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Robby Roadsteamer



Last Updated: 11/25/2009

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Status: Single
City: Boston
State: Massachusetts
Country: US
Signup Date: 2/6/2004

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Friday, November 27, 2009 
Quiet Desperation....

http://quietd.com





9:08 PM 
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Friday, January 23, 2009 

From http://retrolowfi.com



By Marc With A C

Ahhh, the plight of Robby Roadsteamer. He’s so serious and honest about his craft that many often question just how, well, honest and serious he actually is. And that’s to be sort of expected when your major mark on music has been fronting a playful hard rock band that writes rock operas about Duck Hunt. And especially when your best known song, “I Put A Baby In You”, has been covered by one of the guys from Slipknot. And… yeah, those early years in the wig and fake moustache.

That ain’t this years model of Robby Roadsteamer, though. This is the guy slugging it out in Boston clubs, trying to get a foothold in a too-planned infrastructure with more history than your average city. Reinventing yourself isn’t easy, especially when the only open mike nights you can’t get people to pay attention at are grungy comedy dives. Which would be fine if Robby were only delivering artist parodies and the like, but even a cursory listen to one of the five acoustic releases he dropped in 2008 will reveal not only a brilliant social satirist, but also a guy that writes down every seemingly inconsequential thought that pops into his brain. That could mean rewriting Jackson Browne’s “The Load Out” into an anthem for every shitty club band on earth, getting fucked over while playing Altered Beast, or simply deciding on which provisions one should keep in their room to best avoid their roommates. It’s heady stuff, and don’t pretend that these things don’t belong in songs: more people have thought about these situations than whatever the hell the new Kanye songs are about. But Robby’s songs? People laugh because they are uncomfortable at brutal honesty, and that’s the long and short of it.

So when I tell you that I Solved Every Miniquest is a very, very serious Robby Roadsteamer album, don’t give me the stink eye and point to some YouTube clip of him trying to get noticed in a dirty club while playing “Someone Put A Condom On My Dreams”. I will laugh at you heartily and point to the very, very serious wailing of “When I Sell My Song To Batman III”, a tale of a better life through soundtrack money. I will also show you the barely contained desperation of the opening piano-driven “Route 9″ and watch you cry over your Nintendo Zapper and bottle of Zima.

But this album isn’t just different because of the subject matter - a story of longing and unrequited feelings, if you must know - it’s also the lean and almost anemic backing band that backs Robby up who occasionally borders on twee pop (seriously!) that frames the tracks in the light that they have been begging for in the last few years. He couldn’t have gotten away with the digs at Neutral Milk Hotel with the full-tilt rock of Postcards From The Den Of Failure, and he surely couldn’t have made the references to “Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll” work so well without his trusty acoustic guitar. He’s found the perfect balance of band/bedroom artist here.

And Robby has definitely found the right blend of surprising and comforting, as well. See, you’re gonna get your acoustic odes to Teris, but you’re also gonna get some gospel tinged rave ups in “Twin Doughnut Sign” and “Two Week Maine Vacations”, call-and-response pop in the form of “When We Hang Out”, and possibly Robby’s most poignant song to date in “To Princess Toadstool”.

I Solved Every Miniquest isn’t going to be as obvious to the everyman as Robby’s earlier work. It’s funny, yes, but never overtly comedic. It takes a bit of work to understand, but ultimately? The album is very rewarding, and hell, I’ll say it: I Solved Every Miniquest is Robby Roadsteamer’s best album, bar none.

It’s available through Newbury Comics and your local iTunes distibutor on February 17th, 2009.

1:59 AM 
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Monday, January 05, 2009 
http://thecomedians.org/Pages/GreatBost.asp

Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival

By Rob Turbovsky

If the Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival had a thesis statement, it would have been organizer Robby Roadsteamer's mid-set appeal to the audience of the Paradise Rock Club: "You need to support this scene or else the Dane Cooks and everyone else you hate are gonna win." It wasn't a knock on Cook – that dead horse was long ago beaten into nothingness, copies of the Retaliation album along with it. No, Roadsteamer's insistence made the line sound more like a plea. The purpose of the night was not to continue or even contribute to the handwringing in the comedy community about just what "alternative" is or isn't. It was to serve as a kind of grassroots challenge, channeling the unpretentious parts of the area's hipster thing into something real, active and (gasp) sincerely unironic: the DIY cultivation of a local comedy scene in Boston that matters as much to audiences as it does to performers.


