photos by Chevy Anderson | words by Andrew Norman
At least a dozen young women stood dead center in front of the Slowdown big stage Friday, June 29, watching Teal Gardner dance, rap, laugh, scream and sing in falsetto at the year's first Maha Music Festival/Hear Nebraska showcase. With her unnerving confidence and powerful stage presence, the UUVVWWZ frontwoman is clearly doing more than simply singing pretty songs for these women. She's empowering them. See for yourself next time the band performs.
UUVVWWZ played their new Saddle Creek Records full-length they're recording with J.J. Idt (Conduits), incuding a couple new songs that I hadn't before heard. Stellar stuff. But first up on this all-Lincoln lineup was Bus Gas, (featuring members of Masses), whose sound was described well by Omaha producer and musician (Eli Mardock) Ian Aeillo: "Combine all the songs on every Sigur Ros album so they're one long song, remove the percussion and vocals, add tape hiss, put it on a record, and grab the edges of it so it spins about half as fast."
After Bus Gas, Lincoln's Dirty Talker played their brand of stripped-down rock 'n' roll that pounds, pounds, pounds you with hooks until your knee's about to break, then they break down just long enough to do it to you again and again.
See Chevy Anderson's photos from the free showcase below.
Chevy Anderson is a Hear Nebraska contributor. Reach him at chevya@hearnebraska.org.