Best Of 2014: Melissa Bratcher

Omaha Live

10. Friday Night Lights
This is the year that, when I wasn’t watching chickens (see #5), I was watching Friday Night Lights. I also bought an ill-advised pair of cowboy boots because of it. Thanks, Netflix, for making FNL so bingeable. I aspire to be as amazing as Tami Taylor, and I miss her. Tim Riggins, thanks for the smoulder and for being an unlikely moral compass. Jason Street, thanks for the pathos. Matt Saracen, thanks for being the character that makes me cry just thinking about you (and thanks for singing to your awesome Grandma. She’s the best). Coach Taylor, thanks for being inspiring. Tyra Colette, thanks for being completely kick ass. I hope you’re a politician somewhere. Landry, thanks for being Lance. Buddy Garrity, thanks for growing on me. Vince, thanks for letting me know where Wallace is. And damn, Julie. Damn.

9. Old 97’s
Old 97’s just might be my favorite band and I didn’t realize it until a couple of weeks ago. From this year’s re-release of their debut Hitchhike To Rhome (review), to the release of their most current album (also from this year), Most Messed Up, Old 97’s give me great joy. They do what they do perfectly, and they’ve always done it that way. I appreciate consistency, I appreciate witty, and I appreciate hooks, all three of which Old 97’s have in spades. Also, Rhett Miller on WTF with Marc Maron was all I‘d hoped it would be.

8. Rich Robinson, The Ceaseless Sight (review)
This one hasn’t stopped playing since I got it. There’s such a complete vibe to it.

7. Shelly Bhushan, Something Out Of Nothing (review)
This is really the perfect record. Her voice is gorgeous; her songs are hooky. She needs to be heard and appreciated.

6. Gishwhes
Once a year, for the second week of August, the world braces for random acts of kindness, kale thrones, stormtroopers in unexpected places, and people bothering famous folks on Twitter. Gishwhes unleashes creativity, generosity, and childlike wonder in me. Our team this year was great (go Team Edna!). Next year. . . we’re gonna do it. We will be triumphant!

5. Chickens
I have a small flock of three hens. I love them. I’ve spent more time outside watching the chickens (who have personalities in ways that I never expected) than I have doing most other things. I don’t regret it.

4. Anders Parker, There’s A Bluebird In My Heart (review)
This is one that I liked when I reviewed it, but the more I listen to it, the more I love it. It makes me feel things. It feels like an album that’s always been there.

3. Maggie Koerner and Galactic
I finally got to see Galactic play live this summer. It was all I hoped it would be: funky, tight, mindblowingly great musicianship. What I didn’t expect was how awesome Maggie Koerner would be. I had heard her sing the hook on their single “Dolla Diva,” but I hadn’t given her any real thought. Then she took the stage. She’s not a big person, but her stage presence was MASSIVE. She sings like a soulful hurricane, she commands the stage, you can’t look away. Her solo album Neutral Ground is a tour de force. I can’t wait to hear what she does next.

2. Jason Isbell
So Southeastern came out in 2013, but I missed it at the time. Thanks to Jason Isbell’s visit to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, and his devastating acoustic performance at the end, I immediately bought it on iTunes. And then on vinyl, because Southeastern is the kind of record that needs to be a record. When I put it on I immediately feel sad and happy to feel sad. It’s powerful and heartbreaking and honest. Jason Isbell, himself, is an amazing songwriter, and is also a champion Twitterer. And if he’s lucky, he’ll get to audition to be on The Voice.

1. Omaha Live
I watched SNL for Chris Pratt. It was just like SNL is now: not so funny. Disappointing. After SNL, though, came this better-looking-than-its-low-budget-should-allow, bizarre, hilarious, local show, Omaha Live. It was like a hazy, fever dream of local references, songs that aren’t only funny, but super ear-wormy as well, and with each episode, Matt and Ben Tompkins up the insanity ante. It’s like a love letter to the city I love, with songs!

Ben Tompkins was kind enough to answer some of my pressing and deeply regional questions via email.

You’ve mentioned on Twitter that you do everything on the show: writing, filming, acting, graphics, etc. How long does it take to pull an episode together? Do you have a backlog of sketches waiting to be unleashed?　

