photo by Shannon Claire
reviews by Chance Solem-Pfeifer, Jacob Zlomke and Michael Todd
photos by Bridget McQuillan, Chloe Ekberg, Chris Dinan, Ingrid Holmquist, Michael Todd and Shannon Claire
Spend some time with our coverage of the final two nights of Lincoln Calling below, from the rousing night of bluegrass at The Bourbon on Friday to the reunion of The Bad Sects at Yia Yia's on Saturday.
See photos and read reviews of the wild sets by Pleasure Adapter and DEERPEOPLE, and relive the maniacal madness of Universe Contest. Cheers to a successful 10th year for the Lincoln festival:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FRIDAY:
Hot Buttered Rum at The Bourbon
Allie Kral of Cornmeal at The Bourbon
Dirty River Ramblers at The Bourbon
Dead Winter Carpenters at The Bourbon
White Mystery at Duffy's Tavern
Halfwit at Duffy's Tavern
Pleasure Adapter at Duffy's Tavern
Josh Hoyer and the Shadowboxers at Zoo Bar
Twinsmith at Zoo Bar
Cowboy Indian Bear at Zoo Bar
Eli Mardock at Zoo Bar
Chris Padgett of The Stereofidelics at Zoo Bar
DEERPEOPLE at Duffy's Tavern
Cowboy Indian Bear at Duffy's Tavern
A Ferocious Jungle Cat at Duffy's Tavern
SATURDAY:
The 4onthefloor at The Bourbon
The Mezcal Brothers at The Bourbon
Snake Island! at The Bourbon
Universe Contest at Duffy's Tavern
Wiping Out Thousands at Duffy's Tavern
Genders at Duffy's Tavern
Touch People at Duffy's Tavern
Pharmacy Spirits and The Bad Sects at Yia Yia's
FRIDAY
Hot Buttered Rum at The Bourbon
photos by Chloe Ekberg
Allie Kral of Cornmeal at The Bourbon
photos by Chloe Ekberg
Dirty River Ramblers at The Bourbon
photos by Chloe Ekberg
Dead Winter Carpenters at The Bourbon
photos by Chloe Ekberg
White Mystery at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Michael Todd
Halfwit at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Michael Todd
photo by Chris Dinan
Pleasure Adapter at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Michael Todd
review by Michael Todd
When Pleasure Adapter had no songs left to play, the look on Jeff Ankenbauer’s face spoke for them.
Downcast eyes held steady his suddenly stationary frame. As the lead vocalist gently placed the mic back in its stand, he looked like a bashful comedian who’d told a political joke to the wrong party. Only in his case, as he sang the band’s last song of the set, Ankenbauer had met the Duffy’s crowd on the floor, snatched a cup of coffee and poured it on himself, a small step over the line he’d tightroped throughout the set via many unconventional but enrapturing antics.
Ankenbauer had stood under the brick-laid arch and sang directly to the bar, an intentional stitching together of Duffy’s normally separated spaces. He’d contorted his body, his shoulders forming his base as his legs flailed over his head. Ankenbauer, a former member of The Shanks, Saudi Arabia and Dance Me Pregnant — each of which he has called a “diabolical mess” — was enjoying the freedom to perform however he damned well felt like it.
And now that he’s found where to cross the line, maybe he and his fairly young band will bend it a bit more deftly next time. No doubt the group’s newest member, bassist Matt Maginn — whose musical bumper sticker would read, “My other car is Cursive” — will help hone the performance, his responsible manner indicated by his earplugs.
And as for the music? Pleasure Adapter’s electronic dance-punk shined like a rough gem caked with mud. Songs such as “Everything’s Erased” off the band’s debut, self-titled release expertly laid synth and pulsating guitar on top of propulsive drums and bass, the interlocking parts of a machine over which Ankenbauer wildly swings an ax, threatening to throw it down into the gears.
Josh Hoyer and the Shadowboxers at Zoo Bar
photos by Shannon Claire
Twinsmith at Zoo Bar
photo by Chris Dinan
review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
Nowhere is it more apparent than on the stage that Betsy Wells has handed its reins to a rock band that goes by the name Twinsmith.
You can hear the move away from folk on their debut self-titled record, but the Omaha band, still fronted by the lyrics-melody partnership of Jordan Smith and Matt Regner, are capitalizing on the vitality of the four-piece rock band format.
