So is ROBO.trash something like Eurotrash, i.e., an identifiable population or subculture? Does ROBO.trash attract belligerent German guys in a mock turtlenecks and Adidas warm-up suits?
"ROBO.trash can be anyone," says Jones, "[but] if there is one vibe ROBO.trash is trying to get at, it's that in the mid-'80s there was hiphop, electro... house was already happening for a while, but in terms of divisions between different kinds of funky music with beats, there weren't that many. People into hiphop would be getting down to reggae, electro, and new wave. Electro and hiphop weren't really differentiated. ROBO.trash is about getting in between the genres."
We're in the technological age, and a lot of people who follow electronic music gobble down large quantities of E in order to communicate with robots, ATM machines, and electronic gadgets. But Jones would prefer that people come to ROBO.trash prepared to communicate with other humans.
There weren't any actual robots at ROBO.trash the last night I went, but there were old and new school video games projected onto a large screen behind the decks. Jones was spinning, so I started freakin' the floor to the cocooning pulses, swells, and electro-blips. No Doubt had just played the Paramount, and Gwen Stefani and company were dancing. I looked around, and everyone around me was having fun, dancing like C3PO on spacecrack. Now that's ROBO.trash. The beats ranged from the funkiest sexed-up house and breaks to the most obscure Anglo-Euro/electro-dance... so white, in fact, it was black. NICOLAE WHITE
ROBO.trash happens every Wednesday at the Baltic Room, 1202 E Pine, 625-4444.
