hellziggy

Besides the awesome trip to Phoenix at the end of May and the awesome shuttle launch in the middle of May, there's a bunch of stuff locally coming up that makes me happy.

I just found out that Uncle Kracker is going to be in town in just a few weeks! He'll be at The Rock on March 20th. He's w/some band called Rehab that I've never heard of so hopefully he's headlining this time. I am so there!

Then, the very next weekend on Friday, March 26th Sunspot will be back in Rochester again! This time we'll probably spend the night, either at a cheap hotel, or at a friend's house. I'm not used to getting my Sunspot fix twice so close together. Yay!

And on June 18th MPR is bringing John Hodgman to town! I lurve him, so I really want to go. hellbob says he has a band concert that night though, so I'm not sure if he's going to want me to go without him.

With all these cool things running around in my brain when I go to sleep tonight, what kind of fucked up dreams will I have? John Hodgman flying Space Shuttle Atlantis, with Sunspot & Uncle Kracker floating around playing music? Then we land in Phoenix and all hang out with Wil Wheaton and James Marsters? How fabulous would that be? LOL

Is it really a road trip though if it's less than 2 hours?

Sunspot!

Tomorrow night!

Rochester!

Who's in?


Kathy's Pub
February 12, 2010 - 9:30 PM
307 S Broadway
Rochester, MN 55904


It's super short notice because Mike says they just got the call about it last night and since they had the date open they thought it would be cool to give it a shot.

Rick says we can probably make it.
Mark says he'll go if he can convince the woman.
Tom says he'll check w/the wife (Lisa)
Lisa says it sounds like fun, she'll see if Tom is off.

So we've tentatively got between 4-6 of us going. It's close enough that we can drive back to the Cities afterwards as long as one person stays sober.

Anyone else wanna come with?

I have convinced hellbob that we need to road trip into the lovely state of Wisconsin on August 29th.

The super awesome fantastic band Sunspot will be playing at the House of Rock (422 Water St, Eau Claire, WI, 54703) at 9pm on Saturday, August 29th. w00t!

This Eau Claire show is currently the closest one to the Cities they've got scheduled right now, although they are trying to get one lined up here in town on Friday the 28th.

Since we don't know anyone in Eau Claire to crash with we are planning on just getting a cheap motel room. And I do mean CHEAP. I'm not planning to stay anyplace that costs more than $50/night. :)

Do any of you wanna come with us? It is a GUARANTEED fun time!

This is kind of fun: The Endless from Sandman drawn as Garbage Pail Kids.
Tiny little preview picture:


By not keeping up with Twitter/LJ/the internet in general for the last few days I had missed the revelation that Neil Gaiman and Amanda Fucking Palmer are dating. Apparently it's been a couple months. I hadn't suspected, but as soon as I read it my brain went "Yeah, of course they are." It's pretty obvious in the pictures of them together once you know.

hellbob and I are getting up early tomorrow, collecting Jenn and John, and heading down to Ames, IA for Reina's wedding. There's apparently a convention of some sort in town this weekend (yeah, I know. I thought the same thing. Who thinks "Where should we have our convention?" and comes up with Ames Freaking Iowa?!?!?) making the rooms that are still available way more expensive than I am willing to pay for a hotel room in Iowa, so we will be driving back home tomorrow after the reception. I figure with four of us, one of us will be awake enough and sober enough to find I35 and head north!

We're heading down so early because Jenn is doing Reina's makeup for the wedding, so Rick and I will have a few hours to kill between when we get there and when the wedding starts.



So, do any of you Minneapolis peeps want to road trip to Madison, WI next Friday afternoon??? lucky13charm, can you get out of work early on Friday?




I know y'all have heard me talk about how awesome Sunspot is, and those of you I've gotten to go to their show with me have gotten hooked. Their CD/DVD release party for their newest album is this coming Friday, and I've been toying with the idea of going to Madison for it. hellbob doesn't want to go, because it's about a 4.5 hour drive. But he says I can go as long as someone goes with me because he doesn't want me going by myself. The pre-party is at 7pm, which means leaving the Cities between 2 & 2:30.

The three options for Friday nite are: get a super cheap hotel room (in town but not free), or drive one hour back to the Dells afterwards and stay at our timeshare (free but not in town) or find someone to crash with (free *and* in town). My preference is the find someone to crash with option, and when I posted on Twitter/Facebook asking if any Madison peeps had a couch for me to crash on, Mike replied with "I'm sure we could find a safe comfy couch for you between the three of us!" Heck, I hadn't even specified that it had to be safe or comfy! :) Of course this option would be dependent on how many people are going. Then we'd just come back home on Saturday.

If you want to go to Madison for your own reasons and not go to the show that works for me too. I will mock your lack of good taste in music though!


You can check out all of Sunspot's music for free HERE.

