CBR's fame is spreading, and soon no one will be ignorant of the bots' goal for the world and their power to achieve it! More articles to come for you non-believers out there!
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(articles coming from Giant Robot, Kerrang, Gene Simmons Tongue, NY Times,
Heeb Mag...)
Spin Magazine "MR. ROBOTO" By Tony Ware -1/02
SF Weekly "A Slavish Devotion" -11/28/01
New Yorker Magazine -11/01
Around Hear By Andrew Miller, Pitch.com -11/23/00
Captured! By Robots' Man-Machine Drama Unfolds Onstage (171 kb)- 11/11/00
TWO LIVE, SanFrancisco Bay Guardian, May 99 2000
Captured! By Robots, "Prometheus unpantsed"
This city has no shortage of bands that augment their music with gimmicks,trying to parlay costumes, props, or general jackass antics into a solid club following.But the one person/three cyborg unit Captured! By Robots transcended mere novelty at a recent Mission District gig, declaring themselves champions on the local freak show front with an ingeniously demented performance.
One bondage-masked and shackled individual stood onstage flanked by two twisted androids that looked like twisted androids that looked like duct-taped castoffs from MST3K. A voice-over introduction set the scene forfor the sci-fi madness that followed.The premise: musician -scientist JBOT, unable to get along with other humans, built 2 robots, GTRBOT666 and DRMBOT 0110, to be his bandmates. Unfortunately, he underestimated the power of his creations.They took control of our hero with an implanted "Biocerebral Chip"and now torment JBOT physically and verbally as they rock out in front of his human peers.
CBR launched into their first song, "I just Peed Your Waterbed", with a spastic explosion of Ween-flavored android punk. The towering GTRBOT666waved it's sinuous arms as it emmitted metallic riffs from it's industrial-strength autoharp thorax, while DRMBOT 0110 kicked down fierce beats on it's snare and dueling hi-hats. Next came "Herve", a pounding ode to JBOT's herpes that kept the kids in the crowd slamming. GTRBOT and DRMBOT berated their prisoner mercilessly between songs, much to the audience's delight.
JBOT's hands moved all over the keyboard-guitar neck console strapped to his chest during "One Sided Love". He stamped his feet and flailed about as if in horrible pain throught every tune. One might even have thought his frenzied motions had something to do with various switches and foot pedals controlling the robots' voices and instruments, but that would make the man some sort of techno -punk equivalent of Charlie Hunter.
At the end of the show, JBOT found small relief from his torture in another of his creations: The Ape Which Hath No Name, an animitronic simian designed to love all things, came to life at the back of the stageand heaped affection on the band.Sounding like Barry White with a head injury, the ape professed deep love for JBOT and his tormentors as he played the tambourine on the tender space -rock power ballad,"Saturnian". Captured! By Robots play Sat/12 10 pm Kimo's SF. $5, $3 if dressed in drag ( Dave Pehling)
Bikini Magazine, July 1999
"Danger Will Robinson" What happens when you mix robots and rock?
SanFrancisco musician Jay Vance is annoyed that I've discovered his real name. You see, everyone calls the 27 year old Vance JBOT. He's a one man band that belongs in the bar scene of a Star Wars sequel. A founding member of the Blue Meanies out of his hometown of Chicago and later bassist for successful ska band Skankin' Pickle, JBOT pulled a War Games routine two years ago, taking human bandmates out of the loop and replacing them with machines.
He built himself a spiteful 12 string autoharpcalled GTRBOT666 and, along with the percussive DRMBOT 0110, began performing as Captured! By Robots. He later added a friendly, tambourine-playing robotic gorilla called The Ape Which Hath No Name. JBOT is a slave. He performs in shackles with fabric intestines spouting from his gut. The 'bots publicly humiliate him. The ape lovingly reassures him. Together, they play music ranging from cheezy soul and gospel, to hardcore punk.
It's hard to catch the robot designer out of character. Sitting in his Dodge-Volkswagon van hybrid, (which has carted JBOT and his captors to performances at underground venue nationwide) he mostly calls himself "we" and insists on showing me the microchip the 'bots implanted behind his ear.
JBOT takes the stage at 924 Gilman, Berkely's all-ages punk club, where he's by far the strangest of of several strange bands on the bill. GTRBOT666 Stands some 7 feet tall. The strings on it's psychedelic belly are buzz sawed by plastic ties affixed to tiny individual motors, which illuminate as each string is played. JBOT dances upon foot pedals , linked to via motorcycle cables to the quasi-femine DRMBOT's kick, snare, and hi-hats. When the robot's talk, their heads twist and their eyes illuminate. JBOT don's a S&M mask with protrduing eyeballs, and his" MuthaFuckaBoard", so named because that's what he screams while trying to repair it.
"Yeah, Whatever. You piece of shit!", shrieks GTRBOT following a soulful gospel number ( And be assured, there's inherent humor to a guy in an S&M mask doing a soulful gospel number.)
JBOT sees his robots as means to an end. The music comes first. "I've been doing really well across the country, and it's not a matter of novelty", he says. "My songs have gotten a lot more rockin' , and they're going to continue to do so. I'm confident in the music. The songs I got now, I like 'em, and even if I wasn't me, I'd like 'em." (Michael Mechanic)