allofmp3.com is shutting down

It's curtains for everyone's favorite yeah-totally-isn't-legal-but-we-use-it-anyway-because-it-makes-us-feel-better-than-just-stealing Russian MP3 site.

Looks like it's back to BitTorrent.

Blackbird

So, as I was walking through the desolate cubicle wasteland this morning on my way in, I saw a black bird on a tree looking at me through the window of the 2nd floor. I don't know if it was a raven or a crow or something else, but I did see The Omen and I know what happens when a black bird comes rapping on your chamber door and it's a HARBINGER OF DOOM. Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know in case something horrible happens to me today (I don't think it will, but those are famous last words)that I did see a HARBINGER OF DOOM, so I was forewarned but I decided to walk around like nothing happened.

Blackberry Thumb

Yeah, it's for real and my thumbs are kinda hurting today (I did a lot of writing the past two days on my Treo.) I guess it's a lot more common in people that play video games, but I can definitely feel a tenderness in my thumbs today (the word tenderness makes me sound like I'm menstruating all over the Lifetime Network.) Repetitive stress injuries are pretty lame (I just hope you can't get carpal tunnel from jerking off.) But since I love my fingers and I'm not gonna stop writing or using my superphone, I'll probably have to get one of the portable Palm keyboards now. If anyone sees a good deal on one, shoot one my way, yo.

Monsters of Rawk at The King Club Tonight!

If you're in Madison tonight, it's Priest and AC/DC at The King Club.

Doors are at 9pm and it's a chance to listen to some hard rock Thanksgiving-style!

Presents from a friend

Thanks to our talented friend Joshua for this awesome artwork!

...and now it's Ben's turn

More Smart Fun

Mike's laying down the bass tracks now.... Weeeeee!

We escaped without incident

Mike got his picture with Chuck E. tonight and the 20 ounces flowed a little slower than last nights 40 ouncers. No authorities were called this evening and Mike had enough tickets to purchase a plastic hook.

Still at it!

We're almost done with the drum tracks. This is a pic of the tape that contains half of the album! Mark's doing a bit of editing. Incidentally, today marks the 1 year anniversary of the release of
"Cynical"! Alright.... Back to work now....

Playstation

Sweet. A Wal Mart manager in West Bend put 10 chairs outside the store and said the 10 people in chairs would be allowed to purchase a new playstation system. One man went to the hospital after running into a pole in his excitement to obtain the new toy. I can't wait for you guys to hear Neanderthal.

Let the fun begin!

Drums are all set up and ready to go. Mike and Ben are getting ready and then it's time to begin with the rhythm tracks!

Sampling

This article by a Columbia University professor talks about a company that goes around suing rap acts for unlicensed sampling and then talks about how that company is lame.

I call bullshit on this article, even though I see the writer's point about the amorality of the company in question. That's not the legal point, though. If someone takes a recording that you made and puts it in their own work without asking, they stole it from you. It's your creation and you own it, so it's your choice what happens to it. The best known (and cliched, I know I missed the accent mark, sue me) example- Vanilla Ice couldn't just steal from Queen (who just got the title of the best-selling album in England ever, yeah!) He had to recognize and pay for what he used. I love rap but I don't care if the genre's based on sampling, they're making plenty of money using someone else's creation, on someone else's work repurposed, so they should pay to use their recordings.

Sampling is a fun and interesting part of rap (I always found the term "hip-hop" kinda goofy), but if someone doesn't want to pay or even ask to use another person's music, then they should get their own fucking band and make the sound themselves.

Baby Rocket at the Dry Bean

Fun stuff!

Bigfoot in Waukesha County

It's Harry and the Hendersons for real by Merton! That's the coolest thing I've heard about all week. I don't know where the hell it is but I looked Merton up on Google Maps and it's only a few miles from Hartland. Anyway, that's close enough to get a search party going.

Our big abominable friend better watch out because wabbit season starts this weekend, doesn't it? It's time for some true conservationists (who are completely assured of their manhood and don't need it reaffirmed, thank God for these brave hunter-gatherers who will bring dearly needed food to our starving, waif-ish Wisconsin villages) to get plastered and shoot at each other. I'm not sure, but with all the billboard ads for male strippers at the Warehouse Stage and Club Majestic (another place where people used to like to get drunk and shoot each other) lately, you figure that Widows' Weekend is coming up. So, I hope Harry doesn't get killed before we have a chance to check him out.

Alright, that last paragraph makes me sound like a snooty vegetarian. I'm just not interested in hearing people say that hunting is for the animals' benefit. It's an excuse to get drunk and kill things. Don't pretend you're doing evolution a favor by using a high-powered rifle and special scope to destroy the strongest animal in a herd. Admit that it's just fun to drink beer with your friends and shoot at stuff. I can understand that it can fill some kind of male empowerment need and there is a killer instinct and it's helped humanity survive. Let's be real about why we do things.

Stop rationalizing and live consciously.

Bitches.

On the iPod right now:
"Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Iron Maiden (13 minutes of Coleridge-inspired rock n' roll, baby. Someone bring me some laudanum, stat!)

Today's person that I'd like to see burn in Hell

This drunken piece of shit killed his ex-girlfriend's four kittens by burning them to death. It looks like the rest of his sentence is suspended and he's already served four months so he's going free. Bullshit. He deserves to serve the full year and a half. He's a real class act that thinks girlfriends are punching bags, too.