The "alternative" label seems to be far less important than what it's labeling. For one of the performers, Mehran Khaghani, being alternative meant exploring his life as a gay Iranian-American with an enthusiastic fearlessness that's infectious. For the Anderson Comedy team, which has built its own underground following by bringing its stand-up/sketch/talk show hybrid to dive bars usually reserved for bands, alternative was the harmonizing and arm-in-arm swaying during their song, "I'm Not Wearing Pants for Christmas" (sung, appropriately enough, by four people without any pants on). But, even in the comparison, the question of whether opener Bethany Van Delft or show-closer Shane Mauss are weird enough to be considered alternative wasn't as important as the fact that each delivered a solid performance.

"Alternative comedy is just a term that helps the teenagers and housewives understand you might not just see a comic trying out a safe, five minute, ready-for-Jay-Leno set," Roadsteamer said later, "but rather one who wants to see what they can do with their art form."


Van Delft's onstage demeanor is that of an engaging cynic, while Mauss, thrice featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, has the innocent-faced dirty comedy thing down to a science. It doesn't hurt that he's a smart, tight joke-writer and an engaging presence on the mic, especially in a well-received bit riffing on how phone sex can turn into phone rape. Neither of the sets would have been out of place at a reasonably diverse comedy club, but that's not to say that the night's range rendered the show's title meaningless.


"No one should be saying 'I want to be an alternative comic!' The whole thing is more of an inadvertent result than a goal," comedian Chris Coxen said afterwards. "My act is a little weird and could probably be considered alternative." If "alternative" is a "know-it-when-you-see-it" sort of thing, Coxen is more than probably right. He performed on the bill as several members of his diverse troupe of insane, straight-faced characters, including lounge singer Barry Tattle (who referenced his "tattlesnake" at least once) and Danny Morsel, equal parts furious dancer and – I'm guessing – ninja warrior.


Backstage, the vibe from the comics was upbeat and excited. Certainly, the turnout was healthy, with an audience willing to be surprised. "It proved that there are a lot of people out there that crave something different," Coxen said. "Now is the time to remind people that this wonderful and different type of comedy exists and that it is worth supporting." Roadsteamer hopes the show – and the others he wants to stage – builds a comedy community in Boston that rivals that of New York or Los Angeles, not just a place people come to see comedy, but one where comedians want to be to work on their art. "You can be a relevant artist and live in the area you would want to create in," he said. "Comedy still is filtered through New York or L.A., and that destroys a lot of otherwise really talented people who had to get suckered into the machine and end up pouring their work out on VH1's "I Love The 80's" or on E!"


Roadsteamer's act itself is difficult to categorize or even describe. "I wanted to tackle the idea of a comedy song in a different way than I've seen," he said, and his act is filled with songs that aren't supposed to be taken seriously. "I wanted to make reality comedy songs about the people and places around me, but I would hope my songs could make you feel other things too." When Roadsteamer is onstage, his face fills with an earnest seriousness-of-purpose. He doesn't toss off the songs like little ditties. "I hate saying I do comedy songs," he explained, "because most of the time, people think of fat guys in Hawaiian shirts, and I think I have a different feel than a lot of those people. Songs about boys giving heart containers to beautiful princesses, or angry dudes putting on construction boots; those aren't comedy songs. They're reality songs."


Coxen made note of the generosity in Robby's approach to the evening. Roadsteamer opted to put both the Walsh Brothers and Mauss after him. In the dressing room, I heard him tell comics not to worry about sticking to their assigned set lengths – virtually unheard of at comedy shows – and simply enjoy the night, which probably explains why the show ended with all of the performers onstage in an appropriately chaotic and jubilant rendition of "We Are The World."


