Tuesday, January 6, 2009
February 6th
Monday, December 29, 2008
Playing Songs for an Empty Bar and I'm Feeling Down
Playing songs for an empty bar and I'm feeling down
because it takes at least two to make a sound.
First you need a noise, and then you need an ear.
But when I look beyond the stage there's nobody here.
The bartender might say, "Don't I count as a man?"
as he stands slumped over the bar--magazine in hand.
There's the dutiful girlfriend and we're so happy you're there,
but you've watched us struggle for so long we wonder why you still care.
The last note is played and the set is a wrap.
Thank you so much for the sympathy clap.
Playing songs for an empty bar and I'm feeling down,
because if a band plays for no one, did it really make a sound?
-rd
Perspective
This is kind of an ironic story. About a week and a half ago I sold my mini-fridge to Ryan, the violin player for Blue October, because he told me they needed one for their new studio. But when he came to my house to pick it up he told me he couldn't withdraw money from his account for some reason. So I told him it was no problem, and he could pay me back later. He came to Barfish to pay me back a few days later, and as he walked up to me to pay me the money this guy turned around in his barstool and got totally star-struck.
"Oh my god," he said, "Are you Robbie and the Robots?! Wow dude! Awesome! Dude you totally wrote one of the best songs ever!" And then he sang the chorus for "Small Town Psycho Crazy Girlfriend Blues". I was trying to talk to Ryan, but I stopped to shake the guy's hand and thank him for enjoying the song and for supporting us. Then I turned back to Ryan and he gave me the money for the fridge and told me it was working great, and later he came up to hang out at my open mic.
The whole thing got me thinking about how ironic it was that I was standing next to someone whose band was about 1,000 times more popular than mine, yet for whatever reason I was getting the, "Oh my God, I can't believe it's you!" treatment.
It put things into perspective for me. Ambitious musicians like myself are always trying so hard to get to Blue October's level, but sometimes we forget that the most important thing is just to connect to one person who falls in love with your music.
So, on behalf of every band in the world—from the enormously popular bands to the hip "on the fringe" bands, thanks to all of you who have ever "had a moment" with one or many of our songs. You will always be the reason why good music is created and enjoyed.Idea for a new Robot Chicken sketch
Keep in mind by the way, that this sketch bloomed in my mind long before the new Incredible Hulk movie came out. But this is definitely a great time to post it:
So, Bruce Banner is trying to drop a deuce, but he's having a real hard time with it. He starts pounding the walls of the public bathroom stall, and grabbing the handicap rails and sweating. Then a vein pops out in his forehead and his eyes flash green.
Overcome with rage he changes into the Incredible Hulk. He completely smashes the crap out of the entire bathroom and bangs through a wall as water from the sinks and toilets sprays everywhere.
Once outside he goes on a maniacal rampage and destroys everything in site. Perhaps he uses a nun as a baseball bat to smash young catholic school children, or perhaps he could grab a puppy and throw it like a football straight to the moon where the puppy would crash with it's hind quarters still protruding.... then it would fart. Many other crazy scenes could occur where he preys upon the cute and helpless untill the scene fades out.
It fades back in at a grocery store. The camera pans down as you hear the familiar "beep, beep" of the infrared check out scan. At the bottom of the pan you see that an elderly checkout lady is scanning about 100 containers of Metamucil. She looks up quizzically and the camera switches to Bruce Banner's face.
"You wouldn't like me when I'm gassy." he says just as a gleen of green flashes in his eye and the theme music from the Incredible Hulk television series starts to roll.
Robbie & The Robots helps with benefit album
Posted on August 27, 2008 at 3:44 pm • Print • Share
.. src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Es/Newstreamz?i=http://newstreamz.com/2008/08/27/robbie-the-robots-helps-with-benefit-album" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">..>.. type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Ed/static/site-tracker.js">..>Local musician Robbie Doyen of Robbie and the Robots recently released a showcase of local San Marcos talent on a compilation CD entitled 'SMTX 78666.' This compilation features no less than 19 different local bands and all proceeds go to benefit Fibromyalgia research.
When asked about why he chose to make the CD, Robbie replied, "I was thinking about doing it for a while. I had an extra song that was left off of my CD and I was thinking that would go on there as an exclusive song…I was also thinking it would be even better if it was for charity, even more endearing; not just a history-making first compilation CD for just San Marcos in general. My dad has Fibromyalgia, and so I thought what better way to help out my dad, plus give money to a whole bunch people who need it to research a fairly unknown disease. I went online and found a place called AFFTER (Advocates for Fibromyalgia Funding, Treatment, Education and Research) and asked if I could donate the money to them, and they said 'Sure, wonderful.'"
