Battle of the Bionic Bands

Sometimes a manufactured pop group can seem like a bunch of robots, mindlessly spouting unoriginal songs on some talentless reality show. But that gives robots a bad name. Because a robotic band is not always a bad thing. Sure, we don’t want it so that human talent is being swept aside by the musical brilliance of our robotic underlings, and robots have still got a way to go before they can compose better than Mozart. But they can, if programmed, create some listenable music. We’ve even featured some machines, Felix’s Machines, at one of our events. So let’s take a look at some robot rhythm makers.

The Bit-52s – “Rock Lobster”

YouTube user bd594 is a bit of a dab hand at the robot band, and in this video he’s created a mechanized version of the B-52s which consists of HP scanner, speech synthesizer, a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A computer, solenoinds, microcontrollers, and a few other bits.

The Trons

A self playing robot garage band from New Zealand. They can jam pretty hard and their music sounds a little like the Velvet Underground. The band members are Ham Hornhead on vocals and motor guitar, Wiggy on single string flying tearcaster, Swamp on drums, and mono-handed Fifi Farfisa on keys. And Greg Locke is their manager. They have a MySpace page and have also toured the world. Next up a debilitating substance abuse problem before they implode and embark on experimental solo careers.

Kraftwerk – “The Robots”

OK, so they’re not strictly robots, but look at their movements. The Trons totally stole their style. These guys were here before anyone, even the mechanoids. Here we have humans trying to be robots and above we have robots trying to be human. Someone needs to write a song about that.

Felix’s Machines

Felix was at our London event with these musical sculptures confusing, confounding, and impressing the new arrivals in equal measure. There’s something magical and entrancing about them. Like an old folk tale come to life.

Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” Retro Computer Remix

This is another electronic ensemble from bd594. While the bleeps, whirs, and screeches of old computer equipment such as an Atari 800XL, a floppy drive, HP Scanjet, eico oscilloscope, a TI-99/4A, and tape drive is very impressive, it is a little jarring, unless your blood consists entirely of electronic pulses.

And finally just to creep you out with their autonomous lifelessness, a robot orchestra that just stand there, eerily, at House on the Rock in Wisconsin.