Did you guess what this per­son is doing? Keep read­ing.

His name is Rob­bie Virus and, in this pho­to, he is play­ing a theremin with his San Fran­cis­co based lounge band, Project Pimen­to. They have a new CD out enti­tled “Space Age Love Songs”.

The theremin is an ear­ly elec­tron­ic instur­ment, “invent­ed in 1919 by the Russ­ian sci­en­tist Leon Theremin” and often used to cre­ate mood music in sci­ence fic­tion movies. This instru­ment is played with­out actu­al­ly touch­ing it. The loop on the side and the anten­na on top cre­ate an elec­tro­mag­net­ic field. Dis­turb­ing this field with your hands will cre­ate a tone. Mov­ing the hands clos­er and away from the met­al anten­na varies the pitch and vol­ume of that tone, not an easy instru­ment to play well.

Rob­bie is the best I’ve seen on this instru­ment, at least live. His band con­tin­ues to ride the tiki lounge wave play­ing all your favorite James Bond themes, a very cool and unique show. I also saw his name list­ed as a theremin musi­cian in the cred­its of the first Hell Boy movie.

Click here for the Project Pimen­to web site.

Click here for a Google search for theremin.

Thanks for play­ing!