Nebraskan’s saddlebags are getting very full

Bright EYES, the Faint and the rest of Nebraska’s touted Saddle Creek Records scene all seem content to stay behind the Cornhusk Curtain, business-wise, turning down major-label overtures in favor of the Midwestern independent life.

One member of that community, though, is testing the waters of a bigger pond.

Mike Mogis, who produces most of the Saddle Creek acts at his and his brother A.J.’s studio in Lincoln and who has been a regular member of the Bright Eyes ensemble, has been pegged by many in the major-label world as a rising star among producers.

He’s just completed his first major-label job, “Trouble Is Real,” the debut by Warner Bros. Records rookie Johnathan Rice, due in spring. He’s also been recruited by English electro-folk favorite Beth Orton to work on tracks for her next album.

He’s now represented by Alia Fahlbourg of Nettwerk Management, who also has Howard Benson (P.O.D.) and Cliff Magnus (Avril Lavigne) among her clients. And record executives have been comparing him to such leading figures as Nigel Godrich, who has worked on key records by Radiohead and Beck.

“I believe that within the next few years he will be perceived as a combination of the talents of Nigel Godrich and Jon Brion and will be producing records that will be afforded the same degree of success,” says Perry Watts-Russell, Warner Bros. senior vice president of A&R;, who signed Rice.

Mogis acknowledges that he has some misgivings about moving to the larger stage, and the accompanying higher expectations, of major-label projects.

“I always made records with pleasing the band in mind, not the label or the manager,” he says. “Most of the time they don’t even have a big label. So for the first time I’m doing something with other parties at stake. I never thought about it consciously when I was making the record, but in the back of my mind I thought, ‘Maybe this will never even come out.’ ”

Still, he’s eager to expand his horizons.

“The Saddle Creek roster happens to be my favorite music,” says Mogis, 29, “but there are a lot of things out there.”

Watts-Russell was uncertain about trusting Rice to Mogis but became a full-fledged booster once he heard the results.

“Everything he does has an artistic quotient that is believable and is no way cliched,” he says. “That’s his greatest strength.”

Bright Eyes main man Conor Oberst, who is adamant about maintaining his indie stance, is nothing but encouraging to his friend.

“It’s fantastic,” says Oberst, who expects Mogis will be available to work on albums by his band Desaparecidos as well as Bright Eyes in the next year. “His production is good enough to be accessible on radio, but not that sterile sound most Top 40 producers go for. He’s more creative with what he goes for. Hopefully it will get to the point where Mike can pick and choose and can work with people he wants to.”

And when he can choose, whom would he choose?

“If Coldplay called me, ‘Mogis, will you fly to London?’ then I’d say, ‘OK, we’ll postpone what we’re doing,’ ” says Mogis, who is producing Los Angeles band Rilo Kiley, part of the Saddle Creek stable. “Everyone I’m working with now are all my friends. They’d understand.”

For Orgy, it’s a family affair

Leaving the major-label world has been a little scary for the band Orgy, which parted ways with Warner Bros. Records in May after two albums. But it has its benefits. Not only does group frontman Jay Gordon get to be his own boss with his new independent label, named D1 Records, he gets to be his dad’s boss.

“Well, we’re actually partners,” says Gordon, whose father, music-industry veteran Lou Gordon, is the label’s general manager.

The label will launch with the Feb. 24 release of Orgy’s “Punk Statik Paranoia,” and the younger Gordon knows it will be a challenge to meet the sales of the electronic-tinged metal band’s two Warner Bros. albums, 1998’s “Candyass,” which, fueled by a hit version of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” sold about 1.6 million in the U.S., and 2001’s “Vapor Transmission,” which sold more than 600,000.

“It would be nice to sell what we did on the last record,” he says. “That would generate enough capital to do what we want to do with the next two or three projects. Hard to say in this day and age about radio response, it could take awhile for this to catch on.”

Meanwhile he’s also readying a project with his first signing to the label, a Bay Area rapper who has been using the name Anonymous but may have to change it because another recording artist is using it.

SpongeBob salutes NRBQ

In what producers are calling a first, a cartoon character is participating in a tribute album. A song on “The Q People,” a tribute to the band NRBQ, will feature vocals by SpongeBob SquarePants with backing from the cast of the absorbent undersea hero’s Nickelodeon show. Actually, it will feature Tom Kenny, who does SpongeBob’s voice, and his fellow cast members, all in character in “Little Floater’s Wild Weekend,” a 17-minute “audio cartoon” packed with references and in-jokes about NRBQ.

They join such artists as Bonnie Raitt, Steve Earle, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Ron Sexsmith and Yo La Tengo in contributing tracks associated with the veteran New Jersey-based group for the album, due March 9. The “SpongeBob” cast involvement came via record producer Andy Paley, who was working on a project with Kenny, a former stand-up comic who had opened NRBQ shows in the past.

Small faces

* Lou Reed’s Wiltern concert last summer was recorded for a live album, due March 23. Titled “Animal Serenade,” the two-CD set will feature the complete June 24 concert in which Reed was backed by a drummer-less band that included striking vocalist Antony, who takes the lead singing role on “Set the Twilight Reeling” and “Candy Says.”

* Brazilian singer Bebel Gilberto, daughter of “The Girl From Ipanema” composer Joao Gilberto, is following her acclaimed 2000 debut album, “Tanto Tempo,” with a collection produced primarily by Marius DeVries, best known for his work with Madonna and Bjork. The album is due in the spring from Six Degrees Records’ Ziriguiboom label.