STYX - MR ROBOTO - EVERY REDNECK NEEDS A FRIEND

"THEY SWALLOWED IT DOWN - IN DROVES, LIKE FINE CHAMPAGNE... even though in years to come, it would bring hearty bellows of great laughter....."

This is a strange video to watch. Even after ... 2o odd years or more.... The thing was... nobody asked for it. The music... market... never really asked for it either. We were all lost in an age of flying V guitars and campy hairdoos and endless solos. It was the age of bullshit.

We had these rock stores in the east coast that glorified, "rock and roll" to the point of parody. There were more licensed rock and roll products than there were rock and roll albums! In the early 80's there was a lot of schlocky posters, buttons and must have collectibles. Getting a girl to wear your .... Iron Maiden Eddie keychain or this or that meant SERIOUS BUSINESS.....

Thats why this sort of thing with Styx didn't raise a whole lot of eyebrows. It was supposed to be considered a monumental leap in their career. Circus Magazine made a big deal out of the robot song by Styx. It was talked about in hush hush fashion in my high school. When I moved down south to Virginia it was heralded as the great messiah of rock and roll.....

The yokels loved this stuff.

Behind the scenes it was a different story. Styx took this thing on the road and almost got lynched when the crowd got restless during a rock festival. The drummer in this band drank himself to death shortly after. The whole thing was just weird.

But everyone came out with a robot song after this. There are lesser known songs and quite frankly even though I never wrote any of them I did buy them inadvertantly on other albums. I chortled to Cheap Tricks, "I Want Be Man" which was pretty hysterical. There was some other ones too that popped up on some of my other LPS. I think Cheap Trick actually wrote two robot type songs on the album, "One on One". There was another band who tried this too but the results were so forgettable or.. maybe I just successfully forgot all about them.... which is good too.

This song was part of an opera and an elaborate stage show. It spawned a live album. Some of the tracks on that album are pretty hilarious. Some of them are kinda interesting. But there are only a couple. If they were all by themselves they would be OKAY. But wrapped around this silly robot motif i have no idea what this whole thing was trying to accomplish. I know the story..... Dr. Righteous Rock and Roll... and the Robot take over and Kilroy is an escapee.. and Rockin the Paradise, etc. But STILL... man, this is pretty silly.

I was glad when Echo and the Bunnymen showed up when they did. Weren't you?

Cantu 2007