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Captured! By Robots - A Musical/Mechanical Marvel?
Duke Boo Boo of Ouch writes: "Last night, I ventured out to the local tavern to catch musical acts Mini Band, and more importantly Captured! By Robots. This act is comprised of one human and seven fully functioning musical robots, which play guitar, bass, horns, drums, and percussion. To ensure the full effect, this must be witnessed live, but there are some videos to spark your curiousity." If you've seen one of these shows, please share your thoughts on the experience.
In the future there will be robots!
I knew robots would one day replace humans in jobs, but THIS? I mean, artists are ALREADY so desperate that the RIAA has to sue 12-year-old girls without having to compete with ROBOTS too!
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
I for one welcome our new Robot Musician Overlords.
So this is what happens when Chuck-E-Cheese lays off their entertainment.
I saw this band at Chuck -e- Cheese. They rock.
I've seen all his shows that come through chicago for the last few years except for the recent holloween show- forgot about it.
very cool, the robots are awesome and certain parts of it will definitely remind you of practicing profanities when you were 5....
my favorite song is call 'I wish I had a pussy I could crawl into': it's about finding 50 ft woman with a six foot pussy he could go into and not have to shower or eat or work or dishes and just live in the pussy...
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
In the future will we have robot celebrities and rock stars? With the ladies chasing them for sex? If so it's time to invest in these sex machines you when searching for porn on a peer to peer network and on other places on the web.
Captured! By Robots. This act is comprised of one human and seven fully functioning musical robots ...
Any other Vice City players here immediately think when reading this summary: "In the future, there will be robots"??
Reality, meet fantasy.
:-)
I saw this guy and his "band" in some TV interview at least a decade ago.
I guess the "news" here is he's still doing it. I'd have thought the novelty would have worn off by now.
BTW, the "robots" don't play music in the classical sense that us "non-artistic" folks would appreciate. They're just a bunch of relays and motors that bang drums and make a bunch of noise. It's art like flinging horseshit at a white wall is "art".
They have a better plot line than Matrix Revolutions.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
CBR rocks my socks off!
I discovered them three years ago when they played a little punk rock record shop in tampa called Sound Idea. Back then, I was renting a 4 bedroom house, and only had one roommate, so I graciously offered to let j-bot stay at my house. In the morning me and j-bot went to an IHOP to eat some breakfast, where I interviewed him for a local zine called "Burn Brandon"(brandon is a suburb of tampa). Back then, he only had GTRbot666 and drumbot 0110, with "the ape which hath no name" on backup vocals. Drumbot used to be pneumatically controlled by j-bot. There was a pedal setup where j-bot would stomp on the pedals to control the bass drum, snare, hi-hat, and splash. He also had a keyboard/touchpad deal strapped to him like a guitar, where he would control GTRBot, and do synth work. I saw him last time he came to tampa, when he had assembled this new motley crew of 7 robots, and it was quite the show. The music is alot better than before, and he's quite the showman, just as he used to be.
It's definitely something to see. If J-bot stops by your town it would be worth the price to check him out, you will not be dissapointed.
I saw them (him) about a year ago, I think?
Engineering: Good
Engineering by doing it for fun standards: Awesome.
Songwriting: I want to go home now.
IMHO, overshadowed by opener Reload, who has gone on to form The Punk Group.
I saw CBR a year or two ago at Jay's Upstairs in Montana (now closed, and good riddance). All the college kids ate it up, but it was really a one trick act that got old pretty quickly. The music was typical really bad loud stuff, and I figured "they" were a local trick act. Basically it was a glorified ventriloquism act. Ex-girlfriend loved it, so maybe thats why I don't like them :P
I saw a CBR show in Sacramento at Worlds Best Comics in Sacramento.
It was great, even though I was sober. I believe they played with The 4 Eyes, another great geek rock band.
I say that with a straight face, for being a Star Trek punk rock band.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Swap where you put both those items, eat a can of beans, and then you will have something worth paying to see/hear!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Looks like they need another robot, to learn how to properly configure Apache. . .
You are not the customer.
I think I speak for everyone here when I say:
Thank you for strapping the drum to your ass, and not the harmonica.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
This isn't a dupe, but a mention of this band has appeared on slashdot before. I thought I remembered hearing about this band over the summer.1 765
Here's the link to the original comment, with props. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=66547&cid=612
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I saw Captured! By Robots at the Elbow Room in beautiful downtown Ypsilanti, MI and it rocked my socks off. The concept is cool, and the execution is flawless. JBOT is hilarious and really knows how to work the crowd. This is not something to miss. My buddy posted some pictures from the show that you check out.
