Illbotz: The Best Band You've Never Heard of That Reminds Me of Bobby Jimmy & the Critters

A rock-solid claim on my part, as this awesome Roanoke Times profile of the band and rapping co-frontman Stevie D (who looks a bit like Ewen Bremmer) attests:

During the day Stephen Davies works at the Brandon Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center where he is the activities director. Some residents... are unaware of his night gig as a rapper. Others think he's doing "African chants," he says.

[Ellipsis]

In "1000 Shades of Awesome" he raps about "doing the sexity sexity" (and rhymes the word "scrotum" with "quote him"). Illbotz work in parody. "Chick-Fil-A" is set to the Beatles song "Yesterday." "We Mo' Gangstalikish" and "It's Illbotic" spoof self-aggrandizing rap songs.

$8 gets you the new Illbotz disc at their homepage here. Check out their MySpace page, in which they cite as influences -- among others -- Dr. Demento, The Smiths, LL Cool J (though only "up until '93"), Skid Row, Richard Hell, and Tiny Tim here.

Illbotz got me thinking about the great Bobby Jimmy & the Critters. YouTube has a hysterical Jheri-curled video of Russ Parr (aka Bobby Jimmy) whooping it up for the camera in 1985 here. More info here. Get Bobby Jimmy stuff on eBay here.

An aside: Google can't answer this important question. Can you?