FREE BEER

Just in case anyone missed the giant sign on our shows page or did not get an email about the show tomorrow night at the Annex there will be FREE BEER until it is gone. I recommend coming early, maybe 9pm or so. We'll be on around 9:30, right as the drunken stupor sets in.

324 Jello Wrestling

Too bad my Treo camera sucks, but there's always room for Jell-O at 324! One of our fave bartenders, Val, is up against her friend, Dee. Hot!

Jello wrestling is hot in

Jello wrestling is hot in LaX! I can't send pix because they don't have Verizon here.. We're partying and totally pigged out at Hong Kong buffet

Stone's Throw Re-Opens Tonight!

Tonight we're at The Stone's Throw in Eau Claire for their grand re-opening! If you're anywhere near, you gotta stop down, it's going to be friggin' sweet.

Also, we'll be appearing on WYS Radio, Eau Claire's newest all-independent radio station to talk about the show tonight.

Tomorrow is a jello wrestling party at 324 Live in La Crosse. Hot! We'll have to moblog some pics. Byah!

Cool Madison Podcasting Article

Thanks to Devious for the heads-up!

Here's an article in The Capital Times about Madison podcasts featuring Sunspot Road Mania. Look for a cool pic of Wendy Lynn in van too!

Who's Messing With Maiden?

Looks like these asshole fans need a smackdown for throwing eggs and lighters at Iron Maiden during their show in San Bernadino, California. Plus, Sharon Osbourne calls Bruce Dickinson a "prick" onstage?

Here's a review of what happened from the Orange County Register:

"Undoubtedly, Iron Maiden was the highlight of the entire event at Glen Helen Pavilion in Devore and one of the few - and I mean few - bands on the bill that has a singer. Bruce Dickinson, who along with Ronny James Dio, Rob Halford of Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne, is among the few frontmen in metal who can keep an audience on its feet for the entire set. And with an incredible band that includes Steve Harris (bass), Dave Murray (guitar), Adrian Smith (guitar), Janick Gers (guitar) and Nicko McBrain (drums), Maiden is the consummate metal act.

Unfortunately for Maiden, and its fans, things were not rosy in metal land. During the day, each band that performed was introduced by an emcee. However, Iron Maiden was the only band that did not have an intro. Instead, the only thing that could be heard over the P.A. system before the band came on was a loud, obnoxious voice screaming 'Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy.'

And when the band members opened up the set with 'Murders in the Rue Morgue,' they were pelted with eggs, bottle caps and ice that came from one specific area of the pit. And from there, the evening got worse.

In the next song, 'Trooper,' Dickinson came onstage with the British flag, as he has always done when the group performs this number. But near the end of the song, someone walked out from stage left and started to wave an American flag. On his back was written 'Don't (mess) with Ozzy.' After being hustled off stage, the man appeared again with the flag, waving it again near the front of the stage. Besides this incident, there were power outages, in which the P.A. system was switched off in key moments of three of the band's songs. In addition, while Dickinson was speaking to the audience at the end of the band's encore, that same voice came on the P.A. yelling for Ozzy. But Maiden fans drowned it with chants of 'Maiden.'

Frustrating? Yes. And it was apparent in Dickinson and the band's demeanor. At one point, Dickinson exclaimed, 'You'll never hear Maiden on U.S. radio, MTV and certainly never see them in a reality show.'

Nevertheless, Iron Maiden kept its cool the best it could, and delivered an outstanding 60-minute set, which apparently the Ozzfest organizers had told the band to keep to 55 minutes. Despite all these distractions and problems, what stuck out the most was Sharon Osbourne's appearance on stage after Maiden finished its set.

One might have thought Osbourne was going to apologize to Iron Maiden and do some damage control, but instead, the moment took on some heavy metal drama. She told the audience that Ozzfest organizers 'absolutely loved Iron Maiden and their crew and they are all wonderful, but their singer, Bruce Dickinson was a (jerk) and had disrespected Ozzfest since they began their stint with the tour.'

At this, many in the audience started to boo Sharon Osbourne. While the shenanigans were very weird, one has to wonder how anybody could have sneaked in the approximately two dozen eggs that were hurled at the band. And how someone can gain access to the back stage is anybody's guess. "

I hope all those people die.

... And at the Annex

Oxford is sounding great. Aw yeah!

More fun at the King club

Officer Steve just finished and now Screamin' Cyn is on stage

Music in Madison Tonight?

Anyone up for going out tonight? Our friends in Officer Steve are playing at the King Club tonight and we're gonna go down and check it out.

