one more robot

Resurrecting The Stone Roses

2012-02-25T09:53:00.001Z

Originally appears in Issue 9

The Stone Roses are back and they wanna be adored once more. Announced last October, the band’s reunion will see the original line-up play two dates at Heaton Park in their home city of Manchester next year before embarking on a world tour.

Tickets for the gigs at sold out in 14 minutes, with some later surfacing on eBay for as much as £1500 – nearly 30 times the retail price – suggesting that anticipation for The Stone Roses is high. Indeed, new songs are being written and, according to the lead singer Ian Brown, an album for 2012 is potentially on the cards.

The band’s eponymous debut, which burst onto the Manchester music scene in 1989, still remains a seminal classic. Songs such as ‘Waterfall’ and the transcendental ‘I Am the Resurrection’ have ingrained themselves into the consciousness of a generation and show no sign of loosening their hold on younger listeners. After 1994’s disappointing follow-up Second Coming, however, the band disintegrated into acrimony.

If there remains hard feelings among the four members, they certainly weren’t on show this October. Speaking at the band reunion’s press conference, Brown joked: “We’ll ride this until the wheels come off, like we did the last time.”

But while many fans are ecstatic at the opportunity to see The Stone Roses relive old glories, others are more sceptical.Was it not only two years ago that guitarist John Squire said that he had, “no desire whatsoever to desecrate the grave of seminal Manchester pop group The Stone Roses,”? Of course, the usual crowd of jeerers accuse the band of shameless profiteering. Worse still, they say, they’re destroying the legacy of a wonderful group.

Perhaps a friend of mine, still disillusioned by the feeble reunion of The Pixies, summed it up best. “Seeing your favourite band reform is like bumping into an ex-girlfriend from years back. The only difference is she is now older, fatter and, yeah, probably even balder”. Wise words, particularly so when you’re talking about Frank Black. But will it be the same case for The Stone Roses?

It is hard to tell at this early stage. Pulp’s reunion last year showed that revival acts can not only be successful, but can also steal the show at several music festivals. But then again Pulp has Jarvis Cocker, a wit of the Morrissey and Mark E. Smith vintage, at the helm. All the Stone Roses have is Ian Brown. Not exactly the finest vocal talent in the world.

Regardless, The Stone Roses will no doubt headline several festivals this summer playing classic track after track. Perhaps it is 2012, and not 1994, that will be known for The Stone Roses true second coming? --SIMON MEE

The Dime Squad #3: Jonathan Bogart

2012-02-13T11:17:00.001Z

One More Robot Editor Dean Van Nguyen enjoys an e-mail back-and-forth with Nineties Hip-Hop Issue contributor and pop documenter Jonathan Bogart.

Can you remember the first time you heard hip-hop? What was the song that made you aware?

I don't remember the first time I heard hip-hop with any clarity -- there was never any head-turning "what is THIS?" moment, because I had heard it described long before I ever heard it. Because of my sheltered upbringing -- I was homeschooled for most of the 80s, and my parents were evangelical missionaries -- I'm pretty sure I didn't hear any hip-hop until 1990 or 1991, when I would have first been exposed to Christian rappers like dc Talk, Stephen Wiley, Mike-E, P.I.D. (Preachers In Disguise), and others I can't remember on a sampler cassette that filtered into our house from some kind donor. But it would have only been a few months later that I turned on local radio and heard "Ice Ice Baby," which was the first mainstream hip-hop I heard. I remember envying the kids at the Guatemalan school I was going to, who danced to "Ice Ice Baby" and knew all the words even if it was the only English they knew.

You're really well known and respected among music journalists and readers alike but, unlike many of your peers, most of your work crops up on very alternative websites and, of course, your many blogs. Was this intentional on your part?

Well, I've only been writing seriously about music for two or three years, and I think I'm about where that deserves. I don't try -- or necessarily even want -- to make a living writing about music, so I haven't pursued the kind of exposure or access that someone paying bills by their pen needs. I think of my peers as other enthusiastic amateurs; I've never even pitched anything that hasn't been solicited first.

I think I first came across you when I read your 'best of the decade' song lists of every era right back to the 19th century. I used to listen to those lists song-after-song. Can you tell me a little bit about that project and when did you become so enamoured by musical history?

The project actually started as a response to Pitchfork's 200 Songs of the 1960s feature -- and after doing the 60s, I realized that it was so much fun I wanted to do one for each decade. I've always been interested in history, so when I started becoming fascinated by the broad scope of music around the turn of the millennium thanks to the endless availability offered by Napster and the canon-making of end-of-the-century lists, it was natural for me to be as interested in the music of the Coolidge Administration as in the music of the Nixon, Reagan, or Bush II eras. (That's the 20s, 60s/70s, 80s, and 00s respectively, for non-American readers.)

Are you a big time music collector? I'm thinking about the piece you wrote for The Vinyl Issue. Also, it can't of been easy to Napster some of the tunes on your list like 'Russian Scissors' by The Oriental Orchestra or "Rock My Soul" by The Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet.

I've had my bouts of collector's fever; especially with older material, it's essential to be able to track down reissues on CDs and LPs. But there's more available online (or through certain ahem channels) than you might expect; the tricky part is knowing what information to trust.

Finally, I just five minutes ago googled both our names and saw this: http://rockcritics.com/2011/06/21/existing-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow-with-jonathan-bogart-a-rockcritics-com-interview/ You call me "The Second Nicest Man in Pop Criticism". And Hendrik is #1! Care to comment on this travesty? I'd come after Hendrik's crown, but I'm actually too nice to do that..

There's such a thing as being too nice! You have an editorial judgment which makes you not a pushover.

haha. very flattering.

The Dime Squad #2: Miles Marshall Lewis

2012-02-04T16:42:00.004Z

Second up in our series of interviews with recent contributors is American cultural critic, editor, fiction writer and "bohemian b-boy" Miles Marshall Lewis.

DVN: As soon as we first start talking about a Nineties Hip-Hop Issue you straight away mentioned Hype Williams. Considering the scale of what could be covered, what drew you to Hype?

MML: Contributor Michael A. Gonzales is a close friend. We've had a lot of private conversations about enjoying Belly, the 1998 Hype Williams film. When Michael mentioned the Hip-Hop Issue to me, we both thought immediately of Hype. With his omnipresence on late 1990s MTV, a lot of folks expected Hype to graduate to Hollywood in a bigger way, like former video directors David Fincher, Brett Ratner, Spike Jonze and McG, for example. But his imprint on Nineties hiphop is enormous if you think for even two seconds about the images of the culture that flooded that era.

DVN: Why do you think Hype has never really made that step into Hollywood? Do you think if big screen recognition never happens for Hype it might be something he looks back on and wishes he had achieved?

MML: Right now Hype's supposed to be directing Lust, an erotic thriller written by Joe Eszterhas, who did the scripts for Basic Instinct, Flashdance and Showgirls. In 2004 Hollywood made a live-action Fat Albert film that Hype was tied to at some point. Someone else directed and it flopped. He got hired to direct Speed Racer too, another flop that fell through for him. Researching for my piece in the Hip-Hop Issue, I found another project, a zombie horror movie called Thrilla, that got stuck in development hell for him. The period between Belly and Lust may just not have been Hype's time for Hollywood. Better for him to have spent the years improving his craft than for him to have blown his shot directing flops.

DVN: You were also interesting in doing something on the East Coast/West Coast rivarly, but we already had Charlie touching on that in his Pac piece and Michael in his Bad Boy feature. Charlie describes hearing about Pac's death and MAG talked about crying when he heard Biggie died in a recent blog post. Do you have memories of both those incidents?

MML: When Tupac died, I was headed to a Giorgio Armani party downtown at the Armory. I found out from David Mays, the founder and publisher of The Source magazine. He had just found out somehow, and went through the office telling everybody the news. I was on the phone with someone in the Source's conference room. Dave peeked his head in and said "he's outta here" or something like that. News reporters were outside the Armory asking people about his death as we all went inside. D'Angelo was performing at the party dedicating songs to Pac, and everybody there was talking about it. I didn't cry for Big, but definitely I cried for Pac. I remember that moment, smoking a blunt and listening to "Old School," off of Me Against the World.

When Biggie was killed, I was spending the night at a girlfriend's house in New Jersey: Asondra R. Hunter, the second editor-in-chief of Honey magazine. She was out in L.A. at the party where Big was shot. She called and told me what happened. I checked messages from my answering machine in Brooklyn. My father had called, my best friend Marc and Asondra again. It was numbing.

DVN: Can you remember the first hip-hop record you fell in love with?

MML: My childhood in the South Bronx was full of hiphop I loved: "Rapper's Delight" and "8th Wonder" (Sugarhill Gang), "The Breaks" (Kurtis Blow), "Feel the Heartbeat" (Fearless Four). "Original Human Beat Box" by Doug E. Fresh too. But the first rap record I loved enough to buy was "Roxanne Roxanne." I bought the whole UTFO album. Mix Master Ice could cut.

DVN: The Bronx seeps into your work quite abit, from your first book Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don't Have Bruises through to the title of your publication Bronx Biannual. Looking back to those early hip-hop records you just mentioned, could you tell something special was happening?

MML: Well, yeah. Something special was happening whether or not it ever spread worldwide. I was just a kid in the backseat of the car hearing his parents laugh at the Sugarhill Gang when their records came on the radio. Dad said rap would never last, Mom agreed with Dad, and that was the end of it. From their point of view. But especially once Def Jam Recordings took hold, plus Krush Groove and flicks of that nature came out, I knew hiphop was never going anywhere. I never bothered to see Beat Street in the movies; I lived on Beat Street

DVN: Ha! And I think all Dubliners who didn't see Once can relate to that... So how did you end up making the jump from hip-hop fan to hip-hop journalist?

MML: I'd interned on Vibe's first two issues in the summer of 1993. I published my earliest work around that time in magazines like Noir, Freedom Rag and Eyeball. Then The Source had a famous editorial walkout that I won't get into here, but it left them with no writers, and I was one of the freelancers to fill in the gap. My Grand Puba feature for them was the first time I ever got paid. A year later I was reviewing Erykah Badu's first album for Rolling Stone. Three years later I was the music editor of Vibe. In 2004 I published my first book, sort of a memoir of my relationship to hiphop, including interviews with Russell Simmons, KRS-One, ?uestlove and Afrika Bambaataa.

MML's work can be viewed at www.furthermucker.com and he tweets @futhermucker.

Welcome Friends

2012-02-03T19:48:00.001Z

So maybe you saw the Irish Times piece today and wondering what's this whole Robot thing is about. Well, we're here to show you around a bit.

Firstly, The Nineties Hip-Hop Issue is on sale right now in Dublin City at Trout Records (George's Street Arcade), All City (Crow Street, Temple Bar), The Record, Art & Game Emporium (Fade Street),
The Winding Stair Bookshop (Lower Ormond Quay) and Blind Tiger Collective (South William Street). Anywhere else in the world it's available via mail order. There's also more background information on the issue via the editor's own blog. Back issues are also available and, for a limited time only, we've a good deal in bundle packs which you can check out here.

There's more info about the magazine itself on our About Us page and we're pretty active on Facebook and Twitter so be sure to check us out there and join in the fun.

The Dime Squad #1: Michael A. Gonzales

2012-02-01T01:56:00.000Z

For the Nineties Hip-Hop Issue, I decided to dub our team of contributors 'The Dime Squad' as an homage to seminal hip-hop publication The Source who did a lot of important work during the decade documenting the genre. The Source's editorial team called themselves 'The Mind Squad' and we would be a low-rent equivelent (dime as in ten cents). But by the time we were finished a bunch of the old Source guys were writing for One More Robot too, so the name probably wasn't all that appropriate. Still, to accompany the new edition I'm putting together a series of blog posts where I enjoy an ol' tete-e-tete via e-mail with some of the writers about their pieces and careers in general. First up, its regular One More Robot scribe, and XXL, Vibe and Wax Poetics contributor, Michael A. Gonzales. --Dean Van Nguyen, Editor.

DVN: Your latest piece addresses Bad Boy Records in the nineties. Based in NYC at the same time the label was exploding, did you get a sense that something special was happening?

MAG: In 1993, when it was announced that Uptown Records had fired Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, the entire industry was speculating on what would be his next move. At Uptown, Puffy was the chief conceptualist behind Jodeci, Mary J. and the emerging "hip-hop soul" era. So, when he announced the formation of Bad Boy Records a few months later, I was psyched.

Some of the best black music, be it soul or hip-hop, has been defined by their labels. Be it Stax or Motown, Sugarhill or Def Jam, the branding of these labels begins with the sound of the music. That said, I was a Bad Boy fan from the very beginning. Once their first single "Flava in Ya Ear" by Craig Mack was released, I was smitten by the Puff Daddy sound.

Working with the Hitmen, a crew of musicians, arrangers and real musicians, Puff threw in the attitude and swagger and a few stars were born including Biggie, Faith, 112, Total, Mase, The Lox, Carl Thomas and Puff Daddy. Still, it's somewhat amazing that nineteen years after the formation of Bad Boy, the biggest star Diddy has launched is himself.

Coming from Harlem, I thought the boom of Bad Boy was the perfect 1990s soundtrack for hanging out in bars, dancing with girls and making money. Whereas a lot of hip-hop encouraged anti-social/male aggressive behavior, Bad Boy music insisted you be cool as the winter wind and always have a fine woman by your side. In its first decade, Bad Boy was the James Bond of black music...I'm just saying.

DVN: You interviewed Faith Evans for this piece. How cool was she?

MAG: First, let me say I've had a crush on Faith since 1995 when I saw her signing autographs against the wall of a Brooklyn weed spot. Instantly, I fell in love. Ironically, that same night my friend Raymond O'Neal played me an advance of Faith's self-titled debut and I was smitten for life.

The first time I interviewed Faith was in 1998, when her second album Keep the Faith was coming out. Me and my friend Amy Linden were writing The Source magazines first R&B supplement and I insisted that Faith be my story.

Faith and I went out for sushi in Greenwich Village. Since her husband/manager sat in the car for the entire time, I could pretend I was on a date. But, jokes aside, she was very cool and down to earth and answered every question.

In 2010, with the release of her sixth studio album Something About Faith, I interviewed her again and the singer had lost none of her wit or charm. "The Ballad of Faith and Biggie" was written from the transcripts of that interview.

DVN: You've interviewed so many of the greats! Like Curtis Mayfield, Barry White, Jay-Z, D'angelo...The list goes on! Is there anyone stand out you've met in your career, for good or bad reasons?

MAG: I would have to say Sade, but she was the not the ice queen I imagined her to be, but a sweet woman who was also very down to earth. During the interview, she and I sat in her hotel room smoking cigarettes. A few weeks later, she had her manager send me a book on how to stop smoking.

I would also put my old friend Tricky in this category, because he was the total opposite of his depressing aural persona and he always had the best weed on the planet.

DVN: Haha. Cool. How did you get into the whole pop journo game?

MAG: From the time I was a kid, I was a music fan. I was kind of strange because I listened to a little bit of everything and a few favorites was Elton John, Curtis Mayfield, Chaka Khan, David Bowie, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, anything produced by Gamble and Huff, Queen, Frank Sinatra and big band music. When I was in 7th grade, I self-published a school newspaper and wrote a review of the movie Tommy, mostly because it featured my man Elton performing "Pinball Wizard."

That said, I started reading pop magazines like Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy and Creem. Later, when I was an English major at Long Island University in the eighties I discovered the Village Voice and was turned on to a writers Greg Tate, Barry Michael Cooper, Carol Cooper, Chuck Eddy, Frank Kogan, Nelson George, Lisa Jones, Harry Allen, Bonz Malone and others who wrote about music in the same crazed way I often thought it.

Although I was well aware from the age of seven that I wanted to be a writer, it was those guys and dolls that sent me on the path to pop. Later, I stumbled on the Brit newspapers New Music Express, Melody Maker, The Face and various collections, which introduced me to an entire other level of pop appreciation in the works of Nik Cohn, Paul Morley, Julie Burchill, Tony Parsons, David Toop, Frank Owen and Simon Reynolds.

While I also write crime fiction, erotica and other types of essays, the world of pop, or "Planet Pop" as my buddy Frank Owen once put, is still appealing. From my long stories in Wax Poetics on Nina Simone and Curtis Mayfield to "The Ballad of Faith and Biggie" in the latest One More Robot, pop documentation remains important to me

DVN: School newspaper aside, when did you begin seriously covering "planet pop" and what publication gave you your start?

MAG: Besides the school paper and a couple of fanzines, my first music writing was done for a newspaper called Cover. It was a freebie monthly that was published by a Lower East Side poet named Jeff Wright. The music editor was a cool dude named James Graham, who taught me a lot about writing, jazz, Fela and the magic of the the Lower East Side. While at Cover I wrote about different kinds of stuff, from MC Hammer to Casandra Wilson to guitarists Jean-Paul Bourelly and Vernon Reid.

It wasn't until 1990, when my friend Havelock Nelson invited me to collaborate on the book "Bring the Noise" (1991, Random House) that the hip-hop writing thing took off. I was occasionally writing pieces for Word Up and Right On, which were teen magazines. A few years later, when The Source opened there New York City office, I began writing for them. My first piece was on Poor Righteous Teachers and my first cover story was about Cypress Hill.

After that Vibe started, RapPages was launched, XXL was established, Ego Trip was hatched and in the matter of a few years I was writing for them all. I might be one of the few writers to write cover stories for all the major urban magazines during that era.

As an aside, I'd like to also point out that it was during this same era that I began writing for a full-figured woman's fashion magazine called Mode, that allowed me to do various types of stories outside of rap. Editors Abbie Britton and Corynne Corbett allowed me to do all kinds of writing including essays on torch singers, Burt Bacharach and female disco artists.

DVN: A lot of writers seem to be defined by their work in one or two publications, but your stuff keeps popping up all over the place, from The Telegraph to Aleim. How do you maintain such a super-human workrate and do you ever get to a stage where you actually have to tell an editor "NO!" lol. Also, is there anything you have coming out soon we should look out for?

MAG: First, very rarely do I say "no" when there might be some mean green attached, but at the same time I'm blessed because editors see my work and reach out to me. I started writing for the London Telegraph, because the editor Nisha Diu saw my work in New York magazine.

There are also other magazines where I've written pieces I'm proud of, like the late great Stop Smiling, that I developed a relationship with because of my publicist friend Tresa Sanders, who convinced the editors to meet with me about doing a Rza feature in 2006 and we worked together until their last issue a few years later.

My interest in pop is varied, and I've become comfortable writing about various subjects including visual arts and literary subjects. As a writer, I think it's important to absorb as much knowledge as possible on as many subjects as one can manage. For me, art, film, music, books and blogs fuels my desire to write, document and push pop culture as though it were a drug.

In the last few years, I've also started writing a lot of long-form music pieces, most of the about 6,000 words, for Wax Poetics. When I write those stories, be it on Barry White or Nina Simone, I often think of the pieces as though I was writing movie like Ray, Walk the Line, Purple Rain, Velvet Goldmine or Grace of My Heart.

Currently, I'm proud to be a contributing editor for HYCIDE, which is an arts queterly and blog. The next one, which will be out next month, is the sex issue which features my essay "Through the Plexiglass," an article about the decadent days of old Times Square and the Screw magazine art of my friend Guy Gonzales.

I recently wrote the Notorious B.I.G. introduction for the Biggie special issue of XXL, an essay for Complex about the making of Society of Soul's underrated 1995 album Brainchild, an upcoming interview with George Clinton also for Complex and and I'm working with the editor of a classic hip-hop magazine that is about to be resurrected.

One of the upcoming articles I'm most proud of is my interview/profile with guitarist Jesse Johnson, who was originally a member of the funk group the Time. Remember the dude in the pink suit that played guitar with Prince's rival band in Purple Rain, well, that was Jesse. He played with the Time for a while, had a wild and crazy solo career in the '80s, recorded a single with Sly Stone called "Crazay" that and, with the exception of a few independent discs, kind of disappeared for a while. Currently, though, he is on tour in Europe with D'Angelo. Anyway, the piece is coming out in Wax Poetics, which is doing a special Prince issue featuring the purple clad maestro, a few of his collaborators and members from his various side project. Anybody that likes Prince and Wax Poetics will be happy.

Michael blogs at http://blackadelicpop.blogspot.com and the erotica blog http://openerotica.com. Open is also a print journal that he co-edits with writer/editor Fayemi Shakur.

One More Robot - Issue 9

2012-01-27T01:18:00.000Z

BUY ONLINE NOW

Featured Articles

R U Still Down?: The Legacy of Tupac Shakur
Examining the life, death and legacy of the most famous voice in the history of hip-hop.
by Charlie Braxton

Hype’s World
A critical breakdown of 15 nineties music videos from visionary director Hype Williams.
by Miles Marshall Lewis

Love & Hip-Hop
Exploring the interplay between R&B and hip-hop in the nineties.
by Quentin B. Huff

Rare Grooves
Counting out ten rare nineties hip-hop records every true fan should know.
by Cherryl Aldave & Monte Smith

Famous Last Words
The man once dubbed ‘Hip-Hop’s Official Cartoonist’ shares some of his favourite work from his time with The Source magazine.
by André LeRoy Davis, introduction by Michael A. Gonzales

Too Legit: The Neglected legacy of Pop-Rap
Analysing the influence of MC Hammer and the subsequent wave of ‘pop-rappers’ to achieve success.
by Jonathan Bogart

Young Blood: Lil Wayne in the Nineties
As a teenager in the nineties, Lil Wayne dropped hints of his impending stardom as both a solo artist and member of The Hot Boys.
by Joe Coscarelli

The Ballad of Faith and Biggie
Faith Evans discusses her role in the Bad Boy Records family and marriage to the legendary Notorious BIG.
by Michael A. Gonzales

NWA In Full Effect
A look at the various West Coast sounds that came on the back of NWA’s success, from the solo efforts of Eazy-E through to artists like Above The Law, Mack 10 and King Tee.
by Dean Van Nguyen

Also Includes

Heavy D 1967-2010 Inie Banigo remembers the influential hip-hop icon.

How MTV Got it’s Groove Back Recent inventiveness in their scheduled is making MTV worth watching again, argues Declan Aylward.

Spotlight: AM & Shawn Lee Jonathan Keane spoke to the funky duo about their recently released colaboration album.

Lesser Halves Derek Owens breaks down his five worst partners in the entertainment world’s history.

Bringing The Heat: Pacino in Dublin Matthew Jaffrey charts the history of the Dublin International Film Festival and previews this year’s event, including an scheduled appearance by Al Pacino.

Column: Ah Sure, Look It! Niamh King wonders if her peers are becoming increasingly quick to shrug off feminism.

Column: Half Nelson Jason Robinson examines the on-screen importance of a convincing accent.

and much more!

Back Issue Now Available

2012-01-26T23:56:00.001Z

Those bundle packs of back issues seen in stores that stock One More Robot are now available to buy worldwide via eBay. And at only a fiver a pop, they're super good value.

The Crucial Issues
Issue 8 (The 100 Songs That Changed The Game)
Issue 7 (The Pop Issue)
€5
Click to view eBay page..

The Bumper Pack
Issue 5 (Dublin’s Sonic Boom! Local Band Interviews and Profiles)
Issue 4 (The Generation X Issue)
Issue 3 (Interviews with Anton Newcombe and John Cale)
€5
Click to view eBay page..

