Fresh off the warm reception given his debut feature, Lovely, Still, Omaha’s Film Dude, Nik Fackler, says his next two film projects will be documentaries. Following the path of cinema adventurer Werner Herzog, Fackler’s tramping off to shoot one film in Nepal and the other in Gabon, Africa. He is drawn to each exotic locale […]
Posted inMusic
Warped Tour Memories
* Between torrential downpours Thursday, I caught two distinctly different live music events. The day started early at Westfair Amphitheater in Council Bluffs for the 2011 Vans Warped Tour. The sprawling summer road show is amazingly organized. It crams a bucketload of bands into one day’s worth of shows and then pops up a day […]
Posted inCulture
August 13: Bush
August 13 Bush Stir Cove at Harrah’s, 1 Harrahs Blvd., Council Bluffs 8 p.m., $30, stircove.com Alternative rockers Bush will provide Saturday night’s alternative to indie rock, as they take fans back to the dawn of grunge-pop. The English band took up the cause of the burgeoning alternative nation of the early 1990s and injected […]
Posted inCulture
August 12: Brandi Carlile
August 12 Brandi Carlile w/ Ivan & Alyosha The Slowdown, 729 North 14th St. 8 p.m., $26 advance/ $30 day-of-show, onepercentproductions.com Brandi Carlile’s great, mostly-overlooked 2009 album Give Up the Ghost shed most of Carlile’s overt adult-pop urges in favor of a rougher, more engaging trek through Americana-dappled singer-songwriter fare. Her previous two records carried similar […]
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Live Connection
Matisyahu is rolling now, in a musical career that began in 2004. That’s why the rap-reggae-rock triple threat says he doesn’t have a set pattern or schedule for how he works as an artist. So far the 32-year-old artist has released three studio albums, plus multiple live releases and a remix record. His two biggest […]
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All Systems Go for MAHA Music Festival
When the first band takes the stage at this year’s MAHA Music Festival (at exactly 12:30 p.m. this Saturday), event organizers can take pride in knowing they’ve pulled together a program that not only tops last year’s event, but also establishes itself as the area’s premiere indie music festival. Lord knows, it wasn’t easy. Along […]
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8 days – Nashville Pussy and the Dwarves
Nashville Pussy and the Dwarves In the mood for some straight up, shot-and-a-beer rock and roll? Fire up the hot rod and point it towards Lincoln’s Bourbon Theatre this Tuesday, August 16th for the musical right/left of the Dwarves and Nashville Pussy. The Dwarves are touring in support of their new album “The Dwarves Are […]
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Classic Rock: Guided By Voices Highlights MAHA Music Festival
by Tim McMahan When the Guided By Voices reunion tour was announced in June 2010, Matador Records deemed the band’s configuration “the Classic Lineup.” Even the GBV logo was reworked in the same colors and font as Coca-Cola, another American classic. It was the perfect moniker for a lineup that drove GBV’s mid-’90s golden era […]
Posted inSpecials
The Economy is Bankrupt Because the Planet is Bankrupt
They hover around glowing flatscreens with the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. Numbers and readouts declare the prognosis grim. Blips and beeps, numbers blinking indicate things could get worse before they get better. Then again, the situation could even be terminal. Watchers wonder if life support is the last chance. Are “they” doctors […]
Posted inMovies
Animal Planet
Bringing an iconic film back to life is no easy feat, let alone an iconic film series. Because no one seemed to be happy with Tim Burton’s attempt to remake Planet of the Apes in 2001, director Rupert Wyatt’s origin story, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, probably always had the odds in its […]