01
Jul
11

Ricky Lee Robinson: Live in the Streets of Oakland

Heidi and I paired up to travel to Oakland recently to work on a EPK (Electronic Press Kit) for Ricky Lee Robinson, (aka RLR) a IP executive for Bebo, a talented musician and an amazing one man band. We hit the road early to catch up with him during Oakland’s Summer Solstice Music Festival in the Laurel District and record his one man band performance on the street of Oaktown itself. Ricky was good enough to put us up for a couple of night so we could easily get about the business of creating a Press kit and check out one of his renowned live performances. I’ve seen one man bands before but none of them prepared me for the level of performance I was soon to experience from Ricky. He pretty close to being a genius when it comes playing many instruments. He plays keyboards and  that includes a harpsichord, guitar and drums at different  or all at the same time. He digitally records and produces his own albums. He showcase himself at SXSW this year bringing a self designed vinyl Ep and Cd’s for his shows. He made and organized practically by himself. He’s nearly a one man music label, when all is said and done, he’s involved in every step of the recording process: from creative to business.

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Ricky enjoys the ironic and the odd. He’s an eccentric that finds inspiration from quirky architecture, the sweet warm analog hum of music filtered through vacuum tubes and the sound produced when a needle meets the vinyl groove. Falling in line with this ethos Ricky treated us to a rather devine dinner at Acapulco’s in Alameda, a large island in the San Franciscan bay. It was old school Mexican food, where the local word of mouth fills restaurant with the den of lively patrons in a kitschy setting. We enjoyed a fine dinner where portion size was not an issue. Heidi’s burrito was as bug as her forearm. I enjoyed a traditional chicken mole as did Ricky. Soon after we called it a night and prepared for the next day.

It was a lazy day for me as we ramped up towards the festivities of the Laurel District’s Summer Solstice Music Festival. The laurel District has a quaint old town vibe mixed with a wide range of ethnic diversity. You’ll immediately recognize that by looking at the shops and store fronts of the community. Ricky had earlier had trouble with his Mesa Boogie amp and we were going to get a more scaled down version of RLR experience. I guess the surprise was the scaled down version was simply stunning, even without the Mesa Boogie amp. Ricky laid into his set with originals and cover that lasted for some 50 minutes. Ricky comes from the Pop Overthrow scene and has opened for Todd Rundgren and easily enjoys similar sensibility as Alex Chilton. Ricky has a remarkable voice and can conquer some pretty strenuous material. Songs I found of note was the cover of the Bruno’s Jeans’ commercial jingle “Jeans On”, “I Was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen”, “Secret Love Tricks” (which are on his vinyl release RLR0004 and can be purchased on line too) and the Archie’s Sugar Sugar. Ricky wield on guitar, ferociously hammered those skins and tore up the vocals, easily piercing the highs and crooning with the best of ’em! A van filled with German tourist touring Oakland hopped out on to the street to listen to the rest of Ricky’s set after hearing as they drove by. They and others stayed to the end, while the golden afternoon light filtered all around us adding to this surreal and marvelous moment in street performance. We were all pretty much spent after the gig and headed back to Ricky’s place where we enjoyed a few tasty shots of Evan William’s whiskey, laughs and stories to close out our Saturday night.

The next morning we got it together to finish our interviews with Ricky to solidify all the elements of EPK with all the necessary dish and insights to put together an interesting and engaging package for the multi talented musical artist and Tech geek. It was a fine close to a weekend of technology, art and music that sent us on our way south in the best of moods.


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