Search - Robby Roadsteamer :: Heart of a Rhino

Crisp lettuce

Mike K. | Massachusetts, USA | 06/01/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Inspired by seeing a few too many second-tier nu-metal bands at radio station sponsored concerts and realizing that all of the frontmen delivered their stage banter like they were professional wrestlers, Rob Potylo developed the Robby Roadsteamer persona, which is basically one part over-the-top hair metal machismo to one part the trashy patheticness of, as he put it in an interview, "the guy on the sunday softball teams who takes it way too seriously". In addition, Roadsteamer is kind of considered the "court jester" of Boston rock, and does a lot of puncturing of the "artier" segment of the music scene (look at any given interview and you're bound to find something less-than-glowing about the likes of The Dresden Dolls or Reverend Glasseye).



While I reccomend taking in a live show if possible (or at least checking out the videos on roadsteamer.com) to really get the full effect, the charmingly oafish personality comes through in his hoarse shouting vocal style (again, somewhere between an angry professional wrestler and someone on the sidelines of an amateur softball game yelling at the umpire while trying not to spill his beer), and lyrics that range from over-the-top sexism and braggadocio ("wash the baby/ clean the baby/ I'm gonna go play Keno", "I got the mind of a ninja, and the strength of 1000... ninjas") to general inexplicability ("I used to buy flowers at Kabloom!/ now I don't even wash my crotch"). Elsewhere , in the hillarious highlight "Fight The Demon Horse", Roadsteamer spends an entire song trying to convince a teenage boy who lives on a farm to drink his father's stash of alcohol while he's out and do battle with his horse with a pitchfork. I'm not going to give away the ending, so let's just say the nod towards Ozzy Osbourne's controversial "Suicide Solution" is classic.



While this all sounds pretty gimmicky, much of it does hold up to repeated listening because there's a pretty talented band who know their way around classic rock hooks and metal licks behind all this. "Finish Her Off With Sex Moves" and "Crucial Dude" feature seriously shredding guitar leads courtesy of Dave Pino from the band Waltham, while the dramatized Springsteen-style bar band boogie of "The Hand I Beat Dogs With" features an irresistable catchy chorus ("get off that stool and take my hand... the hand I beat dogs with!"). Furthermore, they seem to get that musical elements themselves can be funny; a keyboard solo played with one hand on only the highest 5 keys is funny ("I Put A Baby In You"), starting off a pop metal groupie ode in the style of piano based music hall for no good reason is funny ("Save Your Virginity"), and most of all, making a guitar line actually sound like a horse's whinny ("Fight The Demon Horse") is funny. Unfortunately, this has a pretty short 34 run time, which isn't bad in and of itself (this stuff is really better in small doses), but coupled with a couple of seemingly intentionally underwritten tunes, two inferior remakes of songs from a previous album ("Crucial Dude" and "Naked Except For Socks"), and a pointless, only slightly different "reprise" of "I Put A Baby In You" drag things down a bit. Still, at it's best, this is smart humor masquerading as dumb humor on the level of Spinal Tap and early Ween."