One of the more colorful characters – in more ways than two – at the last two E3s was the raucous bunch of indie developers from GameCock Media.

Unfortunately, the company and its crazy antics were caged when bought by SouthPeak. That might have been a good thing for the company and meant gamers got to hold GameCock’s games in their hands a bit sooner but the loss of GameCock’s presence is noticeably and unfortunately missing from E3 2009.

Stubb’s Bar-B-Q in Austin Texas is set to host the second annual Expo for Interactive Entertainment, Independent and Original on March 6, 2008. The event, announced this Tuesday (January 15, 2008) and cleverly abbreviated E.I.E.I.O., will be an instantly memorable acronym for fans of the children’s song classic regarding Mr. McDonald’s ownership of a farm.

Gamecock Media Group has teamed up with South by Southwest for this year’s events. The less cleverly dubbed “SXSWeek” (missing a ‘W’ there guys, you have to follow the rules) will run March 7-16 with the Interactive portion running March 7-11. Among the development companies already slated for E.I.E.I.O are Wideload, Red Fly Studio, Spark Unlimited, Replay Studios, Firefly Studios, and Timegate Studios. The show will include demos of Hail to the Chimp, Section 8, Mushroom Men, Legendary, Sabotage, Dungeon Hero, and Insecticide. More developers and games will be announced later.

Plans for the evening concert included this interesting plea built right into the press release:

E.I.E.I.O. 2008 will be an all day event at Stubb?s and will lead into a concert that evening. The evening shenanigans will be open to the local gaming public (via tickets issued prior to the event). Gamecock is hoping to feature bands with members of the gaming press in them for the concert, so if you write about games and play in a band, please contact {encode=”press@gamecockmedia.com” target=external title=”press@gamecockmedia.com”} about bookings.

I’m going to be honest with you. I was once in a little band by the name of “Cock of the Rock.” People didn’t like the name. And why not? It’s obviously phallic, and thusly…

After its fun and obnoxious E3 2007 appearance referred to as EIEIO (Expo for Interactive Entertainment Independent and Original), including an official funeral for the event, Gamecock has hit my radar hard and keeps on coming.

The latest visual assault is in the form of a semi-scandalous video titled “Fury: Life is What Happens While You’re Level Grinding,” promoting its upcoming game Fury.

Click through to view the video and for info on getting in on the beta…

At least one game company is re-embracing the rogue, indy – dare I say, ’80s Atari – spirit of videogames this year. If you watched any G4 coverage this week, you saw this company’s employees a few times, dressed as chickens and roosters, guzzling brews and even parading a few booth babes at its offsite pseudo-E3 gathering, E.I.E.I.O. (Expo for Interactive Entertainment Independent and Original) Fun Fest 2007, an event that happened to take place the same time as E3, featured videogames as well as a skateboard ramp and strippers.

The company is Gamecock and they make crazy games (Hail to the Chimp, Dungeon Hero and Mushroom Men) and are even having a funeral procession for E3 2007 on the last day of the expo (July 13, 2007). Sure, it’s a bit of a publicity stunt but, considering the companies and gamers that think this might be the end of E3…