bobbyrobinson
Composer, poet, singer-songwriter, performer, producer-director, engineer, social commentator regarding environmental and human rights, political commentator.
Documentary Filmmaker Sponsor For New Yourk, LA Film, LA Video and New Zealand.
For more information regarding my work, please go to "Links to Others"
"No Spirit"
Modern man has no spirit as gold runs through his veins
and in his foolishness he is royal, in the mirror his skin is suit and tie.
He lives not by Creation but in his lust and greed.
His religion is a dead book of coercion, repression and forceful beliefs.
He thrives and succeeds in his own eyes while everything around him dies.
He has no home or any peace.
The stage is he who acts his lies as he makes himself to be who he is not,
living in the zoo of his own captivity.
Life is a specimen, imprisoned forever, studied and dissected.
Looking at the forest, all he sees is green money.
Mountains of Creation become dark pits of hell.
The water he drinks is no longer sacred,
polluted for profits it stinks of his own doing.
Unconsciously selfish he continues to drink it knowing he is toxic to his core.
He digests his rotten food in delight relishing his own capacity to deceive himself,
consuming his own ego, which is like a dead fish.
Plagued by self destruction, he worships idols and heroes who in his own
disillusionment appear as saints and leaders of freedom, justice and equality,
which is non-existent in his world of deception and endless grief.
There is no boundries or limits to his egotistical pursuits
and there's no genuine tear that comes to his cheek.
Bathed in prostitution and perversion, prosecuted by his own ignorance
and lack of wisdom, he is madly content to judge others
with a sense of moral authority and inadequate righteousness.
With a blind eye he preaches falsely and from his mouth like sweet music
to his ear he hears broken bits of truth to soothe his poor being.
Because of delusional conscious thinking he chooses to
enslave himself and every living being in a cesspool of material matter
driven by greed, hatred, violence and abuse.
Chasing away the truth and spirit of Creation with every vengeful step
he proudly thrust himself forward making hell on earth
and peace by death, deception and destruction.
Bobby Robinson / copyright 2001
bobbyrobinson
"Bobby Robinson's music is heartfelt and moving. His song "Innocent" is the perfect fit for my upcoming film, "Truth Has Fallen", which deals with the issue of wrongful convictions. I am excited about our collaboration and believe that the music will connect with the audience on a more emotional level and hopefully create an empathy with the subject matter." Shelia Sofian
“Bobby Robinson employs his extraordinary musical talent toward promoting positive social/political change and that’s wonderful, but the best thing about Bobby is that he has never stopped believing that the arts can play a role, and is bringing about positive change.” Margo Pelletier, Thin Edge Films
“Bobby Robinson’s music ranges from political folk songs to classical ballads. His lyrics and compositions convey a great deal of emotion which makes collaborating with him such a joy as a filmmaker” Lisa Thomas, Thin Edge Films
Interview with Bobby:
How long have you been a music composer?
I’ve been a composer since I was very young. It was only a matter of time until I could fulfill my destiny and make things happen. Coming from a lower class neighborhood just outside Camden, New Jersey, didn’t make a great start. There were no music programs in school that could help me, and having parents that were non-musical was an obstacle that had to be overcome with great efforts on my part. But before I could get an instrument I always had melodies of my own playing through my head, although it took some time and technology to get them to the recording stage.
What was the first instrument you studied and what other instruments can you play?
Well, it was quite a while before I could even afford an instrument. I was maybe 14 or 15 years old before I got a junkyard guitar, meaning the strings were about half an inch from the fret board and the thing sounded more like a garbage can rather than a guitar. From this poor guitar though, I taught myself to play songs by pure sound of ear and to this day I don’t read anything but the smallest bit of music on paper. Everything is from my heart, I work it in my head for a couple of days and I usually put these bits and pieces of melody onto a small voice/tape recorder. The main instrument, my piano, came much later when I had a job. I saved like hell to get it and, I began writing tunes by sound/ear alone at about the age of 20.
Now you know what I mean when I say I got a late start! Some kids had been playing for a decade or more, even 15 years, but that didn’t discourage me because the revolution of The Beatles made me see that even with simple skills you could create incredible music, with a spiritual edge on it. I also had read that Beethoven (a great spiritual inspiration to me) had written the 9th Symphony when he was totally deaf and never even got to hear it, now, that is one of the greatest achievements of history as far as I’m concerned! Pure Creation and true rebellion against all odds! Anyway if you give me an instrument, I will learn to play it. I’ll never be the showman type but I’ll get something good out of it and I’ll be creative with it.
When and how did you first get to record professionally?
First I had a friend at work that had a couple of reel-to-reel tape players, very expensive at that time. They were two track machines. We had to bounce back and forth between the two machines and keep overdubbing to get a decent recording. But finally we recorded a song I wrote with much of his recording/musician skills and we came up with a pretty decent song. When people heard it they didn’t believe I wrote it! My relatives were constantly putting me down about my music, so much so, that I was just really encouraged to hear my first song done and know that other people liked it too.
Where did life take you from here?
I moved to Montana because I had a friend at the University of Missoula and after a visit, it was such an incredible town and scenic state that I couldn’t resist packing up and heading out. Being from the outskirts of Camden and hating the filthy, flat and polluted streets of South Jersey, Montana was like living in Heaven on earth, which temporarily allowed me to escape depression which has haunted me from the time I can first remember. I was very introverted as a child and suffered in silence like most depressives do, there was no diagnosis or treatment for it at the time.
What happened in Montana and what happened to your musical dreams?
