Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Teabonics



It seems some of the banners used for the recent Tea Party Protests in the US have taken a few... liberties with spelling. Bless.

See more sign related malarky at Teabonics.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

About Us

The Magazine


One More Robot is a quarterly pop culture print magazine published and sold in Dublin, Ireland. In today’s faced-paced world of MTV blurbs and short-form journalism, we aim to please the more demanding reader. As such, One More Robot encourages its writers to produce longer, analytical and informative articles on a wide variety of topics including music, film, art, literature, the Internet, media, technology, books, politics, sexuality, gender, beauty, current affairs, living in Dublin and anything else we think will interest our readership.

One More Robot
reaches a wide, varied audience with our readership consisting of people from all walks of life. Among the focused groups we appeal to are music collectors and buyers, artists, designers, photographers and others with a keen interest in film, fashion and new media.

Where To Buy


One More Robot is available to buy in  Dublin from:

All City, Crow Street, Temple Bar
The Record, Art and Game Emporium, Fade Street
The Winding Stair Bookshop, Lower Ormond Quay
Blind Tiger Collective, South William Street
White Lady Art Gallery, Wellington Quay

or worldwide via our online store http://onemorerobot.storenvy.com

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For information on our very affordable advertising rates contact us on onemorerobotmagazine@gmail.com

Please provide your name and any additional contact information.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

One More Robot - Issue 3


Featured Articles

Too Crazy To Care - Interview with Anton Newcombe
Helmets at the ready. Our one-on-one interview proves the controversial Brian Jonestown Massacre frontman and star of the rockumentary Dig! shows no sign of settling into middle age just yet. By Dean Van Nguyen


John Cale: Natural Genius
We caught up with the former Velvet Underground man, now making his name in the art world. By Chris Familton


One More Robot's Top 10 Cult Actors
Ten of Hollywood's unappreciated geniuses. Prepare for your cinematic world to be turned on its head as we highlight your new favourite actors By Jesse Melia, Stephen Rogers & Dean Van Nguyen

Acoustic Gold Genre's come, go and sometimes come again, but the world never tires of the lone man and his acoustic guitar. We chart the history of folk and why it remains timeless. By Chris Familton

A Sports Fan's Fantasy for Pop Music
An original concept that will surely breath life back into the floundering pop charts. By Andrew Unterberger

Also Includes

Desperate Housewives or Twi-Hard Moms? It''s not just teens that are on the Twilight bandwagan as Aislinn Ní Uallacháin discovered.
Futureshock Brogen Hayes just wishes she could get her hands on the gadgets of Back to the Future II
Where's The Beef? Joe Coscarelli ponders on why there is so much ill will aimed at Jay-Z.
The Shoe Box Our new columnist Karen Byrne worries about the knock-on affects the super skinny fashion industry has on society.
Half Nelson Jason Robinson bemoans the fall of method acting in Hollywood.
Critics Casting a judgemental eye on some of the worlds of music, book and filmincluding the latest albums from Adam Green and Gil Scott Heron and breaking down the back catalogue of Ridley Scott.
& More

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Amanda Palmer Is Not Afraid To Take Your Money

Originally Appears in Issue 2

Brogen Hayes on why the former Dresden Dolls’ supremo is making sure she’s not hard up for a few quid

Amanda Palmer is arguably best known as the lead singer of the Brechtian punk cabaret twosome The Dresden Dolls. She’s a singer, lyricist, pianist, performer, and she is not afraid to take your money.

Palmer made her first solo record in 2008. The album Who Killed Amanda Palmer, produced by Ben Folds, was also released on the label Roadrunner Records, to almost no applause. Good job she’s a self-promoter then.

Amanda Palmer is a blogger, a tweeter and a web caster. Through this she has made herself someone worth paying attention to. Oh, and her songs are pretty good too. Palmer uses the internet to connect with her fans all around the world and also to make a living that, so far, Roadrunner Records appear to have denied her.

Earlier this year, she made $19,000 in 10 hours online. This is approximately $19,000more than she has made from 30,000 records sold via her label. And she is not ashamed of it.

Palmer and Roadrunner Records have been in dispute for some time. After the release of her video for the song ‘Leeds United’ she stated in her blog that Roadrunner wanted to cut certain shots from the video that showed Palmer’s exposed stomach because, in her own words, “they said I looked fat”. Partly because of this controversy, Palmer has campaigned for her own label to drop her, even going as far as to write a song called ‘Please Drop Me’. Sample lyric: “You don’t get me/You won’t let me/Continue my career in peace/And it’s making me sad”. She goes on to say “You won’t miss me/Plus you still have Slipknot”.

At the time of writing Palmer has gathered 106,760 Twitter followers, a figure that is only going to go up. Why? Well, like many celebrities Palmer is finding the site to be a powerful tool to connect with her fans. She posts most of her messages herself and when someone is Tweeting (to use the parlance of our times) for her, they say so. This gives fans the feeling of connecting with Palmer and an insight into what she is really like. And for the lucky few, she sometimes even Tweets back.

In her blog, Palmer said of the Twitter phenomenon; “I twitter whenever I’m online, I love the way it gives me a direct line of communication with my fans and friends. I [have] already seen the power of twitter while touring… using twitter I’d gather crowds of sometimes 200 fans with a day’s notice to come out and meet me in public spaces (parks, mostly) where I would play ukulele, sign, hug, take pictures, eat cake, and generally hang out and connect”. This is certainly a new tack for an artist to take. Then Amanda Palmer made it something more.