Issue 9 Preview: The Nineties Hip-Hop Issue

2012-01-02T02:35:00.004Z

In our upcoming special Winter/Spring double issue One More Robot's team will be focusing on nineties hip-hop culture, art, lifestyle and music. Here's a glimpse into just some of the pieces we have prepared.

To keep up-to-date with when the issue will be available and how you can get your hands on it, please 'like' us on Facebook and follow our Twitter.

Yeah Baby We Like It Rawwww!!

Charlie Braxton examines the life, death and legacy of the most famous voice in the history of hip-hop, Tupac Shakur.

Michael A. Gonzales speaks to Faith Evans on her role in the Bad Boy Records family and marriage to The Notorious BIG.

André LeRoy Davis, the man once dubbed ‘Hip-Hop’s Official Cartoonist’, talks us through some of his favourite work from his time with The Source magazine.

We inspect the nineties output of a teenage Lil Wayne and his group The Hot Boyz.

Exploring the interplay between R&B and hip-hop in the nineties, under the working theory that the increasing inclusion of R&B-style rhythms and hooks made an impact on the expression of love/sex/relationship in hip-hop music during the decade.

While NWA disbanded in 1991, their influence over nineties West Coast hip-hop was vast. We look at a variety work and sounds that came on the back of the group's success, from the solo efforts of Eazy-E through to artists like Mack 10 and King Tee.

Jonathan Bogart discusses the oft-dismissed influence of MC Hammer and the flood of pop-rap chart toppers that were released on the back of his success.

And there's a few words on the late, great Heavy D.

Occupy Wonderland

2011-11-24T22:33:00.007Z

Alice has plunged into a new Wonderland. The powers that be have swindled the majority and now the majority must pay for the minority’s mistakes. Alice is not sure what is right or wrong anymore.

The Boxcutter Barbershop and Gallery are currently exhibiting Occupy Wonderland, a reimaging of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland by artist Dualta McCormack Jones. Jones, who’s clothing line Project A Apparel has already hit Dublin, turns his talent towards his own form of pop art. A strong graffiti influence can be seen throughout, with its playful mix of genres that infiltrate the tale of Alice’s adventure through Wonderland.

The exhibition can be seen as an allegory for our current disenchantment with the ever growing corruption and division in our society. "The Occupy movement inspired me," explains Jones. "But having not really become involved in it and I was on the fringes, and unsure as to the exact nature and agendas on show, since alot of the time everything is not what it seems. You could say we are in or were in a Wonderland of sorts in terms of consumerism and now well its all got belly up. Occupy seems to be a cause worth talking about and maybe this is another way for people to talk about it."

Drawing on influences such as Blek le Rat, Ron English, Slinkachu and Banksy, Occupy Wonderland’s vivid colourful displays and current theme make this exhibition a must see. Take the red pill and let Occupy Wonderland show you how far this rabbit hole goes.--Barry Kenna

For more information on the exhibit or for enquiries to purchase any of the work visit www.facebook.com/occupywonderland

Night of the Machines 2

2011-11-19T16:09:00.007Z

Following on from the successful sell-out event on September 1st, which featured Sleep Thieves, Impostor and Empire State Human performing fantastic live sets of pure electronic music, House of Analogue have announced the return of ‘Night of the Machines’.

The second of these very special electronic live synth collectives will take place on December 14th, returning once more to the Kevin Barry Room at the National Concert Hall, Dublin. The night will feature four Irish electronic artists, three of whom are playing Night of the Machines for the first time:

Impostor
Fuzzy Empire
The Wazp
thotbott

All of these artists make music that is very focused on electronic sound creation, rhythms and melodies, heavily influenced by both German electronic music as well as electronic film scores from the likes of early John Carpenter right up to Trent Reznor. This will make for a night of music that sounds diversely different yet is more focused tonally for those who love to see live electronic music in a prestigious and intimate venue like the Kevin Barry Room.

Tickets go on sale November 14th, directly from the National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland Box office. Book early to avoid disappointment as the first event sold out in just two weeks and in doing so helped raise €300 for the Irish Cancer Society.

Tickets €8/€6 concession.

More info is available via The National Concert Hall's Websit e. Facebook Event Page is here: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115714538540545

Web Crawler

2011-11-07T13:21:00.003Z

Originally Appears in Issue 8

In each issue Declan Aylward dives head first into the weird and wonderful world of the web, and reports back with his findings.

You Are Not A Photographer
http://youarenotaphotographer.com

We all know that girl. She’s arty, or at least has a lot of the trendiest art books scattered conspicuously about her apartment. She has a digital SLR camera with an impressively large lens that she uses for absolutely every photograph she takes of her boyfriend’s band and she loves dropping the name Cartier Bresson into any conversation she can.

Ginger and Mary Anne, the founders of You Are Not a Photographer hate her too, and the photos she takes. These days it’s very easy for one of these fauxtographers to start a Facebook page, throw up a couple of samples and start selling themselves as a ‘professional’ photographer to hapless idiots who don’t know any better. The girls at You Are Not a Photographer delight it cherry picking the worst of these sample images and presenting them on their site complete with enough scathing criticism to make a drill sergeant run wailing home to his mum. From awful attempts at spot colouring to crappy composition and some outrightly disturbing subject matter, the fauxtogs presented on this site form a great gallery of what not to do, while making us feel that bit better about the photos we take ourselves. Unless looking at these photos makes you realise you are one of course. Check your closet, are there a lot of stripey vintage jumpers in there? We thought so.
The Young Turks
http://www.theyoungturks.com

If you follow American politics at all or, more importantly, if you can’t stand the American Republican party and the bigoted, overly conservative religious nutjobs that tend to speak for it, then The Young Turks is the news site you need to be watching. Starting out as just one show, The Young Turks site and Youtube channel now hosts a number of different shows covering politics, pop culture and other things it’s fun to get angry about. In a political system like the one in the States, you have to pick a side, so don’t expect much political neutrality here. But if you’re looking for left-friendly commentary that goes into a little more depth than John Stewart’s satirical sideswipes, then you’ve come to the right place. Besides, the Republicans have had their own propaganda machine for a while now with Fox News and Bill O’Reilly spitting vitriol and lies at the public, it’s about time that the lefty youth fought back. The relatively recent 2011 Webby awards honoured the site with a People’s Voice award for Best News and Politics Series, so all the righteous indignation has started to pay off it seems. And now they’ve been mentioned in One More Robot, these guys are definitely moving up in the world.

The Legend of Neil
http://www.effinfunny.com/legend-of-neil

Sandeep Parikh is a funny guy. Regular readers might know him as the guy who plays Zaboo in Felicia Day’s excellent webseries, The Guild, but he always been, first and foremost, a maker of movies rather than an actor in them. He is also the creator of Effinfunny.com, a site that hosts a serious amount of great standup and original web series. The Legend of Neil is Parikh’s creation and shows that his own brand of humour is slightly darker, but just as funny as the work safe antics of The Guild.

The show focuses on Neil, a New Jersey nobody who gets sucked into The Legend of Zelda while drunkenly engaging in autoerotic asphyxiation using the Nintendo game controller cord. From this family friendly start, Neil battles his way through the familiar levels of the classic game towards a confrontation with the evil overlord Gannon, with only the help of an irritating Old Man (or is that Oold Man?) and a sex crazed fairy who seem determined to make his journey that much more difficult and annoying.

The budget may not be the biggest, but these guys know how to stretch it and, hey, their effects are still a good deal better than the graphics in the original game. It’s the comedy that drives the series anyway and, from Parikh’s weirdly catchy opening music that doubles as a ‘Previously on..’ to Eric Acosta’s genius portrayal of the evil henchman Wizrobe, The Legend of Neil has comedy spewing from its nose like milk from an overexcited fat kid at lunch.

It's Tintin Time!

2011-10-23T17:50:00.002+01:00

Originally Appears in Issue 8

Exciting escapades, nail-biting twists, a boy with an unhealthy obsession for his dog; The Adventures of Tintin comic had it all, and now we’ll be seeing our hero hitting the big screens in 3D this October. As kids we read along as Tintin travelled the world in his drive to thwart yet another scheming criminal bastard, assured that no story worthy of the front-page would be kept hidden from this star reporter for long, because Tintin kicked ass and took names.

The new movie looks to be promising with both Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson behind the project. It gets even better, for the plot synthesises the stories behind three classic Tintin comics: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham’s Treasure.

The brainchild of Georges ‘Hergé’ Remi, a Belgian cartoonist, Tintin has a far darker past than many today realise. Remi, after all, was a well-known fascist sympathiser before and during the Second World War, and held some very controversial views. In 1943, for example, Tintin happily sought out Red Rackham’s Treasure in the pages of Le Soir, a collaborationist newspaper in Nazi-occupied Belgium. Moreover, the new movie opts to skip past the reporter’s trip to Africa where, in Tintin in the Congo, he infamously taught his ignorant colonial subjects about the virtues of their Belgian fatherland.

It is interesting then that Spielberg, of all people, came to arrive at the project. An American Jew and admirer of Remi’s work, the future director of Schindler’s List first came across Tintin’s adventures in the early 1980s, after a movie reviewer compared Raiders of the Lost Ark to one of his comics. Spielberg recognised the cartoonist’s artistic talent and the respect was mutual, according to Michael Farr, an author of several books on Tintin, who wrote that Remi “thought Spielberg was the only person who could ever do Tintin justice”.

It has been nearly three decades since the two men met in 1983 – a mere week before the cartoonist’s death – to discuss a potential movie project. The picture has been a long time coming, and judging by the recent trailer, The Secret of the Unicorn looks to enthral fans young and old – albeit in a politically correct fashion. --Simon Mee

Two Packs Back!

2011-10-20T17:26:00.005+01:00

Available right now from Trout Records (George's St. Arcade) and The Record Art and Games Emporium (Fade Street), we're selling packages sets of some of our back issues. Stocks are limited, so boost your collection straight away. Here's what's available:

The Square Logo Issues
Issue 3 (Interviews with Anton Newcombe and John Cale)
Issue 4 (The Generation X Issue)
€5

The Full Colour Issues
Issue 5 (Dublin’s Sonic Boom! Local Band Interviews/ Profiles)
Issue 6 (Special Extra Length Edition: The Vinyl Issue)
€5

The Bumper Pack
Issues 3, 4 & 5 for extra value.
€7

For mail order contact onemorerobotmagazine@gmail.com

Spotlight: Julie Dexter

2011-10-12T17:27:00.001+01:00

Originally Appears in Issue 8

There is something about Julie Dexter’s voice. Smooth and slow in pace, but delivered with a playful effervescence, the soul singer lets it gently splash at the end of each sentence, as she bounces from one idea to the next.

We’re speaking over the phone about her fourth album, New Again, a collection of songs fused with a blend of jazz, soul and reggae released in April earlier this year. The English singer, born in Birmingham but now based in Atlanta, Georgia, is full of enthusiasm when talking about her latest effort, describing her music as “jazzy soul, dipped in the roots of reggae”.

Arriving 11 years after her debut, Peace of Mind, the material found on New Again reflects a fresh beginning for Dexter. “This is a whole new phase of my life”, she says. “I just became a mother again. There’s a lot been happening since the last album was released [in 2005]. I’ve gotten married; I’ve had a second child. So you know, it’s just like saying ‘I’m back but I’m new, and there’s a lot of new stuff happening’”.

With lush, indulgent songs such as ‘Sunshine’ and ‘Blue Skies’, New Again is marked from the outset with a confident soulful jazz. Within them, “there’s a sense of a new day, there’s optimism, there’s faith”, the singer says in an accent that now owes as much to the Atlanta sun as the Birmingham rain.

“In terms of putting an album together, sometimes I go by the lyrics, sometimes I go by the music, sometimes the tempo – there are so many things that determine for me the mood of an album, so in this particular instance I definitely viewed [New Again] with a lyrical conscience of sunshine and blue skies”.

Working in tandem with her team of musicians and producers, Dexter created a record she descrines as “a variety of sounds, tempos and what I call backdrops for me to express myself as a singer-songwriter. So, you know, I remember thinking a little bit of dance here, a bit of jazz, a bit of love, a bit of blues”. The result is a self-assured collection of songs.

When Dexter is not recording music and touring, she is busy managing her small music label Ketch A Vibe Records, through which she releases her own material. But, with four albums in, she shows no sign of giving up creating music anytime soon. “It’s been a journey for me”, the singer laughs. --Simon Mee

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

2011-10-06T13:29:00.002+01:00

Image by Tsevis Visual Design

Steve Jobs sadly died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. As a tribute to the visionary inventor we're republishing a piece that ran in Issue 5, originally titled The Exodus of Steve Jobs. The article looks at how Jobs turned what seemed to be a massive blow to his career into a great opportunity and ends with an important rhetoric from Jobs himself that helps sum him up: "Don't settle".

Laura O’Brien takes a look at how Steve Jobs lost his power at Apple in the eighties and finds out what he did to build himself back up again.

Finding what you want to do for the rest of your life at 20 is lucky. Losing it all at 30 is devastating. This was Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ position in 1985. But what would appear to be a fatal blow to a career turned into great success and opportunity. Without this loss, would Apple, one of the most influential media giants in the world, be what it is today?

In 1981, the Apple corporation was under threat. While the Apple II computer was prosperous, it’s successor, the Apple III, had tanked. Worse still, industry giant IBM had plans to enter the computer market. They needed another winning machine and fast.

The board turned to the company’s cofounder and product inventor, Steve Jobs. After having developed Apple’s previous computers, they hoped he could create another success story for Apple. His newest project idea was Lisa, which used a graphical user interface (GUI) as opposed to a command-line interface. However, tensions were fraught in production, as the team felt that Jobs was a difficult manager to work with. When he was thrown off the project, he sought revenge by taking on another project within Apple known as the Macintosh. He aimed to design it as a cheaper GUI based machine in order to jeopardise Lisa’s sales. It was developed by an impressive team of engineers, invigorated by Jobs, who referred to them as “the pirates” and the rest of the Apple company as “the Navy.”

This rebellion reflected how Steve Jobs carried himself in the office. A former board member, Arthur Rock, recalled his lax office dress to a University of California oral-history project. “Jobs came into the office, as he does now, dressed in Levi’s, but at that time that wasn’t quite the thing to do [...] And I believe he had a goatee and a mustache and long hair--and he had just come back from six months in India with a guru, learning about life. I’m not sure, but it may have been a while since he had a bath.”

In spite of this antagonisation, John Sculley, then CEO of Apple who was hired by Jobs to run the company, heavily promoted the Macintosh. Lisa became a failure, and Apple needed this computer to be successful. Yet, while initial sales were promising, they soon fell. The pressure was mounting and Jobs’ attitude was grating. Sculley had no choice but to remove all managerial authority from him. He remained as a ‘chairman’, a mere ceremonial title.

Steve Jobs was at a loss. Apple had been his entire life and to remove his power was devastating. Yet he still had a passion for computing and began working on a new project known as NeXT, a machine designed for the higher education market. He enlisted the best engineers and sales people from Apple to help him start up this new business.

His employers attempted to sue them, only to see their tactic backfire, as it only bolstered the publicity of NeXT and portrayed Apple as being fearful of competitors. A settlement was quickly reached – NeXT were not allowed compete directly with Apple products and they were required to show the company their new merchandise before they released them to the press.

In the meantime, Jobs began to develop the company, using his unique business style. Their base was designed to be open, spacious and communicative. All employees worked in a common room area, decked out with leather couches and Ansel Adams prints.

Jobs wanted the NeXT machine to be the best it could be, with high quality hardware and the most advanced software. He based the operating system (OS), called NeXTSTEP, on UNIX, the most complex at the time, but added his own GUI for easier use. The product was known as the NeXT Cube and was released in October 1988. Costing $6,500 and reported to have been missing useful software, it did not sell. They attempted to expand its market from just educational purposes and released a cheaper model known as NeXT station, but there was no improvement. By 1993, all of its cofounders left. The company were forced to drop out of the hardware market and focus on niche software.

NeXT was not the only project Jobs undertook. In 1986, he bought the Graphics Group, which was a part of Lucasfilm’s computer graphics department. This team dreamed of making animated features using CGI on machine, initially developed for this purpose, such as the Pixar Image Computer. But with a price of $135,000, very few were sold. They shut down the hardware division, focusing on developing 3D language software called Renderman. It found some success, selling 100,000 licenses and was used by James Cameron for Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Their short animations Luxo Jr and Tin Toy, headed by John Lasseter, earned themselves Oscar nominations. Yet the company was still far from being profitable. All that was about to change.

Lasseter pitched to Disney the idea of developing a Christmas special for them. They were so impressed by their short animations, they asked them to produce three movies. This created a huge re-organisation of the company, devoting much of its resources to animation. The first feature planned was Toy Story. In spite of getting this landmark deal, the pressure was on to succeed. If Jobs funded another failure, he would have been forced to sell Pixar to someone else. Negotiations were tense, due to Jobs and Disney film division head Jeffrey Katzenberg’s fraught relationship. Only months before, Jobs had gotten into a blazing argument with Katzenberg when he tried to sell them some of his NeXT computers. Still, the negotiations went well and the deal was finalised.

The production was not without its problems. 10 months in, the entire film had to be rescripted, as Disney felt that the character of Woody was far too mean. This posed a huge threat to scheduling, but eventually the script was reworked and the film was released in November 1995, right in time for Chrstmas. Jobs was more focused on his NeXT company, but he noticed the hype that Toy Story was getting and saw the opportunity in Pixar once again.

Jobs made Pixar go public the week after the release of Toy Story. The film may have earned $39.1 million on its opening weekend, but Pixar were worth more on the stock market. And with that, Jobs net worth was over $1.5 billion – far greater than it ever was when he was in Apple. The company itself were facing difficulties, thanks to Microsoft’s release of the hugely successful Windows 95. They were losing marketshare and needed a new OS for their hardware. Apple’s newly appointed CEO, Gil Amelio, chose Jobs’ NeXTSTEP OS, paying $400 million for the company. This was used to develop their newer OS and contained many attributes that are still on Macs today, such as the Dock and the Finder browser window.

By 1997, Apple’s losses were huge, so Amelio was removed from the head position. Jobs stepped in as interim CEO and began restructuring the board of directors and entire company line. This lead to him becoming Apple’s full time CEO. Within six months, he released the Power Mac G3 and the Powerbook, which were not only great successes, but had helped the technological community restore its fate in the Apple brand. Not only had Steve Jobs returned to Apple, who had thrown him out years before, but he had regained power of the entire company.

While Steve Jobs initial reaction to his own ousting was despair, in hindsight, he has regarded it as the best thing that has happened to him. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.” he said at a Commencement address in 2005, “And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

One More Robot - Issue 8

2011-09-23T11:57:00.004+01:00

BUY ISSUE ONLINE

Featured Articles

One More Robot’s 100 songs that changed the game
A breakdown of 100 post-World War II songs that shaped the world’s cultural, political and musical landscape.

Cold Blood: On Jim Thompson and Stanley Kubrick
The turbulent relationship between a lowly paperback writer and rising filmmaker.
by Michael A. Gonzales

The Porn Guy
Luke Ford, who for 10 years worked as a porn journalist, talks about his career covering the adult film industry.
by Derek Owens

Broadway Buddas and the Birth of Hip-Hop
How two young teenagers stumbled upon a genre of music still in its infancy.
by Michael A. Gonzales

Rock-Off Redemption
Coverage from our recently staged gig night with photographs and interview with joint winners Race The Flux and Tandem Felix.

Also includes

Spotlight: Julie Dexter Simon Mee chats to soul songstress and label head Julie Dexter.

The Irish Underground With music blogs hailing the arrival of Dublin-based rapper Lecs Luther, Dean Van Nguyen meets some other Irish hip-hop artists on the challenges of working in the genre.

Webcrawler More cherry-picked internet sites from Declan Aylward.

Dead To Rights Seán McTiernan discusses the lasting influence of Sam Raimi’s seminal horror film The Evil Dead.

Ah, Sure, Look It Niamh King recalls how teenage fiction helped her survive her formative years.

Half Nelson Jason Robinson on the alternating careers of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

Issue 8 Preview

2011-09-10T18:55:00.001+01:00

A glimpse into our amazing Autumn issue...

We examine 100 of the most influential post-WWII songs. Features 'Flava In Yo Ear - Remix' and 99 other songs.

A look at the working relationship between writer Jim Thompson and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, the creative team behind The Killing.

Looking at Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, 30 years after it's release.

Music reviews include Gucci Mane & Waka Flocka Flame, Disco Inferno and Leader Cheetah

In a new section, Mike McGrath-Bryan reviews three retro video games, including Street Fighter Ex Plus Alpha.

We've an interview with the soulful Julie Dexter.

Reports from our Rock-Off Redemption including interviews with winners Race The Flux and Tandem Felix.

Declan Aylward lists the five worst conceived comicbook characters of all time.

And there's a ton more we couldn't find decent YouTube vids to match up with. New issue out in September. For the latest news check back here, here and here.

Back Issues Now Available

2011-08-19T18:26:00.006+01:00

We've cracked open the One More Robot archives and dug out every back issue from our third edition onwards. For a limited time you can pick them up on eBay for just €3.50 ex. P&P. Click the links below for more information on how to buy each issue.

Issue 7 (The Pop Issue)

Issue 6 (The Vinyl Issue)

Issue 5 (Dublin's Sonic Boom)

Issue 4 (The Generation X Issue)

Issue 3 (Interviews with Anton Newcome of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Velvet Underground's John Cale)

The Five Coolest Movies Being Made Right Now

2011-08-19T17:40:00.002+01:00

Matthew Jaffrey previews five up movies currently in the Hollywood pipeline.

World War Z
Perhaps only Brad Pitt's involvement as producer and star could have gotten a zombie holocaust movie green-lit to the tune of a $125 million budget, so we must give are thanks that Pitt has an eye for good material and the balls to take risks. World War Z is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, written by Max Brooks. Pitt plays a fictional version of the Brooks, who, in the novel, is a journalist compiling interviews and first person accounts of various individuals’ struggles during the zombie epidemic which ended 10 years previously. It all sounds very exciting, the only drawback is that in order to secure the huge budget, Pitt and director Marc Foster conceded to a tame PG-13 rating.

Django Unchained
Tarantino’s new film is shaping up nicely. The story follows Jamie Foxx’s slave Django as he escapes imprisonment from sadistic ranch owner Calvin Candy, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Candy runs an underground club in which slaves are raped and forced to kill each other, so it’s no surprise that when Django escapes, he wants revenge. The big name casting doesn’t stop there. Kevin Costner is confirmed to play Candy’s right hand man who revels in the sadistic orders he’s given, while Samuel L. Jackson is signed on to play Stephen, a house slave loyal to Candy. Christoph Waltz, who won an academy award playing Colonel Landa in Basterds plays a German bounty hunter, who is reportedly the real star of the piece. All-in-all it’s pretty familiar territory for Tarantino but it seems Django is turned up to 11 and you can’t deny that it’s one hell of an impressive cast.