"Coming from the music side of the tracks, putting labels on comedy or music is just a big ol' waste of time," Roadsteamer said. "It allows yourself to be boxed into a genre with expectations now put upon your work." During his set, Roadsteamer introduced a song called "Christmas in Allston" by saying, "It's about a beautiful boy who chokes himself off to orgasm at night, cries alone and blogs." Later, during a song about a lost cat poster at a supermarket, he encouraged the crowd to sing along by shouting, "One more time…you're gonna die alone!" But, Roadsteamer has a point – splitting hairs over the show's "alternativeness" was nearly as useless as debating its "Greater Bostonness." The Walsh Brothers don't live in the city anymore, nor does the evening's host Shane Webb, who opened the night on an appropriately tongue-in-cheek note by asking the crowd if it was "ready to get all alternative and shit?" But geographical differences didn't seem to impede Chris and Dave Walsh's ability to deliver the kind of breakneck brilliance that makes them such standouts on the comedy scene wherever they are. To hear these guys talk about anything, from the dangers of the discount Chinatown bus to a story of a half-naked woman shouting drunken come-ons at them from a hotel balcony, is to witness something close to comedic perfection: invisible writing that's unfailingly crisp, manic energy and the kind of timing only siblings (with, I presume, a touch of telepathy) could develop. Understandably, Steven Wright is a big fan.


In a terrific coincidence (for this article anyway), the Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival took place two days after the induction of Wright into the just-created Boston Comedy Hall of Fame. At that event, Wright was saluted with short comedy sets from nearly a dozen of the performers who are inextricably linked with the first major wave of Boston comedy in the late 1970s/early 1980s, including Lenny Clarke, Jimmy Tingle, Steve Sweeney and Tony V. These men were all considered exciting and edgy in those heady days. But, seeing them all perform in rapid-fire succession at a slick concert venue next to the stadium that hosts the home games of the New England Patriots, it was impossible not to think of them as what they were: the old guard, joking to uniformly appreciative crowds about the mayor, midgets, and Arabs at Dunkin' Donuts.


How did it happen? How does a movement go from "alternative" to mainstream, and, more importantly, is that a change to be welcomed? Perhaps the relationship is best understood in terms other than oppositional. Robert Altman, the maverick director of films like Nashville, M*A*S*H and Short Cuts, frequently described the way he viewed the Hollywood establishment's relation to his work like this: "We're not against each other. They sell shoes, and I make gloves." The dynamic could well apply to the comedy world, as well. "Art, like comedy, is always evolving," Coxen said. "Some comedians naturally introduce new concepts and styles and voices that are truly innovative. Some of these new acts attract attention, become popular and now that line has shifted in a way that no longer makes that performer alternative."

5:25 PM 
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Wednesday, December 17, 2008 

http://bostoncomedy.blogspot.com/2008/12/robby-roadsteamers-greater-boston.h
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The Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival with musical guest Campaign for Realtime
December 17, 8 PM.
Paradise Rock Club, 967 Commonwealth Ave, Boston.
www.ticketmaster.com

Robby Roadsteamer knew he was asking for trouble by naming his latest production "The Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival." Having worn a path between Boston's music and comedy scenes over the past several years, he's aware of the problems the term "alternative" presents. In the music scene, everything not Top 40 or hip hop became "alternative," crowding the field until the term became useless.

In comedy, the description is often a dividing line between comics who view themselves as more traditional comedians (a definition that's almost as useless) and comics who see their work as edgier or more original. But there's little in the mechanics of what happens onstage, in structure or set-up, that could provide a definite line of demarcation.

Andy Kaufman did character work, but so did Sid Caesar. Jackie Martling does set-up and punchline material, but so does Steven Wright. Margaret Cho and Patton Oswalt may tell stories, but so did Andy Griffith (and if you're suspicious of dragging out Matlock as an example, dig up a copy of his "What It Was Was Football."). The structure of doesn't define the genre, and none of those comics stick strictly to those structures.

