The Very Best of Get Set Go - Get it FREE at eMusic!
I can actually say I was there when the first “Get Set Go” demo came into the office. Truth be told, they had a different name then but it didn’t matter. My boss, Ben Vaughn, put the CD into the deck and cranked up the volume. What came out was fairly rough but you could hear the energy in the songs right away. Not even a hastily recorded demo could tame Mike TV’s voice. I knew that first album was going to be amazing. They ended up cutting tracks at a hole-in-the-wall studio nearby on Lincoln Boulevard in a part of Venice that looked a lot rougher than you’d expect in a beach town. But Venice is like that, seemingly quaint on one hand but full of harsh realities of life on the other. Get Set Go’s music mirrored that exactly. The hooks were melodic as hell and the lyrics cut you to shreds. The first time I heard the rough mix of “Mattress” I was totally blown away. Here was a band that wasn’t going to pull any punches. I thought “So You’ve Ruined Your Life” was brilliant and I’ve been a Get Set Go fan from day 1. This kind of rock and roll is essential to my sanity and I hope after hearing it you’ll feel the same way as well.
*of course you could use those 35 song downloads on something other than Get Set Go, but really, what’s the point in that?
- Risk-free two week trial.
- No DRM,
- No complicated restrictions.
- Works with any MP3 player.
- Quit before 14 days and still keep your 35 songs! Really!
SUNSHINE, JOY & HAPPINESS - A Tragic Tale of Death, Despair and other Silly Nonsense.
Get Set Go’s latest release, Sunshine, Joy and Happiness is for people for whom these things remain elusive. Think of this CD as an existentialist manifesto for people who chose to be losers in a world that continues to bewilder them.
I have been told that I am a “Lyric Whore,” and I suspect that Mike TV, lead singer and lyricist for the band, is as well. Get Set Go continues with this CD to combine “pop” sound (albeit with the unusual and haunting addition of a cello) with lyrics that usually remain just at the edge of a suicide note.
Sunshine, Joy and Happiness articulates the confusion and despair of people who love and think intensely, but who always remain observers – both tangled up in love, desire, fear and hate – whilst simultaneously, acutely aware that they play “a part in murdering the couple that we used to be” (Crazy Over You). If this band has a problem, it is the inescapable problem of the intellectual, of “someone whose mind watches itself” (Camus). One feels, but one cannot stop thinking. The person is always aware of himself/herself as a player on the world’s stage – and feels compelled to sing about it.
No song articulates this dilemma better than Hell On Earth which opens with the sounds of a busy schoolyard – something that will send the true Get Set Go fan into a tizzy of nostalgic despair (as Faulkner says, “the past ….is not even the past”). Clearly echoing Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Side, Hell On Earth celebrates more ordinary outcasts like “Suzy [who] thought she was ugly/And Harold [who] knew that he smelled strange.” Here, the band reminds us that all there is, is here, and here:
You will be made to suffer
And that they will treat you rougher
And you will learn
That you were made to burn
And you like it rougher
Because it makes you tougher.
Any listener who grew up intelligent and alone will recognize him/herself in this song. But lest we feel too proud of our outcast status, the band reminds us in another song reminiscent of schoolyard nursery rhymes, that “Everyone’s a liar” (You’ll Look Beautiful As You Burn). To tell one’s story, according to Get Set Go, is to lie. Few people want to understand this.
I tend to listen to Get Set Go while drinking alone in my kitchen, and I know the band would understand perfectly. After all,
I would like a drink
To keep me from thinking
Of all the things that I once had
But oh its that drink
I think that is what made
All of these things turn from good to bad.
(The Trouble With Being Poor)
Addiction, failure, deranged love affairs, suicide – this is Get Set Go’s milieu. To understand them, one must understand what it is to love those whom one should not love, to desire what one knows one should not desire, to long for all that one despises, to try to escape what one cannot forget.
Or, in other words, one must possess the kind of intelligence that F. Scott Fitzgerald defined as “the ability to hold two opposing ideas in one’s mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function” (The Crack-Up). Today’s world does not encourage this kind of intelligence; I am not sure that any society ever has. And this is why, perhaps, that Get Set Go remains on the margins of success. It is a mark of their genius, and of their pilgrim souls, that they continue to remain there.
