Contact Info: RothMobot-at-gmail-dot-com
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Do you have old toys or electronics that you wish to recycle?
Then please send us an email, thanks!

Roth Mobot
ROTH MOBOT | TOMMY STEPHENSON | CIRCUIT BENDING WORKSHOPS | ELECTRONIC MUSIC | EXPERIMENTAL ELECTRONICS | EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC | HOMEMADE ELECTRONICS
Tommy Stephenson
ROTH MOBOT | PATRICK McCARTHY | CIRCUIT BENDING WORKSHOPS | ELECTRONIC MUSIC | EXPERIMENTAL ELECTRONICS | EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC | HOMEMADE ELECTRONICS
Patrick McCarthy
"These guys are from the future!"
~ Anthony Mosley, Collaboraction
Recent News

Play Interview & pERFORMANCE

Play Excerpt

  • Chicago Public Radio Interview
    Delaney Hall of Chicago Public Radio interviews Tommy, Patrick, and our friend, Alex Inglesian, about Circuit Bending and Toy Hacking in this excellent piece entitled "Bent."
  • Loyola University Documentary
    Matt Kordonowy spent a few weeks following us and documenting our workshops and the virtual performance from Chicago to New York. His documentary is called "Hell Bent."
GearWire
  • Gear Wire Interviews
    Gretchen Haase stopped by the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago where we were making our first "studio" recording.

Upcoming Circuit Bending Lectures, Workshops, and Performances
 

Contact microphones, also known as a pickups or a "piezos," are microphones that transmit vibrations from solid objects. Unlike normal microphones, contact mics are transducers, picking up vibrations and directly converting them into voltage, which is then amplified. Contact mics are widely used by acoustic musicians, noise artists, and other audio experimenters. They are usually used to amplify the sounds of fiddles, guitars, mandolins, drums, etc., but they are sensitive enough to directly amplify human voice boxes, heartbeats, the sounds of fingernails on chalkboards, or various "found object percussion" instruments. Contact mics are inexpensive, easy to build, and can be a source for fun and experimental ways of creating new sounds for recording, art installations or various live performances. In just two hours, Patrick McCarthy will show you how to make a simple, effective contact microphone from surplus and discarded materials.

Roth Mobot's Bio

Roth Mobot's "recursive jazz" controls the random juxtaposition of improvised slow dark ambient drones, languid melodies, randomly generated rhythms, percussive accidents, the humorous and sometimes poignant language of toys, and common discarded electronic audio and video devices. They never play the same piece twice, only rehearse in front of a live audience, and always bring new devices "hot off the workbench" to every gig.

Tommy has been at the center of the Circuit Bending movement for over a decade. Along with frequent custom commissions, he has designed and created devices for members of noted musical groups as the Animal Collective, Umphrey's McGee, the Benevento Russo Duo, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, and Phish. His specialties include speed bending, mercury switches, and rehousing devices in trash-picked containers.

Patrick McCarthy has been conducting Circuit Bending workshops in various Galleries, Schools, and Corporate Seminars since the year 1999. Tommy and Patrick have been performing musical duets on their own Circuit Bent devices and homemade electronics at galleries, theaters, festivals, bars, social events, clubs, and on the radio for the past five years.

They were featured at TimeOut Chicago Magazine's Inaugural Ball at Union Station, the PACedge Festival at the Athenaeum Theatre, Sketchbook 7 at the Steppenwolf Garage Theatre, the Chicago Dramatists, BENT Fest, The Intuit Gallery's Annual Fundraiser Ball, and Chicago's "Looptopia."

Patrick has conducted his workshops and lectures at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, DePaul University, The University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Columbia College, The Association for Computing Machinery, Lake Forest Academy, and Accenture Technologies.

 

Patrick is the Director of the Chicago-based community arts organization, The Rubber Monkey Puppet Company, curates the Midwest's "Deus Ex Machina" Contraptionism festivals, and teaches the Circuit Bending workshops at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.

