More robotics now. I’ve put up a number of pieces about the German all-robot heavy metal band, Compressorhead. I found this video on YouTube yesterday of them playing Motorhead’s ‘Ace of Spades’. They’ve done it before, but this time they’ve got a robot singer for the vocals. As he was in the late 80s SF movie, Hardware, about a war robot going berserk in a devastated future, I feel the late, great Lemmy would have loved it. It even begins with a dedication to him.
The whole style of the piece reminded me of the old ‘Robusters’ strip in 2000AD. In one story, the two heroes, Rojaws and Hammerstein, go to ‘Greasy Gracie’s’, a robot cafe and nightclub. There, as the robotic clientele drink their pints of oil – what else? – other robots dance the light fantastic while a robot band plays hits like ‘I Am Your Automatic Lover’. A few years ago, writer Pat Mills revisited this story. In this version, the two are still helping robots flee Earth and human oppression. However, the strip also draws on the Black experience during slavery and segregation. The Black slaves on the plantations developed the Cakewalk dance as a parody of the airs and graces put on by the White overlords as a piece of very conscious social satire. So robots, the slaves of the future, parody humans by mimicking them dancing. Thus Rojaws and Hammerstein climb onto the stage to perform ‘We Ain’t Got a Barrel of Money’ before the joint is raid by the human police. One of the characters, a robot resistance leader, is a blind bluesman.
‘Greasy Gracie’s’, from ABC Warriors: Return to Robusters, Pat Mills writer, Clint Langley, artist, Annie Parkhouse, letters, (Oxford: Rebellion 2016).
Fortunately for human artists, robots aren’t so intelligent yet that they can actually write songs, except through programmes written for them to produce music like particular artists. But in Compressorhead, Mills’, O’Neil’s – who was the first artist on the ‘Robusters Strip’ – and Clint Langley’s vision of a robot nightclub is coming close to reality.
Tags: 'ABC Warriors: Return to Robusters', 'Hardware', 'Robusters', 2000AD, Annie Parkhouse, Blacks, Blues, Clint Langley, Compressorhead, Kevin O'Neil, Lemmy, Motorhead, Pat Mills, Robots, Science Fiction, Segregation
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
October 6, 2019 at 4:39 pm |
Blind Bluesman bears a striking resemblance to Joe Pineapples when he was out of drag, of course!
Must have come off the same assembly line
October 6, 2019 at 5:23 pm |
I see what you mean! 🙂
October 6, 2019 at 5:46 pm
Mike McMahon on penmanship duties I assume?
October 6, 2019 at 5:52 pm
I don’t think so – the art in the book’s credited to Clint Langley, but perhaps Mike McMahon’s penmanship influenced his portrayal of the character.
October 6, 2019 at 4:46 pm |
Wow, and your blog cant be shared on “FaceCensorship” as it goes against “Community Standards”
October 6, 2019 at 5:24 pm |
That’s interesting. Do they say why, or is it another case of shadowbanning like Mike has suffered?
October 6, 2019 at 5:45 pm
Nope, I simply get the message to the effect that the link cant be shared due to going against FB community standards,
Have you tried to repost this on your own or Mikes page, David?
October 6, 2019 at 5:51 pm
I haven’t. I have to admit, I don’t actually have a Facebook page.