No one seems to know how to describe the music of the Mechanical Walking Robotboy. After banging my head in frustration at my inability to neatly define their sound, I decided to ask people who had seen the band what they thought of the music. Names such as David Bowie, the Flaming Lips, the Velvet Underground, and heck, even David Byrne came up repeatedly, but always with the disclaimer: "Almost, but not quite." Chad Rinn of Full Tilt Productions described the band's sound as "coherent energy moving towards incoherence." Even the band was not quite sure what they did, referring to their music as having a "bit of '70s glam, '80s gloom, and a solid beat." One thing was for certain, however: Everyone who has seen them, myself included, absolutely loves them.
Including members from such San Antonio mainstays as 13, Evergreen, and Los Mescaleros, the Robotboy is that rare entity in the music scene: a truly original band that defies categorization. Let's just hope that the cookie-cutter music industry is ready for such an entity.
— JASON GOSSARD
NEXT WEEK AT SXSW: SPETTRO, TWO TONS OF STEEL, PONTY BONE & THE SQUEEZETONES, SUPA BROTHA SCIENTISTS