I gave kalfoley a call last nite before heading out to the Terminal Bar and she was up for going to see a band she'd never heard of so we made our plans to meet up there. Then when we walked in I saw ninja_tech! She'd decided last minute to come meet up with me and check out Sunspot too! Yay! I went from going to the concert by myself to having 2 friends to hang out with. :)

kalfoley & I had completely missed the first band, Skittish. ninja_tech said they were good, and I'd liked what I'd heard of them online. Oh well, that wasn't who I was there to see.

As we made our way up to find a spot near the stage I saw SunspotWendy who gave me a hug. I introduced her to the "Sunspot virgins" I'd brought with me. We got settled into a table right near the stage and chatted until the next band started.

This was a band that I'd also never heard of, Mass Drastic. They were really good! We all liked them and really liked the lead singer's voice. Unfortunately they don't have a CD yet, so I couldn't buy one. :( Since they are local I plan on going to see them play again sometime soon.

Mass Drastic:



After some more time getting to chat with kalfoley & ninja_tech, it was time for Sunspot to take the stage!!!

They had it cranked to eleven! They started the set with Prozac Girl. Not even halfway through the song Ninja leaned over to me and said, "Yeah, I'm gonna like these guys." Yay! KalFoley also liked them right off the bat. Yay!

To the best of my recollection, these are the songs they played:
(but not necessarily in this order)
Prozac Girl
Summer Day
Neanderthal
More Than My Degree
Sweet Relief
My Own Worst Enemy
Scott Bakula

It seems like there should be more than that but I just can't think of them right now.

Ben & Mike:


Wendy:


You can find a few more pictures in my gallery

After Sunspot was done we decided we should hang out and check out the last band. While Ninja & KalFoley were out smoking, one of the band members had told them to expect a "vocal orgasm." Well... They started playing and while the music wasn't bad, the lead singer just wasn't that good. I don't know if it was because he wasn't entirely sober, or if he's always not that good. Also, they had a guy on stage in a penguin suit. Not singing or playing an instrument or anything. Just up there jumping around. Weird!
(Yes, I know, I didn't name the band. I wasn't there to see them, so there's no point in totally trashing a band I'd never even heard of.)

So we moved to the back of the bar where the music wasn't so loud so we could talk. *edit* OMG! Ninja reminded me in the comments of their oh so awesome song lyrics. "Fucking Deanna in her vagina." Yes people, it was totally as awesome as it sounds. It was at this point where I made a comment about the vocal orgasm that Ninja insisted that I remember to post online:

They promised a vocal orgasm. This is more like when you fake it to get them to finish and roll off of you.

When they finally were done, we were hanging out chatting w/SunspotMike. He'd set his iPhone on the stage and couldn't find it, so I gave him my cell to call it with as he walked around listening for the ring. He found it! Also, I promised to stalk him now that I have his phone number. :P Anyhow, when he came back with his phone I was telling how EXTREMELY JEALOUS I was that he'd gotten to see Patrick Stewart & David Tennant do Hamlet when he was in England. This led to us Doctor Who geeking and he showed of the pictures he had on his phone from the Doctor Who Exhibit in Cardiff. So cool! Moose has been there too. I want to go.

When SunspotBen dragged him off to help with hauling their equipment, KalFoley bought a Sunspot CD and we got ready to go. After we got everyone to sign it for her we headed out the back door. SunspotMike was out there and so we started talking some more. He's soooo "one of us!" Our geeky conversation ran the gamut from D&D to Star Trek to GenCon to CONvergence to Alan Moore to Neil Gaiman to Doctor Who/Torchwood to sci-fi porn (Flesh Gordon). (Although not necessarily in that order.) We were talking for a good half hour at least. SunspotWendy was also out there by the time we left so we said goodbye to her again, and then all headed to my car. Since I was parked the closest I dropped the other two girls off at their cars and headed on home. Got home a little after 3:00 and curled up next to a nice warm hellbob.
All in all, it was a really great nite!

Does anyone want to go see Sunspot with me?

They will be playing at The Terminal Bar in Mpls on Saturday nite. 9:00. Cover is $5, and there will be 4 bands: Skittish, Handsome Deville, Mass Drastic, and Sunspot.

If you haven't listened to their music yet, well, shame on you! I told you to go listen months ago! So go, now. You can get their free single every month HERE. You can also hear some of their other songs HERE.

I'm definitely going to be there. Are any of you?

I think there are only two of y'all on my flist in Milwaukee, but a band I like is doing a free show there tonight:

Go see Sunspot!
From the email I got:
"We're performing a special FREE show in Milwaukee tonight at Yield. It's located at 1815 E. Kenilworth Pl. It'll be all Sunspot all night starting a little after 8pm, so stop down and say hi if you're in the area. Sunspot virgins get free sampler CDs and Sunspot non-virgins get a special somethin-somethin else!

Look for more info on the bar here: http://www.myspace.com/yieldbar

We have several new songs that we're excited to share with you!"


And the other shows they have coming up are: