Mousetrap

Turn back the clock to the early '90s. Punk bands were flourishing in the Omaha/Lincoln music scene, touring the country and recording for national indie labels. Among the highest profile bands were Ritual Device, Mercy Rule, Frontier Trust, and a trio of Omaha kids who cited influences as diverse as Mission of Burma, Gang of Four, Joni Mitchell and Prince, though they sounded nothing like any of them. They were called Mousetrap.

Consisting of Buchanan, drummer Scott Miller and bassist Craig Crawford, Mousetrap recorded a couple 7-inch singles released by local label One Hour Records before cutting a deal with fledgling indie label Grass Records, who released their debut full-length, Cerebral Revolver, in 1993.

The CD was a collection of blistering, dissonant, brutal punk songs that bordered on experimental, with lyrics that painted violent portraits of relationships gone wrong. "Have Fun in Hell," for instance, opened with the catchy line "Hey baby, well guess what? / Last night you died in my dreams / And even when you kicked off / Your mouth was still wide open." It was the sort of music that could be embraced by your average disassociated punk rock kid. Live, Mousetrap's style was sneering and abrasive, angry and over-the-top. A typical show at The Capitol Bar or Howard Street Tavern featured Buchanan flailing over a loosely slung guitar, spitting into the audience between broken-voice screeches, sweat spraying off his mop of jet-black hair.

Cerebral Revolver would be followed in '94 by Lover, another collection of dark though slightly more tuneful noise-punk -- some tracks even featured Buchanan singing in falsetto. The Dead Air Sound System, released in '95, would be the band's last record.

Through its four years, Mousetrap would go on numerous Midwest and East Cost tours trying to break into a burgeoning national post-grunge scene. At the same time, they continued to play at local halls, all-ages clubs and bars, playing to the impressionable young ears of what would become today's generation of Omaha indie bands. But despite their constant efforts, the band's sound never caught on and by 1996, Mousetrap disappeared.

The beginning of their vanishing act was a move to Chicago. By then, Scott Miller already had left the band, replaced by drummer Mike Hogan, who would eventually be replaced by drummer Duncan Black before the band broke up for good.