masterfully assembled, uncanny, kind of annoying. But the live shows legitimately usher a punk rock attitude into the digital age. It is a changing of the guards, occurring seamlessly. It’s like if Elvis Costello was murdered on stage by Yasuko O, and then Yasuko finished his set for him, telling cool anecdotes between songs. Unfortunately this description sucks, so I drew a picture to help:

My picture is pretty good, but, really, you should just do yourself a favor and see it live, because I don’t want to talk about The Show is the Grainbelt. Instead I’d like to point out how Karen Deen’s model for local music actually militates against local musicianship. See, Karen is a figurehead. He has used his power to put forth some canonical theories about the music industry’s ailments. I point specifically toward his hotly debated article, “Pay the Cover.” Here are some of the article’s key points:

• Our increased access to free music reduces its value.
• If we don’t charge money at live shows, there’s an implication that the band isn’t worth anything.
• We have become an entitlement society that no longer feels the need to pay for art.
• Karen Deen’s great-great-great-grandfather was named Seamus O’Blackbeard.

Karen is coming at us from an excellent position. Almost every review of his music refers to him as an “incessant” tour-er, so we know he’s put in the work. He definitely deserves to give his two cents, unlike, for example, me. But I think this article touches on a major crux that I’ve been struggling with ever since I started giving serious thought to local music.

Karen has a good point—free music is ubiquitous, and its value is plummeting—but think about this: Karen is in sixbands (at least). And five of them are his own highly-cultivated brainchildren. Five. I’m not joking with you, the dude has five full-fledged shrines to his own creative majesty. He even had an exclusively Karen Deen Band Night at Duffy’s last year.

Karen’s career, then, neatly parallels with the plight of the music industry as a whole. I have provided two simple supply-and-demand curves to illustrate the crisis. Here is a curve for a normal band:

Here is the curve for Karen Deen:

A point that some people forget to consider is that the commodification of music turns upon not one, but two exchanges. There is the obvious exchange, that people want music and musicians want money. But, also, we hope, musicians want people to listen to their music. I think Karen would be sad if he sold six million of the most hated records of all time. Or worse, six million records that were never listened to at all. But, hey, at least he could afford the truckload of Zoloft he’d need to stave off the meaningless void.

Now, if every artist swallows arsenic and blows himself into 6 separate bands, then we will have an even larger army of musicians fighting for everyone else’s attention. The musician morphs from the seller into the buyer. Listeners become the commodity.

Does that mean that people shouldn’t pay to hear music? No. But in a world where we pray for listeners, we should be happy with what we can get. If I couldn’t sell my car, my first instinct would not be to raise the price and put my five other cars out on the market.

Also, Karen’s music doesn’t exactly target the widest demographics. I think anyone would enjoy seeing The Show is the Grainbelt, but people have witnessed entire “Teach People” performances without even realizing that the set ever started. You have to admire it, though. Good for Karen. Dare to push music to its limits. But please do not come under the impression that a sound is worth money in virtue of its existence:

“I made this, so people will surely buy it.”

Music—contrary to popular belief—is not a necessity. If you don’t believe me, ask Helen Keller. Actually, ask Seamus O’Blackbeard. He didn’t own an iPod, and if he did he would have sold it for potatoes. Most people have more music on their computer than they can listen to in a month, or even a year. Music, at least music within Karen Deen’s particular latitude, is devalued. That’s it. It already happened. It happens to lots of serious art forms (ask yourself, when was the last time you paid to see a local poetry reading?). Music has been devalued for decades, only we don’t notice because we continue to pay for it. Devalued doesn’t mean bad, it means the music doesn’t cost as much.

But I understand. It’s just Karen being Karen. He puts so much of himself into his music. Another Beethoven, he is. And Karen, with a handful of harmonious progeny running around the house, each of which needs its own, careful rearing, and himself being a single, stay-at-home father. I can’t begin to fathom how he found the time to put together this heroic, 2-paragraph annihilation of a virtually unheard of band. Attention: Karen Deen holds nothing sacred in this textual rape of a band that has “one of the best tracks heard to come out of Nebraska.” Gutted ‘em.

We can’t help but to be impressed. We can’t help it. We must turn over our money.

Addendum 2/19/2012: I’ve received a few e-mails (which surprised me) about this articles’ inconsistencies. Let me make myself clear: The Show is the Grainbelt is excellent, heart-throbbing, blah blah blah. I think Karen Deen does good things for local music. I simply disagree that, in a world where anyone can upload their piss-tinklings onto Bandcamp, people should expect to make money. I don’t want to see Nebraska musicians turn into used car salesmen. So, to clarify: no, I’m not saying his band sucks. And I can do that, despite the name of this blog.

Also, I took Karen’s record review as a personal challenge. I welcome challenges. I only wish he would have taken it a little more seriously.

Also, when I say “shoot the musician in the face,” I don’t mean Karen.

Now stop e-mailing me about this.

We did not show the previous posts to anyone. We were unsure about how to go public, or if we even should. So I, personally, was extremely surprised when I got off work Thursday night and discovered what came of it. I can only imagine how HearNebraska might have found this blog after one measly post. In all likelihood they will have destroyed us before we ever began.

The most surprising non-occurrence was that, after all of the squabbling about how to support local music—the feverish happiness and respectful conversation and fucking optimism—Elijah Jett’s fanpage did not grow by even a single fan. He was trampled beneath an army of his own supporters, as the individual became lost amid the grand debate. Of course, there are real vanguards out there, but most of us rush to the aid of Nebraska music the same way we recycle (sometimes) or buy local (on Saturdays). A bunch of pasty puritanical runts.