Regner, Bill Sharp (bass) and Oliver Morgan (drums) are the business end of the band whose sound is more-and-more pleasantly high stakes because of exposed moving parts. If someone errs, there’s no hiding it. And much parallel to the way his falsetto or high melodic solos are the daring kid in the songs, Jordan Smith is the ideal, lively frontman for a band pushing for momentum behind its 7-inch release of “Honestly” with Saddle Creek Records on Nov. 19.
At the Zoo Bar on Friday, it’s all polite fun as Smith shimmies, descends the small wooden staircase to solo with his back to the audience or when he steals Regner’s cap during a guitar-keyboard transition.
As Twinsmith takes off on a fall tour to promote “Honestly,” the aptly-named “The Thrill” may well cement itself as a fan favorite. In this song, the whole bag of tricks is slowly and pleasantly poured out. Smith’s pretty voice, Smith’s angry voice. Regner’s melodic, hooky slide guitar, Regner’s indecipherable fuzzy guitar. Morgan’s across-the-body cymbal playing goes wild. Close with a riffy, conclusive flourish that stays in the head for days.
photos by Bridget McQuillan
photos by Chris Dinan
Cowboy Indian Bear at Zoo Bar
photos by Chris Dinan
review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
The talking died quickly when four voices rose up from Cowboy Indian Bear in brilliant and isolated harmony.
The Lawrence, Kansas, band proved immediately that they knew how to stupify an audience on Friday night at Zoo Bar: with simplicity and with a raw, unadorned beauty. When songs were stripped, they captured the aesthetic of their name, a choir of singers for a Western sunset. The only peripheral sounds were the piping crickets in the crowd and cymbal fills like tossing more and more empty beer cans on a growing pile. This was the band at their best on Friday.
But as yet, they still need a find a way to add risk to the songs from April 2013’s new LP Live Old, Die Young. During reverb-heavy songs and tunes where three additional members of the band take up tom sticks on top of a percussion sampler, Cowboy Indian Bear manages to smother its greatest asset. Four singers with equally soulful voices (each of which could probably carry its own pop band) are blurred into one echoey mass, which sounds like something studioborne.
Or take the song “Color Well” from 2010’s Each Other All The Time. You have a song that’s labor intensive to watch with the quintet all multi-tasking on drums and vocals and guitars. But the sound doesn’t come close to supporting the complex act you just saw take place on the stage. The group finishes with thunderous tom-hits and then one of them is charged with walking to turn off the drum machine that could scarcely be heard during the set. For all that effort, the audience didn’t even know the song was done. It’s worth note, too, that of the participating Lincoln Calling venues, Zoo Bar probably has the soundstage least equipped for showcasing a dozen instruments and voices without clumping them.
This was the fourth consecutive time Cowboy Indian Bear has played Lincoln Calling. Let’s make it five for the pop western band and bank on the parts breathing more freely next time.
photos by Bridget McQuillan
Eli Mardock at Zoo Bar
photos by Bridget McQuillan
photos by Chris Dinan
Chris Padgett of The Stereofidelics at Zoo Bar
photo by Shannon Claire
DEERPEOPLE at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Michael Todd
review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
DEERPEOPLE brought the music and Brennan Barnes brought the circus.
It might have been an attempt to bring life to the last act of an afternoon show at Duffy’s Tavern. Or it may have been nowhere near as calculated. But when the singer and keyboardist Barnes attempted to test the integrity of a Duffy’s two-top table, well, it didn’t pass. Pint glasses shattered. Onlookers were plenty perplexed.
The intensity of DEERPEOPLE’s music, though, could have been a worthy excuse for Barnes’ antics. The Stillwater, Okla. band traded in furious piano rock, with so much happening in the high trebles that they rubbed nerves raw with the shrieks and squeals of flute, violin and keys. You’ve rarely seen a flute used with such exciting and newfound aggression as Kendal Looney’s. On top of the roughened guitars and keys comes a flutter of woodland nymph sounds. That is, if all of the animals were angrily charging out of the forest behind her.
And the music wasn’t finished inspiring Barnes’ ill-advised theater. At one point, the monitors appeared to die, leaving Barnes to tactfully remark, “This is stupid. This whole thing is stupid.” When the music began again, he further vented by climbing some of the stage-left pipes on Duffys’ wall and swinging around with his stocking cap nearly pulled down over his eyes, a bit like a disgruntled, ineffectual King Kong.
The monkey business relented when Jeremy Buckley brought Barnes a shot. It was perhaps the most elaborate ploy for free alcohol Lincoln Calling has ever seen.
photos by Michael Todd
Cowboy Indian Bear at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Ingrid Holmquist
A Ferocious Jungle Cat at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Ingrid Holmquist
SATURDAY
The 4onthefloor at The Bourbon
photos by Chloe Ekberg
The Mezcal Brothers at The Bourbon
photo by Chloe Ekberg
review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
Experts agree, 10 out of 10 times if you’re hosting a Lincoln music festival, invite The Mezcal Brothers.
