Review: “The Wrong Brain, Episode 2” by Made for Chicken by Robots
Australian one-man band Made for Chickens by Robots is at it again, this time with a brand new seven-inch musical disaster titled The Wrong Brain, Episode 2. This one is a four-song cheese platter, and as usual it consists of all sorts of weird ingredients, like backyard blues slop, lo-fi somnambulistic ragtime, beer-soaked cartoon country, sizzlin’ sausage-core, and lo-tech experimental noisemaking, all engulfed in an impossibly dense cloud of cigarette smoke. Indeed,
The Wrong Brainis a shit-kickin’, guitar-pickin’ good time, complete with such well-composed and highly original songs as “Backside Rag,” “Barbecue Time,” “Hammin Slaw,” and “Bearded Lady.”
Singer/songwriter Anto Macaroni is Made for Chickens by Robots, with his exceedingly bizarre and one-of-a-kind sound, and with his homemade terrycloth chicken wig he wears during performances, and his thick eyeglasses (that’s right, folks, we have yet another blind bluesman to add to the already long list of blind bluesmen). His sound station is also unlike most others, with a beat-to-hell acoustic guitar, an equally raggedy suitcase percussion setup miked through vintage headphones, snare and cymbal, megaphone, and various farm animal sound effects and strange gadgets. And his releases sound as if they were recorded in a dumpster…but somehow it works.
Johnny Hanke of Off Label Records has his incriminating fingerprints all over this one. Off Label is a small, independent, fledgling label out of Germany. For being such a young label, Mr. Hanke has worked with some of today’s more notable one-man bands and obscure roots and rock’n’roll artists, such as DM Bob & the Deficits, The Dad Horse Experience, VulgarGrad, and O Lendario Chucrobillyman. So adding Made for Chickens by Robots’ Wrong Brain release makes perfect sense, since Anto Macaroni is certainly one of the notable artists in today’s scene.
Made for Chickens by Robots was given mention in David Harris’s new book on one-man bands, Head, Hands, & Feet. In it he refers to Anto as an accomplished country blues musician. Of course, most of the people that listen to MFCBR will fully agree, despite the colorful adjectives often used to describe his sound, and despite his own deprecating terms towards it, Anto is in fact a rather talented multi-instrumentalist, especially his bluesy fingerpicking. And each new release shows his evolution as a one-man band artist.
So get your copy of The Wrong Brain, Episode 2 while they are available. Like most of the other Off Label releases, this one may be a limited pressing. This 7″ can be ordered directly from the Off Label
website.
In my One-Man Band Series interview with Mr. Macaroni, he spoke about himself and his project this way….
I am a man of alter egos. The real me is a confused individual, a smoker, a music promoter, a nervous socialiser, half-blind, no hair on my chest, I own two pairs of the same boots and currently live in the suburbs of Melbourne with a paranoid cat named Thelonious Monk and a half-bottle of whiskey on my bedside table. I have a short attention span. I think there should be more violence in performance, not harm or injury, but more violent passion, intimidation and inventiveness. Made For Chickens By Robots is one of me. It’s the backwards, uneducated me from the country, fumbling and confusing.
For fans of: Bob Log III, Puta Madre Brothers, Honkeyfinger, Sleepy Eyes Nelson, and O Lendario Chucrobillyman.