Midwest Dilemma

by: Jesse D. Stanek - 14 May 2008

About six years ago I received my first email from Justin Lamoureux. The bearded bard was no doubt promoting a performance at a local venue or one of the regional and national tours he regularly scheduled. While Midwest Dilemma had more of a rocking sound in the early years, the band drifted to a quieter place, first gravitating to an alt-country sound, then to a heavier-orchestrated, bare-bones-with-layers songwriter act, reminiscent of Bonnie Prince Billy.

Lamoureux drafted Elizabeth Webb for help on vocals, and clarinet. They stumbled upon David “Cello Dave” Downing playing cello at an open mic. Midwest Dilemma began refining its sound. Open mic nights at area venues proved a stepping stone. The band gained notoriety and Lamoureux connected with other local songwriters.

“Some of my biggest influences have always been local,” he offered. “I’m part of ‘the batch’ as Kyle [Harvey] would call us. You know, Kyle Harvey, Matt Whipkey, Brad Hoshaw, Sarah Benck and Korey Anderson. I really do feel honored to be included in that group and I still have all those people as comrades. It’s nice to have friends around to bounce things off of. We kind of push each other.”

“If you’re going to write songs here in Omaha, you have to make it valuable and make it count,” Lamoureux continued. “Moving here was definitely one of the best things that happened to me.”

It may seem strange that it has taken Midwest Dilemma so long to release a proper album (Lamoureux has issued several basement-type recordings on CDR). The grandiose sway of Timelines and Tragedies hints at the breadth of the project and the process. Recorded with a core band of Downing, Webb and five others on everything from flute, guitars, tuba, upright bass and percussion, Lamoureux recruited 14 more musicians to provide flourishes of piano, accordion, vibraphone, mandolin, musical saw and some rather obscure instruments.

The instrumentation and orchestration would itself have been ambitious. Lamoureux stepped up the songwriting as well, going for a coherent theme album instead of littering it with random songs. Looking for some thread to work from, he chose his family history, tracing the Lamoureux clan to their days of French Canadian fur trading, the struggles of his parents’ generation with Vietnam, concluding with his life in Omaha.

“After I got off [a] solo tour, you know, I think it was Summer of ’06,” Lamoureux said, “I knew I was going to be home for awhile and not tour until I had an album worth taking out with me. So I was thinking about a concept and I have always been inspired by my family. My dad was a musician and a songwriter and I already had songs about him and my grandfather. My grandfather had this old chest full of stuff, you know, souvenirs and old photos of the war. I found this old painting on metal and started doing some research and ended up with the song ‘Fur Trader.’ Eventually the songs and the idea kind of flushed itself out.”

Midwest Dilemma celebrates the release of Timelines and Tragedies Saturday, May 17 at Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St. The Black Squirrels, McCarthy Trenching and Thunder Power!!! open. The 9 p.m. show costs $8. Visit theslowdown.com. - The Reader (Omaha, NE)