"It's like anything abstract," says Roadsteamer. "It's like describing art or love or anything. It's like, you get to a certain degree where you have an idea of what the differences are, but to even try to define very stripped down – 'alternative comedy is a comedian who goes up and doesn't…' – that's stuff where you're going to find a lot of contradictions."

What you can say about the show is that it is packed with eclectic, immensely talented comedians. The Walsh Brothers put an indelible stamp on this scene with their mix of personal storytelling, rooted in their Charlestown upbringing, and absurdist sketch. Shane Mauss can write a standard joke as well as anyone, but will stretch talking about the strange things he's experienced with his sudden popularity after his success at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen and his Conan appearances.

Chris Coxen has been developing a set of characters, including the plastic-haired "Future Queer" and lounge singer Barry Tattle for the past several years, and they've recently started to mingle in more integrated shows. The Anderson Comedy Group has a taste for bizarre and sometimes tasteless sketch and short film. Shane Webb (who will MC the evening), Bethany Van Delft, and Mehran all mine their personal lives, from very different perspectives. And then there's Roadsteamer himself, who has moved from a fake-mustachioed hard rock troubadour to something closer to his everyday self with an acoustic guitar.

What they do have in common is that they all come from the Greater Boston – Allston/Brighton/Cambridge – comedy scene. "All these amazing, talented comedy acts are coming from that area," says Roadsteamer.

If this show is successful, Roadsteamer would like to organize more of them to spotlight what he sees as underappreciated acts. He doesn't see a place for acts like this to grow and make a living in the current club scene, and he hopes this show will help the cause.

"There is an underground scene going, but it's always nice to see what you can do with it, and maybe you can bring it to the next level," he says. "Maybe one day, which obviously seems like a pipe dream at this point, but maybe more comedians of this type can make a living in the area they enjoy living in."

4:22 AM 
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Friday, December 12, 2008 

This article is at...

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Arts/73518-Robby-Roadsteamers-good-intentions/

Robby Roadsteamer's Good Intentions

The Greater Boston Alternative-Comedy Festival

By Mike Miliard 

"He's beyond passionate — it's almost to the brink of sanity with him," says stand-up comedian Shane Mauss about his pal, fellow stand-up — and musician, performance artist, erstwhile shock jock, prolific YouTube auteur, Sox Appeal sex symbol, and expert Duck Hunt marksman — Robby Roadsteamer.

Specifically, Mauss is speaking about the intense loyalty and reverence Roadsteamer (a/k/a Rob Potylo) feels for the tiny but tight-knit Boston alternative-comedy scene — and why he's put together the Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival, which brings himself and seven other area-bred comedy acts (see sidebar), and one rock band (Campaign for Real-Time), to the Paradise on December 17.

Leaning forward over a plate of half-eaten Mexican food at Boca Grande in Kenmore Square, a knit Red Sox cap pulled low over his stubbly face, Potylo's dark eyes blaze as he explains — with wild gesticulations — how he came to curate this comedy showcase.

Lately, he says, he's become tired of some of the baggage that comes with his self-created comic character, Roadsteamer — the lugnut loudmouth, festooned with tattoos, bellowing with mock-menace and machismo. He's grown weary of performing on booze cruises and promo events at butthead bars, of the beery dudes in sideways caps, sidling up to him and parroting lyrics from his songs: "Steamah! 'Put the tip in!' "

Potylo's far more simpatico with the small group of people who make up Boston's alt-comedy scene, the folks who clutch microphones night after night in such clubs as the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square; the new Mottley's, near Faneuil Hall; and, sometimes, rock clubs like Great Scott in Allston — performers, he says, who are "not doing it because they're looking for five minutes on Leno. They're trying to perfect their art."

So Potylo compiled a roster of comedians — every one of whom is "near and dear to me" — for an event meant to show off some of the provocative and envelope-pushing acts that exist right in our own back yard.

"Boston is small and supportive," says stand-up comedian Shane Webb, who lived with Potylo for a spell in Allston before moving to Brooklyn. "Ten times more supportive than New York, where there's not much support at all."

