Tour diaries pt. 1: Yuppies

as seen on Hear Nebraska 


photos and entries by Yuppies

Catching up on the phone with Yuppies’ singer/guitarist Jack Begley (they call him Boogs) yesterday evening, he tells me the guys are basking in some pre-show downtime, outside in 80 degree weather. The Omaha act is at a little club called Cheer Up Charlie’s in Austin. It’s a vegetarian cuisine restaurant and bar — only the band’s second bar stop on their nine-day Midwest/southern tour with Noah’s Ark Was A Spaceship. 

The two bands also toured together in 2008 when they put out a 7-inch split. The old split is still sold at the merch table, as are a few new tracks on CD-Rs (also hosted on MySpace and downloadable at their Bandcamp page). The garage pop-rockers have an album lined up for May/June, afterall.

"Getting Out" and "Sunglasses" by Yuppies
 


Mid-tour, they’ve played two house shows, two bars and one “DIY-art-gallery-sort-of-place” in St. Louis — their nights in between spent in sleeping bags on the floors of nice people. Nine guys (eight musicians and one roadie), two bands and two vans. This is their day-by-day documentation of their tour, as told by a different person each day. Comic book exaggeration included. 

Today, Yuppies and roadie sidekick Crass whiz from state to hotdog-eating state in their trusty tour van, battling snack-stealers and sassy gas station girls. Tune in next week for part two to see if Noah’s Ark and the 5-0 meet again.

Friday, March 18: The Birdcage in Iowa City, Iowa
We grab gear and food, put it in the van and hit I-80 east to our first tour stop in Iowa City, “THE BIG EASY.” The sun is shining and the grass is brown — I’m homesick. 

The concert is at a house named The Birdcage, because it is the home to more birds than humans, which really does a number on their utility bills. The residents of the house play in fantastic rock groups — Solid Attitude, and Wet Hair — who performed after our band. Our band performed to a sedated audience, between 3 and 500 people — the memory has become hazy. Then Wet Hair played — spacey keyboardy, chill, good stuff. Followed by Sic Alps, on tour from San Francisco. They were fantastic — fuzz guitars, banging drums, catchy jamming. 

By then it was 4 a.m., and the band we are on tour with played. The guys in that band are rather unfriendly, I do not know any of their names, but their band is called Noah's Ark was a Spacearc, or something. Anyway, earlier that day they stole some of my snacks, so after they set up I detuned all their guitars. Boy did they look foolish when they tried to go into their first number “Sandman” and it sounded like “Kashmir”. Pretty pathetic for a cover band, but the babes seemed to enjoy it. The next morning we got coffee and left for Chicago, “Sin City.” I think Crass fell in love. — BOOG$, aka Jack (vox/guitar)

New songs from The Vingins

as seen on Hear Nebraska


Those kids that are too damn loud have three new songs for your listening pleasure. 

The Vingins came to the HN benefit show at the Zoo Bar March 11 equipped with freshly burned CDs for all. They must have left empty handed that night, especially after playing a great opening set to a pretty packed house.

My copy has a Sharpie-scribbled lonely cow (that has to be a cow, right?). Nice personal touch. 

It's not a full album, but these tracks are perfect, vocalist/guitarist Derek Ouston told me.

He's not far off. The tracks prove to be cleaner than their 2010 self-titled EP. There's more melodic vocals and some play with digital effects. They preserve their lo-fi and garage-y qualities while adding some shoegaze. Overall, there's more variation, even within each track itself. They compromise fuzzy-levels for polished blends. Limited free downloads are available at their Bandcamp page.   

Tracklist
1. Assassin of Youth
2. Captain Gideon
3. Pool Treats


     


The Vingins play the Bourbon Theatre at midnight Thursday, March 24 as a part of Lincoln Exposed, also underway at Duffy's and Zoo Bar Friday and Saturday March 25-26. Get more bang for your buck with a $15 three-day pass (versus $7 for one day). Check out the full schedule.  

The Berg Sans Nipple scores, releases 'Build With Erosion'

as seen on Hear Nebraska


This is a story of a St. Paul, Neb., native who played in some bands and studied film at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the ’90s. Sure.

But it’s also a story of an American and a Frenchman who met in Paris and decided to try and play music together. Right away, they came up with great material, so the American extended his and his wife’s yearlong stay in Paris another, oh, six years. They recorded two albums and toured extensively, playing high-profile international festivals like the Primavera Sound Festival.

This is the story of Shane Aspegren and his band The Berg Sans Nipple.

At home in Omaha with his wife and daughters (ages 7 and 4), Aspegren has settled down 4,500 miles away from his BSN bandmate Lori Sean Berg in Paris. Separated, this is how the percussion/electronics twosome developed much of their latest LP, Build With Erosion, out on Team Love today, March 15. 