Cloud Atlas
Based on the existential, labyrinthine novel by David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas stars Tom Hanks, James McAvoy, Halle Berry and Hugo Weaving. The novel follows six narratives from different points of history, ranging from 1850, to a dystopian near-future and even a post-apocalyptic distant future. Director Tom Tykwer and producers The Wachowski Brothers of Matrix fame are collaborating on the adaptation. Here’s hoping Hanks returns to form after the disappointing Larry Crowne and forgettable Robert Langdon movies.

Prometheus
Originally intended as Ridley Scott’s return to the deflated Alien franchise, then as a spin-off to it, and finally, a basically-nothing-got-to-do-with–it type deal, Prometheus remains something to be excited about and probably benefits from a lack of bad-blockbuster baggage. The plot has been kept a close secret but is rumoured to be about a team sent to the home world of the alien species that engineered the human race. Anything else is speculation, although I think it’s safe to assume the mission doesn’t go as smoothly as the main characters would have hoped. The cast is an international affair with Irishman Michael Fassbender and Sweed Naomi Repace providing indie cred along with cool-as-a-cucumber Brit Idris Elba. Charlize Theron rounds out the players as a sly corporate suit type alá Paul Reiser in Aliens, although hopefully she’ll be, y’know, less Paul Reiser-ee.

The Dark Knight Rises
While undoubtedly the most anticipated movie of next year, The Dark Knight Rises faces a tough battle to equal or surpass its predecessor. If Heath Ledger faced an uphill battle in topping Jack Nicholson’s Joker then Anne Hathaway seems as though she has a mountain to climb in order to be thought of as the definitive Catwoman. The star of Bride Wars, Get Smart and The Princess Diaries will have a lot to contend with if she’s to dethrone Michelle Pfeiffer’s classic incarnation. Hathaway won’t be armed with a ridiculously impractical figure-hugging cat-suit to help her case either.

One More Robot's Rock-Off Redemption

2011-08-03T16:51:00.005+01:00

This August 18th we're staging our first ever Rock-Off Redemption, a battle-of-the-bands-type event for local Dublin bands who think they're hard enough for a proper throw down. Hosted by Q102 DJ Dave Harrington and with judges that include prominent Dublin music journalists, the winner will be featured on a two-page spread in our Autumn issue.

The Pint of Eden Quay is the venue and cost is €10 at the door with selected pints at €3.50.

We're currently looking for entries so if you think you've got enough metal (or even enough country & western) please contact us at onemorerobotmagazine@gmail.com

Webcrawler

2011-07-24T21:23:00.004+01:00

Originally Appears in Issue 7

Once again Declan Aylward dives into the weird and wonderful world of the web, reporting back with his findings.

Bad Astronomy
http://www.badastronomy.com

Phil Plait, also known as The Bad Astronomer, is a man who knows his science, and gets frustrated that the rest of us don’t. Or at least that we listen to people who don’t and take their views seriously. It bothered him enough to write a book called Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing “Hoax” back in 2002 and, just in case we’re still not getting it, the Bad Astronomy blog, now hosted by discovermagazine.com, keeps us updated on the misconceptions, unfounded rumours and downright fearmongering that the mainstream media continually pump out in regard to scientific developments, astronomical or otherwise. As well as serving as a reliable source of news on astronomy, space exploration and just about anything else Plait finds interesting, the blog is witty and entertaining without talking down to the audience; a rare thing as far as ‘accessible’ science publications go. The archives are full of his debunkings of pseudoscience and mystic theories including a thorough reaming of astrology that will make you want to chase Mystic Meg through the streets with a flaming torch. Plait is a prolific writer, with two books, a sea of magazine and online articles and even a short-lived TV show under his belt and, unlike most of the theorists he rages against, he actually does hold a PhD in something related to what he is talking about; astronomy if you can believe that!http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

People of Walmart
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com

America, land of big business, big cars and even bigger people. It’s also the home of the original ‘big box’ store, Walmart, a mega-shop with such a comprehensive offering that people from all corners of life visit it regularly, including those corners that should probably stay dark and unlit. People of Walmart is a photo blog glorifying the unrelenting tide of the weird and wrong that passes through the doors of Walmarts throughout the States. From velour jumpsuits and far-too-short shorts to creepy women pushing buggies full of stuffed animals, the extreme examples of the human condition, frozen like insects in amber by surreptitious camera phones, will have you chuckling, groaning and possibly even retching at your desk; don’t say we didn’t warn you. People of Walmart is probably the most well-known part of the Three Ring Blogs network, dedicated to shining a light on the weirdest photos snapped around the world. Well, let’s be fair, mostly in North America. Depending on your particular brand of horrified fascination, Freaks of Fast Food, Late Night Mistakes, Girls in Yoga Pants, or the particularly brilliant Random Creepy Guy bloghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif should be enough to keep you clicking ‘next’ long after it’s become unhealthy to keep looking.

Darths & Droids
http://www.darthsanddroids.net

Remember those Star Wars movies? The really awful ones? David Morgan-Mar certainly does, and they obviously made a deep impression on him. It was enough to try to make them vaguely tolerable in the form of a comic strip satire. Taking its cue from Shamus Young’s DM of the Rings, Darths & Droids takes the story of the Star Wars prequels, starting with the most undeservedly anticipated movie of all time, The Phantom Menace, and sets it as a Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying adventure, complete with a long-suffering gamemaster/narrator and a cadre of bored, difficult players whinging and joking their way through the story. The comic is done with video stills of the movies edited to include speech bubbles, so even if you’re not familiar with roleplaying games, seeing Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor voice sarky versions of their Jedi alter egos by way of some unseen puppet-masters who don’t seem to ever have heard of Star Wars is hilarious and so determinedly meta you might just find yourself worrying you are turning into Abed from NBC’s Community. Morgan-Mar is as big a nerd as you are likely find, being the author of several roleplaying source books himself, as well as creating a couple of his own programming languages, including one based on a character from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Darths & Droids isn’t the only webcomic he produces and fans of this should check out his lego-based creation, Irregular Webcomic!

New Facebook Page

2011-07-19T15:02:00.003+01:00

We've had some problems with our admin options on Facebook for the last week, so we've jumped ship and started a new page with the tidy www.facebook.com/onemorerobotmagazine

Please join for all the up-to-date One More Robot news and other fun stuff along the way.

One More Robot - Issue 7

2011-07-13T15:08:00.011+01:00

BUY ISSUE ONLINE

Featured Articles

What Is Pop?
A critical analysis of what defines pop music.
by Joe Tangari

Heroes and Villains
In 2011, who are the world’s true pop idols?
by Jonathan Bogart

She's Just Being Miley
Why the much derided pop princess’s choice of covers are more appropriate than she’s given credit for.
by Joe Coscarelli

Black Polaroids on Planet Pop
How Andy Warhol’s legendary pop art became more influential than even the man himself could have imagined.
by Michael A. Gonzales

Let's Talk About Pop
Examining the evolution of pop from a political forum to the current state of affairs through the lens of a handful of songs that make up classic pop playlists.
by Trisha Doyle

"More Bounce For Your Ounce" - The Legacy of Roger Troutman
How the Zapp frontman continues to influence generation after generation of pop music.
by Dean Van Nguyen

Karmin and Other Rap-Covering Youtuberati
Do Karmin’s stripped down take on hip-hip makes them nothing more than their generation’s Me First and the Gimme Gimmes?
by Seán McTiernan

Also Includes

Piracy Gets Personal Matthew Jaffrey examines the novel way a film director has attempted to stop his work being pirated.

Wot Do U Call It?! Johnny Ilan on grime music’s rise from the undeground to the top of the UK charts.

Webcrawler More cherry-picked internet sites from Declan Aylward.

Spotlight: Oh Minnows Jonathan Keane chats to former member of The Semifinalists Chris Steele-Nicholson about his new guise and latest release.

Overrated / Underrated Chris Familton examines two records he considers on the wrong side of critical consensus.

Ah Sure, Look It! Niamh King on her recent love affair with the British monarchy.

Half Nelson Jason Robinson evaluates some of the female comic talent working in Hollywood today.

and Much More

Issue 7 Preview

2011-06-25T15:20:00.003+01:00

A little look into the upcoming One More Robot Issue 7: "The Pop Issue"

Joe Tangari looks at Brandy and Monica's 1998 hit single to help him get to grips with the meaning of the expressions "pop music".

How legendary pop-artist Andy Warhol wielded more influence than he ever knew.

On unironically enjoying Miley Cyrus and her take on a much loved teen anthem.

Hardly a household name, we examine how Roger Troutman has influenced 30 years of pop music.

Seán McTiernan argues that Karmin's stripped down take on hip-hip makes them the nothing more than their generation's Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.

How UK grime music has become one of the nation's most popular forms of pop music.

Our spotlight shines on the terrific synthy shoegazers, Oh Minnows.

Album reviews include Beyoncé, Tom Vek, Death Cab for Cutie and Kreayshawn.

And a whole lot more besides. New issue out in July. For the latest news check back here, here and here.

Stevie's Stonkers #6: 'Queen of Hearts' by Fucked Up

2011-06-24T11:56:00.002+01:00

I’m a cynic. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. So when I hear the oxymoronic term “Punk-Rock Opera” being knocked about to describe a record, I want to puke. I’m all for a band being ambitious, and evolving, but I don’t want a ridiculously straight up deadly punk band like Fucked Up going all amateur dramatics-dinner theatre on me. I’m old school like that. Luckily, in making their high concept hardcore Tommy for 2011, David Comes To Life, they have compromised nothing, and have in fact made their best LP to date. 'Queen of Hearts' is the perfect intro to the record that sees the glass gargling, vicious vocals of lead screamer Pink Eyes sound positively uplifting when he hits the chorus with that soaring guitar line. --Stephen Rogers

Vinyl Issue Available on Ebay

2011-06-11T17:54:00.004+01:00

Latest One More Robot now available on Ebay.

See you after the jump: http://bit.ly/jRbnfn

'The Thespians' Teaser

2011-06-03T15:23:00.003+01:00

Friends of One More Robot Paul Dodd and Alan Hopkins have put a trailer together for their upcoming internet show The Thespians. They're our mates, so we wouldn't lie to them: It's really funny.

'I Am Going To Thailand'

2011-05-31T20:01:00.003+01:00

Back in issue 3 we named BJ Novak one of our top 10 cult actors working today. A DJ has obviously recognised his genius, taking one of his best monologues from The Office and remixing it into a stompin' dubstep track.

Mad by Name, Mad by Nature

2011-05-30T14:15:00.003+01:00

Matthew Jaffray on why Mad Max 4 is the most cursed film in Hollywood.

Nambia, February 2003. Mad Max 4: Fury Road is in the middle of pre-production. Millions of dollars have been spent hiring hundreds of people, building expansive sets, scouting locations, leasing trailers and developing the film. The shoot is a few weeks away, and Mel Gibson is set to bring back to the screen one of cinema’s most iconic action heroes. But none of that matters because production will soon be shut down.

It seemed like the timing was perfect. The films that were a cult success in the eighties had blossomed into revered classics and Gibson was at the height of his Hollywood clout, meaning this time, there was to be a colossal budget to the tune of $104 million. To put that into perspective, all three previous films cost a combined total of under $20 million.

Security concerns regarding the war in Iraq (hello? Different continent!) saw things put on hold for a year. Ultimately though, things were scrapped altogether a few months later. This was just another disaster in a production history that would make even Terry Gilliam cringe.

In a way it’s a miracle that the now Oscar winning director George Miller even got the enthusiasm to set himself on the long road of creating a new Mad Max film. Close friend and fellow producer of the series Byron Kennedy was killed during pre-production on Beyond Thunderdome in a helicopter crash while scouting locations.

Devastated by the loss, Miller stepped down from the director’s chair to be replaced Geroge Ogilvie, though he was later persuaded to come back and film the action sequences. The result was a noticeably uneven film which remains by far the weakest of the trilogy.

When Miller eventually came round to the idea of doing the third film, there was a lot of wrangling to get the rights. Warner brothers had released Mad Max 2 and Mad Max 3 in America, but Miller wanted to do Fury Road at Fox, who offered him a huge budget, creative control and had a deal with Gibson’s company Icon. Finally, the dispute was settled when Miller agreed to step down from directing Warner’s Contact with Jodie Foster, to be replaced by Back to the Future creator Robert Zemeckis.

With the issue of the rights put to bed, Miller spent the next three years writing a script which would have to be re-written following Gibson’s departure from the role in 2004 citing his age as his desire to further his directing career as the main reasons.

Things seemed dead in the water. But in 2006, Miller declared he wasn’t finished with Mad Max and proposed to do Fury Road with a re-vamped script and a new actor cast in the role of Max Rockatansky. Tom Hardy was cast in 2009, quite a while before Inception made him a bonafide star, as well as Charlize Theron. Production was slated to begin in 2010, this time in Australia.

Yet again no camera’s rolled. Not one scene was filmed. Just days before shooting was to start, the heavens opened and a rainfall of biblical proportions dampened any chance of production. As Miller put it: "it rained the heaviest it had in 10 years. I’ll never forget the first day — we were holed up in a big sort of shed watching the rain. We couldn’t shoot."

Details of the story of Fury Road have been hotly guarded for a decade now. The casting of Tom Hardy suggests it will not be chronologically the fourth instalment but a reboot. All that’s known of Charlize Theron’s role is that she plays a one-armed woman. While the only leak about the production so far has been form a stuntman who said there are 298 stunts scheduled involving 130 vehicles and as little CGI and green screen work as possible.

Will Mad Max: Fury Road ever see the light of day? According to Miller, yes. "All the contracts are signed. It’s a locked-in film. It has been for 18 months now. We will restart pre-production later this year and begin early next year — weather permitting." But similar sentiments have been made before, after the Nambia shoot fell apart. Meanwhile Tom Hardy’s role as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises has pushed back production another few months. While the decision to shoot in 3D pushes the budget up significantly. There have even been rumours that Miller now intends to shoot two Mad Max films back to back. That it has taken 20 years to get this far, this seems quite ambitious, but here’s hoping he pulls it off.

Webcrawler

2011-05-19T13:25:00.003+01:00

Originally Appears in Issue 6

In each issue Declan Aylward dives head first into the weird and wonderful world of the web, and reports back with his findings.

Echo Bazaar
http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com

Three decades ago, London was stolen by bats. That, intriguingly, is the stage-setter for Echo Bazaar, a ‘10 minutes a session’ browser game that bases itself on your Twitter or Facebook account, but won’t gain you the pitying and vaguely irritated looks a Farmville addiction can bring on from your friends and co-workers. Part of this is because Echo Bazaar keeps its spamming of your friends to a discreet minimum. It’s more a polite cough of an aged butler than a raucous, marketplace screech most of its ilk use to announce their presence. Mostly though, it’s the setting that will get its hooks into you. Set in an underground, alternative world that feels like Neil Gaiman and Terry Gilliam collaborated on a HP Lovecraft theme park under the supervision of Terry Pratchett, the curiously genteel Fallen London is rife with flirtatious devils, melancholy curates and, of course, the mysterious Masters of the Bazaar themselves. The game is essentially card-based and once you’ve been dropped into the Neath you use the opportunity cards you draw to find accommodation, earn what passes for money this close to Hell, uncover hidden plots or even invite your friends to social events in your spiffing new lodgings. The game’s focus on storytelling and intrigue over violence and mayhem has even earned it attention from a mainstream gaming industry fast becoming bored with hulking space marines mowing down hordes of hapless aliens. Pay a visit to the Bazaar and, who knows, you might even hang up the blaster rifle yourself in favour of an expertly wielded bag of fierce mint humbugs!

Smodcast
http://www.smodcast.com

Has anyone else been wondering what Kevin Smith is up to these days? Well, apart from writing and directing a pretty creepy looking horror movie called Red State, he has been hiding out at a place called Smodcastle. Billing itself as the world’s first and only podcasting theatre, Smodcastle is Smith’s LA venue for a whole host of internet events that those of us too pasty and freckled to spend time in the City of Angels can catch at smodcast.com. Every day of the week a new podcast is available on the site. Some are recorded live at Smodcastle, some rare ecorded studio-style off the premise. But all are hilarious, interesting and, needless to say, very offensive to the lemonade-and-buns brigade.

The podcasts on offer cover a host of topics, but whether you’re listening to Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier shooting the shit in the titular Smodcast, catching up with movie industry news in ‘Hollywood Babble-On’ or indulging an inexplicable ice-hockey fascination with Puck Nuts, the banter will have you chuckling to yourself like a crazy person on the bus. If you really crave your Jay and Silent Bob fix, every Wednesday ‘Jay and Silent Bob Get Old’ gives you a chance to hear about how our heroes are doing now that they are both settling down and maturing. Mature is a relative term though, and anyone who doesn’t find endless, graphic dick jokes entertaining should really pass this site by and renew their subscription to Justin Bieber’s no-doubt squeaky clean podcast instead.

Mystery Solved!
http://www.mysterysolvedcomic.com

He may not have a psychedelic van and a talking great dane, but Colonel Randall Thaddeus Winchester IV of the Mystery Solved! webcomic certainly gets the job done. Created by Zack Kruse and drawn by a different artist for each of his adventures, the good Colonel and his trusty manservant Jenkins travel the globe investigating and disproving phenomena like alien cattle mutilation, bigfoot and fairies. The comic delights in showing the wilful ignorance that must persist for most myths to survive, and contrasts this with the Colonel’s sound science. I would be lying if I said that sharing a smug sense of superiority with our intrepid investigator wasn’t part of the appeal. The fact that each adventure is illustrated in a different style keeps the comic fresh. It’s fun to watch how far in the air each artist manages to stick Jenkins’ nose, but the wacky, almost Beano style writing maintains a firmly consistent feel. While it might not have the cutting edge satire of Penny Arcade or the relevance to modern singletons that Girls with Slingshots has mastered, Mystery Solved! is a reminder that sometimes it’s nice just to settle back for a simple Scooby Doo style adventure and a pat on the back to ourselves for never believing in ghost stories in the first place. The comic is updated every Thursday so check back regularly to keep abreast of the Colonel’s most recent debunking.

Goldrush

2011-04-21T08:50:00.002+01:00

Originally Appears in Issue 6

Rubicon, a critically acclaimed conspiracy-thriller, is set to debut this year on BBC4. However, disappointing US ratings mean the show won’t be coming back for a second season. Derek Owens laments how TV drama is under threat as networks join the rush for instant hits.

Perhaps appropriately for a show with more moments of subdued tension than gunshots or explosions, Rubicon died with a whimper: a statement from its network, AMC TV, praised the story of a defence analyst who discovers a sinister conspiracy involving his employers, API, but confirmed that the programme would not return with a second series. The news wasn’t particularly surprising. The show had been troublesome to produce – original creator and show runner Jason Horwitch was replaced in mid-production by Henry Bromell – and ratings hadn’t been spectacular. Still, the cancellation of the critically-acclaimed show after a single series is a worrying sign of a short-termism that’s crept again into the decision making of American network execs. Even as, officially, we still enjoy a golden age of TV drama, the desperation to achieve instant success in the hyper-competitive environment could yet kill it off.

Few would claim, of course, that Rubicon was a perfect show. The series lead, Will Travers (The Pacific’s James Badge Dale), reacted to learning of a terrifying conspiracy with the passive befuddlement of a man trying to locate his car keys. The script had the occasional lines of exposition and import that just didn’t come off naturally, and the occasionally head-scratching plot point – this was probably inevitable in any conspiracy thriller cut short.

However, Rubicon was a show with real promise. Horwitch and Bromell borrowed more than just a bag of themes from classic seventies paranoia films like Three Days of the Condor, All the Presidents Men and The Conversation – they lifted the hybrid of intimate camera-work, a minor key tension-building soundtrack and slow building of tension to create a real throwback to these demanding but deeply satisfying stories. They also brought in some extraordinary actors, including stage veteran Michael Ivan Cristofer (whose ‘villain’ Truxton Spangler is visceral, peculiar, and wonderfully complex) and lesser-known talents like Jessica Collins and Dallas Roberts as Will Travers’ deeply troubled colleagues.

More importantly, the show had started to really find its feet in later episodes, branching into the private lives and troubles of Will Travers’ colleagues. Issues of power and its abuse were being teased out. And something actually got blown up. Oddly, but entirely in keeping with the programme’s personality, the big explosion happened off-screen, in the penultimate episode – a substantial ratings drop for the finale a week later probably sealed Rubicon’s fate. Even as critics praised the show for its uniqueness, visual brilliance and strong finish, most acknowledged that a second series was highly unlikely.

Rubicon, however, wasn’t the only highly-regarded show this year to be culled from the broadcast schedules after failing to achieve instant, Mad Men-esque success: Terriers, a tale of two private detectives scratching out a living, was also ditched by FX after only one season, while Fox’s Lone Star (an intriguing series about a Texan con-man struggling to keep his double life together) gave up the ghost after only two poorly-rated episodes. The fact that the show was in the same timeslot as NBC’s The Event, Dancing with the Stars and CBS’ inexplicably successful Two and a Half Men probably doomed it from the start.

Fierce competition is, frankly, killing new shows: at the height of the US’s autumn season, 16 new shows premiered in one week – when season premieres of existing shows were taken into account, nearly 50 new episodes were battling for eyeballs on the major American networks. The powers that be in TV land are responding to – and feeding – this glut in one of three ways. Some are sticking to tried and tested shows, however critically reviled and problematic they may be to make (the aforementioned Two and a Half Men, though its continuation since axing Charlie Sheen is yet to be confirmed). Some, like AMC, are chucking short runs of oddball shows at the wall and hoping that they stick – after Rubicon finished up, the network had a hit with post-apocalyptic zombie thriller The Walking Dead. Meanwhile, others are committing to shows with mind-blowing budgets and A-list talent in the hope of outgunning the opposition: Boardwalk Empire, HBO’s Scorsese-produced, award friendly period gangster piece springs to mind.

However, networks following that third path are in the minority, and there was even some doubt about whether HBO would bring Boardwalk Empire back for a second season: with the market for high quality TV as competitive as it is, it appears, executives don’t have the luxury of waiting for secondary characters on a show to come into their own and connect with viewers, or for a show to find its feet after tweaking its formula. This is understandable, but lamentable. After all, would The Wire have become a seminal show if we hadn’t been allowed to emotionally invest in Omar (or indeed any character besides Jimmy McNulty) by a network that believed in the series enough to renew it despite middling ratings? And indeed, had Fox not allowed Matt Groening to switch the focus of The Simpsons from Bart to Homer, the programme wouldn’t have become half as successful as it did. These are, of course, radically different shows, but they illustrate a core truth – few programmes, if any, get it right immediately. They need time to bed down and refine their formula, but the current environment means that only exceptionally strong-willed executives will give a series that breathing space if it hasn’t been an instant hit.

This changing environment probably won’t result in the deluge of TV offal that some critics fear. Of course, we’ll still have shows like Two and a Half Men, but many networks will continue to commission innovative shows in the hope of unearthing another Mad Men. The downside is that, unless the quirky show that captures your heart is an instant hit, you’ll probably have to content yourself with a single series, a topic to bore people silly about, and a dream of how good the programme could have become if networks had a bit more backbone.