It's also, well, funnier. "A lot of [comedians] call me from New York and LA," notes Potylo, "and they're like, 'Dude, it's nothing like Boston! The comedians are twice as better up there!' "

You'll remember, of course, that Boston comedy enjoyed quite a heyday back in the Reagan years — Steven Wright, Janeane Garofalo, Bobcat Goldthwait, and the like. New York and LA were major players, sure, but it was the stand-ups from the Hub who commanded the most attention in that vaunted comedy explosion.

The problem is the scene was a victim of its own success. "Comedy had this big boom in the '80s, where allllll these comedy clubs opened up, and allllll this shitty comedy went out there," says Potylo. "There were like 10 shitty open-mic nights [a week]."

That's partly the reason, two decades on, why huge swathes of the general public are still circumspect about spending an evening — never mind their hard-earned bucks, especially in this economy — at a comedy club.

"Comedy is the red-headed stepchild of the entertainment business," notes Mauss.

Which is to say nothing of the other distractions that conspire to keep people out of clubs. Even as the Internet helps comedians corral fans via MySpace and Facebook, and broadcasts their routines online for free via YouTube, for instance, it also keeps legions of potential audience members at home every night, bathed in the dull glow of, well, MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. "Technology helps us," says Potylo's good friend and fellow performer Chris Coxen, "but we're also competing against it because there are a lot of lazy bastards out there who don't want to go out and see a live show."

Laugh factory
Bostonians would do well to heed the genre-busting (and gut-busting) alt-comedy scene developing right here at home. And if it hasn't exactly caught the world by storm yet, that's why it's nice to have a guy like Potylo around town to act as a hoarse-voiced cheerleader. "You think he's like a wild maniac, but he knows exactly what's up," says Coxen. "He's very aware. He's doing it for the love of it, and to do the best job he can."

He's also really funny, with a routine primarily consisting of acoustic strumming — a song called "Someone Put a Condom on My Dreams," a right-wing dig called "Construction Boots" that was written "in case Obama didn't win" — peppered with manic mid-song banter and gleefully abrasive audience confrontation. There's also the occasional theft of a crab Rangoon off a front-row patron's table.

"It's an insane, ridiculous act, and to know how much he cares about it almost makes it funnier to me," says Mauss. "A lot of new comics are trying to do an impression of what they think a comic should be like. Robby just has a very specific idea of what he wants out of comedy. He isn't really influenced by any outside expectations."

"Like him or hate him," says Coxen, "when you see him you feel like you're seeing something innovative."

In fact, Potylo toyed with the idea of packing up for NYC to pursue his comedy career a few years back. But whether his intensely local themes — Revere Beach, Route 1 in Saugus — would've caught on in Gotham is a riddle for the ages. He decided to stay put, figuring he was better served marshalling the troops to make the Boston scene the best it could be.

That fealty has only strengthened since two months ago, when Potylo's mother passed away suddenly, and he was rallied around and supported by fellow comedians and musicians from Salem to Somerville. "The unconditional love from so many artists has been keeping me going through this," he says.

Meanwhile, he keeps getting on stage, and doing his part to boost the hometown team. "I still believe things can happen from time to time," says Potylo. All it takes "is someone besides the comedians to get on the boat."

 

12:36 AM 
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Wednesday, October 08, 2008 

In one beautiful location see all the wonderful videos I've given up a future wife and family to make. Come visit http://roadsteamer.com/videos.html