Omaha Live: If there was one word to describe us it would be backlogged. In so many ways. That, or “magneto.” Yes, Matt and Ben Tompkins, or “we” for the purpose of this virtual conversation, are responsible for dropping off 20 minutes of juicy content at the doorstep of WOWT each Thursday. To do this we’ve been working with a few local performers and writers, as well as some circus magicians, but due to the “newness” of the show, we’ve been handling a majority of the production ourselves (we’re definitely excited to begin working with more local talent, though! Mainly because we don’t have friends. Or social lives). We started the season with quite the smorgasbord of sketch ideas, but a good chunk are developed a week or two before the episode airs just to make things extra hectic. So we still have a lot on the table, and a lot that we’ve filmed but just haven’t had the time to edit together yet. We can whip out an episode in about seven days from the writing stage to the editing stage, and let’s not forget the Little Debbie stage. We stop at that stage often. This answer has spiraled out of control—just like my love life.

How did you get WOWT to air Omaha Live? Do you have compromising photos of local anchorman John Knicely?

Omaha Live: Surprisingly, we have compromising photos of just about every media person in town except John Knicely. He’s careful. . . always covering his tracks. WE’LL GET YOU ONE DAY, JOHN! But sultry photos played but a small role in the creation of Omaha Live. It all started on day much like today, in fact. We were drinking old-fashioneds in our boss’s office when we got the call. A call from a man by the name of Hee-Haw McGwiggans. You see, old Hee-Haw had just been run out of Topeka for attempting to air a cartoon in which a banana was given emotions, and he was looking for some new blood. Our blood. After wrestling for what seemed like days, we fell in love. Knowing how society—specifically Mayor Stothert—would exile us from the land, we decided to develop a new TV show to express our new-found feelings. And that’s the story of Omaha Live.

OK, so that is completely untrue. The truth is we began talking with different WOWT reps last August about possibly producing a locally focused comedy show. They asked for some ideas, we typed some up, and the rest is as they say is, “a banana with emotions.”

Your songs are pretty damn fantastic. The internet tells me that at one point you released an album, Songs For Giants. With the astounding popularity of Omaha Live, is there a chance that you might release another album? Despite the fact that they’re funny songs, they’re also really good songs. I don’t know how you pull that off. Who are your influences?

Omaha Live: Thanks! We really like the fact that we have an opportunity to do some musical comedy with Omaha Live. A lot of the material comes from our comedy album, Songs for Giants, which we produced four years ago. It’s still climbing the charts (in Guam). We would love to produce another album down the road (working title: Dinosaur Meltdown); in fact, we’ve wanted to do a “Spinal-Tap”-esque mockumentary featuring Canadian country star Buddy Cooper for a while now, but are just looking for the time and resources to pull it off. As this is our first time producing a TV show, we were a little overwhelmed at the amount of time and energy goes into it. Hopefully by getting a few more people involved, and with a reference point, the second season will go a little smoother. And by “smoother” I mean hopefully we won’t attempt strangling each other once a week (brotherly love!). As for our influences, I would say Presidents of the United States and Flight of the Conchords are huge musical influences of ours. You definitely get a FOTC vibe with some of our songs. Stephen Lynch is another great one. Any dry humor like John C. Reilly’s Dr. Steve Brule character or Tim and Eric is comedy gold in our opinion. Ben attributes all influence to The Simpsons and A Mighty Wind.

Is there any topic that you won’t touch?

Omaha Live: We’ll write ideas for any topic, but we may not produce them. We’ve got a number of bits about religion, sex, racism, S&M (God, so many bits about S&M), but we’re still waiting on a good time to produce those babies. Our time slot grants us a little leniency as far as obscenity goes, but we want to make sure it’s funny first and foremost. We don’t want to piss people off just to piss them off, ya know? We want to make them laugh while they start to hate us. We’ve definitely played it safe this first season. Hopefully we’ll get to push the boundaries a little more next time around. And by push the boundaries I mean air some of the dozens and dozens of S&M sketches we have.

You can find Omaha Live on YouTube and Twitter.