Help Us Save a Nebraska Music Treasure Trove | Feature Story

We find great Nebraska music often, but nothing like this.

Melissa Sharp, a former radio show host on Lincoln's 90.3 KRNU, has offered to let Hear Nebraska digitize her collection of 27 seven-inches, two 10-inches and 19 LPs, with releases such as Cursive's Burst and Bloom and For Against's Echelons. The records span about 50 years from the 1950s through the early 2000s.

Only one condition: We'd help Sharp find a buyer.

The price is $250 for the whole collection, highlighted and listed below, which comes with a few odds and ends including tape recordings of the radio show, Local Inferno, with live performances from bands like The Lepers, 13 County, Her Flyaway Manner and solo artists like Amy Hanna Huffman and Matt Silcock. Also bundled would be an assortment of zines.

If interested in the collection, please email managing editor Michael Todd at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org

THE STORY:

"I did a college radio show on KRNU from about '99-'01. It was called Local Inferno and wasn't very good, but we did play exclusively local music. At first, it was just recordings various musicians brought down to the radio station. But then I started getting to know people in the scene and asked them to come down to the station to play live. I have audio tapes of most of my shows. It became a hobby of mine. My interest in local music was also heavily supported by way of encouragement from various people.

"So I thought about writing a book about Nebraska's local music, planning on covering the time frame from about the 1950s to 2000. However, I had already moved back to Missouri and sort of lost the internal momentum for it. But not before accumulating a lot of recordings and source materials (hence, the collection). I'd like to sell the entire collection for $250, with the condition that Hear Nebraska is allowed to digitize any recordings it needs."

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FULL LIST:

7"

"Baby, It's You" and "Bad Little Girl" by The Boys

"Dolled-Up Cutie" and "Guitar Case" by Charlie Burton and Rock Therapy

"Tyme Won't Change" and "Tell Her No" by The Coachmen

"Mr. Moon" and "Nothing At All" by The Coachmen

Small Brown Bike / Cursive by Small Brown Bike and Cursive

"Stars" and "Share Me" by The Eccentrics 

"You Only Live Twice" and "Today Today" by For Against

"The Quiet Type" and "Two and a Half Steps Up" by Fromanhole

"Ferris Wheel" by Her Flyaway Manner and Song #10 by Ecorche

"Ghost of Billy the Kid" and "Tonight I'm So Lonely" by Larry and the Rangerettes

"Independence Day" and "It's Been So Long" by Bobby Lowell and Jay Fremont

Boxcar Willie and Marty Martin and the Rangers

"Um-Baby, Baby," "So In Love With You" and "Sixteen Chicks," "I'm a Fool" by Bobby Lowell and Co.

"Rocka Boggie-Rockabilly," "Just Won't Stop" and "(I'm Out of Here) Bye Bye" by Bobby Lowell and the Rocka Boogie Boys

"Simple Word" and "Sinking" by Mercy Rule

Head in a Hummingbird's Nest EP by Eleanor Roosevelt

"Crazy Baby" and "Intimate Information" by Pinky Black and the Excessives

"Gypsy Lady" and "You Got the Love" by Professor Morrison's Lollipop

"Sage" and "Another Way" by Scenic

"Joe Cool #4," "Sea of Gailalee" and "Cry Me Asleep" by Blandine Cosima

"The Alibi Chapter" and "Locomotive" by The Sound of Rails

"H2NCH2…:Everlasting Heart Stopper" and "The Red Room" by The Sound of Rails

"She Called Me Baby" and "Folsom Prison" by Norman Sullivan

"Consume" by Sideshow, "Seed" by Germbox, "Summer" by Mercy Rule, "On a Frog's Fog" by Molly McGuire

"Life After Tuesday" and "My Hero Halo" by Eric the Red

"Camp Sunnyside" and "Poor Paul" by Sideshow

"Fell" and "In A Car" by Solid Jackson

10"

Six Songs by Luck of Aleia

In the Marshes by For Against

12"

Echelons by For Against 

2525 (Exordium & Terminus) by Zager & Evans

Self-titled by Scott At the Piano

The Language of a Dying Breed by Power of the Spoken Word

Boy-White City by Opium Taylor

Providence by Mercy Rule

Don't Laugh, You're Next by Mannequin Beach

Heaven's Gate by Simon Joyner

Speed Nebraska by Frontier Trust

Burst and Bloom by Cursive

Diseases on Display by Crap Detectors

Wampum by The Click

I Heard That by Charlie Burton and the Hiccups

Don't Fight the Band That Needs You! by Charlie Burton and the Hiccups

Is That Charlie Burton … Or What? by Charlie Burton and the Cut-Outs

The Perfect Dark by Blonde Waltz

Self-titled by Blackberry Winter

Oogum Boogum! by Pinky Black & The Excessives

Shitride by Thirteen Nightmares

Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska's managing editor. A leaf of wheat! Reach him at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.