And Aquamunkee

And Aquamunkee
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

He's running sound, recording, AND rockin! Yeah!

...more FAWM

...more FAWM
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

Now it's Animalien's turn!

Uncle Timmy at the FAWM showcase

Uncle Timmy at the FAWM showcase
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

Rockin away at one of the 14 songs he wrote for Feb Album Writing Month!

Two Nice Reviews

Thanks to Andrew Frey in Maximum Ink for the cool review of Neanderthal in this month's issue. "Upbeat and contemplative"... I like that and of course I like the part that says "rockin' good time"!

Also, thanks to Paul Autry at awesomely titled Ballbuster Hard Music for a write-up of our 2007 CD sampler. I think he must have gotten the sampler at the Millennium Music Conference because he's a Pennsylvania writer and a Google search reveals an interview with the ridiculous but actually pretty cool, Witches in Bikinis, and they were the big act at the conference this year. Anyway, I'm gonna round up his email address so I can send him a full copy of the CD.

Pics from Bratfest!

Thanks to Kris for taking these great shots from Bratfest! And thanks to all the people who came up to the stage, we heard a lot of comments the rest of the day about how we were the first act to inspire people into motion, so thanks again for partying with us!

RIP Jose Chung

Charles Nelson Reilly died on Friday. Everybody's gonna talk about his role on Match Game, but his best moment for me was as the writer in the Rashomon -ish Jose Chung's "From Outer Space" episode of The X-Files.



And, I feel like an idiot after reading all his obiutaries... I know he acted effeminate, but I never knew he was gay.

Sunspot Road Mania - Ep. 53

Madison's own, Bratfest!

Direct download link:
http://www.sunspotmusic.com/roadmania/sunspot_rm_53.m4v

Mad City Marathon Finish Line

Mad City Marathon Finish Line
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

4:25 and she made it!

Mad City Marathon

Mad City Marathon
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

Mile 23 and it's the final countdown (insert Europe song here) to the finish line!

Mad City Marathon

Mad City Marathon
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

Mile 18. The arboretum is gorgeous right now and I'm next to the Hashers who are helping out their team with some beers to help them through.



Our marathoner is way ahead of time right now and entering into the final leg!

Mad City Marathon

Mad City Marathon
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

Over halfway there! Our runner is right on target...

Mad City Marathon

Mad City Marathon
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

Mile 9 at Tenney Park. Our Sunspot champion is currently 10 minutes ahead of her expected time and it's an unbelievable day out here weather-wise.

Mad City Marathon

Mad City Marathon
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

At mile 3 right next to The Inferno, where our Sunspot-powered marathoner is plowing on through.

Cherry Pie

Cherry Pie
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

Getting a good dose of cock rock at a classic Wisconsin beer tent. These guys rock & if you have any interest in 80s & early 90s music, you simply MUST see them play sometime!

Happy Birthday to The Legend!

Happy Birthday to The Legend!
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

We love ya, Dan!

Wendy's DrummerCam: Friday 5/25/07 @ Bratfest (Madison, WI)

Epic Movie

Well, Epic Movie was about as I expected: good for a few laughs, but hard to get over how dumb Jayma Mays' character is. Very similar to the Scary Movie series, but at least Marlon Wayans wasn't allowed to act in this one. My favorite part was George McFly playing the part of Willy Wonka.

Run Vic Run

Sexy Kraut and onscreen Matt Damon-canoodler, Franka Potente, joins The Shield and how did I miss that bit of news? I fucking love Run Lola Run even though I thought the German name, Lola Rennt sounds a million times cooler off the tongue. I thought I recognized her right away, but I had to look it up to confirm.

And, I might be an idiot for not getting this sooner, but did the music in the past coupla Sopranos episodes just foreshadow everything a little too obviously? I know they do that sometimes, but the Van Morrison version of "Comfortably Numb" (and such was my geekdom, even as a boy, that I had to tape it off the radio when it was happening live in the summer of 1990, remember Cindy Lauper doing "Another Brick In The Wall"?) and "Into the Ocean" right before AJ's big moment both seemed a little too obvious. Well, it was cool to hear some Blue October on the show though.

The Onion's got a spot-on discussion of both of these shows and where the character arcs are going for both Tony and Vic. If you're into both of the shows, it's a great read.

Does the blog look weird in IE?

I was just looking at it in IE6 and the sidebar is all the way at the bottom. Yet, everything looks fine in Firefox... is anyone else seeing this or is it just my machine?

Happy Birthday T-Ned!

Happy Birthday T-Ned!
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn.

I thought this posted yesterday...



A belated birthday wish to the man wearing the flying weiner dog balloon hat!

Sunspot Road Mania - Ep. 52

Just getting a little excited about Bratfest in Madison this weekend!

