Mankind Is Obsolete

Los Angeles, California, USA

BandRockAlternative

We write music the inspires and moves us. That is the best that we hope to do as a collective. When you see us live, expect to see raw passion and a true love for music, art, and performance. We sound like a cross between ladytron, nine inch nails and pink floyd.

Biography

The story of MKIO, as told by Natasha

In my time in MKIO, people from the very beginning have asked me what we’re trying to say and what we sound like. I have never known quite what to answer. MKIO means so many things. It means an amalgam of 6 years of love, sacrifice, and dedication. Four band members, all from a different background, fused together in a common vision.

We started this whole crazy mess in 2002 when Jon (drummer) and myself (singer) saw each other in a music school hall and thought how cool it was that we had the same Sisters of Mercy shirt on. I was studying keyboards, himself drums. So we started writing some stuff and couldn’t find a singer. Jon didn’t want to play the Phil Collins role, so the duty fell into my lap. So a few vocal lessons, songs, and band members later, we decided to start touring.

By this time, Scott (the awesome guitar dude we met while opening for Collide) and Gordon (the crazy upright bass player dude that I met one day at music school while sharing stories of Texas) had joined our little musical operation. Because Jon came from a DIY punk background, we started touring pretty early on. The rest of us had a lot to learn from Jon. One day, after weeks and months of touring, we decided to take things a little further and went on a year-long adventure at what turned into one of the most intense, painful, beautiful, growing years of our life.

We played hundreds of shows in nearly all the states, ate ramen, slept on floors, and let go of all of our material possessions. We still have very little in that department, but just like in the beginning, a lot of love. We never know where we’ll go next. We just know that we want to make music that means something to us, something to others, and ultimately helps us grow. We’ll see you out there on the road...

~tash

Lyrics

Puppet

Written By: Mankind Is Obsolete

And you can play the games
And you can speak the words
But when the motion’s not enough,
What will you let speak for you?

Don’t want to follow
Don’t want to be
Another nameless, faceless, dreamer lost at sea
And yet I’m here like everyone,
Waiting in line for something more
They say that time will bring conclusion,
But that’s not what I’m living for

Because I’m not some puppet anymore
And I won’t follow anymore
I’ve left these games for something more
I’m not some puppet anymore
I’m not some puppet anymore
And I won’t follow anymore
I’ve left these games for something more
I'm not some puppet anymore

Running circles just to move somewhere
Feeling numb, cuz I’ve given everything
But I don’t know who I can blame
When I don’t know who pulls my puppet strings

Because I’m not some puppet anymore
And I won’t follow anymore
I’ve left these games for something more
I'm not some puppet anymore

Don’t want to be in this mediocre place again
I’m tearing down my walls now
Of all the things that’s held me here
Its time to rise, it’s time to fall
Defeat the chains, defeat it all
I’m going to live my life again
I’m going to live my life again
I’m going to live my life again

Victory

Written By: Mankind Is Obsolete

Climbing up this ladder that I cannot see,
Blinded by this struggle from reality,
I won’t give up and I won’t delay,
I’ve got to keep on pushing for another way

Cannot look back, back far behind,
Restless, I’m so restless and I still can’t find
The key to all my answers to lock them in
To know where I’m going, instead of where I’ve been

Live and bleed for my victory
Rise and fall for this destiny
I believe in my legacy
To realize my victory

You can’t keep me down
Nothing will chain me down
You won’t keep me bound
‘Cause I believe in what I’ve found

I am here and I can see
I am strong and I am free
I am here and I can see
That I am strong and I am free

Live and bleed for my victory
Rise and fall for this destiny
I believe in my legacy
To realize my victory

Too much doubt
Too long
Twists my world so out of shape
I can’t relive the time I’ve lost
Life is now and mine to make

Live and bleed for my victory
Rise and fall for this destiny
I believe in my legacy
To realize my victory

Still Right Here

Written By: Mankind Is Obsolete

Lately I’ve been thinking,
“Throw it all away,”
It’s the voice I hold onto,
Spilling all my pieces,
Feeling this control,
Bleeding all the things that slipped away

So tired
Of living like this again
It cycles round and round again
All my escapes that left me broken
Leads me here again

For all the words I’ve spoken
And the ones who’ve led me there
Because I still feel something
Burning me, rising, the wanting that’s in here
So with my broken meanings
I find there’s still life left somewhere
So take your miracle placebos
And know that I am still right here

Another comes your way
Controlled by their mistakes
Make pasts disappear with just pills and some words
Don’t ask, follow
Don’t ask, follow
Don’t ask, follow with just pills and some words

Given up
On logic to pull me through
It all comes down to what you choose
No matter what I’ve seen or been,
Tell me,
Will this ever end?

More Than What I Am

Written By: Mankind Is Obsolete

How many times have I sat here,
Waiting with my pen,
Trying to continue?
And the words that won’t come out
Find their way into my head
With the visions I see
When I close my eyes to dream

I can’t fly
And I can’t begin
Cuz I can’t be more than what I am

How can I rise
From this life that I’m in,
If I can’t be more than what I am?

How many hours have I lay here,
Trying to forget a world that still continues?
And each moment that’s slipped
From my life into a dream
Takes me further away
From the me that I have seen

I can’t fly
And I can’t begin
Cuz I can’t be more than what I am

How can I rise
From this life that I’m in,
If I can’t be more than what I am?

Give me truth and life with meaning
Give me true words that I believe, that I believe

(Singing, singing, wordless music, empty lullabies
Singing, singing, wordless music, empty lullabies)

I can’t fly
And I can’t begin
Cuz I can’t be more than what I am

How can I rise
From this life that I’m in,
If I can’t be more than what I am?

Someone Like You

Written By: Mankind Is Obsolete

She waits for
Your moment,
Just wants to
Be noticed
Such magic
She’s weaving
Her words so
Deceiving

She lives for
The fame
She’s obsessed,
But that’s not one she’ll admit

So thank you for your little show
You are what makes me know what’s real
To not become someone like you
Someone like you

You’re waiting to tell her
How much that
You’ve loved her
But won’t she
Surprise you
When your name
Eludes her

So perfect,
So fitting,
So many
Masks she lives in
Just one more lost and faceless blank conclusion

Someone like you

So thank you for your little show
You are what makes me know what’s real
To not become someone like you
Someone like you

In This Ocean

Written By: Mankind Is Obsolete

I cannot escape
The thoughts of you,
Emotions that I thought I’d left behind
With my memories locked away

But here they are, exposed
And I’m laid out and wondering
What I’ve buried in my mind
With my hidden thoughts of you

In this ocean I am drifting far away

When I can feel and life is real
It’s always when remembering then
I’m locked in time
I can’t escape
I’ve run so far and found no place
That I can be completely free
Without the chain of what remains
Another time
Another place
And memories that I can face

Always I’m delayed
And thinking of the many things
I wish that I could say
But my words get tied up
And you’ve gone on so well
So why am I still lingering on?
Why am I still here
With my hidden thoughts of you

In this ocean I am drifting far away

Discography

Metamorph-2003
Rise-2005
Trapped Inside-2007

Set List

Angel Disease
Someone Like You
Silent Killer
Passing through
Troubled Dreams
Trapped Inside
Engel (Ramstein cover)
Still Right Here
Terrible Lie (NIN cover)

That's our 45 min. set.