One More Robot - Issue 6

2011-04-01T21:00:00.007+01:00

ISSUE SOLD OUT

Featured Articles

For The Record
With new formats coming and going every few years, why does vinyl continue to survive?
by Dean Van Nguyen

Living in the Crates
How the definition of ‘crate digging’ is changing as new technologies alter our listening habits.
by Jonathan Bogart

Chopped ‘n’ Screwed
How sampling has been embedded into the fabric of hip-hop since its inception, and why it continues hold importance with modern rappers and producers.
by Seán McTiernan

A Hidden History on Vinyl
Hidden in record stores, antique malls and basements, there is an alternative history of music waiting to be discovered.
by Joe Tangari

Gold Diggers
Some of our favourite people hand pick their favourite vinyl records for your enjoyment.

Digging for Abba Gold
Discovered at Blackrock Market, 10 very different records are evaluated.
by Brendan O’Dowd

The Crate Escape
Our essential guide to the record labels, old and new, every wannabe vinyl collector should become accustomed to.
by Ronan Hunt-Murphy

Day of the Indies
A look at the rise and rise of Record Store Day, with a preview of the upcoming festivities happening this April 16th.
by Brendan O’Dowd

Also Includes

The Meaning of Charlie Dean Van Nguyen examines why Charlie Sheen’s recent breakdown has proved irresistible to watch.

Time for a Re-Up: The Hip-Hop Takeover Trisha Doyle on why nineties hip-hop has experienced a revival of late.

Webcrawler More cherry-picked internet sites from Declan Aylward.

Kiddie Car-Crashes Derek Owens counts out his top five child stars to fall desperately from grace.

Goldrush Jittery US television executives are pulling the plug too early on quality new programmes, argues Derek Owens.

Ah Sure, Look It Niamh King describes a day spent selling door-to-door.

Half Nelson Jason Robinson on how a generation of nerds are becoming some of Hollywood’s more prominent leading men.

& Much More

One More Robot Magazine Launch Party

2011-03-23T14:59:00.001Z

To mark the release of our upcoming, bumper-sized, special edition 'Vinyl Issue', we're hosting an evening of live music on Friday, April 1st, featuring the combined talents of The Fundamentals, Ken O'Neill, Let's Set Sail and Jennifer Mangan.

The Lower Deck is the scene (map is here) and the cost is €10 at the door, with a copy of the new issue waiting for you upon arrival. Hope to see ya'll there!

Click for Facebook Event Page

One More Robot's Top 50 Robots 10-1

2011-03-11T16:30:00.006Z

10. AWESOM-O
As seen in: South Park

The AWESOM-O 4000 is the robotic alter-ego of one Eric Cartman. A creation that only Cartman could surely have envisaged. Hardly a fully functioning robot, AWESOM-O is no more than young Eric in a cardboard suit, speaking in a robotic voice. It’s more than enough to fool South Park simpleton, Butters Scotch, and Cartman hopes to utilise his devious costume to glean embarrassing information about Butters by becoming his dream companion: a robot friend.

In gaining his victim’s trust however, AWESOM-O discovers that Butters has some blackmailing material of his own to use against Eric, in the form of an incriminating videotape, forcing Cartman to maintain the charade in order to obtain the tape. During his time spent with Butters, Awesom-o helps him insert anal suppositories, inspires a ragtime ode entitled ‘My Robot Friend’ and accompanies him a trip to Los Angeles to visit his aunt. It’s on this trip that the robot attracts the attention of a Hollywood studio, faces the perils of the casting couch and is captured by the US Military for research purposes.

In short AWESOM-O is the definition of a joke going too far, backfiring, but being in too deep to do anything about stopping it. He has no cool powers or fancy technological wang-dangs, but hey, he had us in hysterics. Reason enough for his inclusion. ‘Lame.’ --Seán Earley

09. Optimus Prime
As seen in: Transformers

I’m sorry, what was that? You were the one little boy growing up in the eighties who didn’t think transforming robots were frickin’ deadly? Well, that must mean you are a figment of my imagination, because you don’t exist. Quite simply Transformers took everything any little boy could want in a Saturday morning cartoon/toy and rolled it all up into one. Big and badass vehicles of all descriptions? Check. Robots. Check. Aliens. Check. Intergalactic laser battles over the resource Energon that was actually a metaphor for oil based conflicts in the Middle East… Ok so maybe not the metaphor bit, but definitely the rest.

Optimus Prime was the fearless leader of the Autobots (the goodies), tirelessly battling the Decepticons (the baddies) week after week, with virtue, and honour, and a baritone voice I prayed would be mine when puberty hit. And his name! Think about that name! OPTIMUS PRIME. Optimus – the best. Prime - the first. C’mon people, what more does a name need to say about you? As awful as those movies were I still got goose bumps seeing him transform on the big screen for the first time. Then in the second flick he took on four Decepticons single handed and was bested in one devastatingly emotional scene. No, I didn’t have something in my eye. That was a tear. A manly tear. Roll out! --Stephen Rogers

08. Robot B-9
As seen in: Lost in Space

All too frequently in classic science fiction, robots are portrayed as baddies: perfect soldiers, focused killers, emotionless tyrants. Countering this negativity, the accordion-armed robot from the classic series Lost in Space is entirely good. His concern lies almost solely in preventing his human companions from coming to harm. In fact, he is so benign that his creators beat Star Trek by almost 50 years and built it into his designation: “Robot B-9.”

Likable and benevolent, B-9 is one of the all-time most famous robots in television history. Repeating one of the most memorable catchphrases in television history every week, the robot protected the space family Robinson as they travelled the galaxy, warning of hidden danger on every planet. In fact, he often seemed to do little else. It was his personality rather than his abilities which made the character memorable. Although technically advanced and fantastically complex, the robot was also capable of expressing human emotions. He was frequently shown laughing at the crew, especially Dr. Smith who referred to him as a “bubble-headed booby,” and a “ludicrous lump” among other things. For many people, it was Smith’s relationship with the Robot which defined the show and made it a classic. --David Bolger

07. HAL
As seen in: 2001: A Space Odyssey

HAL (Heuristically programmed Algorithmic Computer) is the sentient computer onboard the Discovery One Spaceship from Stanley Kubrick’s classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL speaks with a conversational, polite tone and seems to take pride in his work – betraying the fact that the computer may, in fact, be more than just a computer, having developed genuine emotions and a form of artificial intelligence.

HAL has become synonymous with our fears about the rise of A.I. He insists that a fault in the spaceship is due to human error, before attempting to murder it’s crew by terminating the life support systems and attacking the crewmember that tries to identify the problem. HAL does this in the name of self-preservation, to avoid being deactivated.

This level of artificial Intelligence is a quality that, thankfully, does not exist in our modern technology. While many of us state how reliant we are on our iPhones, Blackberrys or similar, if they started demonstrating emotions, manipulating us and preserving themselves from being replaced or shut down, we would run, screaming, for the hills. Although many people would argue this is already happening in a very subtle and insidious manner, with our utter dependence on technology that did not exist 10 years ago, until our iPhones start talking to us in creepily, soothing tones like HAL, we can presume we are safe. But maybe that’s what they want us to believe… --Brogen Hayes

06. The Terminator
As seen in: The Terminator

“Listen, and understand. That Terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.” Those were the cautionary words of Kyle Reese, which served as a perfect introduction and summation of one of sci-fi’s greatest and scariest villains. And if there’s one thing watching the Terminator films has taught me it’s that Kyle Reese knows what he’s talking about and you’d be damn smart to listen to him.

The Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, if you want to get technical (and I do), was terrifying in the first Terminator film because of all the reasons Reese gave and then some. What I think makes the T-101 a truly great character however is that after becoming one of sci-fi’s most iconic villains in 1984, Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to the role in the 1991 sequel and created one of the genre’s best and most enduring heroes by being a slightly softened version of same thing. Having a character switch sides morally or literally is a risky prospect in storytelling at the best of times, but the Terminator managed to be the ultimate murderous bad guy initially and in the next instance be the valiant protector, father figure, and martyr only to be loved even more. This is why The Terminator is a pure and true icon of cinema. --Stephen Rogers

05. Johnny 5
As seen in: Short Circuit

Ah, the eighties; when runners were boots, jumpers were huge and the most advanced piece of technology we could imagine looked rather like Meccano mounted on a remote control car. In a way, it’s that retro harking back to a time before Steve Jobs and Apple managed to convince us that every iRobot worth its malware has to be shiny and white that keeps all of us in love with Johnny 5.

The tale of Number 5, as he is in the first Short Circuit movie, has more in common with E.T. than The Terminator. Future Governor Arnie may have begun stomping about the 20th Century a couple of years before but we still hadn’t been hard-wired to distrust intelligent robots on sight just yet. When Ally Sheedy finds him hiding out in her van it’s all delightful misunderstandings and adventure; even his Cylon voiced evil brothers wind up as Larry, Curly and Moe, hardly the sight to inspire dread of the robotic menace.

The world (or the USA at least) had a bigger menace in those days anyway: the Ruskies. In the midst of cold war paranoia movies like Red Dawn and Invasion USA, Johnny 5’s cheery fascination with the world told us all to stop and smell the roses, even as his high-tech construction subtly reminded everybody of the superiority of western technology. In the end though, all that really sticks with us is the image of Johnny 5 chasing happily after a butterfly and the robot’s earnest message to an anxious and materially obsessed decade: Life is not a malfunction. --Declan Aylward

04. Marvin the Paranoid Android
As seen in: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

What makes movie and TV robots so dangerous is that they are full of data and information about life, the universe and everything in it, yet their artificial intelligence is accompanied by a stone cold lack of emotion. They know everything but care about nothing. No wonder they try to destroy the planet even 10 minutes.

Marvin (from the book The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, as well as it’s TV and film adaptations) does not lack emotion; in fact he’s is infested with it. Marvin is the robot embodiment of the human condition. He gets how people think and, more importantly, how they feel, he just doesn’t care very much. He, as the most depressed robot in history, has the basic motto that life, and his position in it, suck. After all, anyone with a brain the size of a planet who is asked to do nothing but menial tasks, unworthy of his great acumen, would get kind of bored.

Marvin is the failed prototype of Sirius Cybernetics GPP (Genuine People Personalities) programme and due to unresolved flaws in his programming he is stuck with the intelligence to do great things but the will and drive to do very little. He is a good guy to have around when you are in a bad mood because no matter how bad you feel you know he is going to be more down than you are. I think that is why we love him. He has a hard time of it and no other robot knows, or could know, what it is like to be that under appreciated. So we’re appreciating him. He needs the love. --Rachael Murphy

03. Bishop
As seen in: Aliens

Bishop will no doubt remain a polarising figure, both within the narrative of the Alien saga, and in how viewers approach the character after viewing both Aliens and Alien 3. Played by Lance Henriksen who, much to his misfortune, looks like a slimy, second-car salesman, Bishop is an android ‘The Company’ send along with the crew of high-tech colonial marines as they return to LV-425, the site of Ripley’s first encounter with the infamous Alien creatures. Indeed, his appearance of deviousness, and the unease which Ripley engages him, points to the multi-faceted nature of his place within the series. Claiming to adhere steadfastly to the first rule Isaac Asimov sets out for Robots, namely, never to injure or harm humans, Bishop is a robot the audience is never entirely sure of, and indeed, countless fans have speculated on how entirely benign his actions in Aliens truly were compared to his ‘changed’ nature in Alien 3. The implication, as Ripley strains to withhold saying, is that Bishop was indeed complicit in the laying of the Alien eggs.

The positing of Bishop as an android, (although he himself states: “I prefer the term ‘Artificial Person’ myself”) adds to the unease as he displays human emotions and engagements, but with a precision the viewer knows only a robot could possess. As robots go, he’s is a tricky customer, but on account of saving Ripley’s life, I think we’ll have to give him the benefit of the doubt. --Jason Robinson

02. Bender
As seen in: Futureama

Hard drinking, cigar-chomping and more foulmouthed than a drunken Mel Gibson, Bender is perhaps the best loved character in Futurama. He is certainly the show’s greatest breakout character, having appeared not only in The Simpsons, but also having a background cameo in Family Guy.

Built in Mexico by his industrial robot mother, Bender’s full name is Bender Bending Rodriquez, and he is alternatively 40% titanium, lead, zinc, dolomite, chromium and osmium. Bender requires near constant intake of alcohol to recharge his power source but probably drinks more than is necessary. Bender wants to be loved and struggles with his feelings for humanity, alternating between expressing fondness for his friends to declaring his intention to kill all humans. Perhaps the best example of Bender’s nihilistic nature comes when a bomb is planted inside him, set to detonate if he says a certain word. His reaction is to start listing words at random in the hope of setting it off. Despite being created as a mere bending unit, Bender is able to turn his hand to anything; from folk music to cooking to being a God, with the last being the only job suitable to his huge ego.

One interesting aspect of Bender is his age. Although he is built only two years before the show’s pilot, in season three he travels back in time to 1947. His head is left behind in the desert as the ship departs, where it waits the intervening 1,055 years for rescue. Subsequently, in 'Bender’s Big Score', he travels back 955 years to kill Fry. There, he waits the same amount of time before arriving in the “present” at the climax of the episode. As of this latest season, Bender’s head is over 2,000 years old, and his body (and ass) almost half that. --David Bolger

01. R2-D2
As seen in: Star Wars

At a glance, R2-D2 is an unremarkable robot. Gliding around on little wheels, making gentle beeps and squeaks that somehow people can understand, he seems like an unlikely candidate to top this poll. Yet, when you think about it, no other machine comes close. Over the years hundreds of different robots have appeared in popular culture. They’ve been servants, overlords, invaders; the list goes on and on. Yet R2-D2 stands alone at the top of the pile. A robot who is, quite simply, a friend. A mildly snarky, but undeniably lovable, friend.

While most robots have multiple functions R2-D2, for the most part, wasn’t capable of much more than just wandering around, getting into peril and hacking the occasional mainframe. The prequel trilogy tried to imbue him with incredibly random extra abilities such a highly convenient mini saw which I found diluted his charm somewhat. After all, this is a robot that has always been greater than the sum of its parts. He’ll journey with you to distant planets, he can pass important messages, serve drinks if needs be; he is there for you.

Regardless of the more recent changes, since the original Star Wars R2 has become deeply rooted in every generation’s subconscious since. Any one of his trademark sounds, like his nervous squeak, or his playful whistle will instantly stir the inner child within most of us. Really, when you think about it, he is quite the pop culture heavyweight. Star Wars has spread its influence over movies, music, books, video games... there really is no part of the world of entertainment that it hasn’t touched, and if I had to choose a character from this gargantuan media empire to represent it, it would be R2-D2, standing in some desolate desert wasteland, staring at you indifferently. Darth Vader may have been tall, dark and menacing, Luke Skywalker may have been the main character, Han Solo may have been Harrison Ford, but R2-D2 is the face of Star Wars and in a way, that makes him the face of popular film, which is funny because he’s just a robot that can’t really do much apart from prodding you with his unnecessary electric baton thing that he has inside himself somewhere. --Jesse Melia

One More Robot's Top 50 Robots 20-11

2011-03-10T17:09:00.011Z

20. T-1000
As seen in: Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Among the wide variety of robots, cyborgs and machines that appear on this list, the T-1000 remains a true original. So perfectly formed was James Cameron’s creation in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, that it remains completely believable and no less jaw-dropping some twenty years later. In fact, no other filmmaker has dared attempt copy the concept, since Cameron and co’s execution proved so definitive.

Intended to be a sleeker, sports car-like design to Arnie’s panzer tank, the T-1000 is probably best remembered not for his ability to take on the appearance of his victims, turn his limbs into sharp, lethal weapons or apparent indestructibility, but for his sharp, quick sprinting motion. Both terrifying to those he pursues, as well as effective in catching some slower vehicles, it’s one of the series most iconic images. --Dean Van Nguyen

19. Maria
As seen in: Metropolis

A cold emotionless face combined with the sexy curves of the female body, all encased in steel, Maria is one of cinema’s most iconic images. She was played by Brigitte Helm, who technically took on the dual roles of the robot (or Maschinenmensch) and the human on whom it was modelled, in Fritz Lang’s sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis.

Constructed for the personal gain of scientiest Rotwang, who is locked in a bitter love triangle with Metropolis elite Freder over Maria’s affections, the robot is fashioned in her image with the ultimate goal of destroying Metropolis and murdering Freder. However, after being instilled with sentience, the Maschinenmensch soon turns on its creator ala Frankenstein’s Monster and runs amuck. --Seán Earley

18. Sonny
As seen in: I, Robot

I, Robot protagonist Del Spooner (Will Smith) believes that Sonny killed his creator, thus breaking one of writer Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics; rules the writer apparently formed to provide interesting plot lines when broken. Sonny himself is an NS-5 unit, seemingly just one in a long production line of similar robots. However, he has very distinctive features, including reenforced body armor, a secondary brain that is not governed by the laws and the ability to dream. But it’s his likeable personality that makes Sonny a real charmer. You could even buy a replica of his head for your home that lights up when approached by an intruder. Truly, the people’s robot. --Carol Killeen

17. Number Six
As seen in: Battlestar Galactica

When TV series Battlestar Gallactica was re-imagined several key changes were made, most notable of which was the enemy. No longer were the nefarious Cylons limited to a mechanical, cyborg appearance. They were able to mimic actual humans in every physical detail. The creative forces behind the show clearly knew what their audience wanted as the humanoid Cylon that got the most screen time was the sleek, platinum blonde temptress known as Number Six. Any excuse to put her in scenes involving seduction, manipulation and, yes, sexual intercourse, was conceived by the show’s writing team. Regardless of her looks though, Six is a genuinely great character whose moral complexity and memorable image was integral to the success of this brilliant sci-fi series. But yes, she was super hot and was clearly created to mentally ensnare alpha nerds like myself. It worked. --Jesse Melia

16. Gerty
As seen in: Moon

Tasked with assisting Sam Bell on the Sarang Lunar Base as he extracts helium-3 from the soil for much-needed clean energy back on Earth, GERTY seems as insidious and potentially dangerous as HAL was in 2001: A Space Odyssey. But while he stirs up the audiences memories of the murderous HAL, he then promptly dispels our fears. Kevin Spacey’s vocal performance is clearly related to, if not inspired by, the soothing and calming tones of Kubrick’s design. But where HAL failed, GERTY triumphs. Here is a robot gifted with artificial intelligence that does not want to over throw the human race, instead empathising with Sam’s struggle and his fear and confusion and does all he can to help him. While any fictional artificial intelligence is going to be burdened with comparisons to HAL 9000, GERTY was clearly created in an attempt to embrace this, rather than fight to be free of it. And this is why the character works so well. --Brogen Hayes

15. Kryten
As seen in: Red Dwarf

Kitchy robots have always been a part of cult sci-fi, and it doesn’t come more cult than Red Dwarf. Kryten, the robot butler rescued from a macabre pantomime of his own creation, is part C-3PO, part Hal from Malcolm in the Middle. Played by Robert Llewellyn, in the years before Scrap Heap Challenge claimed his soul, he brought his own brand of crazy to the table, with physical comedy and exaggerated doubletakes worthy of Fawlty Towers. Kryten has an earnest desire to serve humanity, even the miserable specimen that is Lister, the last human. His wilful glee in debasing himself to that end is hilarious, even as it can’t help but make us think about the concept of creating what amount to worshipful slaves from a rather uncomfortable angle. --Declan Aylward

14. WALL-E
As seen in: WALL-E

By most yardsticks, WALL-E is an unlikely concept for an animated feature. Based around a lonely, old, disheveled robot on an isolated and abandoned Earth, if any studio other than Pixar received this idea, it would have died a quick and lonely death. Yet here the studio created a truly loveable, however unlikely, hero in the form of WALL-E (standing for “Waste Allocation Load Lifter- Earth Class”). A colourful, small yellow robot, with a binocular-type eyes that manage to convey both the happiness (during his time with his love, Eve) and worry (such as when he is nearly destroyed in a sandstorm) that comes his way.

WALL-E is both resilient and sweet, with a love of old films and a collector of knick-knacks on the abandoned planet he inhabits. That the robot doesn’t even speak actual words is testament to the depth and power his emotions and actions hold throughout the feature and the rare instance where an audience is rooting for a machine to find true love with his beloved other. --Jason Robinson

13. Gort
As seen in: The Day the Earth Stood Still

One of the best known robots in movie history, Gort was completely indestructible and capable of destroying all life on Earth. Despite this, his mission in The Day the Earth Stood Still was to bring about world peace. This was carried out via the threat of global Armageddon.

Gort spent most of the film motionless, waiting outside his spaceship for his companion Klaatu. He was examined by the military but gave no indication that this upset him. This stillness is part of what makes Gort such a memorable robot; the lack of movement creates amazing suspense. That feeling of untapped raw power paid off at the climax of the film with perhaps science fictions best known line: “Klaatu. Borada. Nikto,” meaning roughly: don’t kill everybody in the world. --David Bolger

12. Rosie
As seen in: The Jetsons

Rosie was always more than just a maid to the Jetson family. She was there to give advice when it was needed, and to roll her eyes when Judy Jetson professed that she was in love yet again. She generally had little to do with the storyline, (except in the episode she snags herself a robot boyfriend) but rather acted as the comic relief when things got in anyway serious. There was more to Rosie though than just the humour in her character, or the fact that she is oddly dressed in a little French maid’s outfit. She was like supporting wall that prevented our favourite space-age family from falling apart.

Rosie was ordered by the Jetsons from U-RENT A MAID when they needed a little help. They never looked back. Why would they? Who wouldn’t love to have a machine in your home that cleaned up after you, getting out the hover when the dog has rolled mud on the carpet and making sure you jeans are clean when you need them? As soon as you stop living at home you need something like that around. --Rachael Murphy

11. Robby the Robot
As seen in: Forbidden Planet

An icon of science-fiction, Robbie was created for 1956 movie Forbidden Planet. The film was famously based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Robbie himself was inspired by the powerful wood sprite Ariel. He was designed by the same man who gave us Lost in Space’s Robot B-9, but his greatness lies not just in his lineage, but in what he did afterwards. Unlike most robots in film and television, Robbie went on to have an amazing career spanning thirty years and appeared in a string of successful movies (Gremlins, Earth Girls Are Easy, Star Wars: Episode I) and television shows (Lost in Space, The Twilight Zone, The Love Boat). If you thought “robot” in the sixties, odds are you’re thinking of Robby. --David Bolger

One More Robot's Top 50 Robots 30-21

2011-03-09T17:32:00.014Z

30. C-3PO
As seen in: Star Wars

One of the most underrated supporting characters of the Star Wars series, C-3PO and his counterpart R2-D2 are credited as being the world’s first ‘bromance’, bridging language barriers, robot race and much more besides. One of the few characters to be portrayed by the same actor throughout the entire six Star Wars films; C-3PO has become a cult figure amongst fans the world over. The robot has inspired some the most varied and downright bizarre collectibles such as earrings, art and, my personal favourite, altered antique plates! The most recent is the newly released C-3PO iPad Case, the iPad accessory for geeks across the globe. --Niamh King

29. KITT
As seen in: Knight Rider

An abbreviation of ‘Knight Industries Two Thousand’, KITT was the talking car from eighties megahit TV show Knight Rider. The Knight in question was Michael Knight, played by The Hoff himself. Together with KITT, the duo was a formidable crime stopping force, defeating their enemies with a mixture of devastating explosives, unbelievable technology and artificial intelligence.

