Marvin the Robot

Unlike the ultra cool hipster secret circle music, this music doesn’t make you feel like an outsider when you listen to it. “Two Purple Hearts” will make you feel better giving you something more to relate too, “House won’t burn / Wife won’t Leave “ are lyrics most people can relate to. - The Review By Sue

Marvin The Robot is the pseudonym for Miles Curtiss, a Columbus, Ohio-based musician in search of "obscurity and poverty." In this quest, Curtiss has met up with several musical collaborators to create quirky, eclectic pop songs.

Curtiss' approach to songwriting is especially low-key. The recording quality is dense and fuzzy, giving the impression that Curtiss is singing his off-beat ditties in someone's attic.

Marvin the Robot has shared the stage with other lo-fi and avant-garde mainstays like The Microphones and Whirlwind Heat.

The featured track from Marvin the Robot's album, Psalms for the Sexually Disenfranchised, is "No Use." - National Public Radio

by Pete Bruinsma
January 5th 2001

It's as hard to peg Marvin the Robot down to a style of music as it is to peg Miles -- the brains, voice, and sole perpetrator of the project -- down to a schedule, but I've found you can't go wrong with a barrage of lossely defining descriptive words: disturbing yet humorous, impatient indie-rock with a twinge of dark mystery and a lot of lo-fi sound. It's hard to leave a Marvin the Robot show with a frown on your face, which makes it easy to become addicted to the experience. - On The Town

When Robots Attack

On Monday, July 11, Little Brother’s will be the landing pad for a robotic musical invasion that, while certainly not threatening to mankind, should prove to be entertaining. Headlining is 8-Bit, a group of Los Angeles androids who recently gained some notoriety for a collaboration they did with Beck. On their own material, they mix sci-fi rhymes with Casio-tainted beats for a wacky combo that’s at once futuristic and a throwback to the early ’80s.

Joining 8-Bit on tour are fellow Angelinos the Mormons. Befitting their namesake, the Mormons dress as bicycle-riding missionaries converting their audiences with a chaotic mix of Devo-esque rock. Opening this show is Columbus’ own Marvin the Robot, whose lovelorn lo-fi paeans are of a more humanistic sort.

—Stephen Slaybaugh

July 6, 2005

- Columbus Alive

Made from Scratch
A Survey of Columbus’ Homemade Sounds

by Kevin Elliott



Artist: Marvin the Robot

Title: Psalms for the Sexually Disenfranchised

Format: CD-R

Gear: Four-track recorder, drum machine, cheap keyboards

Genre: Punk rock ballads

Sounds like: If anyone from the new generation of Columbus singer/songwriters deserves a lifetime achievement award, it’s Miles Curtiss, known in various forms and line-ups as Marvin the Robot. Of course quantity does not beat quality, but his discography is neverending; piles of handmade tapes and discs must be clogging his closet.

Recently he’s even resorted to auctioning personalized songs on eBay, he’s got so many swimming around in his head. That’s his niche, though. Each release sounds like he’s been writing your diary for you, including all the embarrassing bar-hopping, drug-experimenting and failed attempts at love you don’t want to remember.

It has not been all wine and roses, though. I can remember a particular show about seven years ago in which the Robot was playing an unbearable set of off-tuned rubbish, forcing most of the crowd to abandon the cramped club. Through time, Curtiss has become comfortable with his voice, not particularly caring whether he hits the notes, instead packing each one-liner with an unmatched sincerity.

Most of his latest release, Psalms for the Sexually Disenfranchised—which arrived at the Alive offices wrapped in crayon and construction paper—retains the humorous honesty and queasy arrangements. While older versions were simply tape-deck confessionals, he’s now become a master of his lo-fi restraints, using the hissing wheels of his four-track as backing orchestration, bad tunings as charming distractions and cheap drum machines as an excuse to never find a drummer.

Even if you have trouble “getting” exactly what Marvin the Robot is trying to accomplish with his cracked acoustic love songs and punk rock ballads, it’s hard to ignore his dead-on lyrics. Perhaps his most prophetic comes in the song “I Can’t Believe She Called Me Emo,” where he asks, “What crawled up my ass and died?/ It must be my sex life.”

For more info on Marvin the Robot, e-mail da8withikea@yahoo.com

May 11, 2005

Copyright © 2005 Columbus Alive, Inc. All rights
- Columbus Alive, Inc.

Marvin the Robot
Information Storage and Transfer
( MarvinMade ) 2001
Information Storage and Transfer is a compilation of songs from the Something About Marathons era of Marvin the Robot. I don't know exactly what that means - but it says that in the description to this album and sounds good to me. This is a double disc anthology of twenty-three songs picked from previous ep's and live tracks and stuff.

Marvin the Robot reminds me of this Family Circus Valentines Day Special I saw once. I haven't seen it in like fifteen years and can't remember much except for the part where the kids were making this really big Valentine thing for their parents. Marvin the Robot songs are just innocent and sweet like that and are special in that kind of way. Some Marvin the Robot cds are packaged in a nice way too. They are specially made collages and stuff glued together and feel like they are home-made Valentines to you too or something.

The songs on this album are interestingly recorded with most likely sub-par recording gear but it's put together nicely. Lots of noises, not like noisy, noisy Sonic Youth noises - but just stuff layered using keyboards, guitars, drum machines. Kind of low sounding instrumentations with singing on top on many of the songs.

The subject matter of the songs mostly deal with being in or wanting to be in love. There is a nice openness about his feelings and stuff. The guitar thing on "Song To Cheer Me Up" is really good. Just a nice, almost sleepy solo-ish thing. And some songs are slow and have a murky feeling to them while others are upbeat with the drum beats and keyboard stuff.

If I ever get a girlfriend and it's around Valentines Day, her presents will consist of Marvin the Robot cd's. And my future ideal girlfriend will like quasi-noisy, innocent post-punk/indie/rock or whatever music, so she will love this. - Slightly Confusing To A Stranger.com