Amanda Palmer described the Losers on a Friday Night on Their Computers (or #LOFNOTC) Twitter event best in her blog; “so there I am, alone on Friday night and I make a joke on twitter (which goes out to whichever of my followers are online): ‘I hereby call THE LOSERS OF FRIDAY NIGHT ON THEIR COMPUTERS to ORDER, motherfucker.’ One thing led to another, and the next thing you know there were thousands of us and we’d become the #1 topic trend on twitter. Zoe Keating described it as a ‘virtual flash mob’.”

If you are unfamiliar with how Twitter works, users can include a hash tag (#) in their posts. If enough people start making posts that include that has hash tag, the topic will rise up the charts of what people are currently discussing, which will generally bring more people in, to see what all the fuss is about.

Amanda Palmer, as it seems only Amanda Palmer can do, went on to make money from being the #1 trending topic on Twitter. She said in her blog;

“So anyway, there we were, virtually hanging out on Twitter on a Friday night, very pleased with ourselves for being such a large group, and cracking jokes. How do you ‘hang out’ on the internet? Well, we collectively came up with a list of things that the government should do for us (free government-issued sweatpants, pizza and ponies, no tax on coffee), and created a t-shirt. Thank god my web guy Sean was awake and being a loser with me on Friday night because he threw up the webpage while we were having our Twitter party and people started ordering the shirts (that I designed in Sharpie in real time) and a slogan that someone suggested: ‘Don’t Stand Up For What’s Right, Stay in for What’s Wrong’.

“By the end of the night, we’d sold 200 shirts off the quickie site (PayPal only) that Sean had set up. I blogged the whole story the next day and in total, in the matter of a few days, we sold over 400 shirts, for $25 each. We ended up grossing over $11,000 on the shirts.

“Total made on Twitter in two hours = $11,000.

“Total made from my huge-ass Ben-Folds produced-major-label solo album this year = $0”

Then Palmer decided to webcast, but instead of a webcast where Palmer simply sat and gave shout outs to whoever messaged her as most artists tend to do, she dug out old props and costumes from her apartment and auctioned them live on the internet via webcast and email. This was not only an opportunity for fans to see Amanda Palmer as she really is, hanging out and drinking wine in her apartment, but to get their hands on some genuine, one off items, provided they had some spare cash. By the end of the auction, Palmer had sold off signed postcards, clothes that she wore in her videos and bizarrely, a glass dildo, and made $6,000. Enough to pay her rent. She then went on to make almost $2,000 from 200 tickets that she gave away on Twitter, she asked only for donations in return.

Amanda Palmer then did a second webcast auction in September and made around $10,000. Since then there has been some criticism for Amanda asking her fans for money and for encouraging fans to buy her CDs, DVDs and other merchandise directly from her so she will actually see some of the profit. In order to clarify her reasons, Palmer did what she does best, blogged.

“Artists need to make money to eat and to continue to make art. Artists used to rely on middlemen to collect their money on their behalf, thereby rendering themselves innocent of cash-handling in the public eye. Artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their pay checks. Please welcome them. Please help them. Please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money. Dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don’t fight it.”

Fair point. Palmer has not seen any of the money she has made from record sales through Roadrunner Records, and as she said, she needs money to eat and continue to make art. And along the way Palmer connects with her fans in a way that was inconceivable before the advent of the internet. The world is getting smaller and celebrities and public figures are no longer the untouchables they once were. If the future is as Amanda Palmer envisions it, with fan and artist interacting directly, I say embrace it, it can only be good for all involved.

And as Amanda Palmer said; “Taking my stand as a virtual street performer is the best thing that’s happened to my career and I revel in it. And I love bringing people along for the ride. I believe in the future of cheap art, creative enterprise, and an honorable public who will put their money where their mouth is, or rather, their spare change where their heart is”.

Amen, Ms Palmer.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Friday, December 18, 2009

One More Robot - Issue 2



Featured Articles

A New Chapter? How did our book Queen get on when she tried out the Sony Reader for the first time? By Rachael Murphy

Killen' Em Softly: Interview with Kill It Kid With their acclaimed debut record fresh on the shelves, we sit down with blues rockers Kill it Kid's main man Chris Turpis. By Dean Van Nguyen

Amanda Palmer is Not Afraid To Take Your Money How the former Dresden Doll has been using the internet to line her pockets. By Brogen Hayes

Blood Brothers Where have all the black vampires gone? Or where they ever even here? By Brogen Hayes

Also Includes

Under The Covers Old songs recorded in a new light with a new owner.

Web Picks Three more websites for you to browse.

Analogical Why the soundtrack single has disappeared from popular culture.

Half Nelson Looking at the Eighties Action Movie.

Critics Casting a judgemental eye on some of the latest music and book releases including the latest album from Noah and The Whale.

& More

Thursday, August 13, 2009

One More Robot - Issue 1



ISSUE SOLD OUT

Featured Articles

Heads Up: Interview with Heads We Dance
We caught up with synth poppers Heads We Dance to discuss Leeds, Philip K. Dick and their debut album Love Technology. By Dean Van Nguyen
Your Band Sucks!!!

Indie band Summer Hymns suffered at the hands of web powerhouse Pitchfork Media. We analyse the "Pitchfork Effect" and it's consequences on the music industry. By Roland Li

Exploit Me!

We investigate the influences of popular director Quentin Tarentino in the lead up to his latest film Inglorious Basterds. By Brogen Hayes
Cuba Hoy

Fifty years after the revolution, Donal Pattison fulfilled an ambition to visit Fidel Castro's Cuba. What he discovered was a country living in a 1950s timewarp. By Donal Pattison

Also Includes

Alan Pownall The indie singer turned hip hop covers specialist talks about his upcoming debut album.

3 Sites That Will Rock Your Afternoon A breakdown of three of our favourite online time fillers.

Analogical The 7" single and it's place in modern pop music.

Critics Reviews We look at some new album and book releases including Grizzly Bear's much praised new album Veckatimist.

and More!