The wife just sent this to me: Feist will be performing in Omaha on Saturday, July 12, at the 2008 Memorial Park Concert.

I saw Viva Voce perform a couple of years ago at Lincoln’s own Knickerbockers (my review). Sure, most of the hip kids in Lincoln went to see the Pixies that night, but personally, I think the rest of us got the better deal. The husband/wife duo of Kevin and Anita Robinson delivered an absolutely scorching set that was highlighted by Anita’s amazing guitar skills.

Since then, the duo has gone on to much acclaim, which has led to tours and collaborations with the likes of Built To Spill, Death Cab For Cutie, Spoon, and The Shins.

For those of you wondering what the hubbub is all about, and missed them the first time around, two of the duo’s earlier albums—2003’s Lovers, Lead The Way! and 2004’s The Heat Can Melt Your Brain (my personal fave)—are being reissued as a double-disc set, complete with live performances, demos, and other bonus goodies. Here’s the complete breakdown:

Lovers, Lead The Way! Tracklist

1. Fashionably Lonely
2. One In Every Crowd
3. Red D-Lish
4. Wrecking Ball
5. That’s Right,‘Watch Out!
6. Birds On The Wing
7. N Luv W/ U
8. Brightest Part Of Everyone
9. Yr Epic Heart
10. Best Thing Ever (Maybe Not)
11. The Tiger & How We Tamed It
12. Perpetual No
13. Salsalito
14. Someplace Worth Being
15. Let’s Bend Light

The Heat Can Melt Your Brain Tracklist

1. Alive With Pleasure
2. Lesson No.1
3. Business Casual
4. The Lucky Ones
5. High Highs
6. Daylight
7. The Center Of The Universe
8. Free Nude Celebs
9. Mixtape = Love
10. They Never Really Wake Up

Bonus Tracks

1. Paper Doll (unreleased)
2. Wrecking Ball (Tunng Remix)
3. Lesson No.1 (original demo)
4. Red D-Lish (live)
5. Fashionably Lonely (live)
6. Wrecking Ball (live)
7. Doo-Wap Death Trap (unreleased)
8. Tonight You Belong To Me (live)

The reissues will be released October 9, 2007 on Viva Voce’s own record label, Amore!Phonics.

And if that all weren’t enough, Viva Voce will also be bringing their lovely noises to the masses by way of a short tour later this year. Here are the dates:

10/26 - Atlanta, GA - Center Stage
10/27 - Myrtle Beach, NC - House of Blues
10/28 - Raleigh, NC - Disco Rodeo
10/29 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
11/06 - New Brunswick, NJ - State Theater NJ
11/09 - New York, NY - Terminal 5
11/15 - Chicago, IL - Riviera Theater
11/16 - Champaign, IL - Assembly Hall @ Univ. of Illinois
11/17 - Omaha, NE - Kiewit Fitness Center

Suffice to say, November 17 will be a very special day.

If you have no idea what Viva Voce sound like, head on over to their MySpace page and find out what you’ve been missing all these years.

Photo by Alicia J. Rose.

Alright, Lincoln/Omaha folks, listen up. Black Moth Super Rainbow is coming to O-town on Monday, September 10. And opening for them will be Spring Gun, of whom I have written about before. All of the pertinent info can be found here.

Unfortunately, I’ll only be able to attend the show in spirit, but I urge the rest of you to make it. If the Spring Gun show that I went to was any indication, I expect Monday’s concert to be full of all manner of loud and wonderful noises—emphasis on the word “loud”.

This one’s for the Lincoln/Omaha folks.  If you’re itching to see a good n’ loud rock show this Saturday, my friends in Spring Gun will be playing a show at Box Awesome (815 “O” Street).  And I’m sure the show will be extra loud, seeing as how it’s a release show for their new EP, Lover Slain.

I saw Spring Gun back in July (photos), and my ears were ringing for days afterwards.  Which, in this case, is not a bad thing.  Not a bad thing at all.

The show starts at 9pm (more details).  Also on the bill are Tie These Hands and Kite Pilot, both excellent bands in their own right.

