Artists
who's who and who's doing what?GET SET GO!
Line up
- Colin Schlitt (bass, vocals)
- Dave Palamaro (drums)
- Eric Summer (viola, vocals)
- Jim Daley (guitar, vocals )
- Mike TV (guitar, vocals)
- country:USA
- region:North America
- style(s):Blues Rock
- label:TSR Records
- type:Band
- gender:male
- instrumentation:instrumental, vocal
- artist submitted by:
On the surface, it's easy to be fooled by the Los Angeles outfit Get Set Go. The music is often quirky and upbeat, and singer/guitarist Mike TV is certainly known for throwing the odd/humorous lyric at you from time to time. But dig a bit deeper on their new record, Ordinary World (TSR Records), and you'll be surprised. Mike has opted to tell his topsy-turvy life story of the past year and a half, warts and all, as evidenced by such tracks as "Get Thru the Day", "Stay Away", and "My Wasted Life."
"There was a point in time that I was dealing with a lot of personal issues. A lot of self-loathing because of bad choices I had made. There was like a scene inside the scene of maybe five or six bands, which formed this little community. And that crew, we all started partying together six or seven years ago, and it just accelerated completely out of control." explains Mike. The scene he speaks of sprang from Los Angeles club Mr. T's Bowl, which Mike coincidentally booked. Tuesday nights became a popular event featuring some of the best indie-rock/indie-pop bands in the Los Angeles area. Amongst the show-goers it fostered a fierce loyalty, and the bands who played the club were often the primary patrons. LA insiders began to refer to the pop revivalists as the "Launchpad Scene." "We had to call it something," Mike TV joked. When Mr. T's was temporarily shut down due to the "Great White" scare in 2003, many of the Launchpad bands, including Get Set Go, migrated over to the burgeoning Kiss Or Kill scene. Eventually, the Kiss or Kill night moved to the Echo and took up a Tuesday night residence, carrying on in the Mr. T's tradition. Other upcoming artists from this group of LA-based musicians include Go Betty Go, Maxeen and BANG sugar BANG.
Whilst tackling his personal demons, Mike began recording his troubles and woes in song. "There was all of this really dark lyrical content, and we thought, these songs are different from anything else we've done before, but they work right in line with the stuff that was on the first record." The band's promising debut, So You've Ruined Your Life, went surprisingly unnoticed in mainstream music circles. It did, however, catch the attention of music supervisors (Get Set Go's songs have appeared multiple times on TV shows Grey's Anatomy and Jack & Bobby) and tapped-in radio programmers. Those inroads gave them the financial freedom to continue making music full-time. Mike continues, "and because the lyrics are so dark, let's make this record as beautiful as we can, and document this past year. There were 64 songs written between the first record and the second record. So what we did is take the more autobiographical songs of the 64, and decided to build a snapshot of what was going on over that past year. It turned out there were about 21 of those songs. So we thought, "Let's see if we can pack a CD from beginning to end - just cram it full."
As a result, Ordinary World recalls the enormous bodies of work created by Guided By Voices and Wilco - bands that knew how to give fans the most bang for their buck. "That was one of my justifications - I knew there were bands that had done this before. Bands like Wilco put out a double record on their second album - so there's a precedent for people putting out longer records. I'm a pretty prolific songwriter and as long as we've got good songs, I'd like to reward people for putting the money up."
Although influenced by the likes of the Pixies, Jesus & Mary Chain, the Ramones, Mr. T Experience, and Weezer, Mike admits that Get Set Go's latest sounds very little like the aforementioned bands. "I was very apprehensive when we first started. Because I write so many songs, I put together these acoustic demos that I record in my house. And whenever I write maybe ten or fifteen songs, I'll just burn a CD of the newest stuff, and hand it off to friends - just to get some feedback. People said they liked the acoustic songs more than the full band interpretations. They thought there was an intimacy that they weren't getting when they saw us live. We decided to go with very little electric guitar, and just try to power the record with drums and bass, and other alternative instrumentation. It was really a scary experience for the first couple of weeks we were working on it, because it sounded so different than the stuff I'd done before."
With a new album, the road is beckoning for Mike and his band mates. "When the record comes out, I'm hoping to keep us on the road as much as possible, I've even been looking into converting our van to run on vegetable oil," Mike says, half-kidding. Also, expect Get Set Go to add a whole new dimension to the new tunes on stage. "Right now, we've got five members, all of whom are absolutely incredible. It's just been feeling so rad. Beautiful chaos. What we've done for the live shows is rather than try and recreate the quiet moments of the record, we've reworked those songs into more intense and dynamic versions."Get Set Go is planning to be in it for the long haul. "I'd like to get to a point where we sell a respectable amount of records and can get a good turnout in every major city. If I can achieve that and deliver a really quality show and record - if I can do that every couple of years, that for me is the ideal life. I'm not looking to become famous, I'm not looking to become rich from this, I'd like to make a living making rock n' roll."
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