tffiÊulture
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The Clackamas Print 5
■ rom drama class at Molalla High
a punk rock band on the rise
By Erik Andersen
Co-Editor-in-Chief
phe world of punk has
always fascinated me.
. Highly energetic groups
ople with a relentless “who
?” mentality. In a way, I
we all acted like this, at
then there would be an
niliar sense of excitement
pay.
npleased to unveil one such
¡rendition of the punk world
u as My Robotic Mother, a
vely young band with still
le ways to go in reaching
jm but steadily moving on
ght path. The determination
¡amaraderie of this band is
led by very few.
e group is made up of
r Stewart on the drums,
Gentry as lead vocalist and
land Cody Ward on guitar
jackup vocals. The three
Is met up in middle school
i they were in the same
1 class.
It all met by doing school
from middle school all the
trough high school,” stated
in an e-mail. “We loved
¡and then realized that we
lyed an instrument and fig-
we should form a band,
tally we were going to try
e a three-piece metal band,
ih, that did not turn out
So we learned ‘Dammit’
ink- 182 and played at the
¡chool talent show and then
months later we had three
written, and we just kept
icn listening to this group, it
ear that such bands as Blink
182 and A Day To Remember
play a role in where they gather
the sound of their music.
I am starting to notice a lot
of newer bands and some older
ones beginning to mix genres
of music to create a different,
never-heard-before tone. Such
examples include Cee Lo with his
rock, hip-hop, rap, pop and R&B
mixes and even Snoop Dogg and
Willie Nelson getting together. It
would appear that My Robotic
Mother is no different.
“Mostly I listen to metal and
punk rock. I feel that these two
genres are best when combined
into one, which is what I strive
for while writing music,” said
Gentry.
According to Ward, the band
records all their stuff at the
Goat-Shed Recording Studio in
Mulino, Ore. with a buddy of
theirs, Neil Engle, who also puts
in time at Interlace Studios in
Portland.
My Robotic Mother has
played many gigs at their old
high school in Molalla and per
formed at events such as The
Next Big Thing Tour held at the
Roseland Theater in Portland and
The Battle of the Bands held last
summer in Molalla. Currently the
band has no shows lined up but is
working hard at getting an album
out sometime in May or June of
this year.
“I love everything about the
band. I get to play music and hang
out with my two best friends. ...
Couldn’t ask for much more than
that,” stated Ward.
To hear some of My Robotic
Mother’s earlier stuff, you can
go to their MySpace webpage
at www.myspace.com/myrobot-
icmother or look for My Robotic
Mother on YouTube for videos of
the band’s performances.
AU photos by Michael Bonn Clackamas Print
Above: Tyler Gentry belts out the lyrics to a
song while jamming on the bass at Battle of
the Bands in Molalla.
Left: Cody Ward focuses on plucking the
strings of his guitar during Battle of the
Bands.
Below: Trevor Stewart, the drummer from
My Robotic Mother, bangs out a beat on the
drums.
- If you or someone you know
is in a band or performs any type
of music in Clackamas County
or at Clackamas Community
College, Erik would love to get
in touch with you. Feel free to e-
mail him at chiefed@clackamas.
edu.
AIDING: Grammy Award winning bassist has ties to CCC
Continued from Page 1
ihad taken the first step on her way to
ig her Grammy, but there were plenty
steps to be taken to overcome the host
taeles, the least of which being that
1 less about showmanship as it is about
2 musicians, as well as classical
ms, put the music first,” said Jason
4, a Clackamas alumni who is study-
isic composition at Portland State. “As
II, they are often overlooked when it
Io awards like the Grammy’s because
not have the right ‘look’ that will
Ds with their picture on the cover.
* we live in a capitalist society, a lot
jht is placed on musicians that make
Kt money for record companies, and
lately that has a tendency to recog-
®tty people’ that lack the originality
”t of jazz and classical musicians.”
Ke conquering the musical world,
•8 first had to master the academic
one that had always been difficult
■Homeschooled until the age of 14,
enrol led in the Northwest Academy
v a year before dropping out and
^Portland State University to get her
tae then moved to Boston to study at
During the, Portland Jazz Festival, Esperanza Spalding, presented by KMHD-FM
Jazz radio 89.1, talks with CCC instructor and old friend, Brian Rose.
John Howard Clackamas Print
Berklee College of Music, and graduated in
three years.
Rose, who has remained in contact with
Esperanza over the years since teaching her
the basics of jazz, said that school was espe
cially hard for her and that she would return
home looking disheveled and unhealthy.
Rose said that since finishing with school
and getting back to pure music, she has
returned to normal.
Life for Spalding hasn’t changed much
since she first held that Grammy award in
her hand in the Staples Center. In a press
conference at PSU, she said that the biggest
difference is that people recognize her when
she’s around town, but that things are always
hectic when she comes home to visit She
does her best to see her friends, family and
teachers while she’s in Portland, but this year
things were made busier than ever by her
presence at the Portland Jazz Festival as the
festival ambassador.
As he did last spring, Rose would like to
bring Esperanza back out to CCC for a visit
“I invited her to come out again. She loves
to teach and really likes the vibe here, but
her world just got a lot bigger and fester, so
we’ll just wait until things settle down a bit,”
said Rose, who said that he and Esperanza
exchanged e-mails after she won her award.
“I told her I was proud of her for winning
and proud of the Academy for choosing art
over popularity.”
For die time being, it is a little too late to
catch a glimpse of the home-grown, wild
haired bassist By now, she is far across
the country and will be performing in Cape
Town, South Africa before the end of March.
By mid-April, she’ll have toured in Italy,
France, Spain, the U.K. and Morocco, but.
she’ll find her way home eventually. She
always does.