by CHRIS BARRY

Okay, so you’ve gone to see the Rolling Stones sometime in the past, oh, let’s be generous and say 25 years, and were shocked and dismayed to find them somewhat soulless and mechanical, huh? You say you forked over 60 bucks for goddamned Keith Richards, probably the coolest rock star ever—and no, I haven’t forgotten about the singer for Crazy Town—and the guy just stood there strumming all those classic Stones riffs away like he’s, ohmigod, maybe played them two billion times before and just doesn’t care anymore? Well, brothers and sisters, fuck Keef! Who needs the gnarly ol’ coot anyway? The guy’s become redundant.

That’s right, redundant, or at least that’s where he’s heading now that the collective brilliance of Ted Obuchowicz and his posse of Concordia Electrical and Computer Engineering students have spawned RoboKeith, the world’s very first robot guitar hero. “It stemmed from my frustration and inability to play guitar,” states Obuchowicz, RoboKeith project supervisor and erstwhile mega-Stones fan. “I got the idea from the old player pianos and figured if, back then, they could make pianos play by themselves, with today’s computers and technology we should be able to get a guitar to play by itself. So when a group of students approached me to supervise their final Engineering year project,” continues Obuchowicz, “wanting to do something similar but with a keyboard mechanism, I simply suggested, ‘No, let’s go with a guitar’—mainly because I thought it would be cooler and more rock ’n’ roll and, to be honest, attract more attention. So we did it.”

And now, a whopping $300 and countless man hours later, RoboKeith walks among us, regularly rockin’ the worlds of all he meets with a sonic soulfullness not heard since an amphetamized Lou Reed unleashed Metal Machine Music upon the great unwashed a few decades back. And while it’s true, RoboKeith hasn’t yet learned to improvise, has a limited repertoire consisting almost exclusively of HumanKeith’s riffs, and ain’t a whole lot to look at on stage, he’s been garnering a fair amount of attention in local Engineering circles—be that what it may—and has been doing gigs on the Crescent Street circuit, his most recent robo-rock extravaganza having gone down at the Hard Rock Café late last November.

“We’re hoping to have him play the national anthem at the Concordia Robowars competition this March,” says an excited Obuchowicz, who also happens to be the author of a university textbook titled It’s Only VHDL (But I Like It).

“Essentially, RoboKeith reads MIDI files,” Obuchowicz explains. “Then a microprocessor accepts this information from the MIDI file and actuates a series of electromagnetic solenoids which pluck and depress the strings at the appropriate point in time. So, basically, we have little levers moving up and down and plucking mechanisms for the strings.”

The next step, of course, will be to create a whole RoboStones band, although creating RoboMick, a human voice, will be significantly more difficult than creating RoboKeith. “Ideally,” offers Obuchowicz, “other universities will get in on the act and eventually we’ll start having Battle of the Robobands competitions.” Until that wondrous day arrives, however, you’ll be able to catch RoboKeith at the annual Concordia Open House affair on Jan. 28.