Undeniably camp, KITT would often come out with some awful lines that suggested that maybe there was more than just a platonic love between one man and his artificial intelligent car going on, including this gem: “It appears to be a large... My goodness, large isn’t the word, it’s enormous!” --Seán Earley

28. Kevin
As seen in: Saved by the Bell

Not all successful TV series hit the ground running, and the first couples of seasons can sometimes be littered with failed experiments, and characters soon to get the chop. In Saved by the Bell’s case, there was Max, the annoying waiter from the restaurant of the same name who insisted on using magic tricks as a visual aid to underline the advice he was giving the fresh-faced Zach, AC and the gang. He was wisely axed soon after. Then there was Kevin, Screech’s robot friend who was inexplicably removed from the show after two seasons. His appearances included a gig as an assistant to Screech’s magician and as a hall monitor, filling in for his much-loved master. But more than just a mechanical slave, Kevin offered the anxious teen much needed guidance with a refreshing sense of humour. Removing his robotic buddy when they did, no wonder Screech went off the rails. --Dean Van Nguyen

27. ‘Robot Rock’
Recorded by: Daft Punk

Daft Punk’s sound has always had a rather cybernetic quality. From the repetitive thud of the bass in ‘Da Funk’ to the space-aged synth laser blasts of ‘Around The World’, they have always seemed like a band that belonged at some futuristic rave out in the far reaches of the cosmos. By their second album they had evolved into robots physically and sonically with an arsenal of new, auto tune laden pop songs. The definitive example of their inorganic, processed sound is the aptly titled ‘Robot Rock’, a song which is played by robots and, indeed, rocks. In fact, the music video features a robot playing guitar. It does exactly what it says on the space aged tin. --Jesse Melia

26. ED-209
As seen in: Robocop

ED-209 had one of the most memorable introductions in sci-fi cinema when during a straight forward demonstration, he hideously malfunctions and guns down an innocent man. It kinda set the bar for things to come. The tank-like robot became something of a comic foil in the Robocop film trilogy, TV series, comic book and other spin offs because of his tendancy to break and general flaws in his design. (His inability to negotiate a flight of stairs leads to his defeat in the first ecounter with Robocop).

We think 209 got a bad hand. His flaws in the movie were mostly down to the rush to get him operational and these defects were apparently not worked out, with the sequel’s filmmakers determined to keep him slow, stupid and easily defeatable. A shame, since Robocop director Paul Verhoeven intended him to terrify, comparing the design to that of a Vietnam war helicopter. --Dean Van Nguyen

25. Linguo
As seen in: The Simpsons

Linguo was a shooting star amongst Simpsons characters, come and gone in a single episode but with his pedantic grammatical corrections forever burned into our brains. His appealed most obviously to the type of people who correct others’ use of ‘seen’ instead of ‘saw’, or ‘who’ instead of ‘whom’. Probably the most ingenious of all Lisa’s various science projects, Linguo’s brief life saw him get drunk, fight mobsters and die in the arms of Homer. It was a short but fulfilling existence. Let us never forget his dying words, as a single-thumbed Homer cradles him and says, “Linguo, dead?”, “Linguo is dead” came the final earthly croak. Long live Linguo. --Ian Maleney

24. The Mars Rover
Created by: NASA

NASA’s Mars Rover is actually two robots, Spirit and Opportunity. Both are identical but on different parts of Mars, as their creators hope to utitlise the machines we humans hope to find out vital information about its make-up and resources of the red planet. Operations began in 2004 and so far, they have detected ice and carbonate deposit (next stop, Costa del Mars) and if you like to keep up to date on what these robots are getting up to, they’re even on Twitter (http://twitter.com/MarsRovers).

These robots will be on Mars for the long haul so expect to hear more of their adventures over the coming years, although at present poor Spirit is caught in a sand trap and NASA hasn’t heard from it since March last year. We wish them both the best of luck. --Jason Robinson

23. The Pink Robots
Created by: The Flaming Lips

I imagine their pink colouring is a ruse to lull us into a false sense of security. I mean who sees pink and thinks danger? But you’re not going to get anywhere in your career as a giant world beating anime-style ‘megabot’ if you don’t have at least a few tricks up your sleeves. Do giant pink robots have sleeves? Anyway, we can only theorise why the titular Pink Robots of the Flaming Lips excellent 2002 song were attacking Earth, or Japan, or wherever. Whatever their reasons Wayne Coyne seemed confident that a young girl named Yoshimi could defeat them, amply prepared as she was with a vigorous karate and vitamin taking regime. What did she know that we didn’t? We don’t really know how she got on either, the only evidence being the indecipherable screaming heard in the songs second part. Maybe she didn’t defeat those evil machines. --Stephen Rogers

22. Metal Gear Rex
As seen in: Metal Gear Series

One of the Sony Playstation’s most memorable and influential franchises is undoubtedly the Metal Gear series. What started as a fairly straightforward running and gunning platform game on the SNES has evolved into a cinematic, blockbuster gaming franchise that has lasted over 20 years. The one constant in this genre-bending saga is that at the end of our hero Solid Snake’s journey of stealth and intrigue, he must face off against the latest iteration of the menacing bipedal walking tank known as Metal Gear Rex. Equipped with nuclear warheads along with an array of other destructive weaponry, the different Metal Gear’s have almost always posed much the same threat. They would always fall into the hands of fiendish terrorist types who wish to use its nuclear payload to commit fiendish terrorist acts such as enslaving the government or something equally reprehensible. Luckily Snake would always find the machine’s weak spot and destroy the abomination so we can all sleep soundly tonight. Thanks Snake. --Jesse Melia

21. ‘Intergalactic’ Robot
As seen in: The Beastie Boys’ Video

The Beastie Boys’ finest MTV moment saw the trio manning a robot that battles a giant octopus-headed creature armed with a pitchfork. The video is a nod to the old Kaju movies, right down to the scenes of the fleeing Japanese, just like a classic Godzilla film. The battle itself though somewhat resembles an episode of The Power Rangers and we’re treated to what can only be described as a Ranger-like dance moves by the boys down below, while the robot happily dances on the streets, that have been abandoned by the terrified natives. When the fight ensues, our blocky hero overcomes early octopus dominance by flinging his enemy into a nearby power line. This won Best Hip Hop Video at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1998. --Carol Killeen

One More Robot's Top 50 Robots 40-31

2011-03-08T19:29:00.000Z

40. Teddy
As seen in: A.I: Artificial Intelligence

Of all the robots A.I: Artificial Intelligence has to offer, Teddy is without a doubt the most impressive and intimidating. From the first introduction to Teddy it is made crystal clear that, despite his cuddly and slightly evil appearance, he is not a toy. He takes in the role of David’s friend and guardian, often handing out useful advice such as “[Don’t eat spinach] You will break.” In complete contrast to the humans in David’s life, Teddy displays a steadfastness and determination to ensure his well being. (There’s a moral lesson there, somewhere, if you care to pursue it.) His dedication to the mission at hand, find the Blue Fairy who will transform David into a real boy, is truly remarkable considering he has no ties to the child other than he loves him with all his little robot heart. --Niamh King

39. Data
As seen in: Star Trek: The Next Generation

When Star Trek: The Next Generation first aired, fans of the original series were quick to notice similarities between the main cast and their 1960’s counterparts. Foremost among these was Data, Starfleet’s first android officer who seemed little more than a poor man’s Mr Spock. But Data soon evolved into something more than an emotionless, naive foil to the show’s human characters. We watched him learn to become something more than a machine as the show-runners had him explore the human condition, the place of sentient life in the universe and even what defines a life form.

Data explored his desire for a family by creating a “child,” found his own long lost family (and evil twin) in Lore, and even crossed the machine-human sexual divide, declaring himself “fully functional” to Tasha Yar. An early defining moment came in the second season when Dr. Polaski pronounced his name as “Dahtah,” rather than “Daytah.” When quizzed on why he corrected her, Data replied: “One is my name. The other is not.” --David Bolger

38. Calculon
As seen in: Futureama

More than just a robot, more than just a soapstar, Calculon is Futureama creator Matt Groening’s commentary on the vapid egotism of Hollywood and the television industry. The sheer overbearing selfishness that bullies its way into a kind of irresistible charisma holds a mirror up to stars like Russell Crowe, Bill Shatner of course, and even Adam West in his heyday. But it’s more than just sneering at the rich and famous on Groening’s part; Calculon is, after all, a robot, created to act the way we made him. Calculon himself is completely oblivious to all of this, he just basks in the attention and doles out meaningless thanks to the little people: “the Academy, my agent and, of course, my operating system”. --Declan Aylward

37. The Buffy Bot
As seen in: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Appearing in season five and six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Buffybot is an identical robot replica of the real Buffy Summers. Programmed to be in love with the vampire Spike, she will do anything to please him.

A symptom of Spike’s obsession with the real Buffy, the Buffybot is an experiment that went wrong. Her speech and mannerisms were not perfected by the robot’s creators, so although she is chipper and permanently happy around Spike, she lacks tact and can be incredibly blunt in conversation. Happily, the Buffybot has her uses – other than as a talkative sex toy for Spike – and she is often used to distract the enemy or convince them that Buffy is in two places at once. --Brogen Hayes

36. Atomic Robo
As seen in: Atomic Robo

Atomic Robo is an old school robot in every sense of the word. From his bucket head design to World War Two antics, Brian Clevinger’s comic creations are action packed adventures right out of the pages of Commando…if Commando had an almost painfully postmodern awareness of itself.

Atomic Robo was built by Nikola Tesla, that bastion of unlikely inventions, and works with the Action Scientists of Tesladyne Industries to keep the world safe from weird war machines and supernatural threats, including walking Nazi tanks called Laufpanzers and one particularly annoying dinosaur with a PhD. There are elements of The Venture Brothers in Robo’s banter with the bad guys and the same trendy, tongue-in-cheek teasing of the stories our parents grew up with that probably makes the creator of The Hardy Boys want to rise from his grave and pelt the nearest Starbucks with buttered scones. --Declan Aylward

35. Zoe-R
As seen in: Caprica

Raised on the planet Caprica, Zoe Graystone was born into a wealthy family who believed her to be a normal teenager, but in reality she was a secret monotheist (the standard belief system in Caprica is polytheism) as well as a computer genius. When Zoe is killed in a suicide bombing carried out by religious extremists, her father downloads a digital recreation of into a robot and thus, Zoe-R – a robot with Zoe Graystone’s consciousness intact within it – is born.

Zoe-R believes that she is simply trying to escape to religious freedom on Gemenon –a planet that shares her religious beliefs– but as fans of Battlestar Galactica will know, Zoe-R was the first cylon consciousness and the precursor to the race of robots that started a Twelve Year War to be free of their human masters. And you thought your teenage years were hard! --Brogen Hayes

34. Cyberman
As seen in: Dr. Who

Of all the many weird and wonderful Dr. Who villains there are two that stand out; the Daleks and the Cybermen. But let’s face it, the Daleks, as scary as they are at times, look a bit like an army of rubbish bins. The Cybermen, on the other hand, are as hard as they come. They used to be human but have replaced so many parts of their anatomy over the years with mechanical replacements that now they are almost entirely machine, becoming in the process so cold and calculating that they have lost all respect for life, apart from their own. With so many Cyberman gracing Dr. Who, I can’t pick a favourite, they are all pretty bad ass. It still sends a shiver down my spine when I look at the ‘delete’ button on my keyboard. --Rachael Murphy

33. Sgt. Bash
As seen in: Robot Wars

One the ‘Housebots’ in the UK version of Robot Wars, Sgt. Bash sported a mean-looking camoflage paint job that made him an intimidating prospect on the robot battlefield. But despite looking the part, Bash was sadly inept when it came to a scrap. His main weapon was a flame thrower, which looked mightely impressive, but it wasn’t much unless his opponent was made out of polyester. As a secondary method of attack, the sergeant could deploy a circular saw. Designed to cut his victims deep, it was so slow at carving through steel that only robots who had stopped moving were in any real danger of it breaching their protective shell.

He may have been all mouth and no trousers, but what made Bash 10 times more likeable than his super-dangerous allies like Sir Killalot was his bad temper and feelings of self-righteousness. He’d often wander out of his designated zone, looking to pick on contestants and their stupid looking robots, probably because they offended him with their tacky designs. --Dean Van Nguyen

32. R Daneel Olivaw
As seen in: The work of Isaac Asimov

R Daneel Olivaw first appeared in writer Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, and eventually became his most commonly featured character. Built in the year 5020, he was the first “humaniform” robot and could only be distinguished from a human being when forced to follow Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, and even then could be mistaken as simply an overtly moral person. Based on his own philosophy, he sidestepped the First Law (which stated “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm”) by creating the pre-emptive Zeroth Law; “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.” He went on to become a Machiavellian minimalist, deciding which course would be safest for the human race, and calculating the least intrusive action he could take to set them on that path. Asimov later wrote that he put Olivaw into so many of his stories because his publishers and fans kept insisting on it. --David Bolger

31. Citroën C4
As seen in: That Citroën Ad

Yes, it’s the Citroën advert that no doubt caught your eye. The one when the car stands up and magnificently transforms into a giant dancing robot, performing a routine loosely based on the idea of a Transformers break dance developed by the agents from Justin Timberlake’s choreographer Marty Kudelka. And before you ask, this was before Michael Bay entered the picture. Apparently the car itself was well received, and is actually alive, em, with technology. The dance was accompanied by the extremely catchy tune ”Jacques Your Body (Make Me Sweat)” by Les Rythmes Digitales. Be sure that it’s on your iPod. --Carol Killeen

One More Robot's Top 50 Robots 50-41

2011-03-07T17:54:00.007Z

“Is it about robots?” That’s the question most frequently asked when One More Robot is mentioned in conversation. Well, no is the answer, and please direct your attention to some of the fine options available to you in robotics journalism next time your at a newstand. But rather than shunning away from this assumption, we thought we’d create our definitive piece on robots in popular culture. Using an incredibly complex polling method, we asked the entire staff for their own favourites, opening the floodgates to all sorts of suggestions, whether it be robots from films, cartoons, books, songs, actual fully functioning robots, whatever (there may be one or two iffy selections - no letters please). Eventually thrashing out a top 50, with a blurb on each from one of their selectees on what makes them so special. Join us each day this week as we count out our favorite bots, 10 at a time.

Compiled by Declan Aylward, David Bolger, Seán Earley, Brogen Hayes, Carol Killeen, Niamh King, Ian Maleney, Jesse Melia, Rachael Murphy, Laura O’Brien, Jason Robinson, Stephen Rogers & Dean Van Nguyen

[40-31]
[30-21]
[20-11]
[10-1]

50: Daleks
As seen in: Dr. Who

The Daleks are not actually robots. Their alien creatures from the planet Skaro, encased in cylinder shaped “travel machines”, who, through the work of some evil experiments, were left with no concept of compassion or love. Instead they survive solely on hatred and malice. Their constant efforts to destroy all non-Dalek life forms are relentlessly thwarted by the, ever valiant, Doctor Who.
Introduced in 1963, the good doctor’s eternal enemies were an instant hit. Killed off in the very first episode, they were soon brought back due to huge popular demand. Throughout the sixties the Daleks took over British popular culture, immediately recognisable along with their lovable catchphrase “Exterminate!”. What followed was known as “Dalekmania” as the Daleks surfaced time and time again, from the music of the Go-Go’s to the Oxford Dictionary. They were even put on a stamp, a lasting reminder of the British nation’s love for large, destructive, pseudo-robots, with a penchant for trying to kill a national treasure! --Niamh King

49. Megatron
As seen in: Transformers

Transformers has been around for quite some time, and in that time the toy, animated and film series has spawned hundreds of different Autobots, Decepticons, Dinobots, Dancebots, Sandwichbots; the list is endless. But in this vast fictional world of cybernetic betrayal and danger, one transformer stands out simply because he is the most evil and therefore the coolest, obviously. Decepticon leader Megatron is a soulless, irredeemable menace. And to cap it off, his name is Megatron, which in itself oozes superiority. Any name which starts with the word “mega” is a definite signifier of confidence and self belief. Even in the hit 2007 movie based on his exploits he awakens from a century spanning cryogenic sleep and happily states “I am Megatron!” before transforming into a jet and flying away.

Megatron’s role over the years has generally been that of a dominant battlefield overlord with few equals. He is at his happiest when battling his nemesis Optimus Prime and uttering his rather brilliant sayings such as “Lesser creatures are the playthings of my will” and my personal favourite: “Everything is fodder”. --Jesse Melia

48. Mecha-Streisand
As seen in: South Park

The only thing more terrifying than a regular sized Barbara Streisand is a giant, mechanical Barbara Streisand. Featured in an early episode of South Park saw the star procured the Triangle of Zinthar, which completes the Diamond of Pantheos, allowing her to change into this monstrosity. Alright, so this isn’t exactly the most scientifically sound example of a robot on this list. Still though, Mecha-Streisand boasts incredible strength, nose lasers and a Japanese theme tune. Neither a giant robotic Leonard Maltin nor a huge Sidney Poitier turtle can match her toe-to-toe.

Mecha-Streisand made another appearance in the 200th episode with a whole new arsenal of mayhem. Her right arm is now a chainsaw and she’s armed with missile launchers. Not to mention nipple steam when she roars. Eek. --Laura O'Brien

47. 2-XL
Created by: Dr. Michael J. Freeman

Among the countless game systems and movie merchandise that fills toy shop’s shelves these days, this was one of the few products to emerge in the last forty years that showed real inguinuity. 2-XL’s simple design manipulated four track audio cassettes to give its user an interactive experience using a four button control panel. So well was the system’s execution that on the first couple of plays, it had our juvenile selves really believing we were talking to an actualy robot.

There were actually two versions of 2-Xl, with the original being introduced in 1978. It looked more like a brick than a robot and used more limited 8-track tapes, but the idea was the same. In 1992 the robot was given a facelift, and the advent of more modern cassettes allowed a greater amount of interactivity.The creator Michael J. Freeman provided 2-Xl’s voice himself, and is probably responsible for the trademark phrase “Thank you for turning me on,” that kick started each tape. I assume this his own little gag for our grown-up selves to chuckle at years later. --Dean Van Nguyen

46. ‘The Robots’
Recorded by: Kraftwork

When Kraftwerk released ‘The Robots’ as a single in 1978, the electronic music pioneers seemed to be goading people with a refrain of “We are the robots.” Adding fuel to what any paranoid crackpot with too much time on his hands had long suspected: That music this artificial, this cold and clinical, this electronic, this good, couldn’t really be created by anything but a machine. So confident in their deception were Kraftwerk that this ultra sophisticated android band didn’t even attempt to appear human. Going so far as to assume the German nationality, that most efficient and emotionless of people, and appearing in the video for ‘The Robots’ with blank stares and jerky rhythmic movements. After being out of the spotlight for the best part of two decades they reappeared a few years ago appearing older, as if they had aged. The only real explanation is that they had recently installed Microsoft’s latest aging software, I suppose. --Stephen Rogers

45. ASIMO
Created by: Honda

Short for Advanced Step Innovative Mobility, ASIMO was created by Honda at their research and development centre in Japan in the hope that in the future he can help find cures for diseases and be utilised in war. However, standing at only 130 centimetres and weighing 54 kilograms, he would make a very child-like war machine, looking more like a tiny astronaut. ASIMO can however run at speeds of up to 6 kmph and costs around $1 million to produce. A snip considering there are only around 100 of them in existence. The newer models even have lots of lovely added features which help the machine interact better with us humans, including advanced postures and gestures, and facial recognition. --Carol Killeen

44.The Robot from Rocky IV
As seen in: Rocky IV

In the final scene of Rocky IV, Stallone delivers a speech that supposedly ended the Cold War. This, however, is not the most memorable contribution the film gave the world. At the beginning of the movie, Rocky gifts his brother-in-law Paulie with the infamous robot, in return for the ungrateful “I told you I wanted a sports car!” reply. The robot goes on to prove its worth is 10 times that of a Miata. Having some seriously advanced artificial intelligence for 1985, it can respond to the requests of its human masters. However, the relationship between Paulie and the robot takes a turn for the very weird at a dinner party, when we discover the robots has seemingly transferred from male to female. “She loves me,” Paulie says affectionately. Everyone present seems happy to ignore this eccentric behaviour because, after all, who are they to deny human-on-robot love? Who knew the Rocky franchise was so forward thinking? --Niamh King

43. Robocop
As seen in: Robocop

Robocop the movie centres on a police officer that is brutally murdered and then subsequently re-created as a super human cyborg by the mega corporation Omni Consumable Products, who in turn he is forced to take down. For a cheap sci-fi flick, the sheer size of the following that this robot has gathered over the years is mind-boggling. Robocop has spawned two sequels, a TV series, two animated versions and countless merchandise. There was also the computer games and, for the ultimate nerds, a comic book. If you are one of the many fans who fell into the Robocop hysteria, you will be thankful that the remake slated for 2013 has been cancelled. --Carol Killeen

42. Fembots
As seen in: Austin Powers Series

The Fembots are fiendishly attractive android barbie dolls whose primary function is to seduce and destroy one Austin Powers. They are blonde, attractive and ready to party, the perfect weapon to allure the sexed-up superspy.

The Fembots main weapon is the widely publicized twin cannons they can summon from their chest region to either incapacitate or kill any unwitting men who wander into their path. When encountered by a group, our hero Powers is nearly overwhelmed, but he turns the tables and blows their processors and their minds with an erotic striptease. The fembots all look similar and have the same vacant, hostile look in their lifeless blue eyes. Later celebrity fembots include Elizabeth Hurley and Britney Spears who appeared in the sequels, but neither were as menacing or as oddly appealing as those in the original film. --Jesse Melia

41. Cyrax
As seen in: Mortal Kombat

If nothing else, Cyrax warrants inclusion on this list for being christened with the most robot sounding name of all robots. While he lacks the charisma and character of Mortal Kombat stalwarts Scorpion, Sub Zero and Jax, he has one thing they will never have: the ability to shoot missiles out of his wrists. He can also shoot fire from the very same cannons. Improbable I know, but when partaking in an inter dimensional fighting tournament one must come prepared.

Cyrax’s back story is unremarkable. The bad guys sent him to kill the good guys, the good guys reprogrammed him; no one really cares. What we want to know is who is the real Cyrax? What makes him tick? This is something that personally I’d love to go into but sadly his low placing on this list prohibits me from truly covering the vast emotional framework of our flawed hero Cyrax. One can only hope that some day an intrepid journalist, much braver than I, will give Cyrax the 5000 word cover story he truly deserves. --Jesse Melia

Next Page

Issue 6 Preview

2011-03-05T15:04:00.000Z

Issue 6: The Vinyl Issue

Stephen Rogers plays his favourite record to celebrate The Vinyl Issue.

We chat to New York folk starlet Julie Peel.

Factory Records among our picks of labels every crate digger should become familiar with.

One writer reveals his passion for polka records discovered after twenty years in his parents basement.

How Clyde Stubblefield's drum break became sewn into the fabric of hip-hop...

and how rappers like Lil B and Droop-E are changing the rules.

Will Lindsay top our list of child star flameouts?

CDs reviewed include Joan as Police Woman, Michael Chapman and Gruff Rhys.

