Neurotic and the PVCs  will play to an audience comprising people and 2-metre tall pogo-ing robots.  Fiddian Warman leads the, broadly, autobiographical, Neurotic project.  The robots will 'listen' to records from Fiddian's punk record collection before he takes to the stage to front Neurotic and the PVCs to try and entertain the combined human and robot audience.  Andrew Tweedie (ex-Menace guitarist) has formed Neurotic with Chris Bashford (Chelsea drummer) and Robert Bartram (Chester bass player).  The Punk Voice Choir (PVCs) will join Neurotic to new musical dimensions and force to the performance.

Following preparatory gigs at Wild at Heart (Berlin) and the 12-Bar Club (London's venue for unsigned punk bands) the gigs at the ICA are scheduled for 3, 4 and 5 April 2008 (come back to this site to check the dates). It is hoped that Neurotic, followed by a hopefully loyal robot audience, will tour the UK and some European venues.

About the robots: the robots are mechanically quite simple.  They are 2-metre high pogoers with a rubber inflatable bust.  However, the computing that drives the 'bots to pogo is far from simple.  It uses neural-network programming that is intended to give the robots 'taste'.  They will be played classic punk tracks from Fiddian's record collection before the gigs.  This is where they get their 'taste'.  Then Neurotic play to the robots, about 5 or 6 of them in an normal audience, to see if they like Neurotic's brand of punk music.  They may or may not 'like' Neurotic, or the support acts for that matter.  The development of the robots networks is funded by the Wellcome Trust.  Fiddian is leading the development of the programming with professor Peter McOwan (Queen Mary College, University of London) and Jons Jones Morris completing the conceptualization and coding of the networks.

Please feel free to use this blog to air thoughts about whether a machine can develop taste in music - or whether you think a machine can perceive music (rather than just sound) at all.