To some, it's a dream; to others, it's a nightmare. But for Jason Vance, the man behind the cybernetic rock extravaganza Captured! By Robots, technology serves as both jailer and liberator.
"I'm working for the robots, but in a way, I'm working for myself, too," says Vance, who is known on stage as JBOT, a former human who's been enslaved and implanted with "biocerebral chips" by a cadre of impish, guitar-wielding androids. "For everything the robots have done to me over the years, there's good that's come out of it. I used to be a tech fixing music gear and amps, but I finally gave that up in January to do Captured! full-time. At some point, you have to decide if you're going to do something with your life that's your own rather than working for somebody else."
Vance, who brings his show to the Lion's Lair this weekend, no longer has a boss, but he's got something worse: GTRBOT666, DRMBOT0110 and AUTOMOTOM, the mean, mechanized members of his band. Powered by pneumatics, they speak, sing and play real instruments on top of sequenced music tracks -- all the while taunting and torturing their fleshy slave, unleashing anti-human tirades and tons of fake blood in the process.
But JBOT is not without his allies. The cuddly percussionists Ape Which Hath No Name and Son of Ape Which Hath No Name attempt to defend JBOT as he's reduced by show's end to a weeping mess of organic matter. The result is a dizzyingly elaborate performance, with Vance secretly controlling robots that appear to be controlling him -- while playing hilarious songs that parody everything from Christian myth to science fiction.
"For our Ten Commandments tour last year, we were all biblical characters from the movie," Vance explains. "I was Moses, GTRBOT was Pharaoh Ramses, DRMBOT was Nefertiti, and the Ape Which Hath No Name was God. It was a good time."
This time around, though, C!BR spoofs something a little closer to home -- Star Trek: The Next Generation. Using songs, skits and costumes based on episodes of the popular series, the production also sports a new musical approach. Though Vance once played in the Bay Area ska outfits Skankin' Pickle and the Blue Meanies, he's since programmed his captors to perform everything from reggae to rap -- and now, heavy metal.
"Our sound is much more rocking and heavy," Vance says. "We really explore the heavy, rocking, party-time vibe. These guys are brutal. When I see DRMBOT rock that shit and play some blast beats, I'm blown away."
If Vance sounds a bit obsessed with his own creations, that's because he is. "The show is my life," he confesses. "It's everything to me. I tour alone, and it's backbreaking. I'll be in the van driving away after a show, and I'll be like, ŒHoly shit, did I just load 2,000 pound of robots by myself?' There might be something messed up with me.
"Overall, though, it's a good time, and people shouldn't think too much about it," he adds. "But I'd like to think there's a deeper level. There are a lot of problems with technology. Think back ten years ago: Did you have a cell phone? Did you check your e-mail every day? This stuff has jumped upon us and is now so integral to our lives. If we don't have our DSL hooked up, we're losing our minds. Right now it seems benign, but we have a real Pandora's box on our hands. It's just a matter of time before technology is going to turn around and bite us on the ass."
Or puts us in chains and on stage for the world to see. But with Captured! by Robots, technocratic tyranny never felt so fun.
