"Two Words Away" by Phil McGovern

"Two Words Away" by Phil McGovern

Episode 4 of Robot Roulette features one of Phil's best songs, "Two Words Away." With an odd time signature and influences that range from Depeche Mode to Sonic Youth, it almost sounds like a hard sell, but "Two Words Away" is an incredibly approachable electronic rock song with a great hook and genre shifts that were ahead of their time. Released in 2007 under the Smothered in Argyle banner, it blends odd meter, noise rock, warm synth arpeggios, and a haunting vocal. The boys listen to both the fully-produced original and an early demo that's much more challenging, and also review a few AI covers they made the day they discovered this might be a good idea for a podcast. Then, the wheel lands on reasonable genres like bluegrass and math rock, but then it lands on polka and opera, leading to a great idea for a musical. Phil insists on playing "Gore or Gump" despite Mark's protests, and there's some confusion between synthwave and vaporwave as well. Leave a comment letting us know which versions are your favorites! * Website: https://robotroulettepodcast.com * Patreon: https://patreon.com/robotroulette * Merch: https://shop.robotroulettepodcast.com/ * X: https://x.com/robot_roulette * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robotroulette/ * Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/robotroulettepodcast.com * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@RobotRoulette * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583968920581

"Moving to Silence" by Mark O'Brien

Episode 3 of Robot Roulette features the first experiment written and recorded by Mark, the 2012 energetic alt-rock track "Moving to Silence.""Moving to Silence" features a sarcastic lyric written from the point of view of the other person in one of Mark's former romantic relationships. The title comes from a self-help book Mark had the displeasure of reading where the author suggested people with communication challenges do one of two things: getting loud and angry ("moving to violence") and keeping it all inside until the hate and conflict overwhelm ("moving to silence"). Like all of Phil's tracks, this high-energy track with alt-punk elements didn't get a chance when it was released.The wheel lands on genres that produce a bit of a mixed bag this time: we make covers in styles as diverse as trap and 50's doo-wop. We finally call a double audible at the end, generating two above-average djent tracks and one (out of six) Taylor Swift versions that could easily get a billion spins in a month, if only it was really her.Leave a comment letting us know which versions are your favorites! * Website: https://robotroulettepodcast.com * Patreon: https://patreon.com/robotroulette * Merch: https://shop.robotroulettepodcast.com/ * X: https://x.com/robot_roulette * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robotroulette/ * Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/robotroulettepodcast.com * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@RobotRoulette * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583968920581

"That Day" by Phil McGovern

Episode 2 of Robot Roulette features another song from Phil, this time released twice for two different projects in drastically different styles. Phil's beautiful early-2000s ballad "That Day" is about longing after loss, and was originally imagined as acoustic guitar and vocals only. But during the late-2000s Smothered in Argyle project, it was reimagined as a faster, louder emo-punk banger. Despite the drastic style shift, its simple structure and impressionistic lyric works perfectly in both examples. But will it survive the Roulette? This episode's wheel lands on genres as disparate as djent and circus music. After it lands on Celtic, Phil calls an audible and they do both types of Celtic, the traditional kind and the Enya kind. And the latter takes them, predictably, to the bottom of the sea. Leave a comment letting us know which versions are your favorites! * Website: https://robotroulettepodcast.com * Patreon: https://patreon.com/robotroulette * Merch: https://shop.robotroulettepodcast.com/ * X: https://x.com/robot_roulette * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robotroulette/ * Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/robotroulettepodcast.com * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@RobotRoulette * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583968920581

"Death of Cafmo" by Phil McGovern

On this first episode, we're looking at Phil McGovern's mid-2000s quirky, idiosyncratic song "Death of Cafmo." But before we make any covers, we need to tell everyone how we got here. Mark and Phil discuss the origins of Mark's early experiments with Udio, which resulted in a meme for Mark's lost media hunting show Is This Anything?, and the story of a fateful night in November 2025 when Mark and Phil were supposed to just work on a piece of music and ended up learning of Suno's ability to make covers. After getting blocked uploading popular music to make the same sort of covers he was seeing on YouTube, Mark threw one of Phil's songs into it, intending to make a stupid cover for a quick laugh, but neither one of them expected the results would actually be good."Cafmo" is a pretty but peculiar impressionistic song about a woman who escapes a bad situation, and draws inspiration from indie rock, prog, and art rock. After Mark and Phil tell the origin story, we hear the covers they made that night, and then the real show begins: spinning the wheel results in covers from techno to metal to Celtic to two stellar 80s pop covers.Leave a comment letting us know which versions are your favorites! * Website: https://robotroulettepodcast.com * Patreon: https://patreon.com/robotroulette * Merch: https://shop.robotroulettepodcast.com/ * X: https://x.com/robot_roulette * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robotroulette/ * Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/robotroulettepodcast.com * TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@RobotRoulette * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583968920581