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.

Re:Lol Vice City radio

I wish I had a robotic woman to blow my horn.

I guess I couldn't take her into the shower though :-(

Dammit...

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!

Obligatory

I for one welcome our new Robot Musician Overlords.

Chuck-E-Cheese

So this is what happens when Chuck-E-Cheese lays off their entertainment.

Chuck -e- cheese?

I saw this band at Chuck -e- Cheese. They rock.

this is an awesome show

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...

In the future, there will be robots

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.

:-)

Interesting thing about these videos...

They have a better plot line than Matrix Revolutions.

where ya been?!

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 [soundidead...bution.com]. 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.

Captured! By Robots' live show

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 [thepunkgroup.com].

cbr - sacramento

I saw a CBR show in Sacramento at Worlds Best Comics in Sacramento. [wbcomics.com]

It was great, even though I was sober. I believe they played with The 4 Eyes, another great geek rock band. [thefoureyes.com]

I say that with a straight face, for being a Star Trek punk rock band.

Slashdotted! By Robots

Looks like they need another robot, to learn how to properly configure Apache. . .

Not quite a dupe

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.
Here's the link to the original comment, with props. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=66547&cid=6121 765 [slashdot.org]

Austin, TX show coming up

I've seen this band several times. Techincal, comical, and musical marvel. The guy is coming to Austin, TX November 20th. Playing at Emo's. The trick is, wherever he plays, he usually plays first because he's got to spend 4 hours setting up and then takes it all down so the other bands can play on the stage. So what I'm trying to tell you is that wherever you might go to see Captured by Robots, be sure to go early. If you assume he's going on last, and you show up at midnight, you'll probably miss him.

C!BR

I saw Captured! By Robots at the Elbow Room [ypsirocks.com] 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 [nerdtech.com] that you check out.

My only regret is missing the 10 Commandments show that he's touring now.

Damn good engineer... sucky musician:

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.

About 4 years ago

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.

Better Names for Robot Bands

I'm waiting for Crow, Tom Servo, R2D2 and Bender to form a robot Supergroup, The Shiny Metal Ass Experience. THAT I'll go see. I mean, how do we know if any of the robots here are any good if we haven't seen them in previous groups or solo projects? (Not to mention Alan Parsons Projects.)

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

Seen em.

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.