I can only put so many videos on the Myspace page, and it's not really in order.... ... Videos to break the ice with the old man, cure diseases, make you forget she hasn't read your message yet, forget the economy, forget that you can't smoke weed unless your hiding in your room like a little bitch... Meanwhile johnny untucked dress shirt can get shitfaced and run around the streets looking for loose women till the cows come home... And if he runs into you while he's looking for pussy he's going to punch you in the face.... Videos to make the fact your compromising on all your hopes and dreams in life a little bit easier... Videos that weren't created by 40 NYU grads writing for Saturday night live who don't know or give a fuck about your needs as a woman....  Videos about you, about you Elizabeth!!!! Ok I'm taking a chance there hoping that someone named Elizabeth was reading this..... Click on the banner below!! Don't believe the Myspace warning..... It's a safe website, and they just want you to stay here and look at shitty ads for True... Those girls in those ads don't exist. They're not looking at you in those ads... I know the guy who owns the company and he told me he gets a big fucking laugh everytime someone clicks on his girlfriend and thinks they're going to fuck her.... I laugh with him too.... If you don't laugh with him he throws forks at your head.... That's how I got that scar near my eye...You can't see it but it's there..... Anyways visit the website....Here's a pretty banner ad that you can't click on because I don't have the techonlogy to do that shit on here.... but it plants a dirty seed in your head that will someday grow into a deceit tree bearing filthy fruit....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What happen. Why didn't you visit http://roadsteamer.com ??!!!! Your always against everything I try and ask you to do, and that's why things don't work the way they use to. So stop sending me e-mails asking why things don't work the way they use to, because now you have a clear idea. I can't believe your reading this in those ugly ass panties... And yes I know you're a dude. ... The whole neighborhood knows. Okay let's try again..... Here's a prettier banner ad......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


You confuse me sometimes... okay 80% of the time. And it stinks. My fingers hurt from typing like a dirty mule in hopes you visit the site... But I ain't typing no more. I hate your fucking mind games. Dirty bush league mind games that only work on fat chicks who work at Arby's.... You might get discounted french fries from her.... but not me asshole... I don't make frenchfries... And if I did you would pay full price... Full price asshole.... How does that sound in today's economy???? One more time........


 

 

 

 

 

 

You didn't visit http://roadsteamer.com eh???? Fine... It's okay. Be a nazi. Instead of war crimes your just playing mindgames now with a poor little boy trying to make you watch some goofy videos. These videos weren't going to hurt you. Is that what your so fucking afraid of?? Like these videos are going to take your soul as you watch them??? You have no soul.... Remember? That's why your stuck on this planet watching everything go shitty right before your cunt eyes. Shitty Shitty Bang bang.... That's what I'm going to call you. That's what everyone else calls you. I just don't have the heart to tell you anymore what everyone thinks of you and your shitty ideas. So go on Shitty Shitty Bang Bang. Ignore all my pleas for you to give me 5 minutes of your evil pussfilled time. You have a limp dick anyways and that's why no one ever picked you for kickball at Dunn Middle School.... Who wants ole' limp dick fucking up their team anyways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay I tried one last time because everyone can be redeemed. Even you shitty, even you. But obviously I was wrong. Thank god Luke didn't try to save you in Star Wars... You probably would of let him fry with dirty sith lightning... Laughing your ass off as poor old luke got hit with dirty sith lighting... Your own son you fucking animal... YOUR OWN SON!!!!! Well I ain't going to wait around for some sith lord to hit me with dirty sith lightning while you laugh your ass off and take pics for flickr.com  .... why don't you just visit that site instead and see how many dicks your aunt takes in her ear at parties now. Fucking peasant.

 

http://roadsteamer.com

 

7:45 AM 
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Friday, September 26, 2008 

 From albumsilike.blogspot.com

- The Cryin', The Niche, And The Stronghold (Which is the second half of the New England Weathered Friends Album)

Here's a fearless prediction: it will take me longer to write about this album than it will to actually listen to it right now.

I first ran across Robby Roadsteamer via his YouTube clip for "Heart Of A Rhino". At the time, he was leading a harder-edged band that was intensely serious about being as non-serious as possible. They took every single rock cliche imaginable, smashed it, and usually namechecked Duck Hunt in the process. Mr. Roadsteamer wore a big fake wig and a silly oversized moustache... and then the band broke up. I don't know why. I could probably figure it out if I dug deep enough, but I'm actually happier with the records he's making now in his "sensitive acoustic guy" phase. Which is a joke, too. Or it isn't.