I just uploaded a batch of photos from last night’s Spring Gun show.  I’ve written about these guys before, and suffice to say, they did not disappoint.  It was a fantastic show—my ears are still ringing, nearly 24 hours later—and it was great to catch up with old friends.

The group has finished recording their debut EP, Lover Slain—which can be listened to in its entirety on the band’s Virb page—and they’ll be playing a release show on August 4 at Omaha’s Waiting Room (with Eagle Seagull).

This might already be old news, but it’s news to me.  I was just perusing the latest newsletter from One Percent Productions and saw that mewithoutYou will be playing in Omaha on Sunday, June 12.

IMHO, mewithoutYou is, without a doubt, one of the best things to come out of Tooth & Nail Records in ages.  I loved their debut album, [A—>B] Life, and their newest album, Catch For Us The Foxes, has been in pretty heavy rotation here at Opus HQ.

I suppose lazy folks might lump the band in with that whole emo scene, but mewithoutYou’s music is something else entirely.  It’s truly passionate, urgent, brutal, emotionally raw, and incredibly spiritual.  Musically, I hear strains of early U2 circa Boy and October and the lyrics seem ripped from the pages of the Psalms, Lamentations, and even the Song of Solomon.  In a genre where so many bands’ lyrics come off like cheap high school diary entries, mewithoutYou’s lyrics are truly urgent and confessional, revealing intense struggles with sin, lust, and despair.

I caught the band a few years ago at Cornerstone during one of those Tooth & Nail days, and it was absolutely insane.  Dressed to the nines in black suits like a group of Russian authors, with flowers strewn about the stage, they were literally playing themselves to death.  The singer seemed intent on tearing himself apart and practically verged on self-destruction.  Immediately upon finishing their set, the drummer collapsed offstage from heat exhaustion and had to receive some emergency aid.

A lot of bands talk about intensity and emotion, but mewithoutYou is one that certainly delivers those things.  And I’m excited to see them again.

I hadn’t planned on seeing a show tonight.  In fact, I was reading a collection of essays on Calvinism when my friend Clint called, telling me that The Prids and Call In Call Out would be playing at Knickerbocker’s.  I was hesitant to go at first; I wasn’t sure if I wanted to venture out into the cold weather to spend a couple hours in a smoke-filled club, but in the end, I figured it’d probably be better than moping around the apartment all by my lonesome.

And I’m actually glad I went.  I’d been wanting to see Call In Call Out again (I saw them at the Tie These Hands/Mr. 1986 release show) and I managed to catch the last 2/3 of their set.  Overall, they remind me quite a bit of Mewithoutyou, from the impassioned vocals to the sense that, at any minute, they’re songs could fly apart at the seams.  In other words, loud and sloppy and quite exciting.

Clint described The Prids using terms like “The Cure”, “Joy Division”, and “New Order”, which did quite a bit in selling me on the show.  Before heading out, I did some research and saw that they often get mentioned in the same breath with The Faint—both bands were/are from Nebraska, both bands do the gloomy, 80s post-punk thing, both bands have stage shows with strobes and smoke machines, etc.  But I don’t really think the comparison, as obvious as it might be to make, holds that much water.

Superficially, the bands are similar.  But The Prids are much more of a rock band—none of their songs have the same dance appeal that The Faint’s music has.  The Prids are obviously influenced by New Order, but not the poppy “Bizarre Love Triange” New Order… more like a New Order still trying to get up from under the cloud of Joy Division and Ian Curtis’ suicide.  Unfortunately, the band didn’t seem to have too much focus—partially because, being from Lincoln, all of their friends showed up and much of the show was spent chatting with buddies… which is as it should be.  But even so, the band seemed to falter at a few points.

I really loved their sound—I’ve found that early 80’s new wave/post-punk and shoegazer are about the only two genres that a band can shamelessly appropriate and reference, and get away with it… at least in my book—but it could’ve been a better, more solid show.  I picked up one of their CDs and am looking forward to checking it out, just to see how they sound in the studio.

And oh yes, I did take pictures.  If they turned out, I’ll be adding them to the site this weekend (hopefully).