Outlaw Con Bandana Returns with Anthology | Q&A

A handful of Nebraska bands have come and gone in the time since Brendan Hagberg moved from Omaha to sail near Florida. The lauded songwriter behind Outlaw Con Bandana is back in town now, though, to play an anthology release show on Saturday at Sweatshop.

It was February 2012 when Alexander Martin — hungover in a hotel in the United Arab Emirates, during his four-year service for the Navy — was struck with the idea to produce a collection of Outlaw Con Bandana recordings and writings, which now take the form of Ticks and Trips. Including 27 songs that span eight back catalogue albums and an EP of previously unreleased material, the double LP is the first project produced by White Pariah, a micro publishing company started by Martin, his brother Harrison, Patrick Kinney and Brent Larue.

As a testament to what Outlaw means to a number of generous fans, the project was successfully funded on Kickstarter, raising $1,355, or $355 more than the project's goal of $1,000. To preview the Outlaw Con Bandana concert at Sweatshop, which starts at 5 p.m. with a BBQ and potluck, continues with music by Outlaw and Sam Martin at 9 p.m., and also features photography by The Martin Brothers, we have two interviews with Harrison and Alexander Martin respectively below.

HARRISON MARTIN

Hear Nebraska: Tell me what White Pariah is.

Harrison Martin: White Pariah is a corporation that my brother Alexander started back in 2010. Officially, there’s four partners: me, Alexander, Brent Larue and Patrick Kinney. We started it wanting to publish photo books and other books we had in mind. Then we decided we’d publish things in general regardless of medium. This is the first thing that came to us. Just going forward, it’s a small publishing company, and we’ll be publishing records, books, poems, just whatever comes next. We won’t discriminate. 

HN: When did you first hear Outlaw Con Bandana, and what has their music meant to you over the years?

HM: First time I saw Outlaw Con Bandana was at an art show called Art Without Christ in 2005. It was held in a space where a strip club called Tiger Lily used to be. I think it was probably awhile until I saw them after that, but Alexander has been friends with Brendan for a very long time. He exposed me to their music, and we both really love his music, so it was a no-brainer that we’d want to do something. One of the reasons we wanted to put this out is because it’s a compilation album of a lot of his work, but their last three albums were small pressings of 25 or 30 each, so not very many people have heard those songs. We wanted to put together a better presentation of some of those songs and let people hear them. Since we wanted to make the company as a way to print books and literature and photo books, we wanted to incorporate that into the record. So we have a large 14-page collection of writings, poetry and the song lyrics from Brendan. So we wanted to have an extra element to go with it. But yeah, Alex and Brendan have been friends for a long time, so that’s how we knew his music.

HN: Walk me through the past few years of Brendan’s musical career.

HM: The last show I know of that Brendan played was a show I booked at Barley Street with him and John Bellows, who’s a friend of ours from Chicago who plays. I think he hasn’t been playing mainly because he has a boat in Florida. He’s just been sailing. He hasn’t played shows because he’s been out of town. As far as touring, I don’t think he’s ever done an extended tour at all. It just never came to fruition. I think we’re trying to get him a small tour going, once the album’s out. He seems pretty prolific. Faeries and Rewards was 2009, and then he’s had three albums after that. I think he’s mentioned that he has additional material as well. I’m not really sure what he’s going to do going forward. We’re going to hope for the best from this record and move some copies. Me and Alex, we just really love Brendan’s music and we want to share it with people. We think it’s worthy of that.

HN: I know you're skilled with video. Have you considered a video element for this project?

HM: I haven’t talked to Brendan about video. We haven’t because none of the songs are new. It’d be hard to choose. I think Brendan, I don’t know how much he’s into music videos. I think he’s a nervous guy (laughs), so I don’t think he’d want to be in a video. I’ve thought about it before, but I don’t know.

HN: What's your take on the quote by Brendan posted on the Kickstarter page?

HM: Basically, I just said, “Hey Brendan, there’s a Kickstarter, you can write whatever you want.” That’s what he wrote, and I just pasted it in there. It’s funny because when I asked him for writings for the booklet and other stuff, he writes it in the context of people who know him. He references individuals and places that only people in Omaha or people who know the band already are going to know. I was like, “This is fine. I like that’s it’s weird and you don’t know exactly what it means.”

HN: That’s about it for questions. Is there anything else you wanted to say about the project?

HM: It’s pretty straightforward, just trying to share Brendan’s work. We’ve been working on it for a long time. Alexander just got out of the Navy, so it’s been a long process of all writings, the editing of everything has been slow because I send it to Brendan, he sends me something back, I email Alex. And it’s funny because they’re both on boats: Alexander’s on an aircraft carrier, and Brendan was sailing in Florida. I was full-time at school here in Chicago. I’m excited to assemble this thing and get it put together.

ALEXANDER MARTIN

Hear Nebraska: How would you describe White Pariah, and what is your role in it?

Alexander Martin: Technically, I’m the CEO, according the to paperwork. But really it’s a partnership between Harrison (Martin), Patrick Kinney, Brent Larue and myself. My part is to come up with ideas and bounce them off the other partners and see how they feel about producing whatever. So we all have the same role.

HN: Harrison said that this project came about in part because of your friendship with Brendan. Talk about how long you’ve known Brendan and what your friendship has been like.

AM: We go by to around 2002, I think. I met him through his bassist at the time, Matt Rooney, through college. We just hit it off back in the day. It’s been ongoing. The idea for this anthology came up because I knew his records are largely unavailable to anybody. The latest albums were basically nonexistent, 25 copies each, and they weren’t that good of quality. So I asked if it would be cool if we produced an anthology of the work he’s created thus far, the ones we thought would be the best songs.

HN: For sure. Tell me your thoughts on the five-song EP that includes some unreleased material.

AM: Yeah, I just went over to his house and got a thumb drive of it. It’s pretty good. Even though the songs haven’t been released, a few of the songs are a bit older. One of ‘em has Matt Rooney singing, which is pretty great. I think that was recorded a couple years ago, but I don’t think anyone’s ever heard it before.

HN: When was the last time you saw Outlaw Con Bandana live?

AM: I haven’t been living in Omaha until recently. But the last time I saw him play was at his Faerie Rewards release show a few years ago at a bowling alley somewhere in south Omaha.

HN: How long did this project take to put together, and have you done work like this before?

AM: This is a pretty new experience for me. I was hungover in a hotel in the U.A.E. when I got the idea to ask him Brendan if we could make an anthology for him. That was about a year ago, in February 2012.

I had been out to sea on an aircraft carrier, and we just started going back and forth with him and Harrison via email. We tried to figure out who could manufacture it and called up people like Aaron Markley, who’s been doing stuff like this for awhile with Slumber Party Records. It really hasn’t been just the three of us working on it. We’ve been calling up all our friends in Omaha who know a thing or two about record production.

But yeah, it’s been awhile, so I’m stoked to see this thing come to fruition. I’m really excited about the booklet. We spent a lot of time collecting and remastering the songs that Brendan spent a long time producing. But Harrison and I spent a lot of time doing the layout and design for the booklet. That’s what our main interest is because that has a lot of stuff that Brendan’s been working on, even when he was producing music a lot, some never-published poetry or stories.

Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska's managing editor. He's looking forward to hearing more from White Pariah. Reach Michael at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.