It wasn't that easy, however, for Robbie to do his good deed. There were some minor hitches in the donation process. "I sent them the CD and they almost didn't let me send them the money," said Robbie. "Specifically because of my song - they thought it was about drinking beer and smoking weed when actually, if you listen to the song, it's about getting bored with partying every single night."
AFFTER eventually came around. "They had to take a vote before they were willing to accept my money," Doyen said, "I've already sent them $1000 and hopefully I'll be able to send them another $1000 if the CD keeps selling. There are various vendors around town who have been gracious enough to sell it for no profit and it's just $10. Valentino's sells it, Triple Crown, Lucy's, I've even got this acupuncture place I set it up at."
"I produced it and I've done most of the work. I'm about to do a radio promotion for it, also. I've got to start to get it played more, and to sell a few more would be great."
Robbie and the Robots most recently played at Lucy's Locals Only Festival here in San Marcos, but before that Robbie was working toward this compilation playing gigs with other local bands. "I played at almost every benefit show. The bands were required to play a benefit show to be on the CD. That's how I raised money to actually produce the CD. The company that I made it through gave me a good cause discount, plus they gave me an extra discount to get it done on National Fibromyalgia Awareness Day. There's a lot of goodwill that went into the making of this."
Local artist Bonner Fowles did the painting that appears on the cover. When he asked Robbie what he wanted on the cover, the musician told him "to show people in San Marcos having fun," so the cover art is a depiction of the San Marcos river.
Robbie's good works don't end there. "I've done other stuff for charity. For instance, my hair is just getting long again. When it gets to more than ten inches long I cut it off and donate it to Locks of Love."
Doyen has many influences. One he mentioned was the flaming lips. "I love how he puts a positive spin on things." Robbie added that "when I was growing up I really loved all the country music my parents listened to, like Dolly Parton; great melodies and good stories. That's very important to me. Back then the music was all produced to sound like it was live, but now it's all crazy effects and it definitely doesn't sound as organic."
Robbie and the Robots haven't been very active recently. "I'm just getting a new band together so I haven't really been booking shows," said Robbie. "I really like the new group of guys I've got. It's really hard with bands, you know you're not just making music, you're trying to get along with them. We should start playing again in September." For now, he can be found doing a few different things. "I host an open-mic at Lucy's, and sometimes I play by myself." Robbie's next open-mic night at Lucy's will be August 25.
For more information on SMTX 78666, visit www.cdbaby.com/smtxcompilation or www.myspace.com/sanmarcoscompilation, or e-mail rockincyborg@yahoo.com.
By SARAH STEVENS
Correspondent
A story I wrote about a milk drinking contest
El Challengo de Reche
By Robbie Doyen July 29, 2000
At its best the Challengo de Leche was an archetypal contest between the two extremes of conservatism. At its worst it was the Challengo de Reche -- a thickheaded struggle against a painful inevitability.Basically, whoever can drink a gallon of milk without puking, wins.
It.s a race with no time limit. Either contestant could conceivably spend an entire day gingerly sipping away at their gallon of milk. Nobody does this. There's no nobility in moderation. Not in America--and especially not in Texas.
Two young men competed in this challenge.
Henry Palmer, at age 22, had only recently begun to dip his tongue into the fuzzy world of alcohol. The first time he got drunk he went to a party and ate turtle food. That, somehow, was the first indication that Henry had a chance to be very cool. He goes to church twice a week. He has short blonde hair. He is quiet, meek, and a little pimply with long, gangly limbs. Yet somehow he is not boring. A gentle tension builds around quiet people, causing anything they say to pop into a conversation like an ant bite.
For Henry the Challengo de Leche acted as an opportunity for him to display his steadfast resolution.
For 17 year old Chad Harborth, the CdL wasn't much more than another prank. An exhibition of hardcore craziness. The exclamation point at the end of his two green Mohawks. Harborth would probably be kicked out of church, not because the worshippers wouldn't try to be understanding and tolerant of a possible convert, but because he would likely raise his hand in the middle of the preacher's sermon and ask him mocking questions designed to disrupt and confuse. He is thickly built, like a human dump truck, and his favorite hobbies are drawing tattoo art and fighting with his friends.