What you should know about Robby's output circa 2008 is as follows: he's releasing albums faster than Robert Pollard and The Capstan Shafts combined, he sometimes sings in his overemphasized "rock guy" voice of yore but occasionally dips into what I think his actual singing voice, he has very little regard for rhythm, and his lyrics are funnier than all get out.

And seriously, those lyrics are why you're going to love Robby Roadsteamer. Whether he's singing about telling his dad about his new job at Staples, watching Mulholland Dr. on mushrooms or mourning the loss of the aforementioned band (because he'll now have to settle for "normal guy pussy"), you're alternately going to be wiping the tears of laughter out of your eyes, wondering why the hell you've never heard of him, getting offended by every third sentence that comes out of his mouth and then wanting to give him a high five for referencing something that you thought was your little secret.

The more music Robby puts out, the more interesting his stories get. And of course, the unabashed Who fanatic in me was flabbergasted when he parodied "Christmas" from Tommy as... "Fat Kids At Best Buy". I highly recommend this and all of Robby's albums... and if you're offended by his stuff at some point? I'd say that it's a sign that you need to lighten the fuck up.

1:05 AM 
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Monday, January 14, 2008 

By Nick A. Zaino III Globe Correspondent

Twenty-five years ago, Bruce Springsteen released "Nebraska," a spare and haunting acoustic album that marked an about-face from his arena-rocking E Street Band work and the arrival of an earnest singer-songwriter.

In December, Robby Roadsteamer released "LRP," a spare acoustic album that marked a departure from the mock 'n' roll of his band, Roadsteamer, and the arrival of a hilariously brutal singer-songwriter.

For good measure, Roadsteamer kicks off "LRP" with "Allston City," recasting Springsteen's "Atlantic City" as a Boston suburb filled with desperate rock bands playing for unruly frat boys. The narrator sings with a broken hope that perfectly mimics the spirit of Springsteen's ode to the disenfranchised: "We're playing at O'Brien's in front of 10 people/ Honey, comp your friends and make sure they show."

The soul-crushing aspects of the Boston music scene are a major theme of "LRP" and something Roadsteamer knows too well. "I'm a comedian," says Roadsteamer. "I have nothing to lose from it, so I thought I'd be brutally honest with a lot of the stuff I experienced."

Roadsteamer has straddled the line between comedy and music for the past seven years, performing at comedy clubs with keyboard player Nick D'Amico and in rock clubs with his band. He's seen the worst of both worlds - good bands and good comedians struggling to be heard over the din of wannabes - and he's hoping they can laugh at themselves.

"I know a lot of musicians bought this album," says Roadsteamer. "If they can hear somebody actually joking around about it and making it open, I think it makes it a lot easier."

Fans will have plenty of chances to catch the act over the next month. The full band will play the Middle East Downstairs tomorrow, and Roadsteamer kicks off his first acoustic residency Monday at the All Asia in Cambridge, which will run through Feb. 11. But he'd be just as happy making albums - he recorded "The Most Pretentious Album Since Axl's" earlier this week for an April release - and forsaking more lucrative club dates.

"With me, it's more about being creative and the output," he says. "I don't need the reaction. I don't need 20 people or 40 people laughing at me constantly."

Roadsteamer, the alter ego of Louis "Robby" Potylo (hence "LRP"), started out as a heavy-metal caricature with a Hulk Hogan grumble and a Don Rickles-like knack for harassing an audience. But that image began to morph at the CD-release party for last year's "I'll Be at Your Funeral," which sold out the Paradise Rock Club. The thick mustache and heavy-metal wardrobe were gone, replaced more often with Potylo's normal speaking voice and street clothes. Now, depending on where you catch him, at a live show or cohosting Wednesday or Friday nights on WBCN, you'll get a different Roadsteamer.

"It's not like I'm alienating the character, because on 'BCN I'm still playing it the way I always have," says Roadsteamer. "During the acoustic shows I play it as myself. During full band shows, I still play the character. I give whatever I feel would be the best representation in any given situation."

3:36 PM 
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