Fluorescent Grey

Robbie Martin, also known as fluorescent grey, has had his hand in well-known hoaxes and elaborate pranks, the first of which was a track-by-track response to Coil’s electronic album Scatology. The parody album, released as an internet exclusive in 1998, featured friend and musical collaborator Ben Vanderford (also known as The Great White Hype) rapping over beats that were entirely based on melodic hooks from popular Coil songs. Following the internet-only release, Coil responded by banning Martin’s IP address, essentially banishing him from visiting their official website, a popular Coil fan site, as well as that of their record label. While Coil may not have enjoyed the parody, many of their fans did and it became a local best-seller at many San Francisco bay area record stores. A follow up record was made called '20 rap house greats', this time an homage to Throbbing Gristle. Chris Carter said he was 'glad to have the piss taken' about it.

Intrigued by the rare chemical intoxicants that Coil expressed interest in, Martin found himself experimenting with psychedelic drugs such as Dimethyl-triptamine, salvia, and other obscure hallucinogens, many of which were still legal in his home state and even readily available on the internet.

In 2001 after a prolonged psychedelic binge, Martin had a profound revelation. He became enthralled with the provocative – and no doubt, controversial – hypothesis that ancient Tibetan Buddhist mushroom cults controlled the world, acting as a shadow government in collaboration with freemasons, the illuminati, and the DEA (the Drug “Engineering” Agency). He also became convinced that Warp Records had a hand in the conspiracy as well, sending Ata of Sote out to spy on Robbie and report on his musical achievements. Martin’s proclamation of these theories led many to people to believe that Robbie was insane (which he almost certainly was).

The zenith of his psychotic break from reality, fluorescent grey performed a live concert at a large rave at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on. As the performance reached its climax, he overturned two large, cumbersome turntables, dumping the expensive equipment onto the audience, destroying them. This prompted the security guards to eject him from the venue, prohibiting him from ever playing at any corporate organized San Francisco rave in the future (a wise idea on their part).

A stint in a psychiatric hospital and a long period of musical writer’s block prompted a hiatus that was to last for over two years.

Coming out of this dark and chaotic time fluorescent grey labored on his first (well technically 4th if you count the early noise releases) full length Cd, Lying on the floor mingling with god in a tijuana motel room near a veterinary supply store.

Long after the Iraq war started and after the first hostage beheading video was released, Robbie teamed up once again with Ben Vanderford. Ben had the idea of putting up homemade fake hostage beheading video and putting it on Kaza and Soulseek to see if people would believe it. They theorized that since the media was guarding their sources, people would be forced to download the real beheading video from the internet to find it. Robbie quickly obliged and directed Ben from behind the camera to pretend like he was under duress and subsequently act like he was being beheaded with a vegetable knife. 3 months later Robbie awoke to a phone call from his mother saying "quick turn on the news, Ben is on TV". Within hours the fake beheading video had circulated the entire world news circuit thanks to the bumbling Associated Press, who without any fact checking at all, decided that the video was 100% genuine. Even Geraldo (who has a porno star mustache) chimed in on the incident scoffing "if I met these men in real life I would like to give them a good ass kicking".

Robbie later appeared on an ABC 20/20 special , BBC news, the French newspaper La Figaro and in this very fair SF chronicle article recounting the event.

This taught Robbie a very important lesson about the internet, that file sharing networks are extremely powerful and integral to the spread of information in the global community.

Using similar techniques Robbie followed up by releasing his own music over soulseek under the guise of the newest Autechre album Untitled, tricking many of Autechre's fans into thinking his own music was by the great electronic act. This caused Sean Booth to comment about his hoax in an interview where he claimed Robbie's priorities were "clearly fucked".

Now Robbie prepares to release his 3rd electronic full length album titled 'Gaseous Opal Orbs' on Dec 1st. It is the next inevitable step in the evolution of rhythmic sonic density