Before the contest began Henry sat silent and stationary beside a humming air conditioner behind Valentino's. His eyes shifted relentlessly over each person who had shown up to witness the spectacle. Harborth was so energized by the attention that he danced around throughout the group, talking trash and simulating a particularly horrendous vomit session into the "puke bucket".
The group caravanned to the SWT football practice fields where we could leave behind a horrible mess that others would have to clean up. We sat down and Henry and Harborth opened up their milk gallons.
Harborth drank quickly as though from a shot glass--tilting the gallon back and chugging recklessly. In a matter of minutes he finished half of his milk. His expression, though still jovial, switched from confident to determined. His eyes narrowed a bit. His jaw began to droop. One could almost see his Mohawks begin to wilt. In a final act of exuberance he laid down on the ground and chugged. By now three quarters of the milk had disappeared into his body.
He sat up. This was his fatal mistake. The strain on his stomach muscles was too great. He started convulsing and mumbling. When he pulled the puke bucket toward himself the crowd reacted with a mixture of groans, applause and laughter.
The splattering sound on the bottom of the bucket was too much to bear. And somehow his vomit was orange. Soon after he informed us that he ate some lasagna before the contest. Not to mention, he had spent all of last night partying. And to make matters worse he kept looking into the bucket and commenting on how weird his puke looked.
Henry, at this point, was still only halfway done with his gallon. His judicious sips were a part of his plan to somehow outlast the milk by tricking his stomach into thinking not much was going on. The thrill of waiting to see someone retch was over. Now someone must finish the milk.
Harborth continued to play with his vomit, swishing it around in the bucket. He asked for a cigarette, but nobody would give one to him, knowing that nicotine is a natural diuretic.
The sun began to set and Henry was reaching the final milk level that Harborth had achieved. Now he too turned pale with sickness and determination. This was when Henry asked if it was okay if he took a dump.
Ah, a loophole. We granted that as the commandments of the CdL mentioned nothing about it, the answer must be yes. So he went to the public restroom with a witness following him to make sure he didn't stick a stealthy finger down his throat.
He returned from the restroom to his gallon, still looking ill. The dump didn.t help, but it was a good idea. He continued to sip his milk.
His gallon was slightly less full than Harborth's had been at the end of his try, and by now over a half hour had passed. It appeared as if Henry might finish the gallon without puking, and as the only .touchdown. from a crowd.s perspective in a Challengo de Leche is severe vomiting, most of us grew bored and decided Henry had won and the contest had ended. Then Harborth emptied his vomit bucket all over the street next to the gazebo, and that persuaded most of us to leave right away. One person stayed behind with Henry while he tried to finish, and we heard that he puked anyway.
Alas, each contestant proved to have a Will larger than his stomach. That was it. No big finish. No fireworks. The Will can cause the body to wage war on itself but never defeat itself. Neither contestant really won, except to prove that he was ballsy enough to try. And maybe in the end that is the important part. Mix stubbornness with ignorance of the human anatomy, a jeering, eager audience, and lots of milk, and you get a subtle spectacle... the Challengo de Leche.
Memories from 103.9 KIND Radio
Well, tonight I just found out that an old friend of mine died. His name was "Pappy". When I met him he was forty years old, but he already looked about seventy three. That's what a hard life will do to you. We met at a party. I was talking to him late at night. I got up to take a wiz. I could hear him muttering to himself from a distance. When I got back he was still talking about the same thing as if someone had been there listening to him all along. I used to perform all the time on his show on 103.9 KIND radio, the former pirate radio station of
Remember Rusty:
I'll start off with a memory from Pappy's show. A local San Martian named Rusty had just been killed in a drug raid by the police. They knocked down his door and shot him, because he was brandishing a weapon to protect himself. It was a very bad scene. Pappy asked me to write a song about it and come play on his show. I am personally against the war on drugs, especially when it kills someone who only sold pot. I think marijuana should be legal. So I wrote a song and played a protest show during Pappy's time slot. At the end of the song about Rusty Pappy was crying, and he asked me, "Why do you always write songs that make me cry?" And as I remember that now, I am crying too.