Don't forget to check out the Not Dogs!

Direct download link: http://www.sunspotmusic.com/roadmania/sunspot_rm_52.m4v

28 weeks later

Holy crap, this movie is piss-your-pants disturbing. Well done, but if you are looking for a feel-good movie, this is not it.

sum pics from caveman's wedding

Congrats Dan & Lindsay!

Congrats Dan & Lindsay!
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn.

Our good friends just tied the knot- time to CELEBRATE!

But we've got the biggest...

...balls of them all. Elderon, WI hosted a Testicle festival last weekend featuring all-the-balls-you-could-eat for five dollars.

Yeah.

Thanks to Allison and Anthony for this sweet tip.

Breaking The Law

Breaking The Law
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike.

So I dressed up for Caveman Dan's wedding rehearsal tonight and I never realized that my black suit and haircut make me look like Halford from the "Breaking The Law" video. Which is kickass because I love that video, but embarrassing because it's subconscious and not 1980.



I just hope that nobody else near my cubicle saw me trying to take a picture of myself with Aviators on...


Here's the original for your viewing pleasure...

Sunspot Road Mania - Ep. 51

A little bit of talking after band practice, Mike does a dance, Ben makes a seminary joke, and Wendy and Mike get a non-starter podcast going at the MAMAs, where in a place with 500 video cameras, the Sunspot cam wasn't allowed!

http://www.sunspotmusic.com/roadmania/sunspot_rm_51.m4v

Sunspot Stock Room

This week I organized all of the Sunspot inventory. I put up some new shelves in the Sunspot Stock Room (aka my garage) and it's working out pretty nicely.

Hopefully we'll empty those shelves by year end!

Bud Bundy

Looks like shit, man.

Gas

So, did the gas strike work? The gas stations by my house are still functional and the price still sucks.

Looking For A Place To Live?

Buy my condo! Perfect for the swinging single who's tired of throwing away rent money every month yet doesn't want the hassle of a house (and mowing and BS like that.) Build your equity, baby, Sunspot-style, in a luxurious studio condominium on Madison's fashionable west siyeede.

For real, if you're looking to buy a place to live and don't want to spend a ton of money, check it out.

Best Blog I've Seen In A While

Thanks to my man, Brad C., out in Silicon Valley, for the heads-up on Geekologie which is the coolest and funniest blog I've seen in a long time. Any site that has the tags, "How To, Star Wars" you know is going to be alright with me.

Wendy's DrummerCam: Thursday 5/10/07 @ Club Tavern, Madison, WI

P.O.'d at the P.O.

The post office doesn't even know how to mail packages anymore since the postage upgrade changed everything. I had to buy and apply over thirty stamps to the already double stamped packages I had to send. Something about 1/4 inch thick and less than 11.5 inches. You know what they're thinking about. Then, I spent the rest of my morning at the DMV. Wow. I thought the post office was my least favorite place to visit. At least when you have to wait at the post office, you can kind of gauge how long. They told me 20 min at the DMV and after 45, they finally called my number.

Pumpkins Robbed, Madison Band in Trouble!

Smashing Pumpkins' new practice space was robbed and some picks and pictures were taken.

And one of the guys that is accused is in Madison/Rockford band, This Is The End. We've played with these guys and they're great players and really down-to-earth dudes. Anyway, even though if they did rob the practice space and admittedly, that was a fairly stupid move, but they don't deserve to go to jail.

Anyway, consider stopping by the Pumpkins' Myspace and suggesting not to press charges against these guys. Yeah, it's kind of a psycho-fan thing to do, but hey, they're a good band and we don't want to lose them!

gas woes

My gas gauge must be off. I filled up at $3.23 in Fort Atkinson today and it looked like I needed 3/4 of my 14 gallon tank, but the pump stopped at 7.3 gallons and I couldn't top it off enough to get my 8 gallons for the brewers punch card. I had recently removed the gas can in the back too. Oh well. With all the miles we put on the van, I'm still close to getting my tickets. Rumor has it May 15th is the day to not buy gas to make a political statement. Don't know if my source is reliable. Kind of like Mr. X from X files. He was even better on that show than on 21 Jumpstreet.

On a happier note, I took my mom to the Koshkonong Mounds Indian effigy site for Mother's Day. She's into Native American culture. If you want to have fun with your pals from other countries, have them try to pronounce some of the names of the lakes and towns around Wisconsin. Oconomowoc is a particularly fun one.

Rock Band of the Year

Rock Band of the Year
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn.

Congratulations to Clear Blue Betty on all of their awards and the great performance!

Susan Masino

Susan Masino
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike.

Introducing the pop and rock awards at the MAMAs. Rick from Rick's Cafe is up there too.



