The Michael Showalter Showalter

So we heard through a few grapevines that the spinto band's second favorite comedian, (behind Bernie Mac circa 1993*) Michael Showalter is doing a show for College Humor. Now, we know a guy at college humor, and he did not tell us. For that, we are posting this picture of him on our web journal: We had to do our own research for this one. Let me tell you, I just watched it and I figured I'd post it up here for all of you to enjoy. I can't figure out a way to put it right on the page, so you will just have to click on this link! to watch it. While on the college humor website, feel free to look at some boobs or videos of guys getting hit in the nuts, but remember, show Showalter some love too. I didn't know anything about the guy he was interviewing, so I did a quick search for him and found some good stuff. Check out him singing Fiona Apple's Not About Love in the media section.

In other Michael Showalter news, he will be hosting and giving a lecture at Bennington College's Sunfest event on May 19th. The Spinto Band will be performing as well as the Teeth, Anna Oxygen, Deer Tick and some mud wrestlers. Come on out, should be a hoot!

Some more Showalter Goodness
Pizza
Raking Leaves
Saturday

alright thats enough crap to sift through.



*2007 Bernie Mac lost his mojo.

Soda Taste Test #3 with Mike & Orlando

So this past September we found ourselves back in Austin. When in Austin, the spinto band finds it difficult not to expand their tour-scorched palettes with a li'l texas tea... the carbonated kind!

Luckily for us the Music for Listeners guys were also in the area with a cooler full of carbonated sweetness. We filled our bellies with a Gulf Sea of soda, and let me tell you, within my sea, a Bermuda Triangle came about. However, we didn't let any baby-boy-belly-aches hold us back from kickin' it with Emo's later the night. Mike and Orlando were around for that too.

Oh ya, did I tell you they brought a tape recorder? If you can handle it, tune in at the location below.

The Spinto Band taste soda! bah da da daaah!

oh I think we had a couple special guests. One had e coli the other was the drummer for We Are Scientists.... Both loved making exotic metaphors to explain the soda extravaganza.

thanks a bunch Mike and Orlando- talk to you in March! any chance the root beer documentary will be viewable by then?

A Radio Show in 3 Parts

Sunday Edit: Corrected the links. They should be functional now. Sorry about the screwup, you know how it can be. -J

Hey all. I uploaded our performance on WVUD's roots show with Scott Birney. We talk a bunch about the upcoming show at University of Delaware which was great. Thanks to everyone who came out and thanks to Scott and Stevie for coming up for their awesome rendition of Shake Rattle n Roll (not to mention special thanks to all the people who chicken danced during it.) After the show my mom was ecstatic. She said she has listened to Scott play that song for more than 3 decades, which is longer than any of us have been alive. Katie took some splendid photos and put them up on her flickr account. It's also worth noting that Sam Hughes broke out the keytar for this show which went over quite well.

anyway, here are the files from Scott's show earlier that morning.

WVUD Roots Show hosted by Scott Birney
today's guest: The Spinto Band
Friday January 19, 2007

Part 1 - Direct2Helmet(live). Cats Pajamas(live). Can't Take My Eyes off of You(live). Crack the Whip(recorded)

Part 2- Oh Mandy(live). Airport(recorded). Brown Boxes(live). Spy vs. Spy (live).

Part 3- mouse talk. Late (live). Did I Tell You(live). Misogyny is Cool(recorded).

Each file is about 20 minutes long and it is in .m4a format whatever that means. Enjoy.

Batman and the Robins in NYC

Hey all- wanted to let everyone know that Spinto side project, Batman and the Robins will be performing at North Six in NYC on Wednesday. We are playing second of three after Overlord and before Frightened Rabbit. The show starts at 9pm and Batman and the Robins will be on sometime around 10 I am guessing.

Come on out, as Batman and the Robins rarely perform live and it should be a fun hang out.

Oh ya, about that whole 'not touring for a while' thing....

So we thought we would settle down for the winter. Take a little time for ourselves, paint some rooms, play some board games, and work out a few new songs. We did that, and are thinking it may be time to play a bunch more shows in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Madison and all sorts of others. We also think Dios Malos should come with us. When we hit Phoenix, maybe Asleep in the Sea will join us and let us sleep on their floor. Who knows, maybe we should all get those roller skate sneakers and wear them on stage. Let's try to do all these things and more, but lets also understand that if some of them don't happen, screw it, we'll just blame our manager.