On Saturday, as the Mezcal brothers kept their Lincoln Calling streak alive, they said on stage that they’d love to keep that record perfect for every year of the festival’s existence. Putting that feat into context: that means the college-aged crowd that would gather for the capstone Universe Contest show later that night would have been about 12 when the Mezcals first laced it up for the festival in 2003.
Without a hint of exhaustion or boredom, the Lincoln rockabilly veterans took the mainstage at The Bourbon and showed why they’ve performed at Lincoln venues at least once a month for more than a decade. And with many of the same songs, all in an aesthetic that was popular 60 years ago.
Long ago, the four-piece of Gerardo Meza (vocals, guitar), Benji Kushner (lead guitar), Charlie Johnson (upright bass) and Shaun Theye (drums) must have realized that performance — not simply recital — would hold the keys to turning relatively simple songs, often featuring just one rhythmic E chord, into an institution.
So they dawn vests and wide-collared dress shirts and bright blue blazers. It’s the reason Kushner springs into spread-legged jumps at the end of songs (even if it looks like landing could be a little hard on his knees) and the reason Charlie Johnson allowed himself a small grin throughout the entirety of the 45-minute set. The Mezcal Brothers exhibited the same long-standing joy as the 40- and 50-year old couples clapping in the audience or hot-footing it around on the wooden dance floor.
Before the last song, Kushner coyly asks the soundman, “Is it alright if we play for an extra hour?” As the patriarchs of a tight knit musical Zoo Bar family, the Mezcals are accustomed to two-hour (or longer) sets. It’s true, the band was barely warmed up by the time Charlie Johnson introduced Meza as “The Demon of Screamin’” and they launched into their final number all built around the chorus “My love for you will not fade away.”
You have to hope some part of them was talking about Lincoln.
photos by Chris Dinan
photos by Chloe Ekberg
Snake Island! at The Bourbon
photos by Chloe Ekberg
photos by Chris Dinan
Universe Contest at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Shannon Claire
photo by Chris Dinan
review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
“We’re Universe Contest,” sighed bassist Jon Dell’s chapped voice over the Duffy’s Tavern soundsystem at 1:45 a.m. Saturday. And then a small laugh. And then, “Jesus Christ.”
He blasphemed for the sake of the spectacle that had just transpired, for the exhaustion and excitement of five days of Lincoln Calling all coming to a head in a mosh pit and a festival of pseudo space travel.
The final push of the Universe Contest show had looked like a nightmare and felt like a dream. The addition of Arthur Mauseth as its lighting and stage effects man resulted in some grandiose supplements to the already-wild Universe Contest fare of the past. Add thousands of dollars worth of lighting equipment, strobe light balloons, former Conduits singer Jenna Morrison, and “Glitter Babes” 1 and 2, who would dance suggestively (to be fair, everything about a Universe Contest show is suggestive) in the alien blue light. One wore a gas mask.
If that at least describes the recipe for the twisted pageant, it doesn’t do justice to the event.
“You’ll want to be here by 11:30,” said one concertgoer on the phone to his friend before the 12:30 a.m. show. “Better make it 11:15.”
Forty-five minutes before the Lincoln band played its first note, the bar was three rows deep and the Duffy’s alcove was packed full (credit where its due to Wiping Out Thousands). So full, in fact, that compared to Universe Contest’s final performance at last year’s Lincoln Calling, the moshing was more subdued by sheer space restrictions.
When the “spaceship” lights took on their yellow glow, the band busted out new material from the forthcoming We Are The Rattlesnake, due out this winter. The slightly more atmospheric songs fit in quite nicely with other album and a half of party rock the band has been honing for stage zest for the last two years. Perennial favorites “Someone Else” and “Dying” drew shoving, beer-throwing and sing-alongs in a way that’s become both celebratory and familiar, but is still an unparalleled crowd response on the Lincoln scale.
