Christmas Cards Redux

Here's the rest of the Xmas cards from our January shows, sorry it's taken forever, but here they are for all to enjoy.

My hero

This woman faked her own death to avoid paying traffic tickets. She even made a fake obituary to look like it appeared in the Des Moines Register. That, my friends, is commitment. It's a tough one to pull off and she'll probably get some time in the slammer because of it. Or should I say, "the pokey". I wonder where that term comes from. Found it. Thank Jeebus for the OED.

So, I'm watching Celebrity Fit Club 3 last night to see my old girlfriend, Kelly Lebrock. She's looking a little better, but no one hates her because she's beautiful anymore (I guess having three children with Steven Seagal might do that to ya. Fuckin' gross.) And I'm flipping between that and the MTV reality shitfest and I see enough H.I.M. commercials to kill a horse. H.I.M. has some decent songs, but don't they seem to goth what Billy Idol was to punk? Ya know, they're not really that goth. Maybe I was just out of the loop and I missed their phase when they were coming up through the underworld. I mean, Green Day used to be on Drive-Thru and I still accept their ascendence to ultra-stardom. I find AFI's mainstream acceptance more believable, I guess. Not that I'm complaining, I'd rather listen to H.I.M. than almost anything else on MTV and I like their music, but does something feel off to you? Stop me if I'm totally wrong, because I very well might be. Orgy's second album ended up being really great. Anyway, I'll pick up a couple of their tracks on iTunes and see if the rest of the music's cool or if they're just dancing with themselves.

Unbelievable... Towel Thievery!

I can't believe it. Last night I was at the gym for a late night workout... Afterwards, while I was enjoying a relaxing dip in the hot tub, somebody ganked my towel!

Anybody who has read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy knows what a heartless move it is to take another person's towel.

It was hanging up on the towel rack right next to the hot tub, so they basically had to walk right in front of me to take it (yet somehow I didn't witness it - must've been tired). There was hardly anyone there, seeing as it was almost 1:00 AM.

There weren't any other towels closely resembling it, so it wasn't a mistake. Somebody took my nice, fluffy, freshly washed towel and they did it on purpose! Unbelievable.

Man, I was perturbed! I had nothing to dry off with. And even if I saw the person who took it, it's not like I'd want it back now, after they've already used it to dry off their unmentionables!

So, lesson learned: Keep an eye on your towel when you're in the pool or tub at the gym. Even when it is very late at night.

Cool shot

Good pic, Mike, and good pick, Timmy (taken from the comments), for pics from the Club Tavern. I like it a lot, too.



It's a classic drummer-cam too.

Club Tavern Pics

Thanks to Senor Slutisky, we've got some excellent pics from the "Snowed In" party night at The Club Tavern on February 16th. Take a look and let's try to relive some of the shots on Sunday when we're there for the Benefit for the Middleton Youth Center. In fact, I'll even wear the same shirt so we can recreate the moments. It shouldn't be that difficult, it's still in the van.

Thanks for the great pics, Mike!

Mr. Furley and Kolchak? No!

Don Knotts and Darren McGavin both passed away this weekend. Bummer. I really dug Darren McGavin in almost everything he did and Mr. Furley was a childhood idol of mine.

Venom?

We got Spidey in the black suit for the new teaser poster for Spiderman 3. Hot.

Isn't Eddie Brock all buff in the comics? They haven't revealed who Topher Grace is playing yet (by the way, I saw In Good Company last night, and he's great in it. Why is that knob, Ashton Coocher, the breakout star from that enemble?), but you know it's gotta be the anti-Spiderman. I heard there was an Eddie Brock cameo in the original Spiderman but it was left on the cutting room floor. Anyway, Venom's truckin' sweet and I hope this teasing doesn't just turn out leaving us fanboys with blue balls.

I've got "California Song" by Local H on right now. Goddamn, what a great song. It's funny how EVERY SINGLE local band from Chicago drops Local H's name like they're in the band, too. That's cool, that means they must be really nice guys because they make everyone feel like their friend. I'm surprised I haven't heard more about friends of Fallout Boy or Alkaline Trio, but if Local H is the Chicago band of choice, I can't complain.

Huh?

For a second, I thought that this article had to do with the cougar link I posted yesterday.

Beer Challenge!

Moderation takes another one to the chin as Dotty Dumpling's has a boot drinking contest. Sweet. Of course, it's come under fire as promoting excessive drinking. But it's Dotty's, anyone who has eaten there knows that it's not a health food restaurant. You go there to eat gigantic (in my case, veggie) burgers and get intoxicated. And this is news? Did I miss something?