The trans-Atlantic band situation caused frustrations — material would sit for months sometimes before the two would meet in Paris for week-long recording sessions, Aspegren says.

“The pay-off was actually getting together, having not created anything together for so long,” he says. “It’s almost kind of magical, getting together and then all of a sudden remembering the way that you can have an interaction with somebody like that.”

A long time in the making, Build With Erosion is the band’s third LP and latest record since 2007’s Along the Quai.

Beginning as an instrumental band (Aspegren on percussion, Berg on electronics), BSN has evolved to include vocals beyond the ambient/instrumental type with Build With Erosion. Much of the album’s lyrics are written and sung by Aspegren. Berg’s vocals are evident in loops and background.

The album is created out of rhythm foundations, namely tribal, he says — aspects upon which BSN sound has always been constructed. For the most part, their writing process remained the same.


Listen to three tracks from the new album
  

Satchel Grande does SXSW

as seen on Hear Nebraska


When your first gig outside of a 50-mile radius is the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, I guess you could say that’s a big deal. Because, well, SXSW is a big deal.

When you’re the only other Nebraska band playing outside of Bright Eyes, that is also a big deal. (Lincoln band Vibenhai will also be in Austin for a show Saturday, March 19 as a part of the ATX Wildfire Reggae & Arts Festival.)

The guys of Satchel Grande are just taking it as it comes. The nine musicians that make up this funk rock band haven’t strayed out of their usual Monday night practices to prepare for their festival set.

“We’re very familiar with the material,” Satchel head Chris Klemmensen says, “so it’s just a matter of maintaining our standard practice schedule and tightening the screws on things.”

There are also other Satchel standards, like tie-attire and aviator shades — all authenticated with the 70s ‘stache and institutionalized at the big-band performances. They're supplemented with trumpet, sax and many embodiments of percussion  — guitars, bass, keys, of course, also included.  

For Klemmensen — the lead vocalist, keyboardist, songwriter and all-around maestro — the band and any sort of festival-magnitude opportunity have been a long time coming.

“We played Ribfest once, I don’t know where that compares,” jokes keyboard/percussion/vocalist Andy Kammerer of a gig in Council Bluffs.

Before Satchel Grande formed in 2006, Klemmensen put together the album Plus One to convince his friends to turn his vision into a live band and the white-boy funk that it is today.    

Other than accommodating the trip itself, the hardest part has been cutting down their normal two-hour groove set to 40 minutes, Klemmensen says.

After three weeks, 12 drafts of setlists and countless worried text messages at weird hours to bandmates, he’s got it figured out.  

The situation is very comparable to putting together a follow-up to last year’s Dial ‘M’ For Moustache LP.

“Cutting down 25 songs to 10 is also a pain in the ass,” Klemmensen says.

But the guys are less consumed by their next release, and more with the 14-hour drive in a 15-passenger van. They plan to leave 8 a.m. Tuesday, March 15 and drive straight through to make their 8 p.m. show in Austin the following day. So maybe there won't be so many drinks for the guys the night before at their Waiting Room send-off show.

The Reader picked Satchel Grande for an all-proceeds-inclusive show Monday, March 14 at 8 p.m. The guys will be playing their SXSW set, followed by prize give-aways and more songs. For just $5 at the door, you can help the band make it to Austin, so they can really show ‘em how Nebraskans get down.   

Klemmensen and Kammerer have more to say about the SXSW gig, including what’s being packed and who they’ve got on speed dial if they get stranded in Austin. Also, the guys play the SXSW trivia game: 'Is it a Band or  Venue'?

Ex-Eagle Seagull frontman Eli Mardock moves onto the next, namely his solo album

as seen on HearNebraska.org
Eli Mardock doesn’t usually enjoy horror films, he says. But when we spoke on the phone last Thursday night, he was watching zombies and drinking wine in his house south of downtown Lincoln, where he lives with his fiancée, Carrie Butler, and their poodle, Coco.
 

“I’ve been a bit of a hermit,” he says. “I don’t really go out, or do much, or see anybody or anything like that.”

His new-found life as a recluse has led to new experiences — like with the undead. Kind of like how the death of his band, Eagle Seagull, opened doors for a solo project. It was a not-so-horrific experience for Mardock, even considering the circumstances of the band's breakup.

“I've heard, with some amusement, about my reputation as some sort of amoral, womanizing monster,” Mardock says. “I know, in some people's minds, that I'm the villain. People that know me well — I think it is amusing for them, too, because they know what I'm really like. They know my life.”

For the most part, he says, he keeps his mouth shut about it all, as to avoid any sort of public spectacle.