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Idiot Magnet

 
Idiot Magnet

We sound like an enraged slightly psychotic monkey trying to make pop rock.

14 songs
59 plays
1
Picture for song 'Faith Healer' by artist 'Idiot Magnet'

Faith Healer

Like lots of Rob's lyrics this can be interpreted in multiple ways.
2
Picture for song 'Tramspotting (El Nino)' by artist 'Idiot Magnet'

Tramspotting (El Nino)

The first recorded version of Tramspotting, with the loveable Nino La Scala on drums, hence the title.
3
Picture for song 'Leash' by artist 'Idiot Magnet'

Leash

To this day Rob still won't tell me who this song is about. The music was born one day while mucking around with a delay pedal and sorting through pages of Rob's lyrics.
4
Picture for song 'Fragile' by artist 'Idiot Magnet'

Fragile

Here's the stripped-down three-minute pop song version with most of the extravagant and self-indulgent guitar solos removed.
5
Picture for song 'She's My Bodhisattva' by artist 'Idiot Magnet'

She's My Bodhisattva

This song is a true story. Everything in this song happened, except the bits that didn't.
Idiot Magnet are a studio band of crotchety old geriatrics who remember music your parents like and have tortured it beyond recognition with their computer and whipped it with a mean beat. Musically they sound like the retarded bastard child of Alice In Chains and They Might Be Giants. More accurately, they approximate an enraged slightly psychotic monkey trying to make quirky pop rock. Robert Reid & Rohan Voigt formed a formidable songwriting partnership sometime during 1996 and have been writing catchy songs about ex-girlfriends ever since. They have been in several bands together and currently write and release music as Idiot Magnet when the mood strikes them. Rob writes the lyrics and sings beautifully. Ro plays guitar, sings badly and does other stuff. Upcoming releases will include double concept album "Threat / Victim" as well as instrumental album "Hydrodynamic" and maybe an acoustic album, and more....
Band/artist history
Idiot Magnet was born from the ashes of a band called Sphincter. This relatively short-lived band was formed with two clear and unflinching motives: 1. Use a drum machine instead of a live drummer (which in 1995 while a reasonably novel idea, was often a technical and logistical nightmare), and 2. Intentionally try to offend as many people as possible. With this in mind, their infrequent live performances more often resembled hit-and-run performance art than anything containing any kind of musical value ... as a result, they didn't last long. One good thing that did come out of the incomprehensible (and more often than not physically uncomfortable - one gig involved pelting each other with plastic chess pieces ... one involved dressing the singer in a very movement-restrictive full-body condom ... yet another ended with Rob gaffer taping himself to a foldback speaker) fracas that followed was the songwriting partnership between Sphincter's bass player and their keyboardist. Rohan, primarily a guitarist, had been drafted into Sphincter to play bass and quickly proved himself indispensable when during the first rehearsal he wrote what was to become the theme song for the band, the deeply disturbed yet eminently danceable number "Buttfuck Your Monkey". Robert, a 17-year-old pianist, usually sat unobserved throughout these rehearsals (and sometimes completely invisible even during live performaces) but this quiet exterior hid an exceptionally talented lyricist and equally versatile vocalist. Once they joined forces, the songs literally began pouring out of them, writing as many as four or five a week. Their new material didn't seem to be suitable for the strange metal / techno hybrid established by Sphincter, so they began assembling a new band to do the new songs justice. A band with a real rhythm section. Heavily into conspiracy theories at the time, and after considering stealing the name Plastic Nude Martini for this new band, they settled on the name subGenius, which apparently no pub or live venue in Melbourne knows how to spell properly. Having shifted back to guitar, Ro drafted childhood friend Darren Hilliard to play bass. Despite being new to the instrument, he soon proved himself a natural, providing what became a key element for the band's early sound. Rounding out the fledgling four-piece (then known as subGenius) was laid-back ab-crunching drummer Nino La Scala. Two albums' worth of material was tentatively recorded, but never released outside of a few demo cassettes which were used primarily to get gigs. This version of the band lasted for a few years before Nino left amicably to further his career as a physiotherapist. A new drummer was drafted, Dave Burchell, and new material was prepared. At this point Darren left (also amicably) to move intersate, at which point Ro's brother Matt (a bass prodigy and a brilliant recording engineer/producer who has worked with bands such as Midnight Oil) joined as part of the new lineup. Some of the new material was recorded but not much got past the demo stage before Dave left. Rob and Ro decided to dissasemble the band in its current form, electing to complete the recordings on their own and remain a non-performing two-piece (with the exception of the occasional acoustic gig). At this point the band was re-named Idiot Magnet and the duo are now content to record and release music on the internet as and when they see fit.
Have you performed in front of an audience?
Rob and Ro have been playing live together since 1996 in several incarnations and would continue to do so if there weren't other more pressing concerns to occupy their time.
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