KnockMan Family instrument toys

I was at Robot Love today and became enamored with the KnockMan Family, cute little toys that you wind-up to make noise. All the figures are charming, but this one takes the cake: Pololon is a tiny guitar-man with strings you can tune (watch the video)!

I officially have too much useless plastic crap cluttering up my desk. Regardless, KnockMans have been added to my lust list. I could make room in my collection for one more gadget if I got it as a gift. Why, it could even be friends with my solar-powered Sunshine Buddy.

Pok Pok Pok...

Dessa & her Doomtree friends at Grand Old Day

Photo by ThunderChild5 from Flickr

I'm very impressed with local hiphop artists in the Twin Cities. Like some kind of musical Voltron, Minneapolis and St. Paul combine to form a scene with so much talent, it's silly. Actually, that's exactly what happened with the family of DJs, MCs and producers who became Doomtree.

On Sunday (Grand Old Day) I watched Doomtreer Dessa perform with members of live hiphop unit Heiruspecs. There was a parade of special unannounced guests throughout the set, including Jessy Greene on violin, fellow Doomtree MC SIMS, and Heiruspecs lead MC Felix. It was freaking incredible. When I got home, I warned my wife, "I'm going to be listening to a lot more hiphop for a while."

Listen with me, won't you?

Voltage: Fashion Amplified

I heard that Voltage was canceled this year, but it was a lie! City Pages is running a feature about it called "Catwalk Confessional" (that's where I stole this image from). I'm not sure if it's already sold out, but I think that this would be a fun event to attend. A runway show set to rock & roll sounds okay to me. But... what would I wear?

List of Events:
April 4th – Voltage CD listening party (that's tonight!)
April 11th – Voltage: Fashion Amplified at First Avenue Mainroom
April 13th to 15th – Voltage Fashion Weekend