A year ago, Laura Burhenn was part of the Bright Eyes touring band. Flash forward and the 32-year-old Burhenn has gained enough confidence to unleash her own torrent of green-minded, anti-corporate, pro-Occupy Wall Street views. An entire album’s worth, in fact, on Generals (Saddle Creek), her sonically adventurous sophomore outing as one-woman band the Mynabirds. In her previous incarnations as a solo artist and part of Washington, D.C., folk/rock duo Georgie James—and even on her soulful 2010 Mynabirds debut, What We Lose In The Fire We Gain In The Flood. Burhenn will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our latest feature on her.
Burhenn: It’s important to me to be involved in my own community. Since moving to Omaha, I helped Stefanie Drootin (Good Life, Big Harp) and Orenda Fink (Azure Ray, O+S) get Omaha Girls Rock off the ground. This summer is our second year, and we’re elated to see how it’s grown. I’m also a member of the steering committee of a progressive grassroots organization in Omaha called VOICE; we worked closely with Equal Omaha to get a citywide ordinance passed that will protect our LGBTQ community from getting fired for their sexual orientation alone. I also helped start up a curated online events calendar, Omahype.com, to help promote our insanely awesome Omaha arts scene. And in East Nashville, our drummer started her own amazing site to promote the arts and up-and-coming cultural awesomeness there.
Video after the jump.
