You spent the weekend going to hot shows and drinking lots of booze and enjoying hip indie rock bands. I spent the weekend writing a cover story for The Reader about Bright Eyes, which will go online Thursday (but the out-takes could go online tomorrow). Cassadaga will be huge, whether Conor thinks so or not.

And speaking of Bright Eyes, here's the first article that I've seen that references Bright Eyes as a "Polydor Records band," which seemed somewhat strange. The story's about the CD's cover art, which is super-cool. It's a stereogram design, which means Zac Nipper's illustrations are only viewable with a cool decoder device that comes with the disc -- yet another reason to buy the hard copy rather than download it from iTunes. Thankfully, they didn't use the same technology for the lyrics book. I smell Grammy... for the design.

Zac isn't the only graphic artist at Saddle Creek feeling the love. Wired online just published a Q&A with Creek designer Jadon Ulrich about album art and digital vinyl (the story's here). So just how important is album artwork when it comes time to make a buying decision, Jadon? "Ten years ago, I might have bought a record I never heard of based on the look of the cover and packaging, I don't think I'd ever do that now." Jadon obviously never saw the cover of Cactus Nerve Thang's debut.

Intern Brendan Greene-Walsh went to The Good Life show at The Waiting Room last night. His comments about opener Berg Sans Nipple: "They played an interesting set revolving around samples, keys and drums. The beat was strong throughout and offered some needed continuity to it all. The highlight of their set was a toss-up between the steel drum and mbira. Very reminiscent of Kid A/Ok Computer-era Radiohead. My only qualm was with not being able to differentiate between songs and the lack of any real vocals. None-the-less, I can see why Team Love picked this duo up." The only thing Brendan said in his write-up about The Good Life set was that they played some new songs -- but he forgot to tell us if they were any good. I was planning on going to this show, but fell asleep during the second half of the Florida/Ohio St. game (I finished second in the office pool, btw).

Tonight, one of the most talked-about shows so far this year -- Neko Case at Lincoln's Rococo Theater with Jon Rauhouse. Surprisingly, tickets are still available for $18. Show starts at 8 p.m.

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