Also, there's a band called Oxford at The Annex tonight, but I've never heard of them. I don't know if it'd be worth it to go down and promote next week's FREE BEER Blast at The Annex on August 31st, because I don't know what they sound like.

Anyway, shoot me an email or call if you guys wanna go party.

Cool podcast - Elmocast

The Elmocast dedicates "Good-Looking Corpse" to Hunter S. Thompson. It follows a great clip by Dr. Gonzo talking about how he feels bad that our generation will equate sex with death, rain with poison, and the sun with cancer. Anyway, check out the podcast, it's an interesting show and he also finishes the episode with "Scott Bakula".

King Club rock

The Arge is playing a kick ass set right now, and before that This Is The End rocked our socks off!

What the...

Mike just discovered he doesn't quite fit in my sweatshirt... But it is definitely his style!

Sunspot Road Mania Ep. 13

This is another one where we're all not together taped at different times yesterday.

-a little drunk dialing to start it out
-Mike at The Annex talking to the guys from WMAD and the bands, MOTH, and Awesome Car Funmaker.
-"Lovers' Quarrel" by MOTH.
-Ben singing Christmas songs.
-"21000 Miles" by The Stint.
-Wendy calling in from Boston to say hi.

The Stint Tonight!

If you're in Madison tonight, make sure to go down to The Klinic tonight to see our man, Timmy from BoRd's new band, The Stint.

It's a cool idea, create a band in a month that doesn't suck. From what I've heard it sounds great, so we can't wait to hear it live.

Also, Mary Ellis, will be performing acoustically tonight as well. I ran into their guitarist, Chip, at The Annex last night and he mentioned that Eric the mohawkioed drummer had broken his foot and might be out of the game for a little while.

Best wishes on a speedy recovery to Eric and we can't wait to party tonight!

Annex partying!

You're looking at Sophomore rock right now. Moth just finished up and we found out they're playing with us the same night at Midpoint!

Photos from Espresso Christoph (8/13/05)

Here are some pics from our acoustic show Saturday in Milwaukee at Espresso Christoph.

Thanks to everyone who came out and got caffeinated with us! And a huge thanks to Chris for bringing original live music into his coffee shop.

Lazer changing format?

My youth is slowly ebbs away from me a little more now that Lazer is gonna change formats.

There was a period of about a year in 1995 when Milwaukee had 3 rock stations between Lazer, 93 QFM, and New Rock 102.1 (and you don't wanna get me started on The Crusher, an AM all-metal station which died too quick a death in the early 90's.)

Now the Mighty Q (who sent my family to the San Diego World Series in 1983) is now a fuckin' jazz new-age hybrid thing, New Rock 102.1 (which was cutting edge for about a year but gave it a good run) plays more Nickelback than anyone thought humanly possible, and Lazer has successfully played the same Metallica, Pearljam, and Led Zeppelin songs so many times that even Andromedans are sick of "Misty Mountain Hop".

Thank God for WMSE, so at least I'll still have something interesting to in the area.

New Chicks Rockfest Site

Cincinnati's Chicks Rockfest has a new site and we're the featured band. Check out the interview.

Perseid Shower

Tonight's supposed to be the best night for the Perseid Meteor Shower. In the words of the the Star Hustler, keep looking up if you're outside tonight!

Sunspot Road Mania - Episode 12

Better late than never....

Episode 12 (from the week ending 8/7/05) features the following music:

"Jane Doe" by Fatal Agenda
"Letting Go" by The Snaggs

Download here!

Sunspot Road Mania - Episode 2

Hello Friends....

You didn't read wrong! Yes, it should be Episode 12, but this week's Podcast has been slightly delayed due to some technical problems.

Don't worry, Episode 12 will be up soon. But in the meantime, here is one of The Lost Episodes, the elusive Episode 2!

It was recorded after the weekend of May 20, 2005, when we played at Frienz bar in Middleton, WI.

The episode features the following music:

"Stare" by Big Fur (Springfield, IL)
"Early Guns" by The Treats (Madison, WI)
"Oral Giraffe" by Timmy from BoRd (Madison, WI)

Here's the Podcast!

More podcast plays!

Looks like this week, we were played once again on C.C. Chapman's Accident Hash, also our first podcast in a foreign language as we were played on Aneksarthto Mhlo's music show (in Greek), and Chicago's The Scene Zine show.

Download and listen to these shows and if you have a chance, please send these guys some comments thanking them for having Sunspot on their shows. It's very cool that these guys support us and let's make sure they know that people are listening.