Tommy and Patrick's Circuit Bent duo, Roth Mobot, were recently hired as "Circuit Bending" consultants for Collaboraction's highly acclaimed "The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow" in Chicago, and occasionally performed as the show's opening act on Saturday nights.

Tommy and Patrick were the founders of the The Guild Of Acquired Technology (aka The G.O.A.T.) in Chicago, and were responsible for booking Guild lectures, demonstrations, and performances that stressed the recycling of discarded electronics and e-waste ecological responsibility.

Their work has been written up in The Chicago Reader, The Chicago Tribune, TimeOut Chicago, Pioneer Press, The Daily Candy, FlavorPill, and numerous blogs. They have been the subjects of six documentaries.

Tommy and Patrick make themselves available for any correspondence and questions regarding Circuit Bending and electronics. They may be reached at the email address at the top of this page.

Thank you.

Devices for Sale
Click on Images for Video


Quick Silver Box


Prayer Clock


Tubby


Driving Toy


Magic Lantern


Fire Engine


Barney


Muck


Pocket Merlin

 

A Selection of MP3s, Etc.

The Geodesic Dome at Reed Ghazala's Inaugural "Be-In"


The ingenious DC-based sound system was provided by GetLoFi.com
photos by Nebula Girl

Hall Tow
Hall Two, an improvisation in four movements, June 21, 2008 (MP3)

LIVE at the Madison Pop Festival, Wisconsin
November 10, 2007 (MP3)
"Finally, Roth Mobot took the stage. Composed of Tommy Stephenson, who has designed electronic instruments for Animal Collective and Phish, and a bearded, bald ball of energy named Patrick McCarthy, the group forgoes traditional tonal sounds altogether in a dissonant, musique concrete cacophony composed of circuit-bent devices alone. While McCarthy held a shining red apple of uncertain purpose in his right hand and donned a purple helmet of a no-doubt brutal space dictator, the group composed a nervous and unsettled mixture of noise. After establishing a theme, like a customer ordering from a McDonald's drive-thru, they then proceeded to derange it, sending vocals into warp-speed and adding claustrophobic noises of click and chewing insects."
~ Tim Williams and Jason Lester
The Badger Herald
E3Salon, October, 2008
Midwest Experimental Electronics Showcase, 2008
BENT Festival, Minneapolis, 2007
Tomorrow Never Knows - Circuit Bent Sampler Circuit
with Clock Injection Subcircuit

Friday April 25, 2008

VIRTUAL PERFORMANCE

Physically :: The K-Town Moonbase in Chicago
Virtually :: DCTV, New York City

In an effort to reduce our Carbon footprint, we avoided flying round trip
to New York City for the annual BENT Festival by transmitting our Performance
live from the K-Town Moonbase in Chicago to New York City via the Internet.
We were very lucky to have Alex Inglesian open for us.
Video of the webcast and a slide show of stills from the event are now available on the K-Town Moonbase's homepage.

Chicago photo by Alex Inglesian :: NYC photo by Mathew Bessinger

LIVE at Permanent Records, Chicago
January 20, 2007

LIVE at WZRD Radio 88.3 FM, Chicago
May 5, 2005
Roth Mobot Shwag

Limited Edition
3.5" Interactive
Multi Media Floppy Disk
(Sold Out!)

Coffee Mugs
$10 (+ shipping)

T-Shirts
$10 (+$3 shipping)
Please specify size M, L, XL
 
Interactive Online Sound Generator

Click on Squares for Sounds of Bent Devices

Thank you Tom Young, Dan Demchuk, Ruth Hnatusko, Carl Broman, Créme DeMentia, & InterWeb for the photos & videos

Roth Mobot, the Roth Mobot logo, associated images, video, and audio recordings are trade marks of, and copyrighted by, Roth Mobot,
and cannot be used or reproduced without explicit written consent of Tommy Stephenson & Patrick McCarthy.