The future belongs to the robots.

October 18, 2008 5:41 PM

"Fuhrer, we have some unexpected news: the band you hired tonight have broken down in their van ... we have already hired a replacement band. They play... jazz." Ah, silly Nazi henchmen! They should've hired The Trons. Yes, The Trons. Surely the Fuhrer would've enjoyed The Humans Are Dead. But let's go behind the scenes and meet Greg Locke, the human behind the Trons, who, by day, designs blueberry sorting machines, and has been kind enough to create a Trons MySpace page. But the Trons will ultimately have to go modular. It's the only way a robot band can hope to reform for the inevitable reunion tour.

Here's Flight of the Conchords doing The Humans Are Dead in a flesh and blood live show, nary a robot in sight.

posted by flapjax at midnite (14 comments total)

Well, they're no Rock-afire Explosion, that's for sure.

Also not sure why you decided to lead off with another fucking Downfall remix.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:12 PM on October 18, 2008

modular robot == The Iron Giant == awesome!
posted by adamt at 6:44 PM on October 18, 2008

i fucked the drummer.
posted by sexyrobot at 7:39 PM on October 18, 2008 [5 favorites]

That tripod is a better guitarist than I ever was and it makes me sad.
posted by mazola at 9:06 PM on October 18, 2008

Well, they're no Rock-afire Explosion, that's for sure.

Alas, virtually all of the links in that FPP are now dead as the dodo, so I wasn't able to determine the veracity of your statement, there, Horace. What I could glean from what was there, though, was that bear and gorilla suits were involved, which must place them higher on the Awesome Scale for some folks. I must say, though, the homemade, low-tech aspect of The Trons is what puts me in their camp.

It's also certainly worth pointing out, here in this thread, one of Trons' creator Greg Locke's fellow robot-music tinkerers, whose creations I find even more charming than The Trons. That would be MeFi's own moonmilk. Here's an FPP I made on his wonderful Thumpbot just a while back.

Also, I've just been informed via MeFiMail (thanks Horace Rumpole) that the "Downfall" mashups (my first link is one) are a whole big THING, and he linked me to a deleted MeFi thread that contains piles of 'em. Well, I have to confess ignorance, I didn't know about all that: I just got that one (that I posted here) sent to me by a musician friend, and found it quite hilarious... still think it's hilarious, but apologies to those out there who find it beyond the pale to ever turn Adolf (or, hell, jazz) into a joke. I'm a bit more in the Mel Brooks/Charlie Chaplin camp on that one, I guess: even the most dreadful human evil can somehow be, from time to time, laughed at. If you disagree, however, please, once again, accept my apologies.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:24 PM on October 18, 2008

WHERE ARE YOUR HUMAN OPERATORS NOW, SURVIVAL RESEARCH LABORATORIES?
posted by Smart Dalek at 10:42 PM on October 18, 2008

Well, they're no Rock-afire Explosion, that's for sure.

True enough. But they're also no CAPTURED! BY ROBOTS (thank the merciful gods!).
posted by washburn at 12:23 AM on October 19, 2008

I saw Captured once and was a little surprised by how much Jesus and fitness content there was. Do the trons also have an obsession with christianity and doing jumping jacks?
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:24 AM on October 19, 2008

WHERE ARE YOUR HUMAN OPERATORS NOW, SURVIVAL RESEARCH LABORATORIES?

Missing a few fingers, at least.

Sorry, Mark!!
posted by loquacious at 6:07 AM on October 19, 2008

I had nothing to do with this.
posted by trondant at 7:10 AM on October 19, 2008

You forgot the venerable Meiwa Denki.
posted by softsantear at 8:04 AM on October 19, 2008

You forgot the venerable Meiwa Denki .

No I didn't. You, however, have misspelled their name, which they Romanize as "Maywa".

New around here ain'tcha? ;-)
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:08 PM on October 19, 2008

The future belongs to the robots.

Resistance is futile.
posted by homunculus at 3:09 PM on October 23, 2008

Resistance is futile.

That's some scary ass shit.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:35 PM on October 23, 2008