Pages tagged “mgmt”

Photos taken at Webster Hall by Victoria Stevens

Okay, the band names on this list don't have to be made entirely of consonants. We let a couple of numerals sneak in because the artists were just too good to ignore, but we punished the artists for their lack of semantic ingenuity. We drew a hard line and excluded bands like CSS, because they rely on acronyms to make their name. We also excluded bands like Styx, because they suck.

On the strength of their full-length debut, Oracular Spectacular, the fellows of MGMT made a name for themselves as one of the buzziest acts to emerge from Brooklyn's indie rock hive this year. But that reputation may only be partly deserved: While co-founder and keys player Ben Goldwasser (above, left) won't deny his band's successes (they just wrapped up a tour opening for the one and only Beck, after all) he's quick to point out that their relationship to New York's hippest borough is tenuous, at best.

Goldwasser recently took a break from preparing for a night of psychedelic, candy-coated dance-rock goodness in Des Moines, Iowa, to chat with Paste:Local NYC via telephone about not actually being from Brooklyn, crazed European fans, Halloween costumes and more.

Above: Bang Camaro

Another Lollapalooza weekend has come and gone and music fans of all stripes left happy (unless, of course, they were fans of the Weakerthans, who had to cancel as a result of travel problems). Despite a record attendance of 225,000 fans, festivities and rock went on seamlessy under sun-filled skies each day. The festival's organizers outdid themselves this year with opening acts, starting the weekend out with a bang. Bang Camaro, that is. Other rising stars followed suit on days two and three with the Ting Tings belting out their infectious pop tunes (we overheard Love and Rockets' Daniel Ash mentioning that they were the only reason he was at Lollapalooza) while Austin's Octopus Project wowed us with a 500 balloon salutes and Yvonne Lambert's mesmerizing theremin skills.

Be not ashamed of your uncontrollable urge to strut whenever you hear the song "Electric Feel." Turns out MGMT really was destined for the catwalk, and not just because of the two dudes' danceable beats, but their lean-hipster-dude threads as well. Just ask Gucci's creative director, Frida Giannini. She recently dedicated her Spring 2009 menswear collection to the Brooklyn psychedelic synth-rock outfit.

Brooklyn Psych-electo-poppers MGMT have announced plans for their sophomore record. Talking with 6 Music in the U.K. (where the band is bigger than Jesus), the fellas let slip that they're planning to record their next album this coming January. The final project should be out by this time next year. In a post-Glastonbury interview, Singer Andrew Van Wyngarden said:

"We’ve been longing to get in the studio for a while because we got out of it recording our last album about a year ago. So we’re definitely ready to start working on some new stuff but I think in January we’re gonna start recording and hopefully put an album out next summer."

Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Members (L-R): Andrew VanWyngarden (vocals), Ben Goldwasser (keyboards, synthesizers, vocals)
Fun fact: When MGMT played at a local fair, they enlisted cheerleaders to dance along with the performance.
Why they’re worth watching: MGMT says its music follows “neo-psychedelic fashions,” yet asks that the word “psychedelic” not “be used to describe this music in any case.”
For fans of: Fiery Furnaces, Of Montreal, LCD Soundsystem

Sometimes eclecticism can cause a problem. In 2002, when Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser formed the wide-ranging duo MGMT (pronounced “Management”), their conflicting interests—from Bob Dylan to electro-pop—caused them to waffle on what they wanted to sound like. “We started out just playing loops on our computers and doing weird noises and stuff over them," VanWyngarden says. "Then, midway through college, we started writing more poppy songs."

After years of vacillating between experimental noise and sarcastic pop songs, MGMT hit on a way to bridge the gap between these musical extremes. Now their sound hides its complexity behind big hooks and danceable beats. “The songs are poppy and melodic, but there’s unconventional structure,” Goldwasser says. By following reflections on 9/11 with sardonic lyrics about sleeping around, even the band seems unable to tell if they’re being ironic or sincere. “They both fit there,” Goldwasser continues. “We’re still having a lot of fun with it, but at the same time we're taking on some pretty serious shit."

The mix of dance beats and clashing tones on MGMT’s debut LP, Oracular Spectacular, lends the album a woozy, disjointed feeling, like speaking with someone who knows some English but won’t let on exactly how much. “It’s kind of like being creative and being destructive—want these opposites to come forth in the music and we want it to be confusing and contradictory,” VanWyngarden says. “We wanted to agitate people a little bit but still make it so they really want to listen to it again, even though they’re annoyed. I think that we accomplished that really well.”