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Embracing the weirdness Sunspot’s digital pioneers shine through the decades peer-to-peer file-sharing system wreaked havoc on the music business, but it worked to Sunspot’s advantage, says Jaeger, the band’s bass player. People halfway around the world who would never attend a gig in Madison were able to hear Sunspot’s music. Some became serious fans, even sending band members gifts from overseas. Rock essentially vacated the Top 40 after grunge flamed out by the late 1990s. Surrounded by Lilith Fair-style artists, Limp Bizkit imitators and awkward ska and swing resurgences, Sunspot managed to keep shining well into the new millennium, outlasting many of their peers — both locally and around the country. One reason for that longevity is the fact that band members have always treated Sunspot like a business. For two of them, Sunspot is essentially a full-time gig. And because the band doesn’t fit nicely into one specific genre, it never had to live up to the expectations of a fickle audience. The band members, all now 38 years old, are not ashamed to admit that their musical influences range from Queen and Iron Maiden to Brad Paisley and Weezer to Green Day and Social Distortion. “We enjoy the process of trying something new,” says Staats, Sunspot’s drummer. “We’ve been working together for so many years that when we go to write and record, we have the process down and can focus more on the creativity. We’re like brothers and sisters.” Sunspot will perform at the Club Tavern in Middleton on Nov. 20 and the Brink Lounge on Dec. 4. n
BY MICHAEL POPKE
When Mike Huberty, Ben Jaeger and Wendy Lynn Staats met as freshmen in 1996 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they formed a band they eventually called Sunspot. The trio began making epic-sounding power pop and never stopped. The music is sunny on one side and dark on the other. Quirky songs ripe with metaphors blur the lines between the paranormal and pop culture, finding inspiration from the likes of sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke and occultist Aleister Crowley. “We wanted to play in front of thousands of people and make it big,” says Huberty, who sings lead vocals and plays bass. “We never thought of the songs as quirky, really. We kind of figured that out later: Why doesn’t anybody else have songs about werewolves?” Sunspot soon learned to embrace its charming weirdness, and almost two decades later, the band members are making some of the best music of their career. New album Weirdest Hits is an aptly titled compilation of songs culled from Sunspot’s popular paranormal podcast, “See You On the Other Side.” Each week’s episode is punctuated with a Sunspot song. Originally released in the form of several EPs, these songs are now available on Weirdest Hits. Ghosts, aliens and ancient prophecies populate the album, which also includes three new songs: “Mother of Time,” “Don’t Shoot First” and “Messiah Complex” — a sing-along thrill ride about aliens, early Christianity and survival.
Power pop meets paranormal: Sunspot at the Majestic, Sept. 29.
Sunspot knows all about surviving. The trio embraced digital technology long before many other bands of their era, resulting in an international fan base. Talking about the old days with Sunspot is like taking a crash course in the history of the Internet. First, there was the band’s vintage GeoCities website with psychedelic colors and RealAudio song samples in 1997. By 2000, members of Sunspot were personally sending emails to fans and inviting them to upcoming gigs. They also
JAMES PEDERSON
frequented Yahoo Chat, a free online chat room service that allowed participants to play songs for each other live on the Internet and then comment on them. From 2005 to 2014, the band recorded about 250 podcasts from a touring van, and in 2012, Sunspot hosted Google Hangouts on a regular basis. Then there were the letters they wrote at the turn of the millennium to members of Congress, urging their support of Napster. The pioneering
Musical homecoming UW’s alumni deliver a wondrous array of compositions BY JAY RATH
Kevin Ernste William Rhoads
Jeffrey Stadelman
Paula Matthusen
out, combining the natural resonance and reverberation of two gongs with electronic playback. Ernste’s “Numina” made an explicit altar of Finn’s harp, making visual and musical references to the Vatican’s inability to prevent priests from abusing children.
Andrew Rindfleisch
The second free concert, on Nov. 6, featured works for wind ensemble. The UW’s professor Stephen Dembski should be congratulated for helping to organize the composers’ visits. Hopefully, Madison audiences can look forward to similar events in the future. n
NOVEMBER 12–18, 2015 ISTHMUS.COM
When we attend concerts to hear live music, we bring our eyes as well as our ears. More than that, we bring our minds, ready for attentive and challenging listening. On Nov. 6-7 the University of WisconsinMadison School of Music offered a rare treat for all the senses: a homecoming of celebrated alumni composers. They presented exciting work, some of it postmodern, some of it emphasizing novel, symbolic staging and motion — along with a few world premieres. The composers are Kevin Ernste, professor of composition at Cornell University; Paula Matthusen, assistant professor of music at Wesleyan University; Jeffrey Stadelman, associate professor of music composition at the State University of New York at Buffalo; William Rhoads, on staff of the
Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York City; and Andrew Rindfleisch, professor of composition at Cleveland State University. On Thursday, Nov. 5, the first of two Madison concerts included chamber music performed by the Wisconsin Brass Quintet, members of the Wingra Woodwind Quintet and several others, notably harpist Lauren Finn. The concert opened with Rindfleisch’s “In the Zone,” a bright, entertaining and clever take on Renaissance musical form, very suggestive of Charles Ives. The premieres were Rhoads’ “Nothing Personal” and Stadelman’s “Enticements.” The first was a rich exploration of tonality and timbre, a salute to his teachers. The second was a canon based on a Schoenberg motif, approaching the idea of music as sculpture. For sheer wonder, Matthusen’s “of whole movements and migrations” easily stood
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