Paul and Storm

Hey, campers*! Wanted to give you all the full breakdown of our schedule for Dragon Con this year, because we’re doing kind of a lot.

First off, we will be sharing a merch table with several of our friends in the Marriott Marquis. Your best bet to find us there is to watch our Twitter feed for the specific times we’ll be manning the merch table.

Our “main performance” at the con will be here:

Gonzoroo II
Sat., Aug. 31, 8:30 pm – Marriott Atrium Ballroom
An evening of music, geekery, comedic delights, and surprises galore! With Bill Corbett, Molly Lewis, Sylvester McCoy, Mike Phirman, Ken Plume, Aaron Poole, Adam Savage, Joseph Scrimshaw and James Urbaniak.

In addition, we’ll be doing the following panels:

FRIDAY, AUG. 30

11:30 am – Paul and Storm Talk About Some Stuff for Five to Ten Minutes (on Average)
Grand Ballroom East – Hilton
Live podcast recording. Neat! Guests? Maybe!

5:30 pm – FRED Entertainment Panel-Palooza-Extrava-Thingee-a-Doodle
Grand Ballroom West – Hilton
A panel that really only exists for the sake of frolicking, bantering, and geeking about with special guests and an Irishman. Host: Ken Plume; other guests: Bill Corbett, Molly Lewis, Aaron Poole, Joseph Scrimshaw and James Urbaniak.

SATURDAY, AUG. 31

11:30 am – I Heart Video Games
Grand Salon D – Hilton
Are videogames modern man’s final art form? Our panelists write, podcast, broadcast, and sing about them…let’s talk about why! Host: Veronica Belmont.

2:30 pm – How to Do Comedy Wrong the Right Way
International North – Hyatt
Learn the dark arts of the funny in this panel about comedy theory and practical application with professional comedians and musicians. Host: Joseph Scrimshaw; other guests: Bill Corbett, Molly Lewis and Mike Phirman.

SUNDAY, SEPT. 1

4 pm – LearningTown: The Webseries: The Panel
Atlanta Ballroom – Westin
A loving look back at the first season of “LearningTown”, the 2013 web series from the “Geek & Sundry” YouTube channel. Other guests: Greg Benson, Kim Evey, Mike Phirman, James Urbaniak.

8:30 pm – Gonzo Quiz Show IV: The Quest for Quiz
Regency VI – VII – Hyatt
Teams of celebrity guests are led through a series of panel show games that you entertained. Host: Ken Plume; other guests: Bill Corbett, Molly Lewis, Sylvester McCoy, Mike Phirman, Aaron Poole, Adam Savage, Joseph Scrimshaw and James Urbaniak.

And that about covers it. If anyone shows up cosplaying as Paul and Storm, that would be awesome. Just sayin’.

 

*does not imply that you are actually camping

Satire is not for the faint of heart, friends. There we were, innocently opening up w00tstock 5.0 in San Diego by playing our song “Write Like the Wind” when, without provocation or warning, an act of great violence was perpetrated upon yours trulies. Sure, we may have touched a sore spot by imploring George R. R. Martin to write faster. And yes, we may have called him the Great Bearded Glacier. And YES, we’d been warned by Neil Gaiman that George R. R. Martin is not our bitch.

OKAY, FINE…we deserved it. And we should also be grateful that only our guitar was harmed, considering how poorly musicians fare in ASOIAF. So enjoy our comeuppance in three-camera HD by UAT Digital Video (below), or witness it in Veronica Belmont’s scoop video. And yes, if case you were wondering, it was a “Stark”-brand guitar.

UPDATE: In the news!

Paste Magazine

The Mary Sue

i09

Huffington Post

Standard Examiner

Fantasy Magazine (Italian)

onet (Polish)

l’express (French)

Venezuela Al Dia (Spanish)

Wet Paint

 

 

 

UPDATE 4/4/13: In addition to being available on this site, the Shadow War! songs are now available on iTunes, Amazon.com and various other online media outlets. Remember: all proceeds in April go to charity!

————

No sense denying it at this point, so here is the unvarnished truth about the situation: yes, we were brought in to help John Scalzi develop a broadway musical based on his Shadow War of the Night Dragons book. Yes, we wrote a good deal of music for it and recorded some demos (with the generous help of our friend Mike Phirman) Yes, it was a complete debacle that ended ugly. No, it was not our fault.

Thank you, Tor.com, for ignoring all prior agreements (and common decency) and sweeping all the dirt out from under the rug. No amount of damage control, however, can put the genie back in the bottle, or prevent it from defecating all over the netterwebs, though Scalzi himself has tried. And thank you, certain so-called “friends,” for greedily picking up our table scraps as soon as we’d left the metaphorical table.

To be clear:  Tor had the temerity to release private recordings of a Skype conference call between Scalzi and ourselves. (We were reviewing the first round of demo recordings, which we had just sent to John) And seeing as Scalzi was the ONLY person with that recording, we have to believe that he was complicit, despite any protestations to the contrary, in the release of the audio. Here is the Skype recording in question:

[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/www.nuggetman.com/songs/shadowwar/ShadowWarSkypeRecording.mp3]

Well, two can play at the “spiteful leaking” game, Messrs. Scalzi and Tor…

In thanks to Scalzi for wasting our time and to Tor for spilling the beans and making us look like fools—but mostly because we STILL HAVE NOT RECEIVED OUR CHECK YET—we are releasing our Shadow War! demos for public purchase.

But to show that we are truly the bigger men here, we’re donating all proceeds from the sale of the songs during the month of April to the following charities:

• The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, which donates instruments to under-funded school music programs
• First Book, which distributes books and education materials to schools serving children from low-income families

So, John Scalzi and Tor, we triple-dog dare you to try and prevent us from selling these demos (which we rightfully own). Show everyone just how much you hate music and education and children!

We are sorry that things ended this way—though, in hindsight, we probably should not have been surprised. But we hope at least some good can come out of this terrible situation.

A final word for Scalzi and Tor: for the eventual musical we write based on Pat Rothfuss’ Kingkiller series—a project that we are not saying exists, but are not denying exists either—if you hear some familiar melodies, you can comfort yourself in the knowledge that they could have been yours, if only you weren’t such a paranoid, controlling douchebag. So consider that as you tuck into your turkey pot pie.