Random House titles now available via iBookstore

2011-03-03T17:16:00.001Z

In the week Apple pulled out all the stops to announces their iPad 2, (including hauling their marquee man Steve Jobs in from his sick leave), they also secured a major coup by ensuring the entire back catalogue of publisher’s Random House will be available to buy via their iBookstore. The news that all 17,000 of their titles would soon be readily accessible via iPhones, Pods and Pads followed the announcement that they would be adopting the agency model for e-book sales in the US.

Under this model, publishers set retail prices for their digital titles, giving them 70 per cent of each sale, with a 30 per cent commission to retailers. Random House is the last of the so-called ‘big six’ publishers in the US, (the others being Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Penguin Group), to adopt the method, which was championed by Apple when they released their first iPad last year.

“Going forward, Random House will set consumer prices for the e-books we publish, and we will provide retailers with a commission for each sale. There are no changes to our terms of sale for physical books,” the publisher said in a statement.

“The agency model guarantees a higher margin for retailers than did our previous sales terms. We are making this change both as an investment in the successful digital transition of our existing partners and in order to give us the opportunity to forge new retail relationships.”

Annoyingly for consumers, the model removes the option for discounting, meaning fans intending on investing in The Da Vinci Code might be left frustrated and disappointed twice over.--Dean Van Nguyen

Who Will Win The Alfa Giulietta?

2011-02-15T22:42:00.002Z

No, not a competetion we're running! Read this, 'like it', and help our man Brendan O'Dowd win a car!

Mad Granny Fights Off Jewellery Robbers

2011-02-08T23:38:00.000Z

Shot in Northamption. Let's hear it for the old dear!

Who’s Afraid of the Goddamn Batman!?

2011-02-02T14:56:00.002Z

Originally Appears in Issue 5

With Frank Miller finally returning to complete the story he began five years ago in All Start Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, Dean Van Nguyen believes this is a perfect time to revisit the unfairly derided title.

This February Frank Miller returns to the Batman franchise to finally complete a story arc he began way back in 2005. Running for six issues, Dark Knight: Boy Wonder will pick up the tale that began as All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, which ran for 10 issues over the course of three very uneasy years for Miller.

The series was a part of DC’s All Star imprint, where some of the company’s most iconic characters get re-imagined by acclaimed writers and artists outside the continuities of their regular series. By working on a new Batman title, Miller was re-entering a world that helped make his name, with his previously written story arcs, particularly The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, among the most highly regarded the series ever produced.

However, the project became deeply troubled. Issues were often months late, dropping at seemingly random times, ignoring all scheduled release dates. “Frank and I sat down just recently to have a long talk about how best to finish this very ‘deadline challenged’ project and give the loyal fans the second part of this epic storyline they have been patiently waiting for,” said Jim Lee, the artist on the series. “I feel terrible about how late [All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder] fell behind. 100 percent of the blame falls upon my shoulders, so one of the reasons we chose the February, 2011, start date was to ensure that Dark Knight: Boy Wonder would ship regularly and on-time.”

He might be taking the blame for the delays, but many readers felt that Lee’s artwork that was the series’ only redeeming quality, with Miller’s vision of Batman being met with widespread disdain as he recreated the character as a vengeful, cruel and often sadistic anti-hero. The story revolves around Dick Grayson’s evolution into Robin. When his parents are violently murdered in front of his eyes, Grayson is kidnapped by Batman, who sees the boy as a potential protégée. Miller’s Batman, scripted as 24 years-old, is callous and cruel in his treatment of Grayson, even slapping him in the face to stop his tears.

Fans frustration with the series seemed to be summed up by one line. Appearing in issue two, it has become the most infamous scripted pieces of dialogue in recent comic history. Introducing himself to Grayson as “the Goddamn Batman”, the line (repeated throughout the series) has become the definitive example of Miller’s heavy-handed dialogue, and perceived mismanagement of the Batman legacy. But perhaps those who deride the series have missed the point.

While “I’m the Goddamn Batman” is not the most outstanding piece of writing ever penned, by and large Miller recreates complex characters, offering clear windows into their broken personalities. His insights into why this Batman is so ruthless are fascinating. Soaked in his victim’s blood, the Dark Knight often muses on the pain he’s inflicted. He takes pleasure in this brutality, going as far as breaking a rapists arm in such a fashion that it will never heal correctly. “You’ll remember me every time the air goes wet and cold. Arthritis punk. It’ll hurt like hell.” This is not a Batman that rubs shoulders with the authorities in hope of fashioning a less corrupt Gotham. He’s a hardened vigilante, convinced the system is irreparably broken.

Seeing as the point of the Allstar series was to give proven writers the space to take a fresh approach on well established characters, it seems strange Miller and Lee’s series was met with such negativity. This is a well-executed, fascinatingly dark rendition of a character never known for being cutesy.

Stevie's Stonkers #5: 'The Wilhelm Scream - Live' by James Blake

2011-01-29T14:31:00.001Z

While the stonker is usually the place for brash off the cuff observations and not, conversely, quiet & emotional reflection, I make the rules so that's the way it's gonna be. Mr. Blake has spent the past year making a name for himself as one of the most promising young DJs/producers worki...ng in the post-dubstep musical landscape, from cutting up 90's R&B into unrecognisably beautiful forms on "CMYK" to dismantling the idea of what voice and piano can sound like on the "Klavierwerke" EP. Just as he's garnering attention he's already pretty much abandoned those musical forms for more relatively straightforward songs on his forthcoming full length debut. The Wilhelm Scream showcases his impossibly fragile and surprisingly impressive vocals, underscored by melancholic keys, lyrics suggesting a heartbroken man resigned to his fate. A grown man could cry, and in fact i almost wish i was broken hearted so i could lose myself in this.--Stephen Rogers

Winterbells

2011-01-27T12:52:00.004Z

Addictive as fuck internet game with great music and an awesome score system. Our best so far is 69,500. Come and have a go if you think you're 'ard enough!

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/bells.htm

Jesse Melia's Top 11 PS3 Games Of All Time!

2011-01-13T17:39:00.004Z

Hey, Dean here. I e-mailed Jesse Melia recently asking for a list of PS3 game recommendations. He responded quickly with the following list, each equipped with a mini-review. I was a little upset he did not include my own favourite...Saints Row 2!

11. Dead Space (Scary and dark yet also fun)
10. God Of War 3 (Cinematic, violent and explosive)
09. Metal Gear Solid 4 (Flawed but also at times masterful)
08. Killzone 2 (Amazing graphics and brutal combat)
07. Bioshock (Peerless story, great setting and engaging gameplay)
06. Rainbow Six Vegas (Slick, fun and challenging)
05. Resistance series (The best shooter on the PS3)
04. Mass Effect (A beautiful, cinematic, life engulfer)
03. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (Fun, fun and also fun)
02. Red Dead Redemption (Brilliance on every level)
01. The Uncharted Series (Perfect in every way)

Have You Seen It? #2: The Other Guys (2010)

2011-01-12T01:12:00.002Z

Originally Appears in Issue 5. Out Now on DVD.

The Other Guys is yet another solid instalment in the long running series of films where Will Ferrell has some amusing occupation. This one however is elevated beyond the Semi Pro’s of the world due to the presence of Mark Wahlberg. Both play detectives, Ferrell as a pencil-pushing desk jockey and Wahlberg as his tough-as-nails but emotionally fragile partner.

Playing the role 100% straight, Wahlburg acts as a perfect foil for Ferrell’s madcap antics, with many of the film’s comedic high points involving his general bewilderment towards his oafish partners actions. Add to this a supporting cast that features Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson and a criminally underused Michael Keaton, and The Other Guys has all the ingredients in place. To its credit, the film succeeds for the first hour, with wall-to-wall one-liners and the usual Will Ferrell buffoonery to keep the fans appeased. There is some vague story behind the laughs which has something to do with Steve Coogan and money or something, but it’s just a tool to get our heroes into more turmoil

The director, Adam McKay who has directed several Ferrell hits, shows a surprising flair for action with several superb set pieces littered throughout the film. But his combination of action and comedy sadly falls short in the film’s second half, when it simply runs out of steam. It’s a shame, because everyone involved is on top form and the film, which could have been have been Anchorman good, just ends up being good. --Jesse Melia

No Fake Records!

2011-01-10T11:47:00.003Z

'No Fake Records!': Nineties Hip-Hop Night

This Saturday at The Pint, Eden Quay. Whether you're attending or not, we're taking requests on the Facebook Event Page. Get involved here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187375521289038

Stevie's Stonkers #4: 'Lightnin VIP' by Skream

2011-01-02T18:54:00.002Z

Olly Jones has sweet fuck all to prove to the dubstep purists lobbying accusations of him being sellout. His second record as Skream saw him branching into more laid back and occasionally ravey territory, and the dubstep supergroup he formed with Benga and Artwork gave the dubstep genre it's... biggest pop hits. Showing he hadn't lost sight of where he came from and in a very festive spirit Skream released the Freeizm album on Christmas Day for, you guessed it, free, featuring some of the most straight up womping dubstep tracks he's put out in ages. 'Lighnin Vip' proves once again he's a master of blending absolute filthy basslines with foreboding atmospherics. This is Skream just doing what he still does better than anyone, even though it wasn't necessary prove anything to anybody, this did it nicely anyway.

Stevie's Christmas 'Stonking' Filler: 'Sick' by Salem

2010-12-25T11:02:00.002Z

Twas the week before Christmas and in Dublin City, Stevie was trundling through the snow, struggling to shop, and feeling quite shitty. And this brought the inspiration for this week’s stonker. Just as I was close to assaulting a fellow pedestrian on Parnell Street for seemingly sleeping whilst attempting to move through a doorway, snow began to pour down again and ‘Sick’ popped up on my player’s random playlist. Suddenly I was feelin’ Christmassy, which is perverse considering this track is a major downer, a hybrid of durty south beats, even dirtier synths, spooky choral backing, and some dude rapping slowed down or pitch shifted, so it’s barely decipherable. But it made sense at the time; it gave me a bit of swagger to continuing shopping. It’s probably the choral aspect of the song that lends itself to Christmas, but more than likely I picked this track because I’m a contrary and miserable bastard.

Stevie's Stonkers #2:'Don't Look Back' by Kylesa

2010-12-19T08:27:00.001Z

Nobody fucking needs two drummers. I don’t care who you the fuck you are. I like Kylesa, I may be growing to love them, but they have two drummers, and they certainly don’t need them. Sure, for a hairy psych sludge metal band outta Georgia that shit may seem pretty cool, would maybe even ...feel like a luxury for them. But a necessity? No. Even for a metal band they’re rhythmically fairly simple. There are heavier tracks on their new record, there are more musically complex tracks, there is more accomplished song writing showcasing their progress as band, but I’ll be fucked if there’s a more air-pummelling-ly satisfying song than ‘’Don’t Look Back’. Four chords strung together, repeated, and I feel like I could take on the world, and like those four thunderous chords the sentiment “Keep moving, don’t look back” may be simple, but it's seriously uplifting blasted into my ears. --Stephen Rogers

One More Robot's 20 Best Albums of 2010

2010-12-14T01:30:00.007Z

Musically it takes every decade a couple of years to settle into the trends that will ultimately define it, but as we attempted to get to grips with the noughties, 2010 soared stealthily with a healthy dose of great music being released weekly. The first complete year of One More Robot’s existence, we invited our music writers to select some of their favourite albums of the past twelve months. Most of them were cut by veterans of the previous decade, re-establishing their relevancy and laying down a “catch us if you can” marker to other bands. There were however, a sizeable amount of debut records to get excited about, and even a couple of warriors from way back in time showing their continuing passion for creating great music. All of which is spread over a wide variety of genres. In fact, the past year was the perfect mix of grit and gravy, and here are twenty of our favourites. Scope the list, read the blurbs but, most of all, listen to the music, because this is what 2010 sounded like.

Born Ruffians
Say It
(Warp/Paper Bag)

Say It retains all the trademark traits that were present on Born Ruffians' stellar debut Red, Yellow and Blue, like the sparse but effective drumming, singer Luke Lalondes chirpy vocals, and an overall feeling of playfulness and fun. But a more scaled back, lo-fi sound gives well crafted pop songs even more room to breathe, such as the confident opener 'Oh Man' and the stomping 'Ballad of Moose Bruce'. First single 'What To Say' is arguably the high point. Beginning slow and ominously, the song quietly blossoms into an uplifting sing-along anthem, and likewise, on Say It Born Ruffians are a band truly blossoming. Refining their sound yet retaining the urgency and catchiness that made their debut so rewarding, it solidifies their position as one of the most exciting young bands today. --Jesse Melia

Broken Social Scene
Forgiveness Rock Record
(Arts & Crafts)

Toronto indie-superstars Broken Social Scene start their second decade of existence with a huge bang. Forgiveness Rock Record is a sprawling, epic album, touching on the themes of betrayal, guilt, romance (both bad and good), redemption and, yes, forgiveness, that have marked their immensely varied and always intelligent pop music thus far. Lead track ‘World Sick’ is a microcosm of the album. It is an epic of rolling crescendos and ethereal vocals, resulting in nothing less than pop perfection. Through the cymbals crashes and chiming guitars, the ethos of the new and improved BSS shines through brightly: gone are the moments of contrition and tendency towards self-indulgence, gone are the deliberately obscure lyrics that obfuscate the meaning within. The new BSS are streamlined and efficient, yet they’ve lost none of the grandiose that defines their best moments. --Alex De Petro

Bun B
Trill O.G.
(Rap-a-Lot)

Trill O.G. split opinion, reigniting that old argument of whether a great album should be defined as a body of work that is sonically and thematically cohesive, or simply just a clutch of awesome songs. This is a record that definitely falls into the latter category. At times Bun even sounds like he is being lead by his various collaborators, as he desperately wanders the hip-hop landscape without his sadly deceased UGK partner Pimp C. For instance, closer 'It's Been A Pleasure' features Drake and could easily have been interchanged with Thank Me Later's final track. But there's not denying that Trill O.G. is a great set. Resembling an all star hip-hop playlist, Bun's ferocious flow is much admired, pulling his famous friends up to his level as they try to match his intensity. Ironically, the album's finest moment comes when he takes the mic solo, on the Steve Below produced one-two of 'Lights, Camera, Action' and 'I Git Down For Mine' that comes at its midpoint.--Dean Van Nguyen

Crocodiles
Sleep Forever
(Fat Possum)

Produced by Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford, Crocodiles’ Sleep Forever is nothing short of a diary of dark thoughts, depression and deeply subdued rage. The opening lines, which introduce us into this world of hazy, electro and scintillating song themes, set us up for the rest of the albums down-and-out, toe tapping look on life; “Something in the way you crucify me/It makes me smile.” This comes straight from opening track 'Mirrors' which, along with 'Stoned to Death', 'Girl in Black' and, the closer/greatest song ever, 'All My Hate and My Hexes are For You', help make up a truly wonderful and endlessly interesting album. --Niamh King

Drake
Thank Me Later
(Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Motown)

Drake has had a hell of a year, but with all the glitz propelling his star, its easy to forget what made him take off in the first place. Thank Me Later, his debut album, has sold more than 1 million copies while gaining a considerable critical following. It’s gorgeous, chilly production builds upon the 808s and Heartbreak aesthetic, elevating space and atmosphere into formal aesthetic principles. The album’s expansive, matte-finish production serves to create the perfect backdrop to Drake’s ambiguous ambition. He’s one of the few young artists to grapple legitimately with the downside to fame and good fortune. His real-life tumult lends authenticity and gravity to what would be otherwise empty posturing. Ultimately, Thank Me Later is hip-hop yacht rock, glamorous yet jaded, running on the skittering thrill of how easy everything comes. --B. Michael Payne

Drive-By-Truckers
The Big To-Do
(ATO)

When Drive-by-Trucker’s co-founder Patterson Hood said that the their eight studio album would be both their most melodic and rockin' in years, it was hard to believe that he could deliver on both promises. But on The Big To-Do, the band strike the perfect balance of fist-pumping rock outs and gentler melodic tunes, simultaneously managing to have a lot more fun than anyone else this year. Put in simply: they're not only as good as their word, they surpass expectations! Bassist Shonna Tucker comes to the forefront more than on previous records, and her slower tunes do captivate, but DBT have always been best when rocking out and the riotous 'Birthday Boy' and 'Get Downtown', both penned by guitarist Mike Cooley, are both instant Trucker classics. --Ronan Hunt-Murphy

E-40
Revenue Retrievin': Day Shift/Revenue Retrievin': Night Shift
(Heavy on the Grind Ent./Jive)

It's good when a genius and statesman of a genre goes ahead and tries. On both Revenue Retrievin' albums (Day Shift and Night Shift) 40 water displayed the kind of creativity that put him at the head of the hip-hop game while simultaneously recalling the superhuman material that kept him there. Put the two records together and you've got almost 40 tracks, ranging from reflective tales of sadness to some of the hardest material we heard this year; the records run the sonic and lyrical gambit. A master of slinging almost martian-sounding slang around the toughest slaps, 40 Fonzerelli proves once again that when he does it right, he does it perfect. These records feature almost every single Bay Area rapper that matters (Huslah's rarely sounded better, high praise indeed) and some unbelievable beats courtesy of E40's son Droop-E (his effortless flip of Bjork is breathtaking). Put it all together and 40's livin' up to his maxim: “be about it, or be without it”. --Seán McTiernan

Flying Lotus
Cosmogramma
(Warp)

“Spacey electronic funk jazz mini-epics”. That was the best I could do when I challenged myself to nutshell LA native Flying Lotus’s new record. As awfully pretentious and gibberish-y as that sounds, trust me when I say Cosmogramma is one of the most captivating, cohesive and exciting records released all year. Tracks here surround virtuoso basslines with skittery beats and schizophrenic beeps and blips. Pulsing, distorted synths segue seamlessly into ambient string-drenched laments, that then somehow find their way to soulful beat-led tracks that Madlib would give his right arm for. It’s a record that moves at a blistering pace, with none of the 16 tracks rising far above the two minute mark. The variety of moods on this record blend so perfectly, and the whole experience becomes so immersive that when one of the most distinctive voices in rock, Thom Yorke, shows up about halfway through singing the refrain “I need to know you’re out there somewhere”, seemingly lost in the expanse of the album, it all just seems to fit so perfectly. Flying Lotus would be called an electronic producer, but it’s obvious a love for the more classical forms of music influence his work too, as the jazz and soul and string drenched numbers show. Cosmogramma is very much a product of the present and the future, with its heart stuck firmly and fondly in the past. --Stephen Rogers

Francis and The Lights
It'll Be Better
(Cantora)

The decade of excess it might have been, but the indie rock world spent so much of the noughties scraping the eighties' cannon for influence that little has been left to go around the next generation. But on their full lenght debut It'll Be Better, Francis and The Lights crafted a record that embraced the least tread ground of the decade that keeps on giving. Acts like Paul Simon, Hall & Oats and even Barry Manilow can be heard all over the eight tracks, which utilise light synths and nimble guitar licks to form the light beds on which the pop melodies are gently placed. These melodies are undoubtedly catchy, but the spooky production and Francis' high pitched vocals are almost contradictory, daring the listener to return for repeat listens to unlock each song's charm. Oddly though, opener and stand-out track 'It'll Be Better' is something of a red herring. A tender, stripped down ballad, Francis croons impressivly over the woody drum beat and tuneless guitar. --Dean Van Nguyen

Ikonika
Contact, Love, Want, Have
(Hyperdub)

Ikonika is probably more influenced by her time as a death metal drummer and the video games of her youth than her UK funky compatriots. This doesn't really matter though, as what she's doing to sound is all her own. Floating through genre and structures with amazing grace, Ikonika's songs cross pixelated valleys and sometimes construct some of their own. Abandoning the label 'Dubstep', which is either now over-incestuous chin-stroking or jackhammer novelty-music, Ikonika just makes bass-heavy and beautiful music. Endlessly creative with sound and always willing to take it different places, she's one of the best around at the moment. If there's a hero out there, this isn't his theme music. If there's a heaven, this isn't playing on the speakers. This music is too honest for rubbish like that. This is just beautiful noise, made for dancing, perfected for thought. --Seán McTiernan

Joanna Newsom
Have One on Me
(Drag City)

For her third record, Joanna Newsom created a piece of high art. And like a lot of art, Have One On Me is easier to dissect than to enjoy. Its atmosphere is strangulated and esoteric-sounding because of the precise instrumentation and production. And rather than emphasize structure, rhythm, or melody, the songs composing the album seem concerned only with sustaining their own in-built logic and emotional structure. It's this manic attention to detail that ultimately captivates the listener and wrests the album from the clutches of cerebral self-absorption. For a triple album centered on the private life of a young, Californian woman, Have One On Me presents itself as a captivating listen. With its lavish score and complex lyrics, the listener becomes easily lost in its details. But the album is a map to the center of its creator’s heart. --B. Michael Payne

Justin Townes Earle
Harlem River Blues
(Bloodshot)

2010 was a strange year for Justin Townes Earle. In May, he appeared alongside father Steve on David Simon's hit show Treme (follow-up to The Wire), before being arrested for battery and public drunkenness in September. Between these dates, however, he released his best album to date. Undoubtedly prolific, it's his third record in as many years, but rather than suffering from burnout, Earle only seems to get better which each release. Harlem River Blues is remarkably consistent considering his seemingly filter-less output. Tracks like 'Christchurch Woman' and 'Rogers Park' tread the same ground as classic Americana, with their earthy instrumentation, and Earle's mesmerizing vocals. Taken as an entire set however, and Harlem River Blues easily stand alongside even the best of his dad's work. --Ronan Hunt-Murphy

Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
(Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam)

An album of the year not only in the sense that the music is absolutely incredible, but that it’s a record that seems to have been trickling out all year long. Every morsel – music, rumours, tantalising info from collaborators - hinting more and more at the genius that Yeezy was concocting in a sunny Honolulu studio in preparation for return from his self-imposed exile. Kanye had taken some well deserved bashing towards the end of 2009, so despite being lauded as one of the greatest talents in hip-hop for the bulk of the past decade; he knew he had a lot to prove. The release of lead single 'POWER' early in the year announced the comeback of Mr. West in brilliantly thunderous fashion, and a collective sigh of relief departed those still invested in the artistic integrity of one of pops great talents. Kanye went terribly modern, announcing the G.O.O.D. Friday releases in August. These were free downloads of tracks he’d been working on with a variety of big names, the quality of which had us all wondering what he could be possibly holding back to release on his upcoming new album. Nothing could have prepared us for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy however. Even after the leaks and singles we’d heard and the G.O.O.D. Friday tracks that ended up making the record, Yeezy assembled a set of tracks that any rapper, producer, or musician of any persuasion would be envious of. From heartbreaking confessional (‘Runaway’), to straight up beats and rhymes with dazzling guest talent (‘Monster’, ‘So Appalled’), and uplifting epics (‘All of The Lights’, ‘Lost in the World’) this was a record like no other in 2010. Kanye being Kanye though, I know he’ll only try to better it next time, and I can’t wait. --Stephen Rogers

Shad
TSOL
(Black Box Recordings)

The second full-length release from Canadian rapper Shad, TSOL build upon his fine 2008 album The Old Prince but refines the methodical and determined style that has become his trademark. Despite treading similar ground, it’s clear that Shad has gained valuable experience since his last release. His flow has improved, his rhymes becoming tighter and his words, more thought-provoking. Lyrics weave in-and-out of metaphors and similes while the instrumentation and sampling recalls nineties English hip-hop. In a fine year for hip-hop, TSOL stands apart as a record that is both referential and innovative. The sound and imagination of London, England has found a new home in London, Ontario. --Luke Maxwell

Sleigh Bells
Treats
(Mom + Pop/N.E.E.T.)

