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There’s a time and a place for everything. At a Feel It Robot concert, the time is for dancing, and the place is for de-pantsing.
During the band’s rehearsal, the pants stay on.
The group faces each other, gathered in a comfortable circle. D-Bot is cornered behind two keyboards, warming up, tinkering with the keys, playing the right notes at the right time and making it look easy. Without his shoes on, his stockinged feet partially sink into the matted red and brown carpet.
S-Bot sits behind the drum set with a new microphone resting on her head, drumsticks in hand. I’m shivering in my fleece, but she’s ready to go in a tank top and jeans just slightly rolled above the ankles, her feet ready to pound the bass drum.
M-Bot covers a third keyboard, with an assortment of instruments behind him. He picks up his electric guitar, the unkempt strings flying from the top of the Fender like the hair of Medusa.
B-Bot is sitting down, holding a tuba that’s about to swallow a microphone. She’s ready with her brass and her music set up in front of her.
At the top of the ring is K-Bot, standing with her microphone, trying to avoid M-Bot’s flailing guitar strings.
They open rehearsal with their title track, “Feel It Robot.” I have to fight the urge to get up and start dancing. I control myself and resort to tapping my feet and bobbing my head. As the rehearsal continues, the energy level never plummets or even tapers slightly.
K-Bot, S-Bot, B-Bot, M-Bot and D-Bot are Feel It Robot. If you’ve heard of them before and been to a show, you know the kind of vim that fills the venue when they’re on stage. This five-”bot” band hailing from Bangor, Maine is a surge of energy lighting up the local music scene. Ironically, only S-Bot is a Maine native. She was born in Bangor. B-Bot is from Minnesota; K-Bot from New York; M-Bot and D-Bot from New Jersey.
Everyone’s musical history varies. For M-Bot and D-Bot, who happen to be brothers, music has been in their lives since age four. M-Bot started with the violin while D-Bot took to the piano. They each moved to a number of different instruments such as guitar, bass and keyboards.
S-Bot has been playing the drums for only a year. For the most part, she learned how to play for Feel It Robot.
For B-Bot music, more specifically the tuba, is in her blood. Playing the tuba is a family tradition. She started when she was 10 years old and has kept on with the tradition.
K-Bot doesn’t quite have a musical background like her bandmates.
“I’ve never done anything musical my whole life. People always used to tell me not to sing,” she said.
There couldn’t be a better lead vocalist for Feel It Robot.
If you plan on seeing the dance robots live – and yes, you absolutely should – you might want to consider taking your bicycle as opposed to driving. One of their newest songs is called “Check Out My Whip.” D-Bot, who wrote the song, describes it as being about “having a driver’s license but not needing it because you have such a cool bicycle.”
Bicycles are one of Feel It Robot’s themes, along with dancing, taking off your pants and, well, robots. But they’re more than motifs; for the band, they are a frame of mind.
“It’s all about deprograminization and reprograminization,” M-Bot said. With the all the problems in the world and the economy in its current state, “this is a good time to re-evaluate.” When there’s a choice between guzzling gasoline and pedaling a bike, Feel It Robot advocates for the latter.
Also, “If you’re having a hard time, get up and dance,” sings K-Bot on one track.
“Don’t take yourself so seriously,” M-Bot said. Basically, if you can dance and take off your pants, life can’t be too bad.
Halloween marked Feel It Robot’s official one-year anniversary. A handful of lucky students got to see them live at the WMEB Halloween gig at the Keith Anderson Community Center in Orono.
“The Halloween [show] was just amazing,” said Alec Richardson, a senior theater student at the University of Maine. “There were characters from all around campus. [Feel It Robot] always draws kind of an eclectic crowd,” Richardson said.
Among the many different costumes at the show, one couldn’t be matched. To show his allegiance to Feel It Robot, a fan dressed in a fully decked-out robot costume. This was more than a pleasant surprise for the band, and K-Bot made sure to snap some photos.
“That’s a sign that people really enjoy their stuff. They have a cult following,” Richardson said in regards to the robot man.
Along with a tricked-out robot at the Halloween concert, “There was a pants-less conga line,” according to M-Bot.
“At least 20 to 25 men took off their pants at the Halloween show,” he said. M-Bot and D-Bot, being the boy bots of the act, usually join the crowd when the time strikes for trouser removal. K-Bot, B-Bot and S-Bot don’t partake in the traditional removal of the pants. Sometimes the guys prepare themselves by wearing bicycle shorts underneath – and sometimes not. Either way, it gets the crowd going and makes for a show that could only be conceived by Feel It Robot.
“The longer we play without our pants, the better the show,” M-Bot said.
The bots get together twice a week at M-Bot’s studio in downtown Bangor to rehearse. Right now they are preparing for their next gig at Space Gallery in Portland on Nov. 20.
Despite a setback this past summer when B-Bot left the area from May to September, the robots have returned full-force, B-Bot and her tuba in tow, with the high energy and funk that fans appreciate them for. They’re still pounding out the tunes and dancing hard, and they’re not showing any signs of letting up.
The refreshing appeal of Feel It Robot, other than their unique sound and persona, is that they’re all true friends. “I love working with these people,” K-Bot said. “There are no divas here.”
“Everyone is respectful and so good to each other,” S-Bot said of her and her bandmates.
Feel It Robot are currently working on their first album. There is no set date for a release, but be on the lookout. Their MySpace page offers free listening to four of their recordings and updates on upcoming gigs. They are also on Facebook.
“Feel It Robot is a band with a lot of promise,” Richardson said. “You can tell that they’re all so happy to be doing what they’re doing …. It’s interesting to see what kind of eclectic sounds are coming from our area, especially the downtown scene. It’s really powerful.”
Bangor Daily News