Robot Buckwheats (or Ro-Bux) is often a down-tempo found sound group from North Carolina.  Operating for over two decades, brothers Mr. Wheat (a/ka/ Farina) and Parsnip Pete (a/k/a Li’l Bucky a/k/a Coconut Pete) chose their moniker/s in reaction to all the wigging that was going down in the 1980s and 1990s.  Regrettably, everyone and their grandma now have a production company or a television program called, “Robot” something-or-other and charvs still eye-ball you at the skating rink.  Dirty South before the term was coined, they prefer to leave their influences at, “Brion Gysin and the Fat Boys.”

Ro-Bux are fond of quoting, “A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberties.” Parsnip & Wheat  prefer to work quickly, improvising a large amount of material live in a day or two.  This material may or may not be edited later.  Although there is some pre-production involved, typically mistakes and out-of-sync performers or machines are left alone.  Quantization and midi rarely enter into the picture.

Their first cuts, “Quit/Stop It” (1981) and “King Of The Beat,” (1983) were produced on a dual cassette boombox and/or a Dictaphone.  Following a long hiatus, the Brothers Wheat were reunited in the 1990s.  They began re-scoring a live Jerry Lewis telethon broadcast with the intent of not finishing until Lewis collapsed (or they ran out of tape).  The telethon project was never finished.  Ro-Bux also re-scored and/or modified the soundtracks of the Hume Cronin film, Foxfire as well as portions of John A. Russo’s Midnight.  Much of this material ended up on C’rackwheatz, their first release.  Elroy and Dumpster Goose appear in brief cameos.

Abandoning re-scores and possible soundtracks, Ro-Bux recently swayed their charms toward the void of seasonal holiday albums.  Their upcoming release, A Thanksgiving Prayer, is a from-their-family-to-yours take on the underappreciated (at least musically anyway) holiday.

Outside collaborators are rare but K-Ro makes an appearance on turntables and T-Bird provides some “real” vocals for a change.  A Thanksgiving Prayer was recorded live on Thanksgiving Day, fueled by tryptophan (at a level typical of poultry in general), their old Fostex X-28H, and Roland SP-202 as artistic constraints.

On Thanksgiving Eve, hours of material were recorded with multiple guests in an attempt to recontextualize Ro-Bux as a “band.”  All of this material was lost in a formatting error, so it appears that the Robot Buckwheats “band” was never meant to be.  The duo was left with only the tracks that were actually recorded on Thanksgiving Day.  Hopefully, A Thanksgiving Prayer is the harbinger of other neglected holiday releases to come.

Mr. Wheat speaks 10 computer languages.  He often operates a Trophy FN50 through a Treo 650 and a GE Digital 5.8 ghz simultaneously.

Coconut Pete drops beats and other noises. Underneath the thin white Styrofoam cover, he sculpts their music into the orange whitebread upon B & D’s ribs

Pimalia will be releasing two full-length albums by Robot Buckhweats in the near future, C’rackwheatz and their latest effort A Thanksgiving Prayer.  Listen to the title track here: