A Tale Of Two Zoids – Or How A Simple Review Of Acoustic Aphex Twin Covers Ended Up Triggering Repressed Childhood Toy-Based Trauma

It’s funny, I’ve read three articles just in this past week about how the death of music writing is inevitable. Now I’m starting to worry this article might be the final nail in its coffin.  

This might well be the weirdest thing I’ve published here but fukkit, going to put it live anyway.

See, I had originally intended this to be included in the January roundup, a simple one paragraph review but I wound up getting sidetracked in dramatic fashion.

I had planned to tell you about a new discovery of mine, a producer called Daniel Jacobson, recording under the alias ZOiD.

I became aware of him thanks to a recent release of his, an EP of Aphex Twin covers. Hardly a new concept, I’ve come across lots of Aphex covers before, but the fact that they acoustic guitar Aphex Twin covers piqued my curiosity.

So I checked out his Bandcamp, which done the usual random shuffle thing before 5 seconds of his Alberto Balsam cover triggered this reaction…

On finding out he was Irish, well, even better, because if you read this regularly you already know I’ll always go out of my way to mór suas talented Irish producers creating exciting and original music.

Digging deeper I discover more about this idiosyncratic artist who lists Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Mills and Django Reinhart among his influences and creates a broad spectrum of music that defies categorisation.

Which can often prove problematic, especially in the age of the almighty algorithm.

Doesn’t help either that this is Ireland. And contrary to popular belief, the Irish aren’t the rebellious lot we he’d have you believe and generally prefer to play things safe.

The fact that we literally try to sell you sell sheep memorabilia in the airport giftshop should be a dead giveaway.

Sheep are nice and docile, they’re easily classified, keep their heads down and stay within their simple, four bar enclosures until they’re ready to be turned into tasty chops and lovely wolly jumpers.

A good sheep would never dream of spooking the rest of the flock with acid tweaking George Benson modular mashups or inconceivably exotic tracks that sound like a head-on collision between Herbie Hancock, Homogenic and Hardfloor.  

But this ZOiD ain’t for shearing.

Too technoy for jazztown, to jazzy for technotown, ZOiD found his music often alienated the purists on both sides, which is a good thing though, because scene purists and genre police are insufferably tedious bastards at the best of times.

Jazz aficionados (there’s really no other word for them) have a tendency to look down on all other forms of music as inferior and crass. So they perch King Kong style at the apex of the intellectual snob pyramid swiping at anyone that encroaches their headspace.

That’s not to say that all jazz fans are like that, but in my experience jazz fans are obsessed with the music to the exclusion of all else. And even the friendliest ones will eventually succumb to their intrinsic need to test your knowledge of esoteric sax players, lopsided time signatures and augmented diminished subspace anomalised seventh chord progressions.

Whereas an increasing number of techno fans of late seem to have developed a fanatical aversion to all forms of syncopation. These are the guys (always guys) who insist they’re into real techno. They always travel in packs can be spotted at festivals wearing matching Drumcode tshirts and baseball hats.

In their minds jazz has no business being anywhere near techno, which is news to Juan Atkins, not to mention Jeff Mills, Dave Angel, John Beltran… techno pioneers who insist that jazz has always been a crucial part of techno’s DNA.

And that’s before I start talking about other electronic legends like LTJ Bukem, 4 Hero and Squarepusher…

Because for me, the most interesting music is the stuff that doesn’t really fit into any group.

Same rule applies with people.

Hey Kids, Remember Zoids?

Now, here’s the part where a one-paragraph review has turned into an epic post of pure nonsense.

See, Zoids were toys from the 1980s which I was obsessed with as a child, as they combined my love of robots with my childhood obsession with dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.

Only problem is, they were pure shite. I mean, sure, they looked badass on the box, but the actual products were terrible.

My original plan was to make a “hey, remember Zoids?” joke and then segue into the review only to realise the answer would invariably be no.

I’ve no idea whether or not ZOiD took his name from these toys or not but I was going to use the gag anyway.

For it to make any sense, I realised I’d have to explain what Zoids were, thinking I’d be able to do so in a couple of lines.

Then I must have blacked out as an autonomic psychological gag reflex prompted me to regurgitate a page and a half of deeply repressed childhood frustrations aimed at these brilliantly designed but infuriatingly shoddy little toys.

I fell into a rant trance and wrote over a thousand words without realising. I finally came to when I hit a stumbling block, trying to remember the name of one of the toys, then spent the next hour Googling the damn things while listening to more tracks from ZOiD’s back catalogue.

Music that, I should mention, spans a huge range of styles from experimental electronica to vocal house, synth pop to to acid jazz – and lots more stuff that doesn’t fit in anywhere.

In doing so I discovered this equally damning inditement of the toys penned by the great Terry Pratchett – which, after writing a long rant about the things myself, was reassuring in a way, least I wasn’t alone.

I then pissed away more time looking for images to include on this post, gave serious consideration to buying a Zoidzilla off ebay just so I could finally feel like a bigshot (I’ll buy him for my birthday) then stayed up till silly o’clock in a nostalgia stupor because I discovered some heroic nerd uploaded all the issues of the Marvel Zoids comic.

Looking at the results the next morning – fuck!