I called a friend in the operational management at Nordstrom’s looking for some kind of work. He called me two days later and asked me if I would like to manage a new store opening in Northern California at Corte Madera. I flew down to take the job and find a place to rent, went back to pack things up and U-Hauled down to CA That’s when my musical dreams kicked back in. But it took a bit of time because I kept winning these damn awards at Nordstrom’s, which were great for a person with no real dreams, no desire to follow their heart. It happened that at Nordstrom’s there was a baby grand piano in every store so, I asked the different department managers if I could come into work early and play it for a while, which they always say ok. I started to work on my own compositions. This was a great thing because I was continually reminding myself about music as well as how to get back to recording the melodies in my head.
Foremost, one day I was walking down the back halls at Nordstrom when from the heavens above, I saw this most sweet, fragile and beautiful woman and when I looked into her soft green eyes I felt madly in love, I felt like I knew her forever. I was literally melting to the cold concrete floor. Her name is Tasia and she became my best friend, my wife and my soul inspiration to follow the path of music even at the cost of living in poverty forever. We are as one and that’s why we created our independent label called Botas (Bo/ standing for Bobby and tas/ for Tasia) Music Production.
How did you manage to create your own label that sounds like a far cry from where you were at that time?
Well first my new friend and lover, Tasia, gave me her $4000.00 credit card just like that. She said, get whatever you need to start on it now! Can you believe that? She didn’t have a lot of money either since she just came from Romania two years prior to meeting each other, but she just has tons of love like I’ve never felt my entire life. That’s another book someday.
Tasia also had bought a condominium in Novato, Ca. where we lived for about three years, but the mortgages combined hit $1300.00 a month and could not pay for anything else we had in mind for the studio. We decided to do a complete remodel of the interior and sell it to get some money to buy a piece of land in Washington state where we could concentrate on building a home from the ground up and literally have to pay no rent. Some of our remaining money could be used to build a small studio and get some more equipment for recording and composing.
With the MIDI/ADAT revolution and the ability of the industry to lower equipment cost for independent artist we got the minimum of equipment I would need to record, engineer and produce professionally. I taught myself everything by reading continually about those various subjects that would get me the knowledge of recording and I started to hear my compositions in digital quality for the first time. But looking back it was an amazing amount of energy that went into it all and I couldn’t have done it without Tasia’s help, total love and support. She’s been beside me all the way even when I became very sick, very ill, unemployed and unemployable since 1988. All I could work on was music, twenty-four hours a day but none of the work could actually produce money to pay the bills. One day Tasia told me that she would care less if I will never make a penny in any type of work if I can try to do what I feel good doing (music), and if music will not compensate me financially for 15 years, she believed in me, in my music abilities and keeps saying that I will in my life time be actually recognized for my extreme talents and get compensated for all my hard work at the right time.
How did you first hear about “The Roy W. Dean Grant”?
I just finished my first CD “Greed Kills” in 1999 and, since I couldn’t perform due to all I’ve been through, I thought to look into other forms of releasing my music to the public. We started promoting the CD ourselves without any success and then I thought that some professional help might get some locked doors open for me.
After $8,500.00 spent in three weeks for “professional promotion” we felt so discouraged, hapless and cheated since we just spent four and a half years of our savings just to find that all we got back was nothing and, we lost everything we had saved. That is when I thought that I rather work for free and no more anxiety, as much as I needed the money to support my family, to maintain the musical equipment updates and repairs. Anyway, Tasia got a list of companies that offered music grants that were to small to get anything accomplished with (as a one person band in my case), it also offered different types of other possibilities to get my music heard. It’s where she found the California phone number of “The Roy W. Dean Grant”. She then called the LA office as well as the NYC office and left a message.
Three months later the phone rang and this soft-spoken voice asked for Bobby Robinson. That was when I got to talk to you Carole and, it was the first time I have heard about “The Roy w. Dean Grant” and about the fact that the organization was in need of a music donor/sponsor. I also learned then about all of the projects you were describing to me that you’ve been working on for many years, the subjects, the issues, the importance of having a film completed with music, that a film is never complete without it. You also told me that the music composition is as important for a film as it is the film itself, which I couldn’t have agreed with it more. I was so happy that day since I thought that a lot of my songs were in many ways similar with the subjects, the issues and the relevant causes that those Documentary Film projects, which you were referring, too in our conversation, were about. I told you then and I feel the same way today, that I will be a donor for “The Roy W. Dean Grant” for life. I am so delighted to work with such a devoted, capable and talented person like you Carole, as well as all of the other people that are working hard to get these important films done.
What type of music do you do?
I can actually play any type of music, whatever comes through me. I don’t have time to listen anymore. If I keep on listening to everyone else’s music I can lose myself in it and I become less creative which sometimes obscures my visions. I rarely have the space/time for tunes that are not my own. It’s not that they are the best but they just come from my creative mind. I don’t have a name for my music.... rather I become the music and I let it go. To me the main thing is the lyrics. If you listen closely to my lyrics - - - you could feel the real spirit with witch I’m writing my poems and songs.
Where and how do ideas come to you? What inspires you?
Just meditation brings ideas or news of the destruction of earth, religious conflicts and the killings that evolved with it, man’s inhumanity to man, torture, abuse...all the things you hear about every day but don’t generally want to hear or talk about...again, just by listening closely to my lyrics you could get a good idea of how I look at things and what I think about many of them. About inspiration...well...people like you Carole...and like Tasia, the greatness of the spirit, that’s what inspires me.
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To Contact Carole Dean in Northern hemisphere caroleedean@att.net, in Southern hemisphere caroledean@paradise.net.nz