We just got our Oklahoma City show cancelled because the venue decided to go with a movie night on Tuesdays. Weak. So now we have to scramble to find a show down there because we've already promoted the date. People would rather watch a movie at a bar than see a live band? Are we becoming that disconnected that we would rather watch a celluloid representation of life than actually live it? That's okay, I think that a business should do whatever it has to do. Of course, notice is always nice, but the necessity of flexibility is something we've gotten used to. We'll take our audience somewhere else, but I've thought about this before. I know characters on television much better than I know my neighbors. And now we're favoring connections with fictional people over connections with real ones. Community is becoming increasingly virtual and I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I guess it's always been virtual because reality always comes down to our own perception, but that's a little too solipsistic for me.

I'm listening to 3rd & Long by the Appliances-SFB today, and it's a kick-ass album. I can't believe it's taken me this long to discover it.

Cougar Hunter

Alright, This article on cougars put me in a better mood. Even though we encountered some panthers on a trip to Toronto a coupla years ago (they're about ten years older than cougars, think Blanche from The Golden Girls), I'm glad the rest of the world is getting up to speed on these opportunities.

MS Office is a POS

Goddamn, how much fuckin' memory do I need to have Excel use macros? I need a frickin' supercomputer to have two Office apps open at the same time now? How about less of that fuckin' animated paperclip and a little more functionality?

I'd rather use OS2/Warp.

Who do I have to blow to get ClarisWorks back? I've got some multitasking for you, Bill Gates, how about manipulating my balls and shaft at the same time?

Another Cynical Review

If you haven't had a chance, make sure you pick up a copy of Rick's Cafe this month for a review of our new record.

Also, Go Girls Music has just posted a great review of Cynical. We'll be performing at this year's Invasion of the GoGirls SXSW.

Sick mothertrucker

This is probably the most ill I've felt in a couple years. It was definitely a sniffling-sneezing-cooughing-aching-stuff-head-fever-couldn't rest night last night and I'm feeling worse this morning. Not even David Allen can save my productivity today because my Treo keyboard is stuck and I had to take it in to get it fixed. And since I keep my entire life in there, it makes me think there needs to be a really good web app for syncing with the Palm. Yahoo! does an alright job, but the task lists online are crapola (No categories? Are they crazy? How a I supposed to filter through my Next Actions?), so I've given up on those. The Yahoo! address book and email are great though, I'm thinking about switching to another system because of the poor syncing to the Palm, but I'd like an integrated group calendar and also a good contacts system.

Alright, I just signed up for Gmail and it looks cool, but I probably won't use it as my primary email until they sync with the Palm. Google groups isn't quite as powerful as Yahoo! groups, though, either. It seems to be the best web PIM for right now. The one thing that Microsoft has done right is their Outlook calendar, can't someone just make a great small business version of that, without having to get a damn dedicated server? I was also thinking of ONLY using the Palm for calendar, but group scheduling for the band is too important. It's hard to enough to coordinate our schedules with only three people, how do ska bands do it?

Anyway, here's some cool news: we just got another Austin date for next month. We got added to the Invasion of the GoGirls @ SXSW 2006 showcase for the Sunday, last day of the conference.

The shows the past couple of weekends have really been a lot of fun. I think that our attitudes have picked up in the past couple of weeks. Winter in Wisconsin can be nightmarish, and a lot of days I see the sun for only a few minutes in the morning. That's kind of a downer and can really tax you after awhile. There's so many wonderful things about this area (drink prices, awesome down-to-earth people) that you can forget about why old people move South when they retire. It's cold and the dark is a drag, but we've had really positive experiences at shows. Every single person we've been fortunate enough to play in front of (with the exception of one hesher dude on Saturday night) has been completely enthusiastic about the songs, performances, and shows. It's been awesome. I think it's made the cold a lot more bearable and it's also made us a lot more fun to be around lately.

On our way to Harvard

... 'cause we're such a smart little band!

Just kidding. You know better than that...

We'll be returning to 23 North in Harvard, IL tonight for show with a boatload of cool bands. It's an all-ages show and a fantastic way to spend a Sunday evening, if I do say so myself.

Thanks to everybody who made it to the show in Edgerton last cold cold night! I'll get the drummer cam online as soon as possible.

Tonight we're in Edgerton!

We'll be rocking at Big E's Beach Club along with a BUNCH of other bands tonight. Check out the photo below from the club, back when it was Club Raven... This was taken the night we opened for B.o.R.d. at their "Narcoleptic Mosh Pit" CD release party in 2001.

I heard there have been some significant changes to the stage and setup at Big E's, so I am really excited to check that out. Come on down tonight, it's gonna be a blast, we gaaauranteeeee it!

