Machine Go Boom 'Music for Parents' album

Machine Go Boom creates enjoyable, eclectic, and hooky indie pop. Such a statement may hold true for a lot of bands out there at the moment, but Machine Go Boom's sound is something completely new, yet still very familiar. It's music that should have been created by now-- it feels refreshing and long overdue. Songwriter and frontman Mikey Machine has been producing his unique brand of homemade pop for quite a while, and shows his talent and genius for handcrafted tunes with pop sensibilities. Music for Parents presents a relentlessly addictive collection of brilliant and mostly upbeat tunes that are certain to become indie hits and classics. While the album's title may indicate the songs are intended for a more mature audience, these tunes are made for you kids in the indie world. Give this disc a listen now-- before your friends tell you about it.

Biography
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...

CLEVELAND, OHIO: Wunderkind Mikey Machine dabbled in recording school in his teens, and armed only with a 4-track, acoustic guitar, and some pots and pans, self-released his feverish debut Mikey Machine in 2001. His infectious melodies and strange songs soon brought ever-increasing crowds of drunken friends and curious strangers to see him perform at open mic nights and at several of Cleveland's premier rock venues. So then Mikey formed a band with some good friends. They took the name Machine Go Boom and made the rounds at rock clubs and house parties throughout Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Mikey's distorted pop inventions -- a frighteningly good mix of acoustic folk balladry, amphetamine-lit punk, and synth-fed new wave - stood apart from a lot of Rust Belt rock, and word spread very quickly.

Machine Go Boom's 2004 release Thank You Captain Obvious was a most stunning and welcome arrival in Northeast Ohio. Like some glowing artifact from a cartoon moon, the album bristled and careened comically, its anthems pop-sloppy and anthemic, full of childlike wonder but disclosing nostalgia and sadness.

Since the release of Captain Obvious, Machine Go Boom have made children dance and housewives cry in every town they've played. Cleveland's two arts weeklies and their readers have repeatedly bestowed honors upon Machine Go Boom as the city's favorite indie band, and a recent East Coast tour (performing with the likes of Elf Power) brought many new fans into the fold.

The new record is called Music for Parents, and it plays like a scrapbook of memories of growing up: from the scary enormity of a kid'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 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").

Captain Obvious and the new record Music for Parents were recorded by rising Cleveland 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, Mikey broadened his sonic palette to include strings, woodwinds, horns, and percussion, inviting musicians from other local bands to play on some tracks.

Fans can rest assured that 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.

"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

"Once you're chuckling, deep in the task of puzzling out Machine Go Boom's sonics and asides, the emotion of the songs will ambush you utterly." -Zapruder Point

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Machine Go Boom - Music for Parents