Robot Goes Here

Robot Goes Here is David Rand: see http://www.DaveRand.org. Punk rock expatriate Dave Rand spent his teenage years in vans touring the east coast - 12 bands in 8 years. When the final group disbanded in 2004, Rand sat down to write, alone with a laptop. He loved it and he began to record. Rand delivers the same intense, high-stakes show that he always has, complete with jumps, kicks and mic tosses. The only difference is that now he performs alone on stage with a laptop and a microphone. Audiences who haven't experienced Rand's format are initially stunned.

Punk rock expatriate Dave Rand spent his teenage years in vans touring the east coast - 12 bands in 8 years. When the final group disbanded in 2004, Rand sat down to write, alone with a laptop. He loved it and he began to record. Rand delivers the same intense, high-stakes show that he always has, complete with jumps, kicks and mic tosses. The only difference is that now he performs alone on stage with a laptop and a microphone. Audiences who haven't experienced Rand's format are initially stunned. The most common comment I hear is 'I've never seen or heard anyone do anything like this,' " followed by, "You've got a lotta guts to do what you do." Looks of astonishment turn to respect quickly at Robot Goes Here shows. There is no other artist like this performing today.

It's punk rock and it's all electronic. Synthesized sounds and samples take the place of Marshall amps. "Start with a computer kid in a punk rock band, take away the band and this is what you get," says Rand of his evolution. Add to this unusual scenario the fact that Rand is a serious scientist - a PhD candidate at Harvard in Systems Biology at the time of the record's release, now a professor at Yale - who writes relevant, questioning songs about today's real problems. "I try to think about the world and all the complexities and contradictions, without jumping to simplifications." (For us lay people, Systems Biology uses math and computation to connect biology across different scales to understand systems as a whole.)

Rand is an artist and thinker who grapples with the big picture and The Byte Is In Your Blood is 11 slices through that picture, written and recorded in the period that Rand was graduating from Cornell University. He appears as a character in his songs, almost like Spike Lee appearing in his films. They take place in unusual locations - libraries, offices, dumpsters, front yards and dance floors. Each scene adds a different facet to this wide-ranging CD. When the Well Runs Dry contemplates just how savage any of us could be under desperate circumstances. What All The Screaming's About? is a wild celebration of the struggle between emotion and technology. In Seeing Green, a chaotic diatribe on waste and consumerism, Rand sings, "I found the idea for this song at the bottom of a dumpster, along with a book on conservation and a bottle of shampoo." Later on the CD, Rand lays down the definitive cover of AC/DC's Back in Black.

Rand's hardcore aesthetic runs through his songs and his life. He knows what he wants to write about and it doesn't bother him that not everyone will like it. When he gets the urge to make music outside of the character of Robot Goes Here, he records under the band name "Fuck Off Five" and posts it on myspace.

Robot Goes Here ? A punk rock singer accompanied by an IBM powered hardcore band that delivers a innovative record that is "The Byte Is In My Blood".

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* "The Byte Is In My Blood" mixed by Ted Young (Taking Back Sunday, Bouncing Souls, Andrew W K) and Ray Martin (Gorillaz, Iggy Pop, Mindless Self Indulgence)
* Played on NPR's nationally syndicated "Here and Now"
* "When The Well Runs Dry" is on millions of laptops sent to children in the 3rd world as part of MIT's One Child Per Laptop initiative
* "What All The Screaming's About" music video selected for the 2006 No Exit international film festival
* Two robot instrumental tracks on the soundtrack for the forthcoming Eyeball Knights 4 video game

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Robot Goes Here blew my mind and made me shake a little bit in brooklyn.