Address and other show details are here.

Photo is courtesy of Devious - Thanks!

Too Delicious

Kid Rock and Scott Stapp in a sex tape together? The material writes itself.

There's no snow in Middleton...

...but there's plenty of HOT ROCK!

PINE kicks the rock off at 9, followed by us at 10pm, followed by SAND to finish her off right.

My Sci-Fi Crew...

...is Farscape?

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

Fuck that, I wanna be one of Blake's 7.

I always thought that Servalan was hot.

Podcast from 2/10 weekend

Look! I'm caught up! Yay!

The newest podcast, from our trip to Springfield & Belleville:
http://sunspotroadmania.blogspot.com/2006/02/sunspot-road-mania-episode-21.html

The Hulk Takes The Law Into His Own Hands

Everyone's favorite green giant becomes an official sheriff's deputy! Cool story, Lou Ferrigno's the balls. Did you ever see the movie where he plays Hercules? It's an Italian-made disaster. But I still love him because The Hulk was one of my favorites.

I'm listening to the KMFDM Symbols album this morning and that makes me think about our cyborg friends in Cynergy 67. They said "hi" on our forum yesterday, you should too!

Podcast from Cincinnati us up

I'm a bit behind in the Podcast editing. Here is the one we recorded a couple of weeks ago & tonight I'll post the one from last weekend!

http://sunspotroadmania.blogspot.com/2006/02/sunspot-road-mania-episode-20.html

Check out this tough guy!

Who is that masked man?

Balls To The Wall

Here's an excellent explanation of one of my favorite expressions, "balls to the wall", from Slate. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with what I thought it had to do with, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Speaking of balls to the wall, that's how the parties were in Springfield and Bellevegas this weekend. The headliners didn't play either night (one guy got his truck stolen in Chicago and the other band didn't feel that their set would be long enough), so they left it to us to close the mammajamma down. Things could have gone badly, but we met some really cool people and that saved the day. Both shows ended up being great because people were really rooting for us. A lot of the time, being on stage can make you feel that the audience wants to hate you, but these guys made us feel the exact opposite.

Something else fun was the restroom of a gas station in Atlanta, IL. When I walked in there, Ben was already laughing like a lunatic while washing his hands. When I went to the stall to use the facility, I could see what was so funny. Someone (probably the Fecal Fiend) pooped on the tank. Not in the tank, but on top of it, so it was a little link of boiling pudding just sitting there, staring at you. Needless to say, the laughter was contagious.

I watched Freddy Got Fingered again last night and it was as unfunny as I remembered. Not that there's not some funny moments, I mean he does digitally manipulate a horse's genitals. And it seems that the chick from Super Troopers really is game for just about anything.

I heard somebody say that it's an excellent look at the extension of adolescence and the desperate attempt to escape "real life" when you reach your mid-twenties. I smell bullshit on that take (even though it's defendable), but shouldn't the film at least be funny? Maybe I'm just not that into absurdism, or maybe Tom Green just isn't my style (I did like a few skits on his show, like the one where he walks around in an enclosed cube so he can smoke in non-smoking areas, that was kinda funny, but that's about it. How did he get to marry Drew Barrymore? What a dick.)

Cool podcast we're on!

Brad from Podculture found us on the web and wrote to us about our song "Scott Bakula"

Guess where we are...

We drove thru a wicked snow storm and on the other side it's practically summer! Aw yeah.

Mr. Big and MAMAs

Yeah, that was a sweet rendition of "To Be With You" last night.

The Madison Area Music Awards has changed it's online voting system a little bit. They now go through Broadjam, which is a Madison-based online media company. The voting ends on Monday, February 20th, it costs five dollars to vote, but every penny of that is a donation to Madison area school music programs. Please check out the MAMAs award site and vote for us if you're interested.

It's a cool way to support us, the music scene, and school music programs at the same time.

UH OH...

MOTO

Masters of the Obvious are at Club 770 in Union South this Friday night when we're in Springfield. I always miss them when they come to town. It's gonna be a free show, too. Check out some of MOTO's songs on MySpace, I think you'll think they're truckin' sweet too.

Hamsters

I finally got KK and The Flying Hamsters of Doom CD last night, Defenders of Rock. And yeah, it kicks ass, I'm definitely gonna review it for Max Ink this month because it's fucking great. There are plenty of metal bands with chick singers lately but these guys are easily one of my favorites. Probably because they skip over the nu-metal bullshit and can write a song I can sing along to (except an octave lower because it's way outta my range.)

