gts177 “droidish”
Iron eyes can never weep.
01-00 clip from “The Day The Earth Stood Still” (1951)
— the female vocal is Patricia Neal, four years after winning the very first Tony Award ever given for Best Actress. Here, she delivers a message which saves our planet, to Gort, the protector robot of alien visitor Klaatu. The phrase “klaatu barada nikto” has never been translated, although the widow of the film’s screenwriter said that every day going to work, he would pass a street named Baroda.
01-01 Jamie Horton – Joy 241 – Robot Man (1960)
— Gayla Peevey was a victim of her own success, her Hippopotamus For Christmas song (recorded when she was 10) was so popular that she couldn’t escape public perception of her as a child singer. So she changed her stage name to Jamie Horton at the ripe old age of… sixteen. Connie Francis had a hit with this tune in England, but Jamie failed with it in the US, became a teacher and ran her own advertising jingle business. Little-known fact: Gayla actually DID get a hippopotamus, which she named Matilda and donated to the Oklahoma City Zoo. Matilda died in 1998, Gayla is still with us.
01-02 Fabulous Poodles – Think Pink 102 – Bionic Man (1979)
— epitome of New Wave, off the 3rd and final Poodles album. Putting this show together, this is the first song on my list. It really should be paired with a song called “Return To Human” by the contemporary Rochester NY band Voices, but that one’s about a mannikin, not a robot.
01-03 Dono-Detti – The Signal To Noise Set 103 – Flesh And Steel (1984)
— this song reportedly hails from 1982, but unable to find any release info on the single. Look on Wikipedia, and it says “No results found for Dono Detti, showing results for dong death.” Made me laugh. Dono-Detti only released 3 live albums in Australia, this tune appears on the Signal To Noise compilation of Aussie new wave bands, which will cost you many dollars today.
01-04 Miss Grit – Follow The Cyborg 06 – Follow The Cyborg (2023)
— a Michigander transplanted to NYC, after a couple self-produced EP’s, Margaret Sohn got wider exposure with this debut LP. Look up the cover for a startling image.
02-01 The Lemonheads & Kate Moss – Varshons 07 – Dirty Robot (2009)
— yes, that Kate Moss. On this album of cover tunes, Liv Tyler sings a Leonard Cohen song, and The Lemonheads also cover Townes Van Zandt. This one is a cover of Arling & Cameron, a Dutch duo who also did the music for the video game Hot Shots Golf. Small world!
02-02 The Android Sisters – Songs Of Electronic Despair 101 – Sss-X Minus One (1984)
— proving too popular to be contained in the Ruby The Galactic Gumshoe radio drama series, these twin Sisters (played by Ruth Maleczech and Valeria Vasilevski) got their own spinoff album a couple years later. This lead track leads in with the title music of the 1950’s NBC radio program “X Minus One”.
02-03 Love? – Electronically Yours 09 – Sex Me I’m A Robot (2013)
— this German duo is Wonderboy and Miss Violett, here on their second album 15 years after their first.
02-04 Femegades – Sex Robots 03 – No Sex Robots (2024)
— angry out of the UK, off their 3rd EP the F’gades posit that the more a woman tries to become a perfect girlfriend, the more her humanity slips away, leaving a robot shell.
03-01 The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots 03 – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1 (2002)
03-02 The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots 04 – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 2 (2002)
— Part 2 features the artist the album was named for, the ‘Japanoise’ star Yoshimi P-We of the bands OOIOO and Boredoms. This album’s final track won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental, and the lead track is earning royalties for Yusuf Islam, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens.
03-03 Marvin The Paranoid Android – Polydor 333 – Marvin I Love You (1981)
— this single is called a “Double B-Side” because Marvin (famous from the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) is chronically depressed. The first side (not an A-side!) is “Reasons To Be Miserable”, a pardody of “Reasons To Be Cheerful” by Ian Dury And The Blockheads. Female vocals on this song are by Kimi Wong, wife of Richard O’Brien who wrote Rocky Horror Picture Show. Kimi appears twice in that movie, in the early wedding scene and the bonkers dinner party.
03-04 Mel Croucher & Donna Bailey & Ian Dury – Deus Ex Machina 101 – I Am Machine (1984)
— lead track to a visionary video game designed by Croucher, meant to be played along to a soundtrack on cassette tape. That’s Ian Dury at the top. Hailed by critics upon release, but a failure in sales due to the expense of the production (booklet, cassette, software, plus a poster). Now a cult-classic, called “the greatest video game you never played.”
