Roadsteamer
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Roadsteamer

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"The rites of Robby"

Spotted among a sizable crowd outside the Paradise on Saturday June 23: a stone-faced Secret Service agent, an A&R man for Yellow Trout Records beating the bushes for the next big thing, and a redneck in a green trucker cap singing pro-Bush songs and warning concertgoers that they risk eternal perdition should they set foot in the club. All of these are actors, hired by Robby Roadsteamer for the release party for his band’s fourth album, I’ll Be at Your Funeral (Yellow Trout).
As it happened, the night was just as notable for the perverse diversity of the bill: the power-pop SnowLeopards, the visceral-ethereal Fluttr Effect, space-time-continuum-skipping-post-punk-hip-hoppers the Campaign for Real-Time, and Roadsteamer’s comedy-metal rowdies. Danvers dudes in backwards baseball caps stood slack-jawed as Fluttr Effect rocked hard with chugging cello and MIDI marimba. Allston hipsters chortled along with everyone else as Roadsteamer manager Chris Coxen took the stage to introduce Robby’s band — noting that they’d passed up opportunities to open for Mel Tormé on his “Dangerous Rhythms Tour” and a chance to play “the Oatmeal Fest out in Ashburnham” to be there. It was a gathering of the Boston music tribes. And it was just the way Robby Roadsteamer envisioned it.

When he emerged six years ago as lead singer of the Sweatpant Boners — a joky but potent metal band who featured, at various times, members of Killswitch Engage, Seemless, Unearth, and Damone — Robby played the court jester to the hilt. From his home in Danvers, he cast a cold eye on the cliquishness and petty infighting of the Boston music scene.

“At first he was a douchebag,” says Roadsteamer (a/k/a Rob Potylo) of the character he created. “He hated the scene. He was the critic we always see on message boards: any band that does something, it’s ‘Aw, they’re trying too hard. They suck!’ ”



But three years ago, Roadsteamer moved to Allston, and that gave him a new perspective. “It’s so different being on the North Shore and watching the scene from the outside instead of being in one.” As he got to know the various players, he realized something: “I wanted to evolve the character. The problem was, I’d done it so good, nobody knew me.”

After the release of his debut, Okay Computer (2004), he rattled off two more full-lengths, The Heart of a Rhino (2005) and Postcards from the Den of Failure (2006). Then, six years into a musical career many had written off as a joke, Roadsteamer scored a subsidiary deal with Universal. Suddenly, his mind raced. Might the daytimes spent selling Red Sox souvenirs be over? “I thought this was it. You project. You get excited. Retail job at Fenway? That ain’t gonna matter six months from now?” But then, as quickly as it appeared, the deal fell through. “Out of that disappointment sprang this album.”

That major-label rejection may have been a blessing in disguise. I’ll Be at Your Funeral hews to the lyrical tropes of past Roadsteamer opuses: video games, the ’80s, the cheesy detritus of a suburban existence, all of it dolloped with good-natured scatology. But this one’s also different. The name on the front of the CD is no longer Robby Roadsteamer. It’s simply Roadsteamer, a now democratized line-up with equal input from keyboardist Nick D’Amico, guitarist Pete Tentindo, bassist Jay Cornwell, and drummer Ray Burgett. (All have adopted the Roadsteamer surname.) “I finally found a group of guys that I love. I was stuck with session guys that barely got the idea, laid down the songs, and went away. There was never time to form a relationship and see what each person could do.”

D’Amico agrees: “It finally is a band. We’ve got it to the point where we all do vocals — Pete’s even got his own song. It’s an album. Before it was just songs for an album.”

In fact, it’s a concept album, loosely unified by the idea that dinosaurs never became extinct but instead quietly evolved, eventually returning to lay waste to the North Shore. Nestled among the narrative lie some of Roadsteamer’s better songs. “A Lifetime in a Dream” starts with vocoder and synth washes before erupting into a straight-on power ballad. “Flip the Coin of Love” dabbles with skittering synth and ska horns. The inspirational anthem “The North Shore Is Where You’re Going To Soar” is as tasty as eating meatloaf while listening to Meatloaf at the Hilltop Steakhouse. And in “X-Mas in Allston,” Boston may have discovered its answer to the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.”

The disc finds Roadsteamer playing nice with the SnowLeopards’ Heidi Lee Saperstein on “I Hope You Get Ugly in Heaven.” And on his long-running YouTube “shitcom,” he and Saperstein can be seen playing Kaboom! on Atari. You can also watch him get chewed out by Holly Brewer from Humanwine for wanting to “get with” her, and see him plead with Reverend Glasseye — whose old-time music the old Roadsteamer disparaged as “funeral music for old people”— to stay in town instead of moving to Austin.

Roadsteamer himself was ready to move to New York City to pursue a comedy career a few years back, but he decided to stay. He had a scene to unite. “I’m falling in love with all these people. That’s why I stayed in Boston. I love all of ’em. It’s not a joke.” He feels the diverse and thriving Boston music scene is too precious to be riven by jealousy, factionalism, and petty discord. “Why do we fight each other? It’s like pit bulls trained to fight and they don’t even know why. This is the way it should be. No fuckin’ cliques. No fuckin’ elitism.”

On stage, as the music swelled grandly around him, he exhorted the crowd to believe in themselves. “You are a warrior! Rise!”

And Robby Roadsteamer looked out across the disparate scenes he had gathered. And he saw that it was good.

- The Boston Phoenix


Discography

2004 - Okay Computer
2004 - Kid Corsica Croons the Classics
2005 - Heart of a Rhino
2006 - Postcards from the Den of Failure
2007 - I'll Be at Your Funeral

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Bio

It's hard to separate most bands these days. Love songs, and feather haired lead singers are all we've been left with. Impossible to imagine that out from under all the prefabricated layers of music, a new force could arise. ROADSTEAMER!!!! Not JUST A BAND..A BRAND...A WAY OF LIFE.

Born on the Northshore of Massachusetts Roadsteamer is a band full of dorks...dammit it's simple. Famous for their 8-bit Nintendo prowess as much as knowledge of Hot Pockets. The lead singer Robby is also known for his provocative lyrical storytelling, and his stage presence is incomparable! He's been a New England favorite at Infinity Broadcasting's WBCN, the #1 rock radio station in Boston. The public can't get enough of Robby every Wednesday and Friday night with Hardy.

Along with Nick Roadsteamer; keytarist extraordinaire, Pete Roadsteamer; guitar virtuoso, and rhythm section Jay Roadsteamer on Bass and Ray Roadsteamer on drums.
Roadsteamer’s music has amazingly catchy hooks and incredible solos as well as tongue and cheek lyrics that everyone can relate to.

The new Album “I’ll be at your Funeral” which came out in June, has been soaring up the charts all the way to No. 1 on Newbury Comics Best Seller List and is still standing strong as well as having strong airplay on Boston Rock Stations WBCN, WAAF, and WFNX. Through Internet videos and amazing live shows they have created a whole new entity of fan, the Street Steamer’s, which promote the band everywhere they can as well as enjoy Miniature golf and Ice Cream Socials with band at least once a month.

Visit MySpace for the mocumentary of the band's struggles in the Boston Music Scene.
www.myspace.com/robbyroadsteamer