How Did I Miss This?

A guy in La Crosse killed his girlfriend and claimed that a demon told him to do it. My old TV sweatshop, WKBT, didn't have the story on their website, weak.

I had to hear about this story from Strangewire. Where were the Wisconsin radio and TV stations on this?

Here's my favorite quote, "Balzrina tells police he then he went back to Dobbs, ended up punching her to the floor and eventually stabbed her numerous times. He then stood on her neck until she was dead and poured gasoline in the house. The District Attorney will have to decide whether Balzrina intended to kill."

Yeah, sounds like that's gonna be tough to prove. I hope they exorcise this motherfucker to the electric chair. Well, not really. I'm not into the death penalty, I think it's scarier and a worse punishment to have to live in prison. Yeah, that's right, I just Googled "prison rape". I think that's probably cruel and unusual in, and, of itself.

Round-Up

I didn't have any time to write anything yesterday, but here's a quick round-up of things you should check out:

Sweet pics from the Gravesights.org "Meat" Hearse Rally as shown on the Hell Forum (where we found out about the show in the first place, check it out, they talk a lot about Wisconsin bands. We got to meet a bunch of people from the Forum at the rally and everyone was cool as hell... so to speak.)

I saw Schaffer The Dark Lord at The Annex last night and hit was one of the funniest acts I've seen in a long time. "Attack of the Clonefucker" is magnificent and "My Dinner with Jello" has a pefect Jello Biafra impersonation. Check out the songs, you'll love 'em.

Someone shot the guy that sang that "Walking in Memphis" song. Yeah, about fifteen years too fucking late.

And here's an article about Cheech Marin's art collection. I don't know why, but I found his attitude inspiring.

Anyway, I'll have more stuff later, plus we'll put Sunday's podcast up.

More mixing

Tried to blog yesterday, but couldn't get cell reception in Trevor. We'll have some hearse pics up this week. We're mixing more with Eric from raw-tracks tonight and had a great time at the King Club beach party today!

Cool Podcast Thing

Awesome, I was just listening to The Daily Source Code which is Adam Curry's podcast. (Remember Adam Curry from MTV? Oh man, I just did a search and I found a pic of our buddy, Michael Angelo from NITRO with Adam Curry on Headbanger's Ball from 1989.

Very cool.

Anyway, Adam plays a bit from The Daily Download podcast that we were featured on Sunday. That means that Mr. Curry, the lead VJ on the Moscow Music Peace Festival has heard us play "Don't Tell Me I Missed The War". That's sweet, I don't expect him to play it on his show (his tastes run towards mash-ups, mushy ballads, and 80's rock) but it was just a cool thing.

I believe in dance!

Watching Random Maxx at The Klinic...

Sunspot Road Mania - Episode 11

This week's episode: The drive home from our show in Rockford Saturday night (July 30 '05). Mike passed out in the back seat so Ben and I had to take the reigns this time. Although don't worry, you'll hear from Mike, too. :)

Featured music:

"Breathless" by Sugarfuse (Rockford, IL)
"Every Time You Lie" by Spinderson (Harvard, IL)

Here's the podcast.... Enjoy and don't forget to give us your feedback!

Daily Download Podcast

The Daily Download featured us on their podcast on Sunday. If you dig scatalogical humor, then you'll love his site. He played "Don't Tell Me I Missed The War" off of Loser of the Year.

Rockstar: INXS

Have you watched this show yet?

The Rock n' Roll Geek Show has been riffing on this show for a coupla weeks now and Michael Butler's take is always entertaining. He devotes almost his entire podcast this week to it.

As for the hosts, Dave Navarro and Brooke Burke? Style wins over substance again. I always liked Dave Navarro (he kinda sucked in the Chili Peppers, but that was only for one album), but it looks like he's paycheck-surfing on this one.

Anyway, this show reminds me of driving by a car accident. It's totally weird that a guy I know and respect likes this show. I'm just kind of embarrassed for these people. The contestants are so placating to the judges. Whose asses are they kissing? The guys from INXS? Gimme a fuckin' break. Since Michael Hutchence hanged himself, they haven't done shit and they're not gonna do shit with a picked-by-committee vocalist.

Don't apologize for your performance, you're a rocker, you don't have to brown your nose for some 80's rockers who are more deperate for attention than you are. That's what separates rock n' roll from Broadway, man. Your performance belongs to you and you only, everyone else can share in it and enjoy it, but it's yours. If you're gonna apologize, then don't perform.