No review done, just me ranting about shit about plastic toys from the 80s, then an idea.

💡I know! I’ll write the review as normal and just tack the Zoid rant at the end, and, to keep things interesting, I’ll just break the whole thing up by adding in more more ZOiD tunes!

And voila! The future of music writing is saved!

So now, because it turns out I really, really need to get this out of my system (maybe it’s the psychological breakthrough I need, let’s talk about Zoids.

“Monster Machines With The Power To Move”

That was the tagline, incidentally, though it didn’t take long before my younger self devised a more accurate tagline, “monster machines with the power to break.”

It was my first step towards a lifetime of cynicism.

I now recognise the genius of the Zoids slogan. It was a clever way of saying each kit came equipped with the potential for movement, but that basic propulsion was never guaranteed, merely implied.

Zoids generally moved with the same dynamism that overpriced moisturising creams exhibit while fighting the seven signs of aging. (In a fight between the two, my money’s on the moisturiser.)

Kudos to whoever done the photography and artwork though, they certainly looked the part on the box. And every time I saw a new one, despite the toys being an endless parade of disappointment, I kept blowing my pocket money on them because the new box looked “coooooool!”

Course every so often the gods of Zoidstar would smile on me and I’d get one that managed to operate as intended, triggering a juvenile version of the gambler’s fallacy. 

The original line of toys consisted of different kits of various prehistoric-themed robots from two warring factions, the mighty Blue Zoids led by Zoidzilla (a giant mecha T-rex bristling with weapons) and the villanous Red Zoids, who were the baddies because they were red and so obviously that meant they were commies.

Essentially, Zoids were overpriced lucky bags with kits you had to self-assemble. More often than not, the “power to move” came in the form of tiny wind-up motors or, if your parents were rich, you got one of the larger, more exorbitant battery powered Zoids.

In either case, because Zoids were poorly manufactured using cheaply moulded plastic, once assembled, Zoids would generally do one (or a combination) of the following:

• Initiate its self-destruct sequence and spontaneously collapse.
• Wobble slightly, fall over and break apart.
• Walk on the spot but not advance until prodded repeatedly.
• Take three steps before self-decapitating.
• Walk in circles before one of its legs falls off.
• Sit motionless until unobserved then commit suicide by walking off the table.

In most cases the Achilles heel of Zoids was their reliance on rubber washer bits that were meant to hold them together, but which never seemed quite the right fit.

Too tight and the machine stayed motionless, too loose and the vibrations would tear the mechanism apart.

There were also a couple of aquatic Zoids made especially for bathtime. I had one which resembled a manta ray that flapped his flimsy (wings? fins?) plastic flaps for a few seconds, before tearing itself asunder as its washers popped, flailing spasmodically and plunging into the sudsy abyss.

At least in Japan they were honest and named the toy “Sinker”.

Another skill all Zoids had was camouflage.

Red or blue it scarcely mattered, leave them on the floor for barely a second and they were guaranteed to be trampled on.

If you were lucky, you might be able to scavenge the hapless Zoid for parts.

My obsession with these toys was further fuelled by a Marvel comic series.

The Zoids comic was originally a cynical tie-in tacked on the end of Spider Man comics, hocking plastic crap as an extra revenue stream.

But the project was given to a then up-and-coming Grant Morrison who turned what should have been a few pages of shameless merchandising into a mesmerising sci-fi epic full of nihilistic machines, psychotic androids and increasingly paranoid humans.

Meanwhile the artwork of each issue also evolved in the same way, so what was originally intended as a colourful jape about robot dinosaurs (“kaboom!”) gradually crept more and more towards pure childhood nightmare fuel. 

The reality of Zoids could never hope to compete with that world.

In the end all that was left were little rubber washer bits for chewing on and an army of little android pilots that continue to show up in random drawers for decades after. 

Still, these infuriating lumps of janky plastic done a fantastic job of preparing me for the myriad disappointments of adult life, ever the thrill of anticipation inevitably followed by the ineptly crafted reality.

They were boot camp for living in late stage capitalism and its endless cascade of failing technology.

Where every action becomes a transaction, an endless bitter dance between desire and disappointment.

A world where I need a machete to hack through the multifarious layers of my food packaging but binbags instantly prolapse on the kitchen tiles when I place more than 2 grams of rubbish in them.

A world of nose hair trimmers that can’t trim nose hair, toothbrushes that go bald after three days while snippy little algorithms measure how much extra air to fill up crisp packets every year.

Poorly designed and motionless, self-decapitating plastic robots also helped prepare me for a future of gutted public services, algorithmic digital gatekeepers and self-service checkouts with some assembly required, download the app, register on our website and be sure to fill out the forms carefully. That way responsibility of failure falls to you, because clear instructions were previously provided.

A monstrous society with the power to move, where we’re all easily wound up but have no forward momentum, either walking in circles or gradually falling apart.

And I ain’t much different honestly.

I’m doing my best to lurch forward like the rest of yee but I can feel the little rubber washers in my brain starting to detach already.

Any minute now my head’s going to roll forward slowly and the little android at the controls is in danger of flying through the cockpit.

The only thing preventing it right now is music, crazy, weird and deliciously interesting music.