BY ELI EPSTEIN-DEUTSCH

In print | Published March 8, 2007

I’m in a dingy basement and the apparatus of a radio station occupies half the space. In the other section, which takes a half-assed stab at becoming a finished interior, a circle of vaguely grungy, punked-out kids holding bottles of Wild Turkey and the like shuffle and shadowbox.

The crowd displays a ragtag intensity of musical focus directed at the performers: two speakers on poles looming from either side of the room. The singer, who is leaping around with calculated vigor, almost throws himself into physically aggressive confrontation with the assembled listeners. At other times the energy of his gyrations is directed inwardly, as if he is trying to rile or purge some part of himself. His expression is one of enjoyment, but there is a distinctive note of pathos present as well.

This singer is Dave Rand of the “electropunk” band Robot Goes Here. Rand goes hardcore. He never has had the opportunity to smash a guitar, though he has (by accident) smashed a computer. His “instrumental” backup is entirely digital — composed by Rand on machines. Glitteringly complex electronic arpeggios and synthesized beats soar from his sound system, forming a backdrop for his controlled howl — a vocal style both animalistic and soulful. His music has little of the bleeping circularity heard in techno or the thrumming ambience of the bleeding-edge electronica/house guru Brian Transeau.

Rand is not your typical electronic musician, if there is such a thing. For the interview, I found him at a café table engrossed in a book on humanism and intermittently typing away at a laptop whose display was dark on one half and normal on the other. He explained the computer, which he uses to synthesize sounds at his shows, was broken at “a bad scene.” But still he considers the computer a friend and band mate — a “second personality” — and often sets it up anyway at performances.

From this you might guess that Rand is a committed technophile. This is true, but it is not the whole story. Robot’s sound had been described to me in advance as “Man vs. Himself vs. Computer,” a concept I did not fully absorb until Rand elaborated on it. “I’m very much a computer kid,” he said. “I’m down with the computer, basically. But I also am attracted to the idea of life without technology. So there’s this dissonance in my head. The reality is that I am a child of the digital age, but theoretically, there’s a part of me that says maybe technology hasn’t been a net benefit, certainly not for the Earth.”

The music of Robot dramatizes this internal struggle with lyrics like, “The clouds look so crisp, they must be computer generated / The music sounds so good, it must be synthed / If I were a Luddite I’d try to destroy myself / If I were a Luddite I’d have to learn to live without myself” (from “Failing the Turing Test”). Such direct statements of conflict are supported by the band’s entire modus operandi — on one hand, Rand notes, he replaced a band of musicians with computers; on the other hand, his shows are “me running around doing jump kicks. Very organic and at the same time totally electronic.”

This is the crucial paradox behind Man vs. Himself vs. Computer. One can almost envision it as a chorus of machines proclaiming the evils of technology. In a way it makes Robot a kind of ultimate, or post-electronic, outfit — a meta-electronic band whose very existence is a commentary on its own genre. The issues Rand confronts in his music figure at some level of consciousness of every human who lives in a world dependent on and rent apart by technology.

As for the propagation of the Man vs. Himself vs. Computer message? Rand is working on it. He currently plays out of Boston, where he is a graduate student at Harvard. He has toured extensively appearing at events with diverse musical orientations. “I played a few shows with grindcore bands,” he said, “and I was like, what am I doing here? But people were totally into it. I guess it’s because I was going crazy and they empathize with that.” Rand toured briefly with Philly-based artist Mose Giganticus. He enthused about Philadelphia’s underground music scene and mentioned a desire to play at Swarthmore College. (Olde Club, the ball’s in your court.)

Still, Robot plays mostly at punk rock shows. Once upon a time, Rand played in punk rock bands and is still grounded in the punk tradition: “I think of what I do as punk rock with a laptop, as opposed to electronica with a singer.” He views himself as part of a dawning movement but really considers this digital uprising “the new punk rock.” He explained “The idea of punk rock is: anyone can do it. Three kids in a basement can be a punk rock band. It’s all about emoting, having something to say. And the thing about electronic music — it’s even more like that because you don’t even need two other people. You, by yourself, can download hacked synth software and make a record.” Wherever Robot goes in the future, the punk-rock undercurrent and do-it-yourself ethic will always be there.

But what might such a future consist of? Rand has been thinking hard about Man vs. Himself vs. Computer in light of this current moment in history. He acknowledges that some may see computers as the path to an ultimate realization of human potential or the means to “get rid of the crap we don’t care about and let us focus on the things we think are important.” As a musical tool, he acknowledges that computers remove the element of technical instrumental skill , but for him, the important thing is creativity. But now, Rand is looking past the rise of human creativity through machines to the rise of machine creativity autonomous from humanity. “I really strongly believe it’s possible to make computer programs that can make good music,” he said. “It’s one of my definite goals to write a program that can write good songs.” When I asked him if a computer program could write music in a style that would surprise him, the answer was “absolutely.”

“When you write a song, you sort through all of the sounds and all the experiences you’ve heard in your life and somehow come out with something. The computer should be able to do that same thing,” he said, “given that you supply it with all different types of things, and add some randomness … there’s obviously some challenges involved. Like, how do you actually do that, how do you actually represent all these experiences? But these are just kinks that need to get worked out.”If Rand succeeds in his goal, Robot’s sound may eventually need to be called “Man vs. Himself vs. Computer vs. Itself.”

Visit the band online at http://robotgoeshere.com

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