Oh ya, another thing that we may do is play the Metro in Chi-town with The Changes on February 24th and have Jeff play drums with a new invention we are calling floppy-sticks!

sincerely yours,
the marble-mouthed spinto band

More Great Things From 2006

So Yesterday I posted all of the conventional things people rank in any given year, but lets face it, a lot more happens in a year than listening to an album, reading a book, and watching a movie. So here are some more things we enjoyed in 2006.

Favorite Celebrity Freakout
Michael Richards flipping out on that guy at the comedy club is everyone's favorite. Kramer lives, but Michael Richards dies in many of our hearts and the rest of our hearts are just left with a look of awe. There are a ton of YouTube clips of this, here is one of my favorites.

We also had a fun time with the whole Danny DeVito freakout on the show the View. Danny DeVito deserves a bit of praise- dude can hang.

Favorite Invention

None of us have gotten Segways yet, but we did get to ride some at a festival earlier this year. These inventions are way better, or at least a little better in our opinion.

1. The Family Boy The Super Bright Red Light is super bright.

2. This juicer I got for Christmas- I spent an hour trying to juice oranges with one of those hand juicers for mimosas on Christmas day and made about half a pitcher. Then I opened a gift that was this awesome automatic juicer that you just peel and throw any fruit or vegetable into and suddenly juice pours from a little spout on the side of it. It is remarkable. I've put tomatoes, celery, yams, carrots, pineapples, strawberries and all sorts of other crap (bananas don't work too well) into it.

Worst 5 pounds Spent
Sam- betting on Peter Ebdon in the Snooker World Championship Finals
Jeff- buying cheese cake at the K West hotel (actually it cost me 8 pounds)
Tom- Oxygen which was being sold in a tent at the Oxygen festival
Jon- some hair gel that I couldn't really get into using.
Joe- many a dice game... sigh.
Nick- some veggie burgers that our bus driver threw out because he thought they were bad.

Dog of the Year
Buster "Bippy" Hobson













Best Foreign Holiday of 2006
Guy Fawkes day (we actually prefer bonfire day though)

Best Edible Discovery
Making Oatmeal with Coffee

Nick's Greatest Accomplishment
painting his room
Jeff's Greatest Accomplishment
taking a poo in Japan and FINALLY getting to use a bidet
Jon's Greatest Accomplishment
building up the nerve to crowd surf

That's all for now. So far 2007 sucks in comparison, so lets all just keep writing 2006 on all our papers.

2006- the year of the Bippy

So The Spinto Band has all been reading list after list of top _____ of 2006 trying to hold on to the year that was. Its warm December nights will not soon be forgotten. Here are a few things the Spinto Band enjoyed in 2006:

Records: Here are a few albums we spent a bunch of time listening to and think we should list in no particular order so that everyone reading this goes out and samples a bit of their brilliancy.

Camera Obscura- Lets Get Out of This Country
Ratatat- Classics
Peter Bjorn and John- Writers Block
Islands- Return to Sea
Capitol Years- Dance Away the Terror
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins- Rabbit Fur Coat
National Eye- Roomful of Lions
Joanna Newsome- Ys
Asleep in the Sea - their first LP
M Ward- Post-War
Starlight Mints- Drowaton
Half Handed Cloud- Halos & Lassos
Oppenheimer- Oppenheimer

here are a few oldies we still spent time listening to
Donovan- Open Road
Kate Bush- Hounds of Love
Sparks - Kimono in my House
Os Mutantes - Mutantes
Chesapeake Jukebox Band - Chesapeake Jukebox Band

Listen to those fuckers and you'll feel drunker than an Irish Man on his wedding day! we promise.

There is more to life than music though. Kevin Bacon said that, and we all agree with him. So here are some fave movies that are worth bustin out at blockbuster.

Brick
Science of Sleep
Lunacy
An Inconvenient Truth
Nacho Libre
Snakes on a Plane
The Departed
Borat

That should be a comprehensive enough list. As far as books go, no one ever really knows when it came out, so here are some we read and want to tell you... they are good!

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Women by Charles Bukowski
Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie
Full Metal Jacket Diary by Matthew Modine
Armed Forces by Franklin Bruno
The Code Book by Simon Singh


So thats the basics. Tomorrow I'll post some more exciting favorites. You Tube videos, friends made, senators... all that good stuff. If 2007 is going to be a good year for this blog, we better space it out a bit.

ps- look for the first couple episodes of Treasure of the Cisne to come out in the next couple weeks!