2003.09.10 : : Mogwai - Happy Songs for Happy People

Mogwai finds 'Happy People'”I’ll tell you about punk rock. Punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies and the bodies, and the hearts and the souls, and the time and the minds of young men who give what they have to it, and give everything they have to it. And it’s a term that’s based on contempt. It’s a term that’s based in fashion, style, elitism, Satanism and everything that’s rotten about rock ‘n’ roll. I don’t know Johnny Rotten, but I’m sure he puts as much blood and sweat into what he does as Sigmund Freud did. You see, what sounds to you like a big load of trashy old noise is in fact the brilliant music of a genius, myself. And that music is so powerful that it’s quite beyond my control, and when I’m in the grips of it I don’t feel pleasure and I don’t feel pain, either physically or emotionally. Do you understand what I’m talking about? Have you ever felt like that? When you just couldn’t feel anything, and you don’t want to either. You know, like that?” -- Iggy Pop, as quoted from “Punk Rock,” the introductory track from Mogwai’s 1999 release Come on Die Young.

In a small room filled until the doors can contain no more bodies, fans eagerly await the appearance of the Scottish avant-garde band Mogwai. In the midst of the crazed fans, you stand drenched in cold sweat with your ears ringing from the deafening screams and jabber coming from all around you. But as you scan the stage, you see a floor carpeted with countless guitar pedals, most of which you have no idea as to how they serve a purpose. In that very fleeting moment of awe, the lights go out, and you are introduced to the loudest mélange of sounds that you have ever encountered, so loud that every single note rings through your body, taking you into an unearthly state of erotic bewilderment.Tonight Mogwai will bring their brand of atmospheric punk rock to Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill. The Glasgow-based quintet will introduce to the hungry fans the live interpretations of songs featured on their recent release Happy Songs for Happy People, and the favorites from the band’s previous three albums.Formed in 1996 by guitarist/vocalist Stuart Braithwaite, bassist Dominic Aitchisin, guitarist John Cummings, drummer Martin Bulloch and keyboardist/percussionist Brendon O’Hare, the group took no turns and headed straight to the studio in order to record a track for the Jetset Records compilation disc entitled Ten Rapid. Mogwai’s approach to music, much like the metaphor from which their name comes, displayed the young group’s talent to arrange unique musical skylines and mosaics. They tend to lay out delicate, yet eerie, guitar riffs and layer upon them impressive bass lines, only to crush all the bliss in the end with a jointed slashing of every note ringing through the listener’s ears.But Mogwai is not just a band that is out to create spacey overtones that tend to blow up, whether it is the amp or your sense of hearing. Mogwai has a certain edge about their music, a sense of political involvement that is countered with a hint of devious humor. Their political standings are clearly seen in the EP No Education = Future (F*** the Curfew) on which they approach the subject of the Glasgow City Council’s 9 p.m. curfew for youths. The more obvious of their politically enticed tracks are “Boring Machines Disturb Sleep” and “Ratts of the Capital,” from their recent release.

Evidence of the comedy that they incorporate into their music further displays the band’s vast sense of humor towards existence and public morals. Their name itself comes from a reference to the film Gremlins, in which tiny, cute, furry creatures turn into ghastly monsters (when they eat after midnight) that terrorize the city. This nod towards the existence of a little monster within all of us waiting to be released characterizes the style by which Mogwai approaches music. Even the titles of some of their tracks seem to produce a little chuckle, such as “Kids Will be Skeletons” and “I Know You Are But What Am I” from Happy Songs.In short, Mogwai are adolescents at heart. They show up at a show, plug in, drink beer and they play really, really loud. According to guitarist Stuart Braithwaite, “People in the audience should wear earplugs” because “the point of volume is to feel your body being shaken. Hurting people’s ears isn’t very nice -- if they put some toilet paper in their ears, that would help.”Anything less would not be expected from Mogwai. And if it was, then it would not be Mogwai, it’s as simple as that. The quintet is out to make music, and that music is going to be loud; it will also be some of the most exciting music that is made today.