Alice in Spencerland

A portion of a Sunset Rubdown video appeared this week on a national network, CBS.  Seriously.  The Sunset Rubdown, the best band in the history of music (at least according to Vague Space) just got a little touch of national exposure in the midst of an interview on CBS's The Early Show, with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp on the forthcoming Alice in Wonderland.  Apparently, Mr. Depp uses music as inspiration for his characters and the music he used for The Mad Hatter/Alice in Wonderland was none other than our favorite band of wonder, Sunset Rubdown.  He mentions in the interview that Terry (Gilliam, director of Heath Ledger's last movie, which Johnny appeared in) turned him onto a "band called Sunset Rubdown" and that several tracks of theirs really fit the mood created in Alice.  And while he's talking, CBS shows a 5-second or so clip of "They Took a Vote and Said No."  Fucking awesome.  You know, The Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" was used so ubiquitously in the commercials for Where the Wild Things Are that it got picked up as the background music by the NFL for use in two! commercials about the NFL during the Super Bowl.  So it's not a huge surprise that some of the wonderful music highlighted by my blog that my friends make fun of is getting national exposure.  But Arcade Fire is a "big" band, by indie rock standards.  The fact that Johnny Depp just mentioned Sunset Rubdown, a much, much smaller band, on national TV is even more exciting to me.  Good for Spencer.  Good for Depp.  I had zero interest in seeing Alice in Wonderland, but now I'm definitely a little bit curious.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

• Download Sunset Rubdown - "They Took a Vote and Said No".mp3
  

• Download Sunset Rubdown - "They Took a Vote and Said No (daytrotter session)".mp3
  

Here's the full video of "They Took a Vote and Said No" used in the CBS clip.  It's not an "official" video for the song (I'm not sure Sunset Rubdown has ever made a "video" -- why would they?) and the people in the video are NOT Sunset Rubdown.  The director is a guy by the name of Kevin Cline, who is posting about it on the Wolf Parade forums.  The "actor" playing Spencer in the video is his brother.  Funny stuff.  He wasn't even contacted by CBS -- his homemade video to a song he liked from a band he loves just got pulled off YouTube and used.  Hilarious.

Oh and here is an interview with Terry Gilliam from the fall in which he professes his love for the band. 

What was the last album you downloaded?

Dragonslayer by Sunset Rubdown. They're from Canada and there's this guy called Spencer Krug who's the main man. I think they're genius.

Comments

[LegFuJohnson]

At this rate, you'll stop listening to Spencer by late 2011.

[Bill]

As long as his music doesn't get dramatically worse (a la Death Cab), I'll keep listening.

[Kelly]

This whole thing is just weird to me.

[Bill]

But in a good way right? The dj on cbc radio 3 was talking about this yesterday and I guess maybe I finally learned how to pronounce his name because she said it like krooog not krug like rug like I think I always pronounced it. So there's that. She also got all excited about the forthcoming wolf parade release which is obviously a good thing too, but she didn't have any details beyond the few canadian dates that have been announced

[Kelly]

All in all, what I took from the whole thing is that Terry Gilliam is a fan and Johnny Depp needed to sound edgy in an interview.

I think it is great for the band. Spencer, SR and Wolf Parade deserve all the credit in the world. I guess I am just being selfish and don't want Krug and the gang to be adored in the media.

I knew it was pronounced Krooog but it was a while before I figured that out too.

[Bill]

haha!