Anyway, they remind me of the mighty Doro Pesch and Warlock (whose foldout from a metal mag I used to have in my locker in junior high). They don't sound at all like Warlock, but the tiny little blonde with a huge voice surrounded by a bunch of tough metal dudes makes me want to put Triumph and Agony in next. For some reason, the song, "Fur Immer", off that album, turns me into a huge 'giner. Doro's last album that I got, Calling The Wild, featured not one but two duets with Lemmy. That's just badass.

Plus, check out the awesome cover art.

I think it's a metal day.

Waukesha West Athlete Done Good

I remember my senior year in high school when stoners and jocks first started co-mingling (probably because the jocks started smoking pot), but this Waukesha West (a high school only a handful of minutes away from my proud hometown of Big Bend) student-heroin dealer-athlete takes the cake.

Heroin? Doesn't that seem a little intense for West? Catholic Memorial, maybe, but not a public school. And a heroin bust in Waukesha is huge. Anyone that's driven around downtown Waukesha in the middle of the night (as I was wont to do after I turned 18, we'd all head down to City News and Novelty, the local porno store, alot. That place is gone now (it's where I discovered that Al Bundy's Big 'Uns was a real publication), but when they were denied a business license renewal, they actually got a case before the Supreme Court (City News & Novelty v. City of Waukesha), I gotta great story about seeing one of my junior high school teachers in there, but I'll save that for another time); everyone knows that it's Hog Heaven down there, a cop car on every corner. So this is big news for the WPD.

And this might be the best thing to come out of a Waukesha high school since Mark Chmura's underage partying days.

Yet more photos from Cincy!

Check out these amazing shots, done by Jason Bechtel. A ton more can be found here: http://www.jnjfoto.com/users/jbechtel/People/20060204_BlueNote/

Thanks, Jase!

Morningwood

Yeah, I heard a new band this morning on 91.7 WSUM in Madison (the usual stoner-jam-band morning show isn't on anymore, I don't think) and I really liked it. Morningwood makes me think of a heavier La-La-Las and I'm a sucker for that mid-90's sound. Anyway, I'm gonna go look for their single, "Nth Degree" on the iTunes store.

Cool Cincinnati photos

Wow, buck wild weekend. Friday and Saturday were both excellent shows and yesterday when we rolled back into town, there was already a party raging on for the Super Bowl and my roommate's birthday. I heard they were going to originally get a clown, but I think it worked out better the way it did.

Our friends, Scott and Damon took some pictures on Saturday night and already put them on the web. Here's a link to Scott Preston's Sunspot Cincinnati pictures and here's a link to Damon Green's Sunspot Cincinnati pictures.

Here's a couple of my favorites:


Look at that monster!

Thanks so much guys, you did a kickass job of taking pics! Now it's off to band practice for me.

Things just got better!

This party just got good.

Party at Sunspot HQ

Happy Birthday. Dave!

Driving home...

Last night in Cincy was AMAZING! We're on our way home now & just passed the Exit where we broke down in the truck last time. Ah, memories!

Racine rock

The MAHP is kicking ass right now and we're up in a few minutes. Wendy and I saw a fight go down and called 911!

Party in Racine Tonight

Sweet, we're going to be in Racine with our friends in The MAHP tonight at George's Tavern on Main Street in Racine. George's is a lot of fun and everybody there is really cool, last time we played there, Brett and I were driving back and we stopped at an Iron Skillet on the way back to 94 (man, we were fuckin' starved) and met a lot lizard. It was hot. I think I blogged about that before, but I'm too lazy to go Googling the story.

I know that February is Novel Writing Month, but someone in Madison started February as Album Writing Month. The challenge is to write 14 songs in 28 days. I've decided to make a go of it. I probably won't get 14 songs, but at least it'll inspire me to start collecting and organizing all the fragments of phrases and lyrics that I've been jotting down and maybe put them into a song format. You can check out out at the February Album Writing Month site, I'm gonna try to put some of the stuff I've been working on next week and maybe even some audio sketches. If I take em to Ben and Wendy we might start recording some practices, so it might be a cool way to kickstart some songwriting. Or I might just be a lazy fuck.

Something fun tonight...

I won't be able to make this because I'm busy, but here's some political geekdom going on in Madison tonight. National Review columnist and Star Trek aficianado, Jonah Goldberg, will be in town tonight at Grainger Hall right at 7pm.

Whether you agree with the guy or not, his columns are always entertaining to read. If you're trying to gauge my politics, he's not quite libertarian enough for me to agree with him wholeheartedly, but I would love to see his speech. I don't know if I'd have anything constructive to add to the conversation but I'd sure it'd be fun.