Sleigh Bells seemed like they would be another one-hit blog wonder. Their 2009 song sensation ‘Crown on the Ground’ thrilled many in diverse ways. Its purposeful execution of the listener’s eardrums seemed somewhat sinister until you realize that the song’s catchiness is the reason why you’ve turned the volume up to full-blast. It was a distant prospect to think that Sleigh Bells could sustain that high level of tuneful noise across a full-length release. Treats, of course, shows the band was more than capable to produce exactly thirty-two minutes of perfect pop noise. It’s sui generis approach to pop music makes you wonder why no one else had ever thought to marry girl group vocals with crushing percussion and laser beam guitar riffs. It all sounds so immediately right that it makes everything else sound wrong. --B. Michael Payne

The Soft Pack
The Soft Pack
(Kemado)

The only record of the year within the magazine's pages to receive the coveted One More Robot Five Star rating, The Soft Pack's debut album embraces old-fashioned, garage rock for inspiration, with its speedy riffs, snappy drumming and tight-instrumentation. At their best the San Diego four piece recall the sound of The Replacements or even The Strokes, but rather than regurgitating their idols, the band sounds more like the natural progression. Clocking in at a taut 32 minutes, the album itself is wall to wall gems, rolicking along with the giddy energy of a classic debut record. Rarely has such raw talent and youthful exuberance been bottled so skilfully. --Dean Van Nguyen

Spoon
Transference
(Merge)

Spoon have been quietly building their reputation for well over a decade now. Releasing every album to rapturous fanfare from both their fans and critics alike, one would fear that they would become complacent and lose some of their bite this far into their career. Not so. Transference is a gritty, raw album that solidifies Spoon's position as indie rock demigods. Britt Daniels voice can go from tender to throat shredding. It has sharp, choppy guitar playing coupled with fat, teeth rattling bass. 'Written In Reverse' is an amalgamation of all the albums best qualities. Its great, nervy piano drives the song through a desolate wasteland of shattered relationships. The album has something for every Spoon fan. They have the vitality of a newly formed band, yet they retain their well honed sound that has won them over so many fans and is sure to win over many more. --Jesse Melia

Tame Impala
Innerspeaker
(Modular)

Australia has become something of haven for kids who were first inspired to pick up a guitar by their parents' record collections. The rake of sixties and seventies revivalists to emerge down under have been terribly mixed in quality, with few being executed as astutely as Tame Impala. Their glorious debut album leans heavily on late sixties/early seventies psych rock, but don’t let that put you off. Rather than simply dousing each track with reverb to force that retro feel, the band’s sound feels more organic. The pounding drums, sharp guitar lines, and leader Kevin Parker’s Lennon-esque vocals from a solid base, but the intelligent synth breaks and hypnotic melodies sells the experience. There are so many highlights, but Innerspeaker is an album greater than the sum of its parts, as each track naturally flows into the next, without any obvious dip in quality. Wear their influences on their sleeves they might, Tame Impala don't so much sound like any one particular band, but as a free spirit that could have dropped out of the decade that defined that expression. --Dean Van Nguyen

Titus Andronicus
The Monitor
(XL)

From Bruce Springsteen to Frank Sinatra, Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons to The Sugarhill gang, New Jersey has left an indelible mark on the landscape of modern music. Titus Andronicus are a band born in the image of all of these classic artists, who create angry, powerful rock music that transcends geographic location. The Monitor is their attempt at a concept album. It's a sprawling and powerful treatise on the American Civil War. Opening track ‘A More Perfect Union’ is the perfect example of their innovative and potent brand of hearty, homeland rock'n'roll, which kicks off with a segment of an Abraham Lincoln speech that sets the tone for the album as a whole. Complex themes aside, this is a real, old-school rocking album that's just as much about the music as the words.--Alex De Petro

Vampire Weekend
Contra
(XL)

Ezra Koenig and his Ivy-League buddies return for another round of African-inspired pop music on Contra, an admirable sophomore effort from an exciting band. Where their debut, Vampire Weekend, is restricted, Contra is expansive: from the rolling xylo-percussion introduction that leads into chamber-pop strings which are strangely at home in the broad plains of the savannah on ‘Horchata’ to Koenig’s faux-Paul Simon drawl on ‘White Sky’, everything here speaks of a broadening, both in musical freedom and instrumental awareness. Of course, it’s not as fresh hearing these juxtapositions and idiosyncrasies the second time around, but perhaps it’s best to view Contra as a companion album to Vampire Weekend rather than a direct sequel.--Alex De Petro

Let's Make This Happen!...

2010-12-12T18:01:00.004Z

Our man Seán McTiernan has pledged to record Nicki Minaj's verse from 'Monster' should he hit the magical target of 300 follows on Twitter by Friday. At time of writing he's only 133 people short. Let's make this happen!

You can follow Seán here http://twitter.com/NoChorus

Stevie's Stonkers #1:'Derezzed' by Daft Punk

2010-12-11T13:52:00.005Z

Every week until he grows weary of the format Stephen Rogers will be choosing a stonking song of the moment.

Two French DJs who have been pretending to be robots for the past 13 years, revered by critics, musos, hipster indie kids, their peers, and the pop music loving general public. Hired to soundtrack sequel to innovative if dated sci-fi flick, that exists purely due to the current trend of retro revivalist "everything when i was a kid was brilliant" necrophelia. An "evolution" of their electronic sound, because, ye know, there's like, strings and that. The curmudgeonly loner sociopath in me wants to hate Daft Punk and this. Except I like Daft Punk and this. A tantalisingly brief glimpse of the glitchy brilliance of Daft Punk.

One More Robot's Top 10 On-Screen Womanisers

2010-12-08T18:01:00.009Z

We count down 10 of the greatest womanisers to ever grace the small and big screen.

By Jesse Melia, Stephen Rogers & Dean Van Nguyen

10: Sebastian Valmont
As seen in Cruel Intentions

Simple womanising was not enough for Sebastian Valmont. Bored of "sleeping with these insipid Manhattan debutantes" because "nothing shocks them anymore," he and step-sister Katheryn (Sarah Michelle Geller) plot sexual conquests from their Upper East Side townhouse that will destroy the lives of the likes of Tara Reid, Selma Blair, Swoosie Kurtz and Reese Witherspoon. It's his attempts to sleep with the latter that becomes the subject of a bet between Valmont and Katheryn. Lose, and Sebastian will have to give up his beloved sports car. Win, and he will finally bed the conquest of his dreams; Katheryn herself. He dies at the end of the movie, but not before repenting and announcing his love for Reese. But his journal of sexual escapades is copied for all to see, surely inspiring countless other teen womanisers for generations to come.

09: Victor
As seen in The Rules of Attraction

Camden College is a hive of sex and drugs. There is an excuse to party every night. Your actual college work is secondary to the hedonistic pursuit of your next high. In such a battlefield of deviance, you’d have to be pretty formidable to rise above the regular fiends on campus. Victor, while his role in the book and movie version of Rules of Attraction may be notably slim, is unquestionably devastating. Played to perfection by One More Robot wunderkind Kip Pardue, Victor's short screen time burns itself into the viewer's sexual memory bank. The centrepiece of the movie is without doubt his debauched trip around Europe. Victor's non-stop party adventures fly out of the screen at a breathless pace leaving the viewer mildly uneasy and yet very inspired. Victor simply slams beer, does drugs and ravishes women which one imagines Kip Pardue is doing as you’re reading this.

08: Shawn Michaels
As seen in WWE Wrestling

Loads of wrestlers have brought narcissistic elements to their persona, but no one has incorporated actual womanising into their performances like Shawn Michaels. Having won the 1995 Royal Rumble, he earned the right to be escorted down the aisle at Wrestlemania by nineties uber-babe Pamela Anderson and all the sexy promo work that went with it. Not content, ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ dropped her on the night for a younger model, Jenny McCarthy. His first on-screen romance though was with Sensational Sherry (who sang an early version of his famous ring entrance theme), even battling ‘The Model’ Rick Martel for her affections in a “no hitting the face” match, to protect the handsome features required to keep Sherry sweet. Sadly, real life sometimes bleeds into wrestling and Michaels' marriage has restricted his slutting as of late. But if Usher taught us anything it's that a bad divorce can lead to a lot of music about fucking multiple woman, and should Michaels ever find himself single again lets hope he brings the same themes to his art form.

07: James Bond
As seen in Twenty-odd Bond Movies

We would be remiss, nay completely ignorant, in our duties as analysts of all things pop culture if we compiled a list of womanisers that didn’t feature everyone’s favourite Double O (assuming you’re not an insane Sean Bean fan and you actually preferred 006, Alec Trevelyan from GoldenEye). Everyone knows Bond, and everyone knows these things about Bond; he’s a secret agent, he’s British, he’s always got an array of deadly gadgets and beautiful cars to help him in his exploits, and in every movie he is going to sleep with every single legal female he wants to. But c’mon, what else is a red-blooded man going to do in a world populated by women with names like Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore, Xenia Onatopp, and Holly Goodhead!? Even when his conquests don’t have overtly sexual ridiculous names (just straightforward ridiculous names), like Dr. Christmas Jones, they still only existed as a set-up to the punch line when he eventually did ride them – “I thought Christmas only comes once a year.”

06: Vincent Chase
As seen in Entourage

Entourage is a show about the frequent highs and occasional lows of Hollywood fame, and at the centre of this debauched universe is handsome movie star Vinnie Chase. His tousled hair and laid back demeanour coupled with his A list status is irresistible to literally every woman he comes into contact with. We the audience can only sit back and marvel at how, week after week, Chase manages to fall into erotic situations with a plethora of stunning vixens and then discard them on a whim. This is not a criticism. Vinnie is indifferent to pretty much all of the goings on in his life, he gets his business and lifestyle worries handled by the titular entourage while he just sits back and enjoys the seemingly endless stream of maidens. Of course, like all men, Vinnie has been haunted by certain ladies from time to time but he’s always bounced back. His conquests number in the hundreds. He isn’t living the dream. He is the dream.

05: Black Dynamite
As seen in Black Dynamite

Blaxploitation movie's leading men were traditionally the picture of alpha male machismo, so if your going to parody the genre, you better hire an actor with testosterone levels higher than a Black Panther's clenched fist. Enter Michael Jai White and his superfly creation Black Dynamite. In the movie of the same name, our hero's introduction sees him being praised by three naked woman for his sexual prowess before he delivers the immortal line "Shh. Mama, you're gonna wake up the rest of the bitches," revealing two more foxy ladies still slumbering. Spin kicking his way through the movie, Black Dynamite's adventures take him all the way to The White House, defeating Tricky Dick Nixon and leaving First Lady Patricia clutching at his feet, in awe of this ultimate specimen of manhood.

04: Jay
As seen in Various Kevin Smith Movies

Never would I have thought the words “I’ll fuck anything that moves!!” could sound so much like a war cry, a statement of intent, a cry for help, and the idiotic outburst of a boorish moron all at the same time. But coming from everyone’s favourite loudmouth stoner simpleton Jay, from Kevin Smith’s “Jersey” films, it’s just that, and the perfect summation of his character. Jay is more of a womaniser in theory though, as his actual success rate with the ladies is questionable to say the least. He seems to spend more time having his vulgar come-on’s (“Hey lady! You ever get eaten out by a fat man in an overcoat?!”) spurned than he does actually getting lucky. It’s not much of a surprise given the aforementioned foul mouth, and the fact he spends the majority of the rest of his free time hanging around outside the local convenience store selling dime bags of weed to teenagers, and occasionally extolling the virtues of funk legends The Time. These are things most self respecting women would not really look for in a mate, but it’s Jay’s absolute dedication to the ladies (or more accurately a very specific part of their anatomy) that makes him worthy of inclusion. No one chases tail with as much blind naive enthusiasm as Jay. That is something we (men) can all respect.

03: Don Draper
As seen in Mad Men

Don Draper is a deeply troubled individual. He has a haunted past that is always threatening to catch up with him. His life at home, while on the surface is warm and loving, is built on a dangerously flimsy foundation which could collapse at any minute. While he’s the leader of the pack at his workplace, he’s constantly under pressure from scheming underlings and demanding clients. He drinks and smokes constantly. His life is a maze of uncertainty. But one thing is certain; Don Draper can get the ladies. With his slick suits and effortless charm Draper has turned seduction into a sport. Draper's list of conquests is formidable. He’s dominated women of all social statuses and all legal ages. He wants to live a more honest life but he is too much of an alpha male to ever put that plan into action. Maybe one day he’ll be able to settle down, but chances are that will be due to his alcohol induced death, but for now Draper will continue his promiscuous ways, and we will be compelled to cheer him on because regards of his moral flaws.

02: Christian Troy
As seen in Nip/Tuck

Before descending into plot lines involving scientology and serial killers, Nip/Tuck was seen as an important show for its depiction of America's obsession with cosmetic surgery during the pre-economic crash years. Most of the patients portrayed were based on actual procedures that had taken place in real life. Guiding us through this labyrinth of insecurity and vanity was a partnership consisting the talented Dr. Seán McNamara and the morally inept Dr. Christian Troy. For better or worse, plot lines almost always revolved around Christian’s sex life. He would often give free tit jobs in return for sexual favours, or agree to pleasure patients whose surgeries had been botched in return for their silence. Nip/Tuck sometimes alluded to the traumatic childhood abuse he suffered as one reason behind Christian’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for debauchery, but he himself might never discover this as during his one attempt at therapy, he had sex with his counsellor (played by Brooke Shields, of course). But while he had a lot of sex strictly for pleasure, it would often get him into trouble, as he discovered when it was revealed he was the biological father of Dr. McNamara’s teenage son. Indeed, for Christian Troy sex was both the cause of, and solution to, all of his problems.

01: Zapp Brannigan
As seen in Futurama

No one womanises quite as shamelessly, hilariously or as intergalactically as the man with no name, Zapp Brannigan. This velour uniform loving space captain has been a series standout from his first appearance in Futurama. A pitch-perfect parody of Star Trek’s own captain James T. Kirk, the painfully un-suave Brannigan was described by creator Matt Groening as being about 40% Kirk and 60% Shatner, like what would happen if the man himself, William Shatner, had to captain the Enterprise. Zapp is arrogant, narcissistic, and completely incompetent, dedicated to upholding Brannigan’s Law – not that he or anyone one else seems to know what that is. What we do know is that “Brannigan’s Law is like Brannigan’s Love – Hard and fast.”

Zapp is not above launching nonsensical attacks on defenceless alien races to boost his questionable reputation. Like defeating the pacifists of the Ghandi nebula, conquering the Retiree People of the Assisted Living Nebula, or defeating the Killbots in the Auctlian system, forcing them to reach their kill limit by sending wave after wave of men to their deaths. His true goal in all this is simply to get the girls, luring them back to his humble quarters or as he calls it, “The Lovenasium”. Zapp is a bit of a softie at heart though, holding a candle for the spunky cyclopean lady captain of the Planet Express ship, Turunga Leela, after their first encounter resulted in his pathetic efforts to seduce her failing and her then having pity sex with him. Zapp revels in bringing this up in all of their subsequent encounters, as he makes the moves for a repeat performance. Therein is Zapp Brannigan’s core motivation, as he put it himself – “I made it with a hot alien babe. And in the end, is that not what man has dreamt of since first he looked up at the stars?”

Tapes 'n' Tapes

2010-12-06T23:24:00.001Z

Originally Appears in Issue 5

As the era of downloading only continues to advance, Niamh King looks at how one Brooklyn Record label takes a stand in the name of nostalgia.

Remember the days of hearing a song on the radio, but not knowing what it was? Loving it so much, but never being able to find it again? The excitement you felt when you did hear it again, like meeting up with a friend you hadn’t seen in years. Wanting to share that song with every single person on the planet, because the three minutes spent listening to it were three minutes of sheer perfection. Today when you hear a song you like, you note the lyrics, go home, search, download and, after a few days, can’t bear to listen to the song one more time, never mind share it with anyone. Perfectly manufactured recordings of new “it” artists are passed from person to person in minutes. Within the space of a week they’ve exploded, become part of the zeitgeist, filtered out and eventually are strictly verboten, done, kaput.

This level of instant gratification represents everything that is both right and wrong with the music industry today. More new artists are getting noticed than ever before. But the wide availability of EPs and the readiness at which they are obtainable has destroyed the romance, the indescribable messiness that a love of music used to mean.

Jeremy Earl is the man behind the retro, Brooklyn based, Woodsist Records, a label focused on the distribution of artists recorded on vinyls and cassettes (or in the case of sister label; Fuck It Tapes, exclusively cassettes). To term the label ‘grassroots’ would truly not do it justice. Beginning with just one act (Earls’ own band Woods) Woodsist has grown, acquiring new and eclectic artists as it goes. The home grown feel is only enhanced, as Earl says there are no contracts, only “friendly handshake deals,”.

The sound of a Woodsist record, or alternatively a Woodsist live show, is that of the indistinct fuzziness of mix tapes and nostalgia. Almost like recording a song off the radio, because that was the only way you were going to get your hands on it. Each artist signed to this unique label has the feel of being handpicked and deliberated over. In reality Earls says he signs “whatever bands I’m digging,” at the time. Together artists such as Real Estate, Psychedelic Horseshit and, of course, Woods, gives the label an undeniably diverse sound, ranging from noise pop, to garage rock, to lo-fi and punk.

The modus operandi of Woodsist is, indisputably, a genuine love of music, of any genre. The retro vibe of vinyls and cassettes isn’t about hitting the Hipster trend at its peak, but about genuinely trying to give the world great music in any way that is possible for those involved, the music that people love to hear and love to play, without it being contrived.

"Thank God for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk."

2010-12-01T01:26:00.003Z

”He’s a prophet… he’s a prophet and a pusher, partly truth, partly fiction. A walking contradiction.”

Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit

2010-11-25T16:15:00.004Z

Nic Cage loses his shit regularly. We like his vicious woman-beating in The Wicker Man gets a section all of its own.

"How These N****s So One-Track Minded" - Five Female Rappers Who Are Not Nicki Minaj

2010-11-18T15:00:00.011Z

The only female rapper on planet earth is releasing her album tomorrow. Or so the current climate of musical criticism would have you believe. It's probably more convenient to tell people that a faux-rawkus rapper who has repeatedly stated Drake is a “genius” is the only good rapper with a vagina in the building, certainly makes it easier to take. Blogs must think of ladies rapping the same way most think of the Highlander: there can only be one. This is completely untrue.

As much pious “Nicki is the best thing on 'Monster'” -talk you hear from people who've listened to four rap albums this year, there's still a good chance this could all go Craig Mack on her after people hear how boring most of Pink Friday is (I've heard it). Sure Nicki has that unique delivery that makes some of guest verses pop (which ones do presumably depends on which ghostwriter is available) but when she doesn't go crazy, she can't sustain an album. Just like Craig Mack. And don't get me wrong, I love Nicki's verse on 'Monster' just like I love 'Flava In Ya Ear' (well, 35% as much but I really love that song). It's just I can see the same inability to sustain. I might be wrong, I usually am, but time will tell.

I was asked to do a blog post about “femcees” that weren't Nicki Minaj. This is unfortunate for two reasons. Firstly because all female rap does genuinely seem to be split into those two categories these days. And secondly, “femcee” isn't a word I like and I try to never use it. It's a category that doesn't indicate anything aside from the lack of a penis and regularly acts as an semi-cloaked apology. So this isn't a list of “femcees” or even a list of all good female rappers. Nowhere close, there are a multitude. This is just five ladies who are doing cool stuff right now and whose music may have evaded you.

Jean Grae is better than your favourite rapper and needs you to get out of the way. Any conversation about slept-on MC's that any rap nerd like myself has had in the last 10 years inevitably includes a defeated retread of the "why-isn't-Jean-Grae-famous" conversation. Jean Grae has been effortlessly dropping as sick rhymes as seems humanly possible for longer than it's polite for me to say. She is regularly supplied beats by the peerless 9th Wonder, is her own creature and possesses one of the nerdiest and most wicked sense of humor in the rap game. And you guys still pay her no attention. Shame on you.

She and Pharoahe Monch have been touring a lot recently and they seem like a good fit for each other. And as you probably know, being a good fit for Pharoahe Monch is about the highest compliment you can give a rapper. Her new album Cake Or Death is about to drop and you should pick it up, if only to assuage your guilt for sleeping this long on one of rap's true originals.

Rah Digga is a legend and the legend is back. It's been ten since she last dropped an album but she's back in the game in 2010. I love this song, the flow is amazing and the lyrics are hilarious. Indie music critics who don't actually listen to rap music tend to use this next phrase a lot but this song “is about something rarely touched upon in rap songs”. Still though, name me ten other songs about how grown-ass women need a good song to put on when they get home from work and how they despair when confronted with new rap aimed at the kiddies. You can't not love Rah Digga but she doesn't leave you in any doubt with the swagger she brings to this and the rest of her new album Classic.

Rita J is serious business and this track is a powerful proof of just that. Earnest backpacker rhymes over crazy hooks, delivered with a large whack of panache. Rita J clearly misses the nineties quite a bit, if you do too you'd be best advised to catch up with her with her great efforts in bringing it back.

Eternia is canadian, a lady and white. Despite (and probably because of) this she's a fantastic MC and a great lyricist. Her album with Moss is definitely her best and 32 bars is a great example of her burning a track down like few can. Also, take notice of the multi-lingustic spittin'. She can get a bit earnest at times but I don't know of any Canadian you can't say that about. A class act.

Dessa is a serious artist and a weirdo. But, crucially, she can rap so even though sometimes she dips into a some self-consciously artiness the wide variety of bizarre angles she spits her game from will keep you on your toes at all times. She also regularly drops some incredible late-nineties sounding R&B vocals, far better than the annoyingly tinny and weightless pop vocals that are plastered over the current crop of popular rap. Now Dessa has struck out from her crew Doomtree there's not telling what strange place she's going to take her sound next.

--Seán McTiernan

Antony Costa on 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks'

2010-11-16T00:49:00.003Z

No easy ride here for our favourite Blue member. We ourselves put the city on lock down quite regularly

The Record, Art & Game Emporium

2010-11-02T17:10:00.002Z

One More Robot is now available to buy at the new Record, Art & Game Emporium on Fade Street, where Road Records used to be. It's open Thursdays and Sundays. You can pick up the latest edition and some back issues too.

John Lennon to appear on British £5 Coin

2010-10-30T02:26:00.002+01:00

Just as 'Lennon month' is ending, more great news for lovers of the late, great Beatle. John is to be featured on a limited edition coin having won the Royal Mint's public vote, as part of their 'Great Briton' series. Winning with a huge 92% of the vote, Lennon beat the likes of Jane Austin and Walter Raleigh.

"It's entirely fitting that John Lennon has been chosen by the public in what would have been his 70th year," said Dave Knight, director of commemorative coins at Royal Mint. "The massive proportion of the vote he received shows clearly just how much his untimely death still resonates with the nation."

