Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. (“Tradition and the Individual Talent,” T.S. Eliot)
Hell is other people (No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre)
A Review of Get Set Go’s Sunshine, Joy and Happiness
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.
Blythe Tellefsen
Influences
Arlo, New Maximum Donkey, Yes Dear, Guided By Voices, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Belle and Sebastian, Weezer, Archers of Loaf, The Mr. T Experience, The Ramones, and ...crap! There's too many to list. I've been writing music for a long time, and I sorta stopped aping bands years ago. I sorta am influenced by myself, nowadays. But you'll find hints of all the above bands in music that I've written in the past, and even some in the music I'm writing today. Oh yeah, and all the bands in the Launchpad and Kiss or Kill scenes, Yo La Tengo, Pavement, Karp, um...crap, way too many. I mean, how many people influence the way you live your life? It's pretty much the same thing with me and music.
Also, here's some art beautifully hand-crafted by a friend and fan, Melissa Baley! Thank you so much, Melissa!
If you guys have any other Get Set Go related art, images, designs, banners, or what have you, always feel free to send them our way and we'll figure out someway to use them. Thank you all!
Sounds Like
Buy your Get Set Go records directly from our record label here....
Sunshine, Joy, & Happiness (Our fourth and newest album)
United States shipping ($14.98, includes free dvd!)
International Shipping ($16.98, includes free dvd!)
Please go to SquareTireMusic.com for music, blogs, and videos of Get Set Go
If you liked the blogs written by Mike TV on this MySpace page over the past three or four years, then we would suggest heading over to Square Tire. That's where all the action's happening now. Thanks so much for your love and support all of these many years.
Also, please, while you're there, check out Mike TV's new side-project, i give up. It's available for sale at the same site. We hope you like it.
So a friend of mine let me borrow your newest cd about 2 months ago and now all i do is listen to that damn CD. I have many of your songs, including that CD, on my ipod but I still just listen to that CD in my car non stop. Even when I'm in friends' cars I bring the CD and listen to it. I love every single song on it. It's soooo GREAT! You guys should definitely come to Vegas!
happy birthday MikeTV. im sure you will get better before the show. It can be stressful, but have take the day off and chill out with some Price is Right.
Your reply to my comment totally made my day. Just thought I should let you know. BTW, as it turns out, you're not the only person who can spew random nonsense. It's awesome.
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