Replicator tour diary 2007.
Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. This is our tour diary, thanks to the SSC for asking us to do it here.

We’ve been around making crazy artynoisyrock music since late 99’-early 2000. Chances are you haven’t heard of us (although Joie did see us play in Denver, Colorado with two other paying customers at 6:30 at night in 2002, and we’ve played with the super excellent Ifihadahifi many, many times, of which Dj is a member). Patton Oswalt kinda likes us, Warren Ellis wrote some nice stuff about us once, and we were once featured on an Awesome TV show with Les Savy Fav.
We’ve played with bands you probably know, Trans Am, Melt Banana, Big Business, Blood Brothers, Oxes, Rye Coalition, BABYLAND, Hella, Akimbo.. etc. Etc.

But when it comes down to it, we’re just another band out there. We do this because it’s an honest expression of what we are trying to achieve creatively and… when it all comes together it gives us a lot of enjoyment, sometimes other people enjoy it too, that rules. We like to think we put our all into this thing and never give anything less then 100%. The idea is we try to return the asskicking that music has given us, plain and simple, we want to add to the greater whole and give something back. Also we want to be given bowls of only red M&MS and have nobody look us in the eye at the venue.

We all work day jobs (IT, graphic design/prepress/mastering engineer, barback, proaudio), we all live in the bay area, and are henceforth always about one paycheck away from being homeless, and with the exception of myself, for another 3 ½ months anyway, we’re all over 30.

People have described Replicator as being in the same vein of The Jesus Lizard, Wire, Shellac, MELVINS, Trans Am, Unwound, and the Wipers. One of my very favorites all time was “DEVO goes metal.” I still love that one.

We had a loosely based concept album called “You Are Under Surveillance” before it became knowledge that we all were.
Our latest record, our 3rd full length, “Machines Will Always Let You Down” (hey Matt, note the buy link??) , is another loosely based concept album, which has a lot to do with man vs. Technology. Dj kind of explained that here.

We have songs about Nanotechnological Assassination, building sex robots, time travel and the Enigma Machine. We try to put on the kind of shows we like to see (read: BADASSSS!!) and we might… MIGHT even be headed to a town near you, observeth:

This is our van the Supernaut, it’s our 4th van, they are all named after Black Sabbath song titles.

It’s safe to say it’s the nicest vehicle we’ve had as a band, hell it’s the nicest vehicle i’ve ever owned period. It’s a 2006 Ford Econoline E350, that only had 15,000 miles when we bought it. It should be nice, I pay a preposterous amount of money on it every month, but any band worth their salt will tell you that having a reliable ride is the key to touring. Hell, we’ve actually had one of our vans snap an axle and lose the right wheel as we were riding home from Phoenix, and another had the U joints break, be fixed then break again… that was the same tour that our stuff got stolen, and coincidentally the only time we’ve ever been on the news page of that one music site everybody checks that rhymes with ditchbork.
This is Chris:

He hits the drums like they were talking trash about his mother. He also sleeps a lot.

This is Ben:

He plays bass like the dude from Iron Maiden (or so one dude said years ago), plays keyboard like he should have a cape, and also makes the Baby Jesus cry with his awesome vocalizing abilities.

This is Todd:

Todd is our auxillary member/secret weapon. Todd will thrang you on the guitar. He used to play in Greenlight the Bombers.

This is me:

I play guitar like a spazz with an anger management problem, sing/yell like a righteously indignant white dude with glasses (which I am ), make a jackass of myself like Iggy Pop and David Yow, also I sweat a lot.

Anyway… That’s about it for now, tonight within the hour is the first show of the tour at the Smell in LA an old haunt of ours, and we are very, very excited.
We always take turns driving, here’s Chris doing that now:

We listened to the new Patton Oswalt cd while heading down to LA, let me tell you, that is some FUNNY stuff. (Hey Patton, if you are reading this, remember it’s spelled C-O-N-A-N when you are making out the check.)

I’ll try to share all of the interesting stuff with you, and remember that brevity is the soul of wit, hopefully the rest of the band will chime in too, and also hopefully… you will find it interesting and worth while!!

More soon!
-Conan Neutron

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