My only regret is missing the 10 Commandments show that he's touring now.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
A year ago, I had the dubious pleasure of running the sound board for CBR. It was fun watching him set up the robots, talking to him about how he built them. Asking him how he programmed their actions etc ad nausuem. Then, the music started. I put my earplugs in and tuned out the show. Most people who showed up for the beginning of the show left after the first song. They were just there for the novelty of watching some dude dance around on stage with a bunch of robots playing backup for him. The music? Well, all I can say is that it was as if Slayer, Metallica, The Ramones, Drop-kick Murphies and Strongbad got stuck in a blender together on high and were poured into funny shaped molds with about a gallon of Jell-O powder. The talkback was raucus, racist, sexist and obnoxious. Partly amusing, but then again, I was paid to be there. After the show I asked the guy why he uses the robots. He told me that he used to be in a band with other people, and decided that he hated it. He couldn't control their actions, he couldn't control the way they played. Can we say control freak? Robots breed consistency. However, during the show one of the robots broke down. On the geek end, he had 2 whole racks of computer equipment, micro-controllers, pneumatic pistons, a pneumatic compressor, keyboards, voice modulator built into a mask. Rather neat stuff all around. Would I ever run sound for him again? Sure, if I had a paid monkey to run the board during the show. Would I love to help him in his shop? Yep, but he would never let anyone near his tools or his robots, they are like his little children. Ahh well... rather entertaining. But I wouldn't pay money to see it.
Once more into the birch deer fiends!
I saw him about 4 years ago when I lived in Madison, Wisconsin. His show is pretty popular around here and has been for awhile. He has 3 "robots"; one that is "string bot", "percussion bot" and the ape. The guitar or string bot is more of a harp and it has mechanical picks, one for each string that is triggered by him (the human who is captured) He is in bondage, center stage and has a keyboard controller thing and has all these foot pedals that he controls drum bot with. Each peddle triggers a drum. You can imagine it's pretty intense on the stage. The whole show is he's in bondage (captured) and the robots make demands from him, he tries to disobey but they torture him into playing. As for the music, it's loud and fast. All in all, it's a great show and generally costs about $5.00 for admission. I saw him play with the "Lonesome Organist", a man with an old organ playing hockey game like music with a twist. Great stuff. I still wear my "Capture! By Robots" t-shirt. Oh, and for the ape? He's a robot in a gorilla suit that has a tambourine on his head and has sympathy for capture man. It's a great alter-ego.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Some more good names for Robot Bands:
1. Three Laws
2. Optimus Prime and the Malfunctions
3. 11 Doors Down
4. The What
5. Flee in Terror, Puny Humans!
6. Gortastic
7. IF Ready THEN Rock ELSE Next
8. Chrome Fetish
9. Kryten's Khaosium
10. Al Gore
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I know you've been modded (unfairly) as flamebait, but it's still amazing, especially if it's been going on for a decade or more. (Plus it sounds as good as some of the hardcore stuff that people accept as music.)
I don't think it's musical, and I don't think it's good, but AT LEAST it demonstrates that a lot of human music is mechanical and rote enough that machines can be programmed to do it with live instruments (rather than by synthesizer/digitizer).
From a less cynical perspective, it's great to see a) that robots can be made to do such impressive things with instruments and b) that human hands are still sooooo much more complex and beautiful that the same sounds can be produced by human hands without a godawful collection of pumps and levers hovering tenuously over the strings.
To my mind, it's a better read than listen. The robots are definitely cool, much better than Chuck E. Cheese - the instruments are actually being played by the robots, after all. Maybe you won't be blown away by their quality, you wouldn't see it in a sci-fi movie or Rocky III, but the man definitely has put a lot of time into it.
The stage show isn't the greatest - the songs are pretty generic rockers. Also, given the difficult task of controlling robots while running a 1-man band, it's not surprising that the between-song banter about how the robots have enslaved him and insult him ends up not being as clever as one might wish: a whole bunch of "fuck yous" are thrown around.
So I can't consider him a top example of SF wackiness - he had Extreme Elvis open for him once, and Elvis had him beat, without much of a contest.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I saw them at our local musical Mecca, Ralph's Corner about a year ago. He's a great entertainer. The robots have pre-programmed phrases to say through the show, but he can also switch his mic to talk through the robots to heckle the crowd.
The basic plot of the show is that the human built some robots to be his friends and play with him, but the robots rebelled and took him prisoner, and rip his guts out for fun. The take the human around the nation on tour so they can ridicule him in front of other humans to show their superiority. There is also two stuffed monkeys involved... The-ape-that-hath-no-name, and another one who's name escapes me.
Great show. If you go, check out the merchandise table, they have hilarious stuff for sale, including Captured By Robots cock rings.