-review by Blythe Tellefsen
SELLING OUT & GOING HOME
Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Britain gave birth to progressive rock. Nestling in that genre’s arms were a slew of bands that could rock with the best of them, but were also beholden to English folk. As American’s knowledge of that latter style was limited to “Greensleeves” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair.” Which is good, because otherwise Get Set Go wouldn’t sound anywhere near as audacious and unique as they do. On their debut album, the group seemed headed for a home in the power pop scene, but then they threw a spanner in the works with their punk-meets-folk follow-up. However, the music on that sophomore set was almost secondary to the album’s overwhelmingly personal themes, as Mike TV bared his soul, foibles, and terrible failings for all the world to see. Now, with their third album, Selling Out and Going Home, Get Set Go seamlessly blend together all those styles and a bit more for good measure. So deft is the sequencing that the songs glide effortlessly from genre to genre, reinforcing the connections between them. Starting with a classic rock sound, they bring in folk elements, slide into a breezier ’60s style, slip into melodic punk, fall back into early rock & roll but with a decidedly country flair, countrify pop-punk, folkify pop/rock, shift across power pop, post-punk, synth pop/rock, and speed punk, and pull up into alt folk before finishing the set off with a bright ’60s-styled, folksy popper. Some of the numbers are straightforward in their genre, but many mix in elegant strings, folky fiddle, and a variety of other elements to smudge the style. The arrangements are inspired, the performances flawless, while the moods constantly shift across the set. The themes follow a similar evolution, working their way from the romantic to the sexy and into the obsessive, fearful, jealous, and pitiful in poverty. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to recognize that at times Mike TV is substituting sex and love for drugs; hey, when he compares his girl to heroin, he’s rubbing our noses in it. But his own problems have made him sensitive to others’, and he reaches out to comfort the hurt and warn the alienated. There’s a clutch of angst themed songs, with the anthemic “Thirteen,” in particular, a rallying cry for every disgruntled youth in the land. Anger spews forth here and there, as do a few raunchy numbers, but unlike the songs on Ordinary World, the lyrics are far more universal. Get Set Go aren’t the first band to reach back into the past and into other genres for inspiration, but their mixture is thoroughly unique, and the appeal is already self-evident. Ordinary World rocketed them to fame, but as good as that was, Going Home leaves that World in the dust.
ORDINARY WORLD
A lot has gone down in the Get Set Go camp since the release of their 2003 debut, So You’ve Ruined Your Life. First off, except for leader Mike TV, the entire band has been overhauled. And most serious of all, TV battled a serious drug addiction during the interim period. As a result, Get Set Go’s sophomore full-length effort, Ordinary World, is an incredibly introspective record, as TV has opted to go the “autobiographical route” in his lyrics (especially when he talks about “smoking black” on “Get Thru the Day” and “drinking Drano” on “Suicide”). Also, Get Set Go opt to forgo the pop-punk sound of their debut in favor of more stripped-down, mostly acoustic-based approaches (akin to their heroes, the Violent Femmes). But TV’s wit, quirkiness, and snappy melodies are all still present (along with his often warbling vocals), as evidenced on such tracks as “I Hate Everyone” and “Lift Me Up.” Sometimes it takes a band several releases to mature musically and take a bold step. In Get Set Go’s case, it took two albums, three years, and as reflected in the majority of the songs’ lyrics, a lot of hard living.
SO YOU’VE RUINED YOUR LIFE
Get Set Go specialize in a style that is equal parts Weezer (their love of snappy guitar-driven pop) and the Violent Femmes (their quirky lyrics), as evidenced by their 2003 full-length debut, So You’ve Ruined Your Life. The group is essentially singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mike TV, who is joined by a revolving cast on-stage and in the studio — usually musicians who are part of their local Highland Park, CA, scene. While they’ve been known to also play largely acoustic-based tunes, So You’ve Ruined Your Life focuses on primarily melodic rock. Some may be quick to lump Get Set Go in with influx of pop-punk bands of the late ’90s/early 21st century, there’s certainly something more “left of center” about this lot, as evidenced by such song titles as “Jesus Christ Wore Leather,” as well as such up-tempo standouts as “Twenty One,” “One with the Numbers,” and “VKFD (The Fire Truck Song).” While the majority of the album is an adrenaline rush, the group surprisingly opts to close the album on a mellow note, with “What I Love About You” (which includes some very interesting lyrics) and “Wait” (no, not a cover of the White Lion song of the same name). Get Set Go prove that not all pop-punk has to sound like Good Charlotte.
Powered by FireStats
You must be logged in to post a comment.