Vote Early, Vote Often

My friend Zip's band, Sarah Benck and the Robbers, is in the running for a spot at this year's Lollapalooza! They entered the Last Band Standing Contest and made it through round 1 (top 100 bands by casted votes move on) and through round 2 (celebrity judges chose their favorite 20 bands) on to round 3, where they need to end up in the top 5 bands with the most votes cast. Those final 5 bands get to go to Chicago to compete live for 2 positions in the Lollapalooza show.

I've seen Sarah Benck and the Robbers (Zip is one of the robbers) perform several times at Lincoln's Zoo Bar. They're a tight group with a style that's a little hard to describe-it's a fusion of blues, rock, jazz, a little funk as well. Sarah has a heck of a voice, and she's a pretty good guitar player, too! They were just included in a writeup in Spin magazine about the Omaha music scene (see pg. 119) as well.

Here's a clip from YouTube, you can also learn more and listen to other tunes on their MySpace page:



So if you like what what you hear or you just want to do me a favor, cast your vote for Sarah Benck and the Robbers here. To prove you're real, they'll send you a follow-up link to click, so don't forget to do that part. You can vote once a day per e-mail account from now until July 13. Let's help put Sarah Benck and the Robbers on the national music scene!

photo of the day

Hell's Angels has a new leader. His name is Todd.

We're all enders

I just finished reading The Enders Hotel by Brandon R. Schrand, winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. I had looked forward to reading it because I knew he had a good story to tell-Brandon spent most of his childhood growing up in his family-owned Enders Hotel, Café, and Bar of Soda Springs, Idaho. Brandon is just a year or two older than me, so it was easy to connect his childhood and adolescent memories to what I remember of my own childhood, a time before cell phones, home computers, Netflix, Facebook, MySpace, etc. You had to make up your own fun, whether it was while reading a good book, exploring your house and town, or being with friends. (one difference was I didn't live in any hotels. I more than once, however, fantasized about my family living in Westroads Mall in Omaha. I think I was going to eat every meal at Bishop's Cafeteria and take the elevators everywhere I went. I could sleep far far away from my sister in a place like that.)

Brandon shares the stories of many interesting characters who came to the Enders Hotel to stay for various lengths of time--ex-boxers, ex-cons, down-on-their-luck families, you name it--I was sometimes afraid to read on in case something was about to go down either involving Brandon, his family, or the guests. He also shares his own personal stories of secret clubhouses, sinking rafts, childhood friendships, and some drug and alcohol experimentation that I naively didn't see coming. (although I have to say I think Brandon is the first person in my age group I've found who also remembers his parents smoking pot. I knew I couldn't be the only one paying attention to this stuff in the 70s.) Something about his coming of age antics reminds me of Stephen King's The Body.

I won't give away the ending, but I will tell you the Enders Hotel still stands. If I ever find myself in Idaho, I'd like to check it out.

Lastly, I really liked the cover. It wasn't until after it was far along in the design process and without any earlier consultation that the author told the designer that's exactly what their keys and key chains looked like. (That's the water cooler story I heard, anyway.)