Saddle Creek Records to open concert club

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By CHUCK BROWN / The Associated Press

OMAHA — Saddle Creek Records, the independent record label that backs Bright Eyes and the Faint, will open a bar and concert club in the city where it was born.

Saddle Creek label manager Jason Kulbel, at a Thursday news conference with Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey, said the label will open a bar and music club in the north downtown section of the city, an area that is the focus of some urban redevelopment efforts.

"I think we finally have found the right thing for us, for our club, for our vision," Kulbel said.

Kulbel said he knew of no other music club that is owned by a record label.

The club, which Kulbel said will be called "The Slowdown," will hold about 400 people and feature local and national acts. The label's offices will be above the club. He hopes to open the club in about a year.

Given its size, the club will likely be too small for shows by the label's larger acts such as Bright Eyes and the Faint, Kulbel said.

However, it will be used to showcase lesser-known bands, he said.

Created by Bright Eyes leader Conor Oberst and his brother Justin in 1993, Saddle Creek Records started out with artists producing cassettes and distributing them mostly to sympathetic family and friends.

Twelve years later, Bright Eyes released two albums, "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning," which debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard charts, and "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn," which debuted at No. 15.

In September 2004, The Faint's "Wet From Birth" debuted at No.99.

The two bands are touring Europe together this summer.

The label was blocked in earlier efforts to build a club on Saddle Creek Road, the thoroughfare from which the label took its name. Nearby residents in the midtown neighborhood protested having the club there, saying they didn't want the problems that could come with such a venue.

Thursday's announced location puts it a few miles from where the label originally wanted to build.

Putting the club in Omaha is a way to give something back to the community that has supported Saddle Creek from the outset, Kulbel said.

The mayor said he was happy to have the club located in the city.

"Saddle Creek Records has helped put Omaha on the national music scene," Fahey said.