'Why Can't We All Get Along' by Coppercab

2010-10-25T13:59:00.002+01:00

Originally appears in Issue 5

As we know, the internet has given everyone a voice, and while most choose to use this voice for less noble pursuits, one man is using his to scream and shout for gingers everywhere. A bona fide YouTube sensation, Michael AKA CopperCab is 18 years old, christian, ginger and with serious anger management issues. His first video entitled ‘Gingers Do Have Souls’ was a desperate plee to his peers - and the rest of the world - to stop their persecution of red haired people, sprinkled with vicious, unpredictable and often disturbing yelps at his handheld camera. First appearing eight months ago, he’s continued his viral onslought, targetting M.I.A, South Park (who even parodied him in an advert) and his friends and classmates who continue to ridicule him.

While the debate rages on whether CopperCab is actually real, or just some expertly executed comedic hoax, his most recent video will either give doubters extra ammunition, or serve as further evidence that Michael has a slipperly grip on reality. An original compisition, ‘Why Can’t We All Just Get Along’ sees him spreading his message, not though anger and frustration, but through song. “I just want to know why this world can’t go on” he tunelessly croons acapella. A comic masterpiece, or one young man’s descent into mental illness, this is pure car crash viewing. --Dean Van Nguyen

Spies - 'Liars Call Me King' Launch

2010-10-21T16:24:00.002+01:00

Spies, who are featured in our latest issue, are launching their awesome new single 'Liars Call Me King' on Wed, the 27th of Octoboer at The Workman's Club. €5 at the door; it's well worth a look.

Webcrawler

2010-10-17T15:29:00.002+01:00

Originally Appears in Issue 5

In each issue Declan Aylward dives head first into the weird and wonderful world of the web, and reports back with his findings.

Geek Food
http://geekfood.frogpants.com

A show about cooking for geeks? But that’s just frozen pizzas and Meanies right? Not according to Scott and Kim Johnson, presenters of the revamped Geek Food podcast. The geek in question is definitely Scott, who asks the dumb questions we are all thinking while Kim does the actual cooking. There’s a bit of an American focus, with lots of stuff coming from Costco, but Tesco probably works as a substitute on this side of the pond.

Now presented in glorious video, as opposed to its humble beginnings as a painfully hard to follow audio podcast, Geek Food has joined the proud ranks of the FrogPants network, bringing it to a whole new audience of vitamin starved geeks. So check out their site on FrogPants or subscribe via iTunes and you’ll never be stuck for munchies during a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon again.

The MMOrgue
http://mmorgue.com

Everybody and their grandmother has a World of Warcraft account at this stage and massively multiplayer online games are starting to edge away from the neckbeard and glasses market towards a more mainstream demographic. That’s why it’s so great to find a site like the MMOrgue, to remind us all that no matter how many beer swilling Halo jocks create a Death Knight named TeabAgGer_09 and bunny hop their way through Azeroth, there are always a group of hardcore nerds prepared to wax lyrical on the in-depth minutiae of the game and the industry.

The MMOrgue’s writers are actual gamers, which makes it a great source of unbiased news about the MMO scene; since most of the news about any particular game comes directly from the developing company and its lackeys, making it about as trustworthy as a shifty eyed fox in a dirty mackintosh. Articles are well written, without any of the flame and fearmongering of gamer message boards, and show a pretty impressive level of knowledge about the inner workings of the gaming industry, so the MMOrgue can fast become your way to sound more knowledgeable about a topic not that many people care about.

PATV
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv

If you have ever played a video game and don’t know who Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins are, then you have officially failed at the Internet. Never fear though citizen, One More Robot knows and is here to drag you kicking and screaming into the light. The two genius creators of the Penny Arcade webcomic and founders of PAX, one of the biggest gaming conventions in the United States, have become something of an institution in the gaming world, a fact that has become even more noticeable with the launch of their internet ‘television station’, PATV. The flagship show, Penny Arcade: The Series is that rare beast: a reality television show that doesn’t suck. In truth it’s more of a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the people at Penny Arcade and manages to be funny and sweet without making anybody want to vomit. Blamimation is the only other show currently running. It’s a series of animated shorts that will make any game fan laugh out loud. Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub won a Richter Award for the series but it hasn’t gone to their heads and the humour is self defacing and cheerily caustic.

We Can Take You Higher!

2010-10-07T14:23:00.003+01:00

Replacing the less snappy, albeit bang-on accurate "Analysing Pop Culture", our new tag line "We Can Take You Higher!" is inspired by that old-fashioned west coast revivalist The Game. It's a pretty good song. Here's a fan video with lots of bouncing cars.

One More Robot - Issue 5

2010-10-06T17:09:00.005+01:00

Featured Articles

Dublin's Sonic Boom!
Our team hand picks their favourite Dublin acts right now, proving than on a global scale, our little city is holding its own.

Money For Nothing and Your Chicks For Free
Like many other countries there are a wide variety of grants and initiatives available to fledgling bands. Many are just unware they exist.
by Ian Maleney

Rebecca Mayes: Audiogamer
Musician and gaming fanatic Rebecca Mayes talks about how she’s become the hottest
thing in computer game-themed folk music
by Declan Aylward

Also Includes

Axl Rose's Appetite for Destruction Brendan O’Dowd charts the GnR frontman’s often temptestuous relationship with his fans.

Rage Against the (Hollywood) Machine Derek Owens counts down his top 5 celebrity tantrums.

Tapes 'n' Tapes Niamh King discovers a record label so retro they put out their releases on cassette tapes.

Webcrawler More cherry picked intenet sites from Declan Aylward.

The Exodus of Steve Jobs The road to the top wasn’t totally smooth for the Apple kingpin, as Laura O’Brien discovered.

The Show Box Karen Byrne’s tips on office etiquette.

Half Nelson Jason Robinson on why Swingers has stood the test of time.

& More

The Return of My Best Buddies‏

2010-09-26T13:41:00.007+01:00

I've had a longstanding relationship with Weezer, and during my formative years they were by far and away my favourite band. I felt, like many others I'm sure, that their debut record Weezer and its sequel Pinkerton were written specifically for me. Rivers Cuomo's struggle with dating and fitting in was the same as mine, and while Weezer daudled on making a follow up, I listened to Pinkerton over and over. Such was the affecting nature of the albums' lyrics and melodies that it became something of barometer for other records. Other albums would often compare unfavourably to Weezer's sterling effort. This was not only true of other bands' releases but of Weezer itself.

Like many fans I was pretty excited when the band came out of a lengthy hiatus with The Green Album, but excitement soon gave way to disappointment when the content of the album boiled down to little more than a turgid verse-chorus-verse-solo-chorus structure repeated over and over again. The solos often matched the vocal lines in their plotting and the album had none of the raw emotion or heart that distinguished Pinkerton from its alt-rock contemporaries. Weezer eventually settled into an almost annual schedule of album releases, none of which possessed any genuine lyrical or musical content. These albums express a desire on the part of Cuomo to grasp at a life that he never had. With each subsequent record he tries harder and harder to express himself as a college brat. This trend not only comes off as disingenuous but also sad.

The performance of newer Weezer records has also been uninspiring. Though there are moments of Pinkerton-esque songwriting they are quickly extinguished by incipid melodies or lyrics. It is unsurprising then that with their latest release Hurley Weezer have had to shop for a new record label. This rattling-of-cages has seemingly worked wonders on the band, the new record recalls much of what made Pinkerton a great record. It's an honest look at Cuomo's current failures and past successes. Of the regular albums' 10 tracks 'Run Away' is the standout song. It has very similar instrumentation to that present on Pinkerton i.e. sloppy instrumentation. This haphazard style emphasizes the emotion in Rivers's voice, an emotion that has been lacking in recent years. I'm pleased to see it again, it's as if a childhood friend is back in town, helping me out and sharing experiences with me again. --Luke Maxwell

8-Bit Blips

2010-09-22T16:19:00.005+01:00

Laura O'Brien's article '8-Bit Blips' that first appeared in issue 4 is now available via her portfolio website.

Nostalgia makes everything beautiful. It doesn’t matter how tough times were, you can always recollect moments of childhood bliss. Any owner of a videogame console can attest to this, be it creating something wonderful on your ZX Spectrum, reaching that giant pill and turning the tables on your ghostly nemeses or showing Bowser what-for and saving the elusive princess. Today’s games may have awe-inspiring visuals, well written plotlines and more intricate levels of gameplay, but the games of yesterday had a certain charm about them that is hard to let go of. So much so that a whole generation of musicians, artists and filmmakers have drawn inspiration from the videogames they played as youths.

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The Indecent Cigar Emporium & Spies

2010-08-31T20:36:00.007+01:00

Some images from our gig night last week. Taken by Aidhán MacCionnaith. Click to enlarge

Spies

The Indecent Cigar Emporium

Have You Seen It? #1: Brick (2005)

2010-08-16T15:41:00.006+01:00

Brick is a film that toys with its audience, it is a piece with deception at its core. Indeed, it is easy for the viewer to be mislead by the fast-talking, hard boiled surface that the film so readily presents. The dialogue throughout is determined and deliberate, not much is given away by the excessive slang and doublespeak that constitutes much of the dialogue. Yet, this surface of pastiche and parody hides beneath it an intense and poignant tale of love and loss, the story sees the protagonist, Brendon, transgress a number of emotional trials. These trials are presented as the various obstacles that Brendon must overcome to uncover the mystery behind his ex-girlfriend’s untimely death.The noir-ish nature of the dialogue and plot when set against the film’s suburban setting remind us that while the stakes are high, the core of the narrative is Brendon’s struggle to overcome his recent break-up with Emily. The film intentionally obscures this fact and in doing so illustrates the confusion that comes from times of great emotional trauma. Film noir so often leaves the viewer with an unsatisfactory ending, our expectations are undermined by a protagonist’s death or a mystery left unsolved. Any amount of ambiguity surrounding Brick’s ending should not leave the viewer frustrated, we have travelled with Brendon, and witnessed his trials. He is left in a tranquil state of meditative satisfaction at the film’s close, and while the plot may be unwieldy at times and the message behind the parody somewhat confusing, Brick gives us a view into the teenage thought process that is both intriguing and refreshing, not to mention, unforgettable. --Luke Maxwell

Acoustic Gold

2010-08-04T14:52:00.005+01:00

Chris Familton's article Acoustic Gold from Issue 3 is now available via his blog Doubtful Sounds.

Unlike many other musical trends and genres, folk music never disappears and new artists are consistently emerging. Chris Familton discusses the history of the genre and why it never goes out of fashion…

You may not find many hardcore hip hop fans listening to folk music, or vice versa, but the connections between the two genres are closer than most people would think. The reality is that folk has been as cutting edge a musical medium as hip hop and in its heyday, the blues.

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One More Robot Magazine presents The Indecent Cigar Emporium & Spies Live

2010-08-03T16:29:00.003+01:00

THE BLOCK IS HOT!!!

An evening of live music, courtesy of One More Robot magazine featuring the Indecent Cigar Emporium, a 5-piece, synth-heavy band intent on bringing the groove back to the masses. The band will be let loose in the Stage Room of The Twisted Pepper, bringing an electrifying selectrification of electrofunk, disco and whatever else they can mash into their songs, all for your dancing pleasure.

Also featured, the dee...p voiced, alternative rockers Spies will warm the room despite their affinity for the black.

Tickets €10 at the door. Dancing shoes essential, drinking shoes preferable.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that you do not talk about Fight Club.

2010-08-01T19:38:00.004+01:00

What happens when you mix a Jane Austen novel with Fight Club? A movie that absolutely has to happen, that's what.

The Yucky Barbie is Decadent and Depraved

2010-07-25T22:17:00.006+01:00

Barbie was my chosen tool of play as a child. I don’t know how many I had, or how many my parents were coerced into buying me, but I do know that at one stage I had a Barbie stable.

Despite this, I don’t recall my numerous dolls with any fondness. It’s not hatred or dislike I feel either, more ambivalence. I think this is because no matter how many I acquired, I always wanted the next one; I lived on the promise of more.

Even now I’m baffled by what it was that made me yearn for those dolls, because, in all honesty, what did they actually do? Lay there with blue eyes, wide and empty, smiling inanely. The only conclusion I can reach is the TV ads in which Barbie danced, nursed, played, and sang. I think I always expected her to arrive jumping out of her box. Instead, it always took her so long to get out of the shagging box you’d swear they soldered her in.

But in the ads Barbie was never tied to cardboard, oh no. She was the life and soul of the party. She was a housewife, disco queen, singing superstar who slowly tried to develop in to an icon, women could be proud of, vet and Doctor Barbie. If Barbie the paralegal had emerged I would not have been surprised. Barbie the Revolutionary, the Pulitzer Winner, etc.

Considering the inspiration for Barbie dolls came from a cartoon based on a German “working girl” there’s a lot to be said about her changing attitude towards the role of women. Most of the first Barbie’s were marketed as either “teen fashion dolls” or the atypical housewife. The picture of innocence and virtue, far from the walking the streets of Berlin vibe this doll was reared.

When I had finally freed Doctor Barbie from her twist knot bonds, my excitement ebbed away. I had her in my hands. I wasn’t satisfied. She wasn’t a doctor. Apart from her white coat she was identical in every way to Teacher Barbie, from her frilly dress down to the tips of her sparkly-painted toes.

Advertising is a wonderful thing. It can transform the most mundane, plastic blocks into something magical, desirable. Something that parents across the land will look upon with dread as they picture the next few months of their lives dominated with statements such as “Mam! Race Car Barbie is crap without her race car/racetrack/pit team.” As the age old saying goes, if Barbie is so popular why do I have to buy her friends?

They were a high maintenance lot, the Barbie Dream Team. You could tell by looking at them. Long toothpick legs, a waistline that made you thank God they had no internal organs, breasts so pointed the box should have read: “Hazard, sudden movement may cause eye injury.” Poor Ken. No wonder he never progressed further than Barbie’s boyfriend. He was too dazed by her dazzling good looks to finish that college degree he always seemed to be in the middle of.

The controversy over Barbie’s size has raged for years and at times it’s so intense that I just long to hear someone shout out “Jesus, it’s only a doll!” But of course to many women (and men) across the world she is much, much more than that. She is the embodiment of perfection and suddenly all our life’s failures become clear. It’s all because we don’t look like her. This is what our culture’s obsession with flawlessness has brought us to. The life that Barbie has developed of her own (in 2004 she broke up with Ken, but in 2006 publicists reported they were working things out) makes it extraordinarily difficult for some to differentiate between what’s real and what’s fantasy. Where does her success end, and our failure begin?

There’s no knowing the extent of damage Barbie’s appearance caused us as children. At the very least we know it didn’t force the maternal instinct on us because under no circumstances could those hips bear child. I think I was more envious of her hair than her beyond reality measurements.

I remember reading an article a few years ago in which a woman wrote about the effect of Barbie on her adult life. One line always stood out to me; “In reality Barbie was always nothing without me.” As children, we brought to life what otherwise would have been a boring, motionless piece of plastic, roughly modelled after a 1930s German prostitute. Barbie may have the beauty, the boyfriend and the gang of sweatshop children at her disposable, but we were always the brains behind the games. --Niamh King

Editor's Note: Barbie Goes Gaga

The God Damn Batman

2010-07-25T13:23:00.006+01:00

http://twitter.com/God_Damn_Batman

This is our favourite twitter right now. Here's a sample of the hilarity.

"If they tried to break into The Batman's dreams, 'Inception' would have been called 'Watch Leonardo DiCaprio Get Beat into a Coma.'"

"Mel, there are healthier ways to deal with rage: Deep breaths. Count to ten. Embed Batarangs in the nerve centers of petty thieves."

Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding. MY understanding is they thrive on vicious beatings.

"We'll miss you, Jack Bauer. If you ever come out of exile, I've got a pair of green ankle shoes and a yellow cape waiting."

Web Picks

2010-07-20T10:34:00.006+01:00

Originally Appears in Issue 4

Declan Aylward is back with three more fantastic web sites for you to browse, proving once and for all he has infinitely more free time than you do.

I Hit It With My Axe

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/i-hit-it-with-my-axe

Porn stars, everybody likes porn stars; and Dungeons & Dragons, well, some people like that…mostly the same people that are big fans of porn stars.

That was probably the thinking behind Zak Sabbath’s latest idea I Hit It With My Axe. It’s a reality TV style web series debuting on The Escapist that follows the adventures of adult film stars Kimberley Kane, Satine Phoenix and Mandy Morbid, as well as an assortment of strippers, hair dressers and tattoos through their trials in D&D. The series features Zak Sabbath as the dungeon master and uses his special, rules-light version of the game, so it’s not too hard to follow for those of us who don’t have a maths degree or our own replica of the One Ring. D&D podcasts are all over the web, but very few offer any view of the action, and although the edited, reality TV style of the show breaks the flow a little, the visuals are well worth it. There’s also a lot of enjoyment in seeing stars we are more familiar with rolling around on each other rolling some dice instead. If you’re not familiar with the work of these talented young ladies, One More Robot knows you’ll google them right after reading this with all the privacy settings on your browser set to ‘wank’.

WWdN: In Exile

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com

Remember Wil Wheaton? That skinny little kid in the grey jumpsuit that pissed us all off so much in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Wesley Crusher? Well he’s got himself a blog, and quite a successful one too, if the nerdvine is to be believed. Wil Wheaton Dot Net: In Exile has existed at its current location for a while now, ever since an attempt to upgrade, a buggy program and an innocent reader leaving a comment conspired to work the blog’s last location into such a knot it would drive Popeye the Sailor to hard drugs. It may not seem like the most enticing option in the world, to read the scribblings of a guy who was the epitome of uncool in the 1980s, but grown up Wil really is worth giving a chance. He is still the epitome of uncool, of course, but a very witty and entertaining epitome, for all that.

The blog covers everything and anything, from musings on his past as a ‘teen heart throb’ (sniggers all round on that one) and updates on his current projects like The Big Bang Theory and Eureka to more esoteric ramblings about his all consuming love of certain Linux platforms. There is a charm about his writing, a sort of honest lack of self possession that makes you actually give a shit about the little stories in his life that he shares and that keeps you coming back for more. Oh, and he hates Wesley Crusher too!

The Guild

http://www.watchtheguild.com

One of the best things about the internet is how much power it puts into the hands of ordinary people; its ability to cut through the corporate structure that has grown up around so much of our entertainment media. Felicia Day’s sitcom web series about a group of social misfits whose only connection with each other is an online game makes for a fantastic example. The show began in 2007 and its first season was financed solely through PayPal donations made by viewers, with a tally on the website showing how much they needed to raise to make the next episode. The Guild is now into its third season and has had corporate sponsorship for a while now, but the do-it-yourself attitude and feel of the series has survived. The lovely Ms. Day, whose beauty famously inspired Penny Arcade’s Tycho to groom her like a unicorn, stars in the show as the healer Codex as well as writing the 3 to 8 minute long episodes. Visit the official website or check out iTunes or Xbox Live to follow the Knights of Good through their first real life meeting with each other, a romantic entanglement brought about by chronic misuse of emotes and other adventures of the socially inept.

A Brief Word About the Safety Dance

2010-07-12T13:36:00.003+01:00

Hit TV series Glee is known for it’s creative use of pop standards new and old. Over it’s short run it has amassed over three albums worth of reworkings of some classics and some not so classics and some very pants. The signature Glee piece would be Journey's 'Don’t Stop Believin', but a few weeks back they did 'Safety Dance' and with that the 'Safety Dance' is all back up on my radar. I’ve provided a handy link for you to enjoy the aforementioned 'Safety dance'. Go ahead and click, enjoy and absorb. Seriously, it is hardcore. --Jesse Melia

Spotlight: Das Racist

2010-07-11T15:29:00.003+01:00

Originally appears in Issue 4

Hyperbolic statements concerning the death of Hip-Hop come around every once in a while. Many fans bemoan the demise of any kind of postive thinking in the genre and those who consider themselves ‘right-minded rappers’ get overly concerned about who is and who isn’t a “real MC”. But don’t fret. Hip-Hop is still alive and well, and these complaints only belies the guilt of the genre to take itself a little too seriously sometimes. This is something Brooklyn-based absurdist rappers Das Racist can hardly be accused of. Consisting of MCs Victor Vasquez and Himanshu Suri (Hima), the group is completed by Ashok Kondabolu (Dap), who they describe as their “hype man and spiritual advisor”.

So “Das Racist” is it? Question number one had to be where the name came from? “We got it from an online Wu-Tang name generator,” says Vasquez. “My grandmother came up with it. She’s a huge (Rap duo) Das EFX fan,” contradicts Hima. Both of these might be partially true, but based on their penchant for nonsense, we best take their explanations with a grain of salt.

Das Racist gained attention last year when their track ‘Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell’ went viral, despite consisting almost entirely of the lyrics “I’m at the Pizza Hut/ I’m at the Taco Bell/ I’m at the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell”. Called by New York’s Death and Taxes magazine “both feverishly juvenile and somehow profound” at the time, the song was quite divisive, irritating plenty of people, and found the group collecting labels like “dumb” and “joke-rap”.“I hope the 16 other songs on the mixtape aid people in their perception of us,” says Hima.

The mixtape in question, Shut Up, Dude, is their first and was released in March for free on their website. The tape displays an amalgamation of different styles, leaning heavily on various iterations of Electronica, Dub, Reggae, Dubstep, Jazz and Soul sampling, and Bhangra. Of the lyrical content Hima summarises, “We use humour and poetic devices like repetition to talk about mundane things like food and things that upset or freak us out.” Their stream of consciousness flow hops from one unrelated topic to the next, and it may seem that there’s no point to the absurdity of certain tracks, until you realise that is the point. “I majored in Non-sequiturs and (anti-art movement) Dadaism in college” explains Vasquez. The range of lyrical topics and musical styles is also no surprise given their disparate inspirations – everyone from MF Doom to Sun Ra to the painter Basquiat and novelist Salman Rushdie. Though Hima concedes his real inspiration, “I decided to make music and rap so people would think I was really cool and like me.”

So what’s next for Das Racist? “We’re talking with a couple different labels. We’re still trying to figure out a tour. We’re learning how to build explosives with household items,” claims Vasquez. Fair enough, anything to add Hima? “This interview is a pipe bomb.” What an absurd thing to say. -- Stephen Rogers

Brodyquest

2010-07-09T12:00:00.005+01:00

There are no words. Seriously, do yourself a favour and watch this.

8-Bit Sounds: 'Jungle Boogie'

2010-07-06T11:42:00.003+01:00

In her article '8 Bit Blips' Laura O'Brien looks at how retro gaming has inspired all sorts of artists, filmmakers and musicians. Here's a fine example of 8 Bit music; a cover of Kool & The Gang's classic 'Jungle Boogie'.

Read '8 Bit Blips' in One More Robot Issue 4

Jimmy Kimmel Live... via webcam

2010-06-27T03:48:00.001+01:00

So what do you do when you've a live show about to air in an hour and the power goes out? Why, switch on your laptop and do the show on your webcam of course!

2010-06-19T11:25:00.005+01:00

We've been a bit missing in action lately, partly because we were putting the new issue to bed, but mostly because of the World Cup. Here's a recreation of the England-Usa game, in Lego! Yeah we love Lego.

One More Robot - Issue 4

2010-06-17T20:06:00.009+01:00