About KIND Radio:
KIND Radio was a pirate radio station that existed in
The Sesky Brisket Juice Show:
That was the name of my show. I started up sometime in 1998 or 99. My spot started off from 1:00 am to 3:00 am, but was extended to 1-7 am, because nobody else wanted those spots and I was usually awake at that time anyway. So I actually had to switch from a loose anything goes format all night long to a wake-your-ass-up-and-get-to-work focused format for the last hour or so when I would have much rather passed out because I was tired and wasted. Lots of crazy shit happened on that show. Most of the rest of these stories will be about my show on KIND radio.
My First Show:
My friends decided they didn't want to do their show anymore so I took their spot. Their spot was Wednesday from 1-3. I spent almost the entire show playing "Caress Me Down" by Sublime on a loop. My friends and I sang along really loud every time. People would call up and actually cheer us on for some reason. I guess late night radio listeners like to be annoyed. I am addicted to that song by the way. One time I fell asleep on a couch in my friend's garage with that song on repeat in the stereo. That spawned the "Caress Me Down" night on KIND Radio. I hadn't heard the song in a few days and once I started playing it I couldn't get enough.
My Second Show:
It was my first actual solo show after the "Caress Me Down" interlude with the previous hosts. I wasn't sure what to do, so I decided to bring no music except for the tapes that I owned. Any time you bring music which is in an outdated format to an event , the results are almost guaranteed to be embarrassing. These were tapes that I had collected while in middle school. I played Tiffany, Paula Abdul, Def Leppard and the Top Gun Soundtrack to name a few. My friend Cindy kept telling me I was totally gay. I mean, I knew all of the words to "Playing with the Boys" from the Top Gun Soundtrack. Damn. This caused me to think about my youth. Back at that age I was in love with airplanes. My favorite movies were Top Gun and Iron Eagle. I never even thought about Top Gun as a gay movie. I just thought of it as a movie about airplanes and competition and hot blonde girls. I didn't know I was watching gay porn. Time is a crafty sculptor of perception.
Cricket Season:
Once per year
Go Go Godzilla:
I always started off my show by playing "Godzilla" by the Blue Oyster Cult.
Rolling With Brisket:
Right before my show there was a show called "Rolling with Dough". It was a show where rappers would freestyle and they ALWAYS ran late and cut into my show. It got to where I would push my way through the crowd of rappers, shove my CD into the cd changer and press play on "Godzilla" to let them know it was time to stop. One night I pushed my way into the shed with my Blue Oyster Cult CD, and one of the hosts said, "Hey man, I got some friends in from out of town so we gonna go long." I said, "You guys go long every night. It's time for my show so it's time to wrap it up." He said, "We're gonna go long tonight," again and then he stood up straight and folded his arms and two of his friends stood in beside him and folded their arms as well. All three of them outweighed me by about double and there were about fifty of their friends in the studio and the yard, so I had no choice but to back down and wait for them to finish.
All of their friends that had arrived in cars had the show cranked on their car stereos. It was a noisy scene. And then, over an hour after my show was supposed to start, they finally quit and came over to me and said, "Hey man, studio's yours."
So I stormed in and locked the door. Then, knowing that all of them had the show turned up to 11 on their stereo systems, I started waving the microphone in front of the monitor speakers causing crazy feedback on the signal. I did that for about two or three minutes. This caused them to turn off their radios and leave. Yay. I was so pissed I didn't even play "Godzilla". I put in a rap song and started calling my show "Rolling with Brisket". I played another couple of really annoying songs, and then fans of my show started showing up at the studio. As they tried to calm me down the phone rang.
It was a representitive from ARBITRON. ARBITRON is a company that does radio ratings and media research. She asked me, "What is the name of your show?" because she was confused by the name change I had made that night. I wouldn't say anything so one of the other people in the studio took the mic and said, "It's called Sesky Brisket". I took the mic back from him and said, "It's called the Sesky Brisket Juice Show. What is Arbitron?" She said, "We keep track of ratings for radio shows." I was pretty skeptical so I asked,"Okay, what's my demographic?" "Mostly boys between the ages of 13 and 17," she replied. I asked her a couple more questions about my show which she answered matter-of-factly with more very specific details. Apparently my show was doing well enough for these people to start keeping track of me. Suddenly I'm thinking, "Wow, wait a second maybe this is a real person," so naturally I said, "Well, okay, have a great night," and then I hung up and started talking tons of shit about ARBITRON. I made a few jokes about how ARBITRON must be one of the new Transformers toys, and then I played a tape of songs I had recorded from the Transformers animated movie. I really don't remember much after that, because I was so pissed off about the "Rolling with Dough" debacle that I got totally shit-canned.