September 24, 2008
MGMT—arguably the hottest band of 2008—is on tour with Beck and your chance to see one unforgettable show happens Thursday night as the duo hits the Abraham Chavez Theater stage. Tickets are still available here. Here’s where El Pasoans have the advantage, for while fans in Los Angeles saw this line-up at Hollywood Bowl (capacity: 18,000), the Chavez gives you an opportunity to get intimate while you rock out with these vastly popular musicians with only 2,500 other attendees.
What’s more, MGMT co-founder Ben Goldwasser loves this city. “We played one of our first shows ever in El Paso and it seemed like every one there was having a great time and really happy to see us… I don’t know why more bands don’t go to El Paso, especially since it’s right on the way east or west. It’s too bad. We love playing in places where we might not be on the radio or people might not have heard of us and, unlike in LA or New York where there’s too many bands, they’re open to and excited about new bands.”
Artists like Beck and MGMT fit in well with the multicultural, multilingual vibe of the El Paso region, where generations of experience, innovation, creativity, and diversity have meshed together into something very special, something that countless artists try hard to emulate in their work but rarely capture. Grammy-winning and highly-acclaimed Beck lets his own multicultural upbringing in Los Angeles come through in his music, which often defies genre, however poppy and technically classified as rock. Walking in his footsteps, MGMT is now being hailed as a much-needed injection of novelty into the rock scene. They’ve been written up as punk, electronica, prog rock, dance, and almost everything in between—but like their tour mate, they like to take bits of it all and mix it up into something quite new, which they refer to “Future 70’s”.
Hailing from New York, MGMT is the result of two college pals mucking about, then discovering they really did have something excellent to contribute to the world. Upon hearing the band’s EP in 2006, Columbia Records agreed and signed them to a three-record deal that came as quite a shock given their relative anonymity. Perhaps most surprised were the band members themselves, who were also given the opportunity to work with superproducer Dave Fridmann (Weezer, Café Tacuba, The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, to name a few). “While it’s been amazing and we know we’re so lucky, we never want to forget where we came from,” says Goldwasser.
The band’s first full-length album is called Oracular Spectacular and is just as bizarre as you might imagine something would be with that title. Yet there’s a lot in the sound that’s comforting and familiar, as evidenced by the heavy radio and online play tracks like “Time to Pretend”, “Kids” and “Electric Feel” are getting these days. The lyrics and feel of the songs ranges from early Pink Floyd to sultry disco to nostalgic heartache; it’s a masterful accomplishment that revels in the original rock ‘n’ roll spirit of experimentation and irreverence. Over the past year, Oracular Spectacular has garnered rave reviews from the likes of Rolling Stone, Spin and NME while modern rock legends like Radiohead and of course Beck handpicked the MGMT to support them on tour.
Technically, MGMT is just Goldwasser and co-founder Andrew Vanwyngarden, but the band has expanded to a five-piece for this tour. “It’s funny—we were playing huge festivals before we were ready to play in front of anybody,” Goldwasser says. “But we’ve got it down now.” Having been given the kind of opportunity that any musician would dream of, the boys in MGMT are trying to take it in stride, continually perfecting their craft while giving legions of newly-converted fans the chance to hear some really good music and have a blast while doing it.
And despite the hype swirling around them the past year, they’re not gonna let themselves get caught up in the giant machine of big record labels, big media and big money. What matters most is that they’re able to always be as creative as they were when they first got attention. “We don’t have any kind of big agenda or anything,” Goldwasser clarifies when speaking of frustrations they’ve encountered with “the industry”. “But we do have some ideas and we’re going to give it a try.” It’s a noble goal and MGMT so far seem to have the talent and ganas to pull it off.