She just announced Clear Blue Betty as Entertainer of the Year. Congratulations!

John Urban + The Gomers

John Urban + The Gomers
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn.

John Urban is doing a great job as host, and The Gomers continue to impress tonight!

MAMAs

MAMAs
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn.

Tonight is the Madison Area Music Awards, and for the first time we can actually attend because we don't have a show!



We got nominated for Rock Band of the year, along with several other exceptional Madison acts, so we'll see how it goes!

WTF?

Starting at only a cool million and a half, you can own the assholes that gave us "Cotton-Eyed Joe".

http://www.popbandforsale.com

What's even worse is that they spammed me.

Guitar Hero Contest

Guitar Hero Contest
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn.

Here are some of our friends competing in the tournament last night!



Thanks to all who came to Club Tavern and rocked with us!

Ripped holes in both legs of my jeans!

Ripped holes in both legs of my jeans!
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike.

You know last night was a rocker when I ruin a pair of pantaloons and not through my usual way of messing myself.



I'm not exactly sure what pantaloons are. I should probably Google it but I'm writing this through email from my Treo and I'm too lazy to open the browser because it's too slow on the 700p. I did a zero out reset a couple weeks ago and added only the software I use everyday and it's a lot more pleasant experience.

The Guitar Hero competition was fun and our performance was particularly ridiculous (especially our end of the night all-request set.) I gotta say that the crew at the Club are all excellent sports and their soundguy, Evan, has an unbelievale air guitar face (I haven't seen his "oh" face, though... yet.)

One thing I gotta say about the Club is that their patrons know how to get blasted. As far as venues in town go, there's joints where people get fairly drunk but at the Club Tavern, everyone just loses their shit.

Young, old, doesn't matter. Last night when Timelady generously drove my drunk ass home, there was a mother-daughter combo that needed a ride two blocks because they were too f'd up to walk.

Two blocks.

Awesome.

We had a great time onstage last night, thank you very much to everyone that spent their Thursday night with us, it means a lot and we promise that we'll give it our all every time, even when it's late and after that wicked Irish Car Bomb.

Mr. Scott Lost In Space... Almost

The remains of he man who always "gave her all she got" on the Enterprise are lost in the New Mexico mountains after the spaceflight taking his ashes to the heavens didn't quite make it.



Och, the onla thin that kenna make me feel better is ta go to tha Club Tavern tonight!

movies

This weeks movies:
Forest Whitaker in "The Last King of Scotland"
The jacket says that it is the performance of his career, but we all know that was "Batteries Not Included." He does do a great job of acting completely out of his mind, though.

Saw "History Boys" this week too which was interesting and good for a few laughs, but a little too drawn out. I frequently have to turn on the subtitles for the British movies. I guess I should have been in drama in high school.

Skipper Butts strikes again

So, after two whole weeks sitting at the boat repair shop, my boat finally got looked at. I guess you only get in in the first week if you have a yacht worth more than $300,000. In a world where customer service is more and more a thing of the past, Skipper Buds is no exception. They quoted me at least $100 high on the repair last week and then they called yesterday to say the tech broke off a bolt and they are doubling my already outrageous estimate. "It's an old bolt." My ass. Don't companies usually cover the labor when they break things? If anyone has any legal training, please comment, for I am royally pissed. BOAT = Bring Out Another Thousand
The best boat is your friend's...

Sopranos - Final Four

I just watched last Sunday's Sopranos episode and I don't want to give anything away so if you haven't seen it yet and care about *SPOILERS*, you might want to stop reading now (this would be a great time to check out Neanderthal if you haven't picked it up yet.)

So what's the fucking deal with nothing really happening? What, have we had one real killing of a real character (Doc wasn't a real character, we hardly ever even saw him) since the beginning of these last episodes? I admit that Sunday's was pretty good stuff, though. I didn't expect Christafuh to be as ruthless as he's been getting And we hardly even see his wife which means she doesn't hold the kind of significance that Adriana had and he still talks about her. So she's just some cooze that Chris knocked up so he married her.

The Johnny Sack episode was really good but I've always liked him as a character. and I like seeing CJ from Dawn of the Dead as Agent Harris' new partner. I thought the coma business from last season was all "calm-before-the-storm" shit, but now there's not really anything going on. It was nice to hear a Muse song at the Bing as well as some Rush in the same episode (that's some hot shit, right there.)So, it's not all bad. I just think we've had enough with the slow burn shit already and it's time to get to some action. If the soldier that Tony was grooming to be his successor turned against them, well, yeah, that'd be pretty massive news and it might be effective in the downfall.

Sopranos was one of the few shows where I could watch episode repeats (especially Seasons Two and Three) over and over again and really not get sick of them. I even had dreams about the characters sometime during the third season (I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Senor Walnuts, except when he freaked out on his mother, I thought that his character might have lost me then, but when he took her back I did as well.)

