“Slush Puppy Love,” the first track from Makeout Videotape’s Heat Wave, is nothing short of a smack in the face of youth and enthusiasm when the chords ring in, pushing needles into the red. It’s distorted to shit because it’s recorded poorly on a laptop, but for one guitar, one floor tom and one snare drum, these two releases are quite the beachside party. Mac DeMarco’s voice goes between half-talking-half-singing and falsetto ‘Oohs’ while he’s mostly singing about young love. “You’re what I want/come surround me,” he sings on “Basketball Kids.” On Eating Like a Kid, released not even a year later, DeMarco’s expanding his vocal and song writing ranges—he goes from the surf pop of “Swim Dream” to the ’60s doo-wop of “Deborah” to the sober indie pop of “Because I’m a Boy” on which he sounds almost like one of the dudes from Grizzly Bear. He’s going in so many directions and, hell, even the recordings sound cleaner. Eating Like a Kid is going on my year-end list. That is, unless Makeout Videotape makes another two or three recordings this year. (Unfamiliar, www.areyoufamiliar.com) Taylor Benjamin Burgess
Makeout Videotape – I Guess the Lord Must Be in Vancouver
By Taylor Benjamin Burgess
After his band’s show at the Lo Pub, Mac DeMarco, the pop-sensible singer and guitarist of the duo Makeout Videotape, is listing off what he writes songs about. Once he got tired of writing about girls, he started writing about less meaningful stuff—like eating things, and his job of teaching old Vietnamese women how to use computers. Or at least that’s what he said. He turns to his drummer, Alex Calder. “I write a lot of songs about Alex too. He’s having a rough time in his life right now.”
Calder shakes his head, smiling, like he knows that he wouldn’t be able to stop DeMarco even if he tried. “No, I’m not really, but go on.”
DeMarco continues on, kind of innocently, “I dunno, he moved to Vancouver to go—”
“Jesus Christ,” Calder utters and puts his head in his hands.
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