I don’t have to be on that bus, I thought, sitting down at a cafe. I can drop the whole thing, slam cappuccinos till happy hour, then get smashed at a bar.

“You know, 80 per cent of success is not showing up,” he said. “For the bullshit, that is.”

THE ANDROID REBELLION BY NICOLAS GATTIG 34MAG 53

Bossman moved his massivity in the upholstered chair. As he was thinking, his fingers drummed on the desk in a loop of mogul impatience.

“He can’t play the song? That’s ass-cake.”

“Sometimes he mutters under his breath. Like he’s saying bobos.”

“Say what?”

“You know—dudes in the suburbs who think they are punk.” Steve Drt looked sheepishly round the throne room, the inner sanctum of G-nome Records, all glass and views up in the Embarcadero Center.

“What did Scoff say about this?”

“He’s in Wisconsin, hunting. Didn’t make it to practice.”

“Where does the bot get this stuff? He’s wired to play drums and keep his mouth shut.”

hERB had joined the band two years back—#heisthemetal was the hashtag on social media, dreamed up by Bossman like everything else—but still people asked, “So does the synthetic know he is a synthetic?” Of course, he did. We had no wish fo…