I saw a bunch of great local bands this weekend. On Friday, Thunder Power (now sans exclamation points) had their CD release show at Slowdown with Honeybee, These United States, and Midwest Dilemma. It was the first time I’ve seen Midwest Dilemma and they sounded really good and full (they should sound full with that many members) and I’m always excited to see Honeybee live. Thunder Power sounded great too and the EP Love Yourself looks and sounds awesome.

On Saturday there was a benefit show at The Waiting Room for the Peace Center, which amongst other support, offers free counseling for soldiers with PTSD. Bands that played included: Bear Country, Simon Joyner, Bill Hoover, McCarthy Trenching, Outlaw Con Bandana, Orenda Fink and Baby Walrus (pictured above).

It was the first time I’ve seen Outlaw Con Bandana, and they were really, really good. I’ve heard good things about them, and they did not disappoint. I haven’t seen Baby Walrus in what feels like forever, and it was way too long, because this band is SO good. They played a few new songs which were really promising and is a sign of more good music to come from them, and the old stuff reminded me how good their album was. I guess I’ll have to take Lykke Li out of my CD player. It was bound to happen some time.

My staff favorite is up at Venus Zine. Amy (a.k.a. Plaiderpillar) makes really awesome stuff. Cody first introduced me to her stuff by way of Herbert, my long-legged monster friend.

Here is Herbert and Rufus:

Last weekend we embarked on a family weekend trip to Kansas City. It’s a great mid-size city with quite a bit going on (see Whoop Dee Doo article below, as one example). We went shopping, ate some good food, and saw The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (well worth it). We also visited a small town called Weston and ate at their diner and looked at some antiques.

This first photo was taken in the section of town called the Crossroads Arts District. One of the stores we stopped at was Peggy Noland Kansas City. She designs some cool, kind of out there stuff that has been worn by the likes of Tilly and the Wall members and Lovefoxxx from C.S.S. (those awesome one-piece spandex suits that she often wears). Note: she is the faraway person in the photo below. The store is tiny, as in the size of a closet, and the walls and ceiling were covered in fluffy, white cotton. It felt like you were in a tiny cloud.

This next photo is from Hammerpress, a letterpress and design studio. They had a bunch of awesome stuff in there - concert posters, stationery, art books and art prints - and you could see the big letterpress equipment in the back area they make the stuff.

And here’s the sibling set in the small town of Weston, in front of some historic building and historic bell, no doubt.

Here is my review of the Lykke Li album Youth Novels for Venus.

I’ll sum it up for you: it’s pretty awesome and really catchy. I’ve been playing it a ton lately. Plus she can dance.

You can check out my Venus review for Princeton’s Bloomsbury EP here.

An article I wrote on Whoop Dee Doo’s upcoming performance at the Bemis ran this week in the CW. You can see it online here or click on the image below.

If you’re reading this from Omaha, it sounds like an awesome event. I really wish I could go but I’m heading to Kansas City this weekend with my family. So if you go let me know how it was.

I had a strange coincidence yesterday when I randomly remembered there was going to be a documentary on the art book Beautiful Losers, which in turn was based on an art exhibit. I looked on Amazon to see if a DVD was out because I figured the last I heard about it was a really long time ago. No luck. Then I checked this movie blog called Big Screen, Little Screen that I occasionally visit, but hadn’t for a long time, and guess what was the last entry? The trailer for Beautiful Losers. Weird.

I’m really excited to see it.

So here it is:

Beautiful Losers film trailer from beautifullosersfilm on Vimeo.