04-01 Алла Пугачева [Alla Pugacheva] – Робот [Robot] (1965)
— her debut song at age 16, Alla was once considered Russia’s greatest singer, the “Russian Madonna”. Now 60 years into her career, she began to be persecuted after her nation first invaded its neighbor in 2014, culminating in her husband being declared a “foreign agent” after the current larger war began in 2022. Now living in Cyprus, Alla cannot return home, facing a certain prison sentence.
04-02 t.A.T.u. – 200 Po Vstrechnoy 08 – Robot (2001)
— considered the successors to Alla Pugacheva, t.A.T.u. are the duo Julia Volkova and Lena Katina, hitting international fame with this debut album (200 km/hr Against Traffic). Infamous for making out on stage, the bandname is an acronym for the phrase “this girl loves that girl”, although they’ve since broken up amid their homeland’s crackdown on public lesbian depictions.
04-03 Ota Petrina – Super-Robot 204 – Super-Robot (1978)
— real name Otakar, banned from performing in public by Czechoslovakia’s communist government from 1974 to 1987 for refusing to cut his hair. This epic track finishes his first solo album.
05-01 Pat & Lolly Vegas – Apogee 101 – Robot Walk (1964)
— brothers Patrick Morales Vasquez-Vegas and Candido Albelando “Lolly” Vasquez-Vegas (born in Fresno California) played as The Avantis, opening for the Beach Boys in the early 1960’s. They later changed the band’s name to Redbone, with a hit in “Witch Queen Of New Orleans” and making the US Top Ten in 1974 with “Come And Get Your Love”.
05-02 Jim Campilongo & The 10 Gallon Cats – Loose 03 – Botro The Robot (1997)
— consistently releasing records since 1996, Jim was also editor of Guitar Player magazine, which ceased publishing only in 2025 after 58 years on news-stands.
05-03 Ed Sanders – Beer Cans On The Moon 203 – Yodeling Robot (1972)
— a founding member of The Fugs, Ed has been in a lot of good trouble. Sued and arrested multiple times, including when his NYC book store was raided by the cops and he was charged with public obscenity over his in-house ‘zine called “Fuck You: A Magazine Of The Arts”. This comes from his second solo album.
05-04 Neural Derp – Danger! Bubba! Danger! (2025)
— pretty fitting for this show, a song lampooning a robot, written BY a robot. Both the song and the video (which is pretty funny) were made by milking various AI programs for generated content. There is also a Star Trek themed song/video in the same style, with Ricardo Montalban as Khan playing drums. I don’t know if Montalbans’s estate has sued Neural Derp for using his likeness, but seems like easy money.
05-05 Miha Kralj – Ljubljana ’82 203 – Robot (1982)
— only found on this roundup album of Yugoslavian rock, this song won first prize at the Slovenska Popevka festival. Out of Slovenia, Kralj was dubbed the “Yugoslavian Jean-Michel Jarre” (who nearly got played on this here show a few weeks ago). His first album in 1982 sold 100,000 in Europe, which would have made it a Gold Record in the States.
06-01 The Arrogant Worms – Russell’s Shorts 04 – Killer Robots From Venus (1994)
— this off the Worms’ second of 21 albums, Canada’s answer to Weird Al, but better because they do more originals than parodies.
06-02 Kev Russell’s Junker – Buttermilk & Rifles 03 – (Somebody Bring Me A Flower) I’m A Robot (2002)
— out of Beaumont Texas (hometown of Johnny and Edgar Winters), Kev released only this one solo album while doing time for 19 years in Austin’s famous band The Gourds.
06-03 Daft Punk – Human After All 03 – Robot Rock (2005)
— second week in a row on this show, a tune off Daft Punk’s third album. French duo of Thomas Bangalter and Guillaume Emmanuel de Homem-Christo must be doing something right!
06-04 Styx – Kilroy Was Here 101 – Mr. Roboto (1983)
— after 7 fantastic albums, Styx started their decline with Paradise Theatre in 1981, and this album only coughed up one “hit”: this tune. Still a fairly fun song, notable for the title character being a ringer for a friend of mine at the time, whose name was… Roy.