Even as they build our cars, defuse dangerous explosives and explore distant planets in our stead, robots often get a bum rap as cold, unthinking objects, guided only by programming and devoid of anything resembling consciousness or emotion, which is pretty unfair. Now, I’m not saying robots are capable of love or anything like that, far from it, but they do have very human traits like bloodthirstiness and gleeful sadism down pat, something ex-Skankin’ Pickle and Blue Meanies bassist Jay Vance found out the hard way when he created a bunch of automaton bandmates to jam with back in 1996. Naturally, they promptly enslaved Vance and ever since have trotted him around the country as Captured! By Robots to serve as a humiliating example of robo-superiority. However, what’s really worrisome is that he’s starting to enjoy it.
Before Friday’s round of torture and degradation could get started though, there was a pair of local openers, both of whom were smart enough not to get mixed up with any treacherous mechanical musicians. First up was Liar’s Trial, a whiskey-swilling cowpunk outfit that at times leans more toward the twangy, angry hardcore of mid-period Dicks and at others toward a beefed-up, but still classic, country sound, full of barroom laments and biblical imagery. Following them you had Go Go Slow who, despite being made up of past members from some of Milwaukee music’s most label-defying groups, namely The Crusties, Die Kreuzen and Fuckface, specialize in a perhaps surprisingly direct, uncomplicated take on hard rock, but, even if their aesthetic is somewhat conventional, that doesn’t stop bruising songs like “Mumbler” from kicking ass.
The first indication that the relationship between Vance, redubbed JBOT, and his captors had changed was that he took the stage sans his usual gimp mask and chains, the constraints apparently unnecessary now that the genocidal robots had fully brainwashed him into their murderous cause. The band has been pared down a bit from past tours (RIP the reassuring Ape Which Hath No Name), leaving only GTRBOT666 and DRMBOT0110, which, if you’re picturing futuristic creations, look more like something you’d salvage from a burned-out theme park, despite a few new upgrades best described by the song “Laser Eyes.” Even though he’s towing the party line, the robots continue to treat Vance like scum, and still have a taste for profanity, pummeling blast beats and shredding thrash guitar, in addition to human suffering of course.
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