Tools
Sushirobo
w/Cobra High, Roots of Orchis, Lands Farther East
Stranger Personals
Fri Aug 15, Old Fire House (Redmond), 8 pm, $7.
Bands that cite kraut-rock immortals Can and electronic-rock pioneers Silver Apples as primary influences don't materialize every day. So when one does, pay close attention. Meet Sushirobo, a Seattle quartet that worships the abovementioned artists, yet feels like a musical misfit in this city.
Sushirobo came together in 1999 when vocalist/guitarist Arthur Roberts met future members of Spyglass--Clay Martin (bass) and Barry Shaw (drums)--at informal jam sessions in his Queen Anne pad. (Guitarist Dave Einmo joined shortly thereafter.) Roberts had played bass with a notable power-pop band, which recorded big-selling albums for Geffen in the early '90s, as well as with Peach. He'd hoarded tons of gear throughout that decade, and he damn well was going to use it in this new project ("We have a U-Haul truck devoted solely to our effects when we go to gigs," quips Shaw).
"We were trying to break away from the ways we were used to playing," says Roberts. "We had played a lot of classic-rock-meets-alternative-rock stuff and we were getting so sick of guitar solos, bands where the guitarist plays all the time. So we started playing real spaciously, getting strange tones. Can was the model band for those days. We would tape everything, listen back, and find the cool parts. We never really wrote any songs."
Sushirobo (named after a Vancouver restaurant where robots make sushi) debuted in 2000 with the Action Causes More Trouble Than Thought EP on Martin and Einmo's newly formed Pattern 25 Records. That disc and the band's first album, Drawings and Garbage Structures (2002), highlight Sushirobo's piquant retro-futurist aesthetic. Roberts and Einmo splatter the CDs' concise, spiky pop songs with an armada of guitar effects while the rhythm section adds torque and punch to the spacy atmospheres. Early XTC and Devo influences raise their quirky heads, but never too blatantly.
Einmo admits the impact of "some art-punk bands of the '70s. But at the same time, we're exploring electronic sounds via guitar effects that sort of bring it into a more futuristic sound. Some of the cars of the '50s, that ferry boat that's still sitting out in Lake Union--those ideas of what the future was going to be like that weren't quite right. That's what the sounds we try to create sound like."
"Early on, Arthur said, 'Everything you know about classic rock, Beatles-esque pop, R&B--don't play to those instincts,'" Martin recalls. "'Play in a more machine-oriented way.' That's what we try to do."
Sushirobo also hail the benefits of restraint, repetition, and avoiding "that dialed-in chunky guitar tone" blighting the airwaves and your local bar. Oh, and they like effects pedals--beaucoup effects pedals.
"The tones we use are as important as the melodies we're using," says Einmo. "It has a much more lasting impact, having those fucked-up tones. Experimenting with different guitar effects makes the melodies interesting."
You can hear what he means on Sushirobo's excellent second album, The Light-Fingered Feeling of Sushirobo (out September 16). Produced with brilliant clarity by Gary Reynolds and the band at Electrokitty Recording, the disc bursts with instantly catchy songs enhanced by noises that evoke rhinos, submarines, Star Trek gadgets, exotic birds, and even a robot belching after a sushi meal.
"All of us are really into surprises," claims Einmo. "That's what gets me so excited about the new record. There's a sense of randomness and surprise. We limited our options up front by recording most of it live and doing it in an improv situation instead of spending eight months bashing all the parts out."
The method's paid off. Sushirobo is one of the few rock groups to excite this jaded old electronic-music head in 2003. When asked what sort of audience the band attracts, Shaw replies, "It's mainly sound guys in clubs and recording engineers who respond to our music." Roberts notes the high percentage of record-store clerks in Sushirobo's crowds, too. "We get a lot of people who come up to us after a show and say, 'Tuxedomoon! I totally see it now!' As if we're all in on a big secret together. We get a lot of those obsessive types. And slender, attractive women," he hastens to add.
Oddly enough, those obsessive types at MTV took a shine to Sushirobo, too: Songs off Drawings regularly appear on the channel's Road Rules and The Real World--which brings in dozens of dollars a year, Martin boasts. All of which likely goes to buying more effects pedals.
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