Sunspot Road Mania - Ep. 155

5 shows, 3 days in Austin, 48 hours in the van. Our most epic Road Mania yet as we journey to SXSW 2011 to play showcases for Tourbinder.com, WeAre78704.com, GoGirls.com, Good Day Austin on Fox 7, tour the Texas State Capitol, get destroyed by Nuclear Tacos, hail a pedicab, eat free on Rachael Ray, have some death metal pizza, and drink enough Lone Star and whiskey to kill a horse.

Download the SD version here: http://www.sunspotmusic.com/roadmania/sunspot_rm_155.m4v

Sunspot Road Mania - Ep. 154

Here we are, getting ready for the annual pilgrimage to Austin, records new songs, attends a MAMAs seminar at the Frequency, and checks out the action at the Wisconsin State Capitol building.

Rock With Sunspot at SXSW 2011

Here's some chances to party with Sunspot if you're at SXSW 2011:

We'll be performing at the World Jam at Aussie's Bar and Grill on Thursday, Saint Patrick's Day at 8pm. That's Ben's birthday and it's going to be a good one, because we'll be starting the party after 20 straight hours in the van, so you know it's going to be Lone Star-crazy. It's gonna be some international shiz going down too, bands from all over the world are performing with us. It's a small fucking world after all.

If you're agoraphobic and can't make it out of your house, we'll be on Good Day Austin, Friday, March 18th at 8:45am, so just tune into Channel 7 to see us. See, we've made it easy for you, just turn on your telly, and we'll be there.

Then Friday night, we're closing out the Invasion of the GoGirls @ SXSW at Trophy's. We're also going to be rocking with 3 Kisses so you know things are going to get nasty. How nasty? Check out the Jagermeister annihilation the last time we hung out.

Saturday night, we return to Aussie's to light up the big finale of the World Jam!. That one's gonna be fun and we'll be pulling at all the stops to make it an awesome show. It's the last hurrah of the weekend and we're planning on blowing the place apart, then getting down to business (and by business, I mean it in the Flight of the Conchords sense) and playing volleyball. Unfortunately, I found out that the outdoor showers there require a "bathing suit". Showering with clothes on, what is this, Bizarro World?!

We can't wait to see everybody and put on some great performances with our new songs and the best of all of our music.

RIP Nicholas Courtney

It seems the time has come for another eulogy and this one is a sad loss particularly for me, but for a man did have a long and successful life. The Brig from Doctor Who has gone to the Great UNIT Headquarters in the sky (or have they already covered that in the new series with that crazy airship, Valiant?) I doubt that I'm alone in saying that besides the Doctor, he was my favorite recurring character in the old series that wasn't the Doctor. And one of the reasons he was such a great character was that Courtney always looked like he was having a great time playing the character (especially when he got to be the parallel universe doppelganger from "Inferno"; actors seem to love that stuff. Think about how Leonard Nimoy sunk his teeth into "Mirror, Mirror" and how Anna Torv and John Noble devour scene as Walternate and Fauxlivia.) But that enthusiasm for the role and the way they gave the Doctor a very human foil. Someone who was looking out for Number One, and Number One meant the safety of the Earth and the human race. The Brig always wanted to blow the alien (or sometimes subterranean) invaders up. The Doctor was an intergalactic peacenik but the Brigadier was the realist. The one saying, "Hey Doc, besides you, whenever we run into an alien they're trying to kill, exploit, or enslave us, so I'm not going to give these guys the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe we should nip this problem in the bud before innocent people are murdered by another invasion." The Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who is one of my favorites as well, even though they were stuck on Earth for most of it and The Master was always prowling around organizing some kind of invasion, it stands on its own for character development in the show. There's a reason that some of the characters created during that era are ones that are still beloved today- The Brig, Sarah Jane, The Master... has another era from the show created so many non-Doctor characters who have come back after so long? Jon Pertwee was the Doctor forty years ago(!) and Elisabeth Sladen is playing the same character.

Nicholas Courtney was the glue that held that together and the fact that they were planning on having him return last year (but it was cancelled due to his ill health) just goes to show what a popular and enduring performer he was. Doctor Who meant a lot to me as a kid, it was something that I liked that very few people I knew liked. A lot of people liked Star Trek (well, at least almost everyone I knew) and everyone loved Star Wars, but Doctor Who was something special. It was something really outside the mainstream and that's one of the reasons I adored it. That and the horrible special effects- while other people couldn't handle watching a television show were the rubber-masked aliens looked like they were handled by a high school A/V club, I thought it was great. I couldn't get enough of the laser beams that were obviously toy guns with blue flashlights at the end. It was the stories that had to be good, it was the dialogue and the performances that had to make you believe it, that had to capture you. Nicholas Courtney was one of the most believable and fun aspects of the show. He was someone you could relate to, you could see how much he enjoyed the character, and by all accounts, he was one of the most generous actors to the fans (and we can be slightly overzealous!) I am genuinely saddened by his death because I had hoped to meet him someday, but I've never been to a Doctor Who convention. Well, maybe I should get a giant scarf and head to one soon, so I don't miss out again. RIP Sir Alistair and thanks for everything.

Wendy's DrummerCam: Saturday, 2/26/2011 @ Victory Lane in Merrill, WI