A device that automatically controls a vehicle (aircraft, ship, land vehicle) so that it will follow a preset course. It makes suitable adjustments to the vehicle's control systems to compensate for the offsetting effects of the environment or terrain.
Automatic Pilot was a San Francisco, California band. Born in 1980 as the first "unofficial" subgroup of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, Automatic Pilot soon came into their own as an independent force, creating a niche at the fringe of the nascent gay musical movement and a new musical style.
They achieved notoriety early on with songs such as "Sit On My Face" and "Killer Purses" performed at benefits for the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, Theatre Rhinoceros, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
With an acoustic parody of punk rock as a starting point, writers Brown and McQueen incorporated elements of jazz, classical, theater and the avant-garde into somewhat twisted song structures that are both interesting and accessible.
Automatic Pilot continued to perform in San Francisco at various venues including the Castro Street Fair, the On Broadway Theater and the Valencia Rose gay performance space, venturing as far as the Chute II Bar in Reno.
The master tapes sat on a shelf until 2002 when the Automatic Pilot website was launched, with many complete recordings in mp3 and ogg format of live performances and studio works, and a detailed history. The site also features music from The AIDS Show written and performed by Brown and McQueen for the 1984 Theatre Rhinoceros production, and newly rediscovered video (in both H.264/MPEG-4_AVC and MPEG-1 format) from Automatic Pilot's December 1982 performance at the Valencia Rose.
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