I'm just afraid that they're not going to have anything happen and not have a "real" ending to the show. I know that might be immature of me to want that, because as a viewer, I always seem to be disappointed by endings and I know that every high school English teacher has a hard-on for ambiguity. But fuck that, I want something big to happen and I want it soon.


And Pauly says he better see YOU at the Club Tavern tomorrow night!

Reminder

...of just how frickin' sweet sunspots are...




We so need to get a stageshow like that.

Return to Aquamunkee!

Return to Aquamunkee!
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn.

We spent some time at Aquamunkee Studios tonight, working on a special tribute for the 40th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper.



Stay tuned for more info later in the week!

Guitar Hero

As you might have read, we're hosting the Guitar Hero competition at the Club Tavern this Thursday, May 10th. It's a game for the PS2 kinda like Dance Dance Revolution but not lame because it has guitars and Ozzy Osbourne instead of jumping jacks and techno. If you don't have a PS2, don't fret little one. There's a free PC version where you can play your keyboard like a guitar! It's called Frets on Fire, it's the poo, so check it out.


Check out this guitar hero make the sweetest of loves to his guitar from the Club Tavern in 2002!

Naps

I read an article today on napping that I found interesting. I don't know about ya'll, but when I do something strenuous or stressful during the day (like work), I like to reset my body when I get home so I can have a stellar evening.

Neanderthals and Al Gore

A new study says that climate change may have killed the Neanderthal.

spidey

Yup, Spiderman 3 is the ballz. I like the IMAX, but I'm not entirely convinced it is worth the extra money. Even on a movie as visual effects-intensive as Spiderman, the coolest part of the imax is still the imax intro. Kind of like the coolest sounding part of any movie used to be the DTS and THX intros. It's nice to see the guy from "Wings" and the guy from "That 70s Show" stretching their serious/dramatic legs in this one.

Brewers

It's too bad the Brew crew couldn't pull it off last night. I'm juiced about using my free tickets and they're playing so well they had the best record in the major leagues until last night.

Strikers in Sussex this weekend, yo!

I'm totally going to trying to squeeze in a showing of Spiderman 3 too.

Burt's Bees Vs. Carmex?

So, Sunday was really the first nice day this year where I was excited about being outside and I got a sunburn sitting outside at a restaurant in Brookfield. Meaning my face was a pleasant lobster-ish pink for the next couple of days, but the resultant chapped lips were unfortunate.

So, I picked up some of that stuff that everyone has a hard-on for, this Burt's Bees lip balm business. I decided to give it a shot, and I admit it's kind of a cool little tin that it comes in. And I'm completely comfortable with using beeswax on my face (just as long as I'm not the one who has to actually procure the beeswax.) It soothes, has a menthol-y nice feeling on my lips, and the tin is small enough to carry in even my tightest emo pants.

But it feels thin. It just doesn't seem as (to use a Microsoft word) robust as Carmex. I mean, when you've got Carmex on it's really like a shield on your lips. You can feel it. I don't get the same thing from Burt, even though I'm sure he's a nice guy. I just went to the Carmex website, and it's fairly ridiculous. They even have a discussion forum. Who gets so excited about this shit (besides me, I guess) that they have to talk about Carmex, not just once, but enough to register for a forum?

Anyway, so all you Burt's Bees fanatics (and I realize that I'm mainly talking to females, because most dudes don't really give two shits), what's the deal? Why do you like it so much and why would you pick it over Carmex?


Holy shit! Burt is real!

Fish

I spent some time last night getting the old rods and reels ready. I know Mike thinks it's torturing the poor fish, but as Nirvana said, "It's okay [to eat fish] cuz they don't have any feelings." I don't know if that's true, but I'm real careful with the fish and I just like to catch them, not torture them.
Skipper Butts won't call me back for 6 days now and I'm calling them every day and getting more and more pissed. What's the use of having a boat if it is in captivity?

Sunspot Road Mania - Ep. 50

Mike and Ben hanging out at the WAMI Awards in Milwaukee, Monday, April 30th, 2007.

Direct Download Link: http://www.sunspotmusic.com/roadmania/sunspot_rm_50.m4v

The blog is fixed!

Alright, looks like our friends at Blogger finally figured everything out and now you can see the blog archives all the way to October of 2004 as well as the earlier blog posts from this year.

Blogger fulfilled their promises and personally contacted us about the problem. It wasn't instantaneous (but can you expect that from a free service?) but they still took care of the issue, which is more than I can say for when I had issues with my Yahoo! email account (when I paid for the premium service.) So, cheers to them for fixing the issue and we didn't lose a single post.