Cheers to ten years of Lincoln Calling and let’s raise a cup of glitter and hair to the band that grabbed the baton for its final leg.
photos by Chris Dinan
Wiping Out Thousands at Duffy's Tavern
photo by Chris Dinan
review by Jacob Zlomke
Twisting knobs and pushing buttons is as much musical effort as strumming a guitar, so why during Wiping Out Thousands electronic-inspired rock set at Duffy’s did there seem to be such a disparity between Taylor Nelson’s guitar and Alaine Dickman’s extensive keyboard setup?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the acoustical nature of a singular guitar seems downright minimal, palatable next to drum machines, keyboards and controllers. Watching Nelson shred on a guitar whose qualities were nearly moot next to all the infinite sound possible in Dickman’s setup seemed futile. She could accomplish everything he is and still more with all the equipment at her fingertips, so why bother?
It could be an attempt at credibility and showmanship. The live element of a guitar appears more difficult and more prone to error. There is a better visual guarantee to the audience that this really is live music, not prerecorded tracks. Maybe they like the guitar’s better ability to improvise.
Whatever the logic behind Wiping Out Thousands’s approach, Nelson’s presence was almost negligible in an otherwise engaging, unexpected set. The duo incorporated elements from genres all across the board and were probably the only act to drop the bass, that contentious musical element of all things dubstep, at Duffy’s during Lincoln Calling.
While the attempted marriage of rock and EDM may not have been as successful as the group would have hoped, the set still managed to entertain and get a slowly-growing, pre-Universe Contest crowd dancing, and at the end of the night, that’s what really matters.
photos by Chris Dinan
Genders at Duffy's Tavern
photo by Chris Dinan
Touch People at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Chris Dinan
photo by Michael Todd
review by Jacob Zlomke
15 minutes. That’s how long Darren Keen, the sole member of experimental electronic outfit Touch People, performed before taking off his shirt. To anyone familiar with the live stylings of Touch People, or Keen’s former project The Show is the Rainbow, a shirtless Keen is a comfortable Keen.
And usually it makes sense. Most Keen sets involve a lot of movement on his part, sometimes on stage, sometimes not, aggressive dancing to glitched out digital compositions accompanied by his highly computerized vocals. A lot of heat, a lot of sweat. Sure, a guy’s going to want to ditch the shirt.
And it’s standard fare at a Touch People show. It’s expected, which surely Keen knows. So 15 minutes into his set, Keen meets that expectation. Rather than earn shirtlessness through excessive physical output, it felt as routine as a sound check.
Keen met a lot of expectations during his Lincoln Calling set, an incongruous fact for a man who has pretty much built his career on doing just what he wanted to do, no more and no less. He self-aggrandized, with lyrics like “I’m fucking super.” He played complex, yet nearly inaccessible, electronic music and danced like a large, bearded snake.
He’s built these expectations, of course, by doing his own thing so consistently for so long. But after nearly a year as Touch People and 10 years prior as The Show is the Rainbow, what else does Keen have to offer? He’s a musical innovator and has the track record to show for it, and maybe asking a musician to push boundaries further is a lot to put on one person. But he’s also set that standard himself, and it’d be more interesting to see him live up to it, rather than rely on five-year-old tropes.
Of course, Keen is a man who will do what he wants with his music. As he said before his final song, one he said is about being jealous of the success of others, he’s over those feelings and extremely proud of what he’s done. No reviewer can argue that.
Pharmacy Spirits and The Bad Sects at Yia Yia's
photos by Shannon Claire
Guitarist/vocalist Jim Reilly introduced the surprise in the most practical manner possible.
“You’re going to want to check that mic again,” he said, telling Yia Yia’s fill-in soundman Ian Aeillo that bassist Brendan Evans was conceding his mic to someone else.
That someone else was James Pelter, whose last performance as The Bad Sects with Reilly and drummer Courtney Nore happened about seven years previous, as Lincoln Calling itself was a 3-year-old. Other from the smiles and transition from Pharmacy Spirits’ first bunch of songs, nothing indicated they’d spent a day apart.
While Pelter had played bass in The Bad Sects, he was unafraid to bounce around the floor, falling down and screaming into the mic. The final three songs he sang on blasted out of the gates whereas Pharmacy Spirits’ newer material was more focused.
Last note: Long a bastion of Lincoln musicians, Yia Yia’s has gradually improved its performance space, from building a stage in the back corner by the pool tables to adding a spot for the soundman to work the controls. A couple technical issues remain, though, with the sound of occasional electric bees and a hijacked radio signal emanating from the speakers.
photo by Michael Todd
Bridget McQuillan, Chris Dinan, Ingrid Holmquist and Shannon Claire are Hear Nebraska contributors, Chance Solem-Pfeifer is HN's staff writer, Chloe Ekberg is a Hear Nebraska multimedia intern, Jacob Zlomke is an HN editorial intern, and Michael Todd is HN's managing editor. Reach them all through Michael at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.