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Mas y Mas were introduced to me by a certain ex-waitress-at-a-strip-club on a recent jaunt down to Richmond. Let me set the scene: walking to the gas station for cigarettes you might see a dude sitting on his porch blowing on his digeridoo (thusly named Digeridude), too many cute girls riding bikes to count, and if you’re lucky, girlpants’ good friend Will in a dress, trying in vain to score a Craigslist Missed Connection.
Mas y Mas, hailing from nearby NoVA, were a perfect soundtrack to this scene. They’re at once fidgety and disaffected, smart enough to know that the best of kind of fun, maybe the only kind, is the stupid kind. On this point check out the (um) pointedly titled “You Can’t Play Without Ice.” It kind of reminds me of the first time I heard the Thermals, all lo-fi and pissed off at posers, but these guys are a lot funnier about it, partly cause I can’t really tell if they’re joking or not. There’s a savant tunefulness too, even though Vinny often tries to hide it behind his Mike-Skinner–as-snotty-American-kid impression.
And the lyrics are golden, as anyone unfortunate enough to follow my Twittrrr barrage will know. On “Sunday School Hymn,” they tackle that freshest of topics—fucking religion, dude—and somehow manage to land it unposed. “Now who here’s had his grandma pass away and wonders why she is still sleeping, and who here’s read a little Walt Whitman and wonders why he is so happy?” Maybe because I’ve wondered both those things, maybe cause there’s some real melancholy in his arch schoolboy recitation, but it’s the most moving thing I’ve heard since Joel got drunk and read some of his poetry at the last gpants staff meeting.
Mas y Mas — “You Can’t Play Without Ice”
Mas y Mas — “Sunday School Hymn”
Mas y Mas are magnanimously giving away their album, Proud Sponsors of Pepsi, here.
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