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 Music for Parents (2007) REVIEWS  Thank You Captain Obvious (2004) REVIEWS  Mikey Machine (2001) |
 MACHINE GO BOOM "There's energy in this music that's something like that of a birthday party full of kids who just got their slices of cake and only ate the frosting . . . like they'd be a pretty kick ass band to see with a room full of drunk people. So, there you have it, a motto for them: drunk people or children, prepare to have fun!" -- Ear Farm MACHINE GO BOOM’s music is executed with so much energy and depth of feeling, you’d think songwriter Mikey Machine once lived on the moon, and that somehow a mix-tape had fallen to its gray surface after being loosed from a wayward satellite. And that Mikey (in his loneliness and rapt amazement) absorbed so much from a cassette’s worth of our planet’s modern pop heritage, that his own songs triumphantly encompassed and compressed that genre in its entirety -- but in a weird and extraterrestrial way. For when Mikey’s songs fell back to Earth, they became faster, more maddening, more beautiful, and more haunting than most of the music his soon-to-be Earth friends had ever heard . . . Machine Go Boom’s distorted pop inventions are a frighteningly good mix of acoustic folk balladry, amphetamine-lit punk, and synth-fed new wave. The release of Thank You Captain Obvious in 2004 was a most stunning and welcome musical event in Cleveland. Like some glowing artifact from a cartoon moon, Captain Obvious bristled and careened comically, its anthems pop-sloppy and anthemic, full of childlike wonder but disclosing nostalgia and real sadness. Cleveland’s two arts weeklies and their readers have bestowed honors upon Machine Go Boom as the city’s favorite indie band. An East Coast tour in the Fall of 2005 brought many new fans into the fold. Both Captain Obvious and the new Music for Parents were recorded by rising engineer Paul Maccarrone, who operates Zombie Proof studio in a warehouse space in midtown Cleveland. Paul uses analog equipment and a kitchen-sink approach to getting unique sounds that complement Mikey Machine’s ambitious and idiosyncratic arrangements. For Music for Parents, Machine Go Boom expanded their sonic palette to include strings, woodwinds, horns, and percussion, inviting musicians from other local bands to contribute their talents. Music for Parents plays like a scrapbook of stories about growing up: from the scary enormity of a child’s world (“Small”) through the social terrors of adolescence (“Oh My,” “Elmer’s Glue”). There are tender yet wary love letters (“800 lb. Gorilla,” “Parents”) and full-bore rockers (“Build Me a Ladder,” “Gentleman’s Reply”) that trace a youthful journey into more adult concerns: the inertia of one’s twenty-something years (“Dirty Pipes”) and disillusionment with the local rock scene and making it big (“Uh-Oh …,” “Lazy Weekend”). Fans can rest easy: the three-year wait for a new Machine Go Boom record has been worth it. Music for Parents delivers and expands upon the assured, exuberant rock we’ve all come to expect from this pop powerhouse. LISTEN ORDER MACHINE GO BOOM WEBSITE MACHINE GO BOOM MYSPACE |
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