The Wall Street Journal-20080118-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Adviser -- Music- A College Band-s Unlikely Climb- Spacey rock group MGMT has gone from a daffodil festival to network TV
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Adviser -- Music: A College Band's Unlikely Climb; Spacey rock group MGMT has gone from a daffodil festival to network TV
By today's rock standards, the duo MGMT is outlandish. They sing cheerfully about hunting for food after an apocalypse. They sported wizard cloaks during a recent performance on David Letterman. And their spacey dance-rock, nodding to David Bowie and other shamans of the 1970s, is awash in hallucinogenic imagery.
Stranger still: At a time when music companies are desperate for hits, MGMT was signed by a major record label that hadn't seen the band perform live.
MGMT's accidental path to the spotlight hinged on luck and youthful inspiration -- and time spent at a liberal arts college. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden met as freshmen in the class of 2005 at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Conn. They formed a band that played half-serious sets at parties but, except for a gig at a nearby daffodil festival, rarely performed beyond Wesleyan. (First known as "management," the band now uses the acronym to avoid legal issues with another group with that name.)
By senior year, they were uncertain about their next step in life. Mr. VanWyngarden skewered his pre-graduation ambivalence in a song called "Time to Pretend," a tongue-in-cheek fantasy about eluding a 9- to-5 destiny in favor of rock-star excess. After graduating with bachelor degrees in music, the men made no plans to pursue MGMT. Mr. VanWyngarden moved to Brooklyn looking for work, and Mr. Goldwasser, an avid hiker, headed into the mountains of upstate New York.
During their senior year, MGMT had released a six-song collection on an independent label. Through an intern, it found its way to Columbia Records, which signed MGMT to a contract in fall 2006. "They were out there and edgy, but at the core of the music they had a strong sense of pop writing," says Maureen Kenny, the A&R representative who recruited the band. "The sure thing doesn't exist anymore. We need to establish the future legacy artists of the label."
To produce the group's first album, Columbia hired Dave Fridmann, known for his work with the Flaming Lips. And traces of that rock group's eccentricity and bombast can be heard on MGMT's "Oracular Spectacular." "Weekend Wars" alternates the psychedelia of Pink Floyd with the swagger of T. Rex. On keyboards, Mr. Goldwasser delivers walloping organ chords on "Time to Pretend." It's a song that's taken on new meaning since Mr. VanWyngarden, the lead singer, wrote it as a student. "It's like the real world was sneaking up on us, and we got in a car and drove away from it," he says.
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Pages:
Mailbombing 101
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A look inside a new novel by Susan Choi
'A Person of Interest,' (Viking) the third novel by Susan Choi, tells the story of Lee, a math professor at the tail end of his career whose life is upended after a colleague is injured by a mail bomb. Excerpts:
Page 3
It was only after Hendley was bombed that Lee was forced to admit to himself just how much he'd disliked him: a raw, never-mined vein of thought in an instant laid bare by the force of explosion.
Page 12
"Could it have been a mistake?" one of the policemen asked keenly. "Maybe there's someone else at the school you think might have been the real target for this?" This was before the FBI had arrived and brusquely shunted the locals onto the sidelines.
"Who would want to kill us?" Lee asked weakly. "We're only professors. We don't do anything."
Page 176
"So this individual, the person who wrote you this letter, he considers you an enemy. He intensely dislikes you. Is that what you're saying, Professor?"
Lee noticed that Morrison, too, had returned to a more formal mode of address. "Yes," he answered.
"Can you explain why that is?"
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Datebook
Friday 18th
"American Idol" star Kelly Clarkson shares the stage in Louisville, Ky., with Reba McEntire on a monthlong "2 Worlds 2 Voices" tour.
Saturday 19th
The work of R. Crumb, Will Eisner and more than a dozen other artists is featured in the ongoing "LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel" at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., through May 26.
Sunday 20th
On cable channel AMC's new series "Breaking Bad," Bryan Cranston (the daffy dad on "Malcolm in the Middle") stars as a desperate high- school chemistry teacher who helps turn an RV into a meth lab. Biting humor and (bleeped) language are part of AMC's bid to become the HBO of basic cable.
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Opening Today
'Cloverfield,' a new monster movie co-produced by 'Lost' creator J.J. Abrams, hits theaters nationwide
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