drand14850
About Me
A punk rock singer and PhD candidate at Harvard,
in a hardcore band that happens to be computer generated ,
with an innovative record that has something important to say.
Punk rock expatriate Dave Rand spent his teenage years in vans touring the east coast - 12 bands in 8 years. When the final group disbanded in 2004, Rand sat down to write alone with his laptop, and walked away with one of the most interesting and genre-bending projects to be saved to a hard drive. Rand delivers the same intense, high-stakes show that he always has, complete with jumps, kicks, sweatbands, and mic tosses. The only difference is that now he performs alone on stage with a laptop and a microphone. Audiences who haven’t experienced Rand’s format are initially stunned. “The most common comment I hear is ‘I’ve never seen or heard anyone do anything like this,’ ” followed by, “You’ve got a lotta guts to do what you do.” Looks of astonishment turn to respect quickly at Robot Goes Here shows. There is no other artist like this performing today.
It’s punk rock and it’s all electronic. Synthesized sounds and instrument samples take the place of Marshall amps and guitar racks. “Start with a computer kid in a punk rock band, take away the band, and this is what you get,” says Rand of his evolution. Add to this unusual scenario the fact that Rand is a serious scientist - a PhD candidate at Harvard in Systems Biology - who writes relevant, questioning songs about today’s real problems. “I try to think about the world and all the complexities and contradictions, without jumping to simplifications.” (Systems Biology uses math and computation to connect biology across different scales to understand systems as a whole.)
Rand is an artist and thinker who grapples with the big picture and “The Byte Is In Your Blood” is 11 slices through that picture, written and recorded in the period that Rand was graduating from Cornell University. He appears as a character in his songs, almost like Spike Lee appearing in his films. They take place in unusual locations - libraries, offices, dumpsters, front yards and dance floors. Each scene adds a different facet to this wide-ranging CD. When the Well Runs Dry contemplates just how savage any of us could be under desperate circumstances. What All The Screaming’s About? is a wild celebration of the struggle between emotion and technology. In Seeing Green, a chaotic diatribe on waste and consumerism, Rand sings, “I found the idea for this song at the bottom of a dumpster, along with a book on conservation and a bottle of shampoo.” Later on the CD, Rand lays down the definitive cover of AC/DC’s Back in Black for the 21st century.
Rand’s hardcore aesthetic runs through his songs and his life. He knows what he wants to write about and it doesn’t bother him that not everyone will like it or understand it. After Cornell, he went to work developing computer models for a bio tech startup in Ithaca, New York, his de facto hometown. Research scientist by day, recording on nights and weekends, Robot Goes Here was the Superman to Rand’s Clark Kent. When he got the urge to make music outside of the character of Robot Goes Here, he’d record under the band name “The Fuck-Off! Five” and post it on myspace.
Robot Goes Here - a singer in a hardcore band, who is a PhD biology candidate at Harvard, whose band happens to be an IBM Thinkpad delivers an innovative record that will get you thinking. Happy listening!
in a hardcore band that happens to be computer generated ,
with an innovative record that has something important to say.
Punk rock expatriate Dave Rand spent his teenage years in vans touring the east coast - 12 bands in 8 years. When the final group disbanded in 2004, Rand sat down to write alone with his laptop, and walked away with one of the most interesting and genre-bending projects to be saved to a hard drive. Rand delivers the same intense, high-stakes show that he always has, complete with jumps, kicks, sweatbands, and mic tosses. The only difference is that now he performs alone on stage with a laptop and a microphone. Audiences who haven’t experienced Rand’s format are initially stunned. “The most common comment I hear is ‘I’ve never seen or heard anyone do anything like this,’ ” followed by, “You’ve got a lotta guts to do what you do.” Looks of astonishment turn to respect quickly at Robot Goes Here shows. There is no other artist like this performing today.
It’s punk rock and it’s all electronic. Synthesized sounds and instrument samples take the place of Marshall amps and guitar racks. “Start with a computer kid in a punk rock band, take away the band, and this is what you get,” says Rand of his evolution. Add to this unusual scenario the fact that Rand is a serious scientist - a PhD candidate at Harvard in Systems Biology - who writes relevant, questioning songs about today’s real problems. “I try to think about the world and all the complexities and contradictions, without jumping to simplifications.” (Systems Biology uses math and computation to connect biology across different scales to understand systems as a whole.)
Rand is an artist and thinker who grapples with the big picture and “The Byte Is In Your Blood” is 11 slices through that picture, written and recorded in the period that Rand was graduating from Cornell University. He appears as a character in his songs, almost like Spike Lee appearing in his films. They take place in unusual locations - libraries, offices, dumpsters, front yards and dance floors. Each scene adds a different facet to this wide-ranging CD. When the Well Runs Dry contemplates just how savage any of us could be under desperate circumstances. What All The Screaming’s About? is a wild celebration of the struggle between emotion and technology. In Seeing Green, a chaotic diatribe on waste and consumerism, Rand sings, “I found the idea for this song at the bottom of a dumpster, along with a book on conservation and a bottle of shampoo.” Later on the CD, Rand lays down the definitive cover of AC/DC’s Back in Black for the 21st century.
Rand’s hardcore aesthetic runs through his songs and his life. He knows what he wants to write about and it doesn’t bother him that not everyone will like it or understand it. After Cornell, he went to work developing computer models for a bio tech startup in Ithaca, New York, his de facto hometown. Research scientist by day, recording on nights and weekends, Robot Goes Here was the Superman to Rand’s Clark Kent. When he got the urge to make music outside of the character of Robot Goes Here, he’d record under the band name “The Fuck-Off! Five” and post it on myspace.
Robot Goes Here - a singer in a hardcore band, who is a PhD biology candidate at Harvard, whose band happens to be an IBM Thinkpad delivers an innovative record that will get you thinking. Happy listening!
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