I hope that he has a shitty day.

Wendy's DrummerCam: Friday 11/10/06 @ King Club, Madison, WI

Smart

I'm totally stoked about going into Smart Studios on thursday. Everytime we go there, it feels like being a piece of history. It's so comfortable to hang out there too. If I could afford it, I think I'd live there full time.

Loaded Like a Freight Train

Axl cancels a show in Maine because there's a law prohibiting drinking on stage. A band spokesman said that the law made it "impossible for the band to perform their show to the usual high standards that their fans deserve."

I want to say something witty, but I've got nothing. Axl Rose is my hero.

Alien invasion? We're boned.

So says a former UK Ministry of Defence (it's so cute the way they spell, isn't it?) chief who was in charge of their UFO project in the 90's. That sounds like the most kickass job in the world.

Let's party hard tonight.

Madison on Friday Night!

Tomorrow's my birthday show at The King Club and it's gonna be a big one. This is our last Madison show before our CD release party next year so #1- it's going to be your last chance to hear the new material before we record them and #2- it's gonna be your last shot to party with me before I need a cane.

It'd be awesome to see everybody at this show. A free drink for virgins and their friends, too.

Don't Forget to Vote

Democracy, bitches!

Aultimate Ozzy Tribute

Aultimate Ozzy Tribute
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike.

These guys are note perfect! a lot of fun to open up for in Evansville.

We're The Martians Now

Great television and film writer Nigel Kneale died over last weekend and I didn't see it covered anywhere this week, I learned about it in a Doctor Who talkback on Ain't It Cool News (which I would definitely click on because there's a very cool banner to see MUSE's new video for "Knights of Cydonia".)

It's funny because I was just thinking of him last week. I watched some of Halloween 3 when I was in Minneapolis (he wrote the original screenplay and later asked his name to be removed after seeing how they bastardized his script into a total crapfest.) Nigel Kneale is best known for creating Dr. Bernard Quatermass, who was a popular character on British television in the fifties. Hammer Studios (who made all the Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing horror movies) remade the TV series as films and the first one I saw (and it absolutely terrified me when I was little) was Quatermass and the Pit. It was called Five Million Years to Earth in the US.

It's also one of the biggest influences on Doctor Who, The X-Files, and the works of John Carpenter, all of which I can't get enough of.

This makes me sound like a codger, but sci-fi and horror are so special effects-based now, that's it's just not as much fun. I love f/x as much as the next guy, but I don't want it to be the star of the show (didn't the SW prequels show us that?). I realize that film and TV are explicitly visual mediums, but I love it when my head does the heavy lifting instead. With zero budget and no computers, that's what these guys in the Fifties and Sixties had to make do with and that's why their work still stands up fifty years later (the BBC just remade the original Quatermass Experiment a coupla years back.) Is anyone going to remake a Sci-Fi original like Mansquito or Alien Lockdown? Technology has made the means of production much less expensive, but it hasn't done anything to help people write better stories. Kneale didn't need that help.

Thanks for the great work, Nigel, and RIP.

Anyone see this on Halloween?

Night of The Living Dead: Live From Wisconsin
*Mark and Mike from "American Movie" fame will be hosting Halloween from
their lawn in Menomonee Falls, WI! They will be grilling out polish
sausages, talking with locals, dealing with zombies, and at the same time,
trying to create the first ever 5 minute live horror film!*

Make sure you check out the Undead & Unplugged video on that site where Mike Schank performs two original zombie-themed songs with his bride.

Here's Wendy and I with Mark from American Movie at the WAMI Christmas party a couple of years ago.

I've got a feeling that Ben saw this and told me about it (my sister just sent me the details asking if I saw it.) They put the address up on the site where they would be taping and it would have been fun to go, why doesn't anyone tell me these things in advance?

Death By Sexy

Death By Sexy
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike.

No bassplayer, but tightass riff rock from the nation's capital.

Rough Draft Mixing and Hip-Hop Caucasians

I just left Aquamunkee Studios where Aquaman and I were mixing down rough drafts of the new material. I love listening to the music in its raw form, stripped down, full of fuck ups as the songs form around them (or instead of them.) We've played a lot of the tunes live but we'll still have a bunch of never before heard songs. That's the worrying part because until an audience has a chance to digest it you don't know which ones are the keepers and which ones need more work. We can love it, but I'm not the best about being objecctive about our own stuff. Plus, it's difficult for me at least to think outside of the live setting, where it's just us. Anything different instrumentation sometimes feels like cheating. That's a limitation we're trying to rid ourselves of. Writing for a record is different than writing for the kind of venues we usually find ourselves in. Plus, you don't wanna be stuck repeating yourself just playing the same templates of songs with different words.

Okay, I'm just bitching now and I shouldn't. The studio is fucking great and the freedom to make things as big or as small as you want is cool. Maybe we'll learn to actually rein it in sometime. Ha, can you imagine us lo-fi? Maybe, but not right now. I never say never, though.

I just sat down with a beer at The King Club and am waiting for Schäffer The Dark Lord to start up (that's where the STD shirt you can see me wearing in about 100 different Sunspot show pics came from.) When it comes to white rappers: I don't think there's anyone that can match him. He's ridiculous but he's clever and not too precious.

The Last Hope is up right now. I don't know them but one of them just asked if the crowd "was feelin' it" and I am, baby, I am.