I was impressed when Michael Todd posted the review onto HearNebraska, but I drank more than a few god-damn-sour pitchers of Mortification when I found it on the “Reviews” section of his own website. Dude, don’t be so hard on yourself. Unless you think it’s funny, or something, which may be the case. Because otherwise I picture you reading the review over and over, dipping your hands in hot oil and screaming, “Bad Elijah Jett!” My goal is not to shoot down new musicians while they’re crawling out of the womb. So, then, I will try to write a positive review about a band that is a little more established. This band is called The Benningtons.

This group first came to my attention when I saw a video for their song, “The Lucky Man.” I have posted it here for your aural/visual pleasure:

The Lucky Man from Tony Bonacci on Vimeo.

This band has some of the cleanest recordings I have ever heard from an unsigned band that—as far as I can gather from their website—did not have their record professionally produced. The lead vocals are supported by some striking, rich, challenging, bounteous, vociferous, aleatory, medicinal, westward-facing, crestfallen vocal harmonies (listen to the girl in the background of “Leaving,” “No Problem,” and “Found That Place”).

Even more important is this band’s overwhelming “listenability.” Ever wonder what the Beatles would sound like if, when offered their first drag of marijuana, they had said, “No thanks, we’re too busy working on records for nursing home sockhops?” Ever wonder what it tastes like to eat an entire loaf of white bread?

Different folks have different methods for forming official opinions about bands. Sometimes I like to ask myself what I think the band is trying to do with their music, and then I determine whether they’ve met their goals. According to the internet, The Benningtons are trying to make “mellow pop gems.” I had to re-read this twice, because I wasn’t wearing my contacts and it may have said “mildew pope games” or “yellow poop germs.” But, no, it was mellow pop gems.

The Benningtons are mellow. They are poppy. Unfortunately I am not a jeweler, so I wasn’t sure whether or not they produce gems, but I’m taking it in good faith. This band is determined to be as varied and exciting as a pack of saltines, and I’d say this is what they have accomplished. They are, hands down, the best children’s band in Nebraska.

I stand behind my hyperbolic and sensationalistic assertions, so will I repeat once more, The Benningtons are the best children’s band in Nebraska. But don’t take my word for it. Let me give you some highlights from their album, Find Love:

“No Problem” -  This song is about an obsessively monogamous “person.” He promises his “partner” he will never cheat on “it,” demanding the same reassurance in exchange (forcefully). This song will teach your child America’s culturally inbred christo-system of one-partner-per-dude while remaining gender-neutral, ladies.

“The Lucky Man” - This complex, demanding song is essentially a 2.5-minute syllogism. He tells us that the lucky man is married. Then he pulls a complete 360 by saying, “I hope one day I’ll be lucky,” which tells (without quite telling us) that he is actually not married! Whoa! He says he will spend his days at “the coffee shops and down at the bookstore.” How can you begin to unpack a song like this? The idea I keep coming back to is that coffee and books are a good substitute for love. This one might be too complicated for kids, though.

“Omaha Boys” - I put a link to this one because you seriously do not want to miss it. Imagine a punk song about a rambunctious life-live’r who, frankly, doesn’t give a darn what you think about him. He simply will not be stopped. Then imagine if that punk song was covered by The Wiggles. But be wary—If your child starts wanting to live the way he do, he will cause it’s not up to you!

These are only three of the songs, but there are eleven total on the album. And if that isn’t enough, they have a self-released collection of demos. These demos are pretty much the original songs, but with less instruments, which offers a great change of pace once you get bored with the original tracks. It’s so fresh, like a whole new album without having to write any new songs (think the Transformer movies).

I’m going to cut this review short, simply because I took up so much space earlier while addressing the Elijah Jett situation. I would hate to seem too self-involved.

I am humble.

My words are not golden.

Hold on, I’m going to officially release the “demo” version of those last three sentences I wrote. Here is my original rough-draft, before I mixed and mastered it:

“I wouldn’t like it if I came across as self-absorbed. I mean, I’m humble enough. I understand that this review is abstract, unspecific; my words aren’t all golden.”

The Poverty of Local Criticism:

It has become our opinion that certain proponents of Nebraska’s local musical talent are not doing their own community any favors. There is too much positivity, and our current amalgamation of writerly, pat-you-on-the-back outlets have been encouraging our local talent to death. Our happy “artists” have soaked up too much critical sunshine, just before being over-watered with niceties.

Of course, we understand that in order to foster musical growth, we need to give bands encouragement. If our “artists” cannot always headline international tours, the least we can do is offer them an internationally competitive infrastructure for musical criticism, literature, photography, iconography, etc. And, we admit, there are a number of excellent regional projects, which are supported by an even larger number of excellent, hard-working individuals.

Yet there are far too many “artists” who think we should love their music simply because, well, somebody made it. Meanwhile our attention spans are shrinking. We do not have time to hear, memorize, internalize, and then worship every song lyric ever written. We do not accept that everyone who plays music is a musician or, even worse, a prophet. Maybe some of us are still mesmerized by the cult of Conor Oberst, and by its altars of musical neo-New Critical, part-in-(w)hole-in-part lyrico-spiritualism. If this cult exists, we were never members.

Nebraska has no critics, only advocates. For too long we have believed that killing off one member of the crew will sink the entire ship. But we have spent ages drifting at sea. The sailors have resorted to catching mice and eating sawdust. We are not all in this together. The time has come to throw a few of the do-nothings overboard.

If we are a community in anything, it is in dying. Our time is limited and valuable. We, then, will attempt to save you the mistake of listening to a few shitty bands, so you might live long enough to find better ones.