Mogwai....the funniest miserablists you'll ever meet

[KiwiCoromandel]

Glasgow's mostly instrumental band Mogwai have a rep as intense, miserable makers of big-sounding records, even though they give their albums such titles as I Know You Are But What Am I?

After all, keyboard-guitarist Barry Burns once described their music thus:

"If you like miserable music and you like to sit in your room, then I think this is the

musical wallpaper for you."

Yet spend a couple of minutes with Burns and you realise he was not serious then and probably rarely is. Mogwai may be the funniest miserablists you'll meet.

"I don't know why people think that [we are miserable]," Burns says.

"We don't have serious song titles. I don't think we take anything seriously, apart from the actual music."

Even funnier than the song titles is the way they are ready to shoot down anyone. Damon Albarn cops it regularly from Mogwai via T-shirts reading "blur: are shite". British comedian and football-song writer Keith Allen received this spray on the band's website: "One of the most unsavoury sights associated with a World Cup with England involved is the sight of Keith Allen's gurning, gormless puss on the music channels."

"We had something about the English [football] team last week that we had to take down because it was probably offensive," Burns says.

He then riffs on the volume of coverage the British press gives the England football team, and Fleet Street's attitude to the rest of the world, which he calls "arrogant". The rant culminates with: "Everyone in Scotland thinks that, too. It is just not as important as the Exorcist films."

A England fan might reply, "When have Scotland won the World Cup?"

"I know, but we think that's funny. When we lose the game and don't qualify, the front pages of the papers are 'Bravehearts'."

It could be worse. It could be front pages full of a celebrity wedding.

"Now that's funny," Burns says.

Not as funny as the rumour - OK, made up on the spot - that Mogwai have been asked to back James Blunt.

Burns chortles: "That is probably the most unlikely story."

He can laugh all he likes, but when has a Mogwai song woken a girl from a coma, as a Blunt song reportedly did?

"But how many have been put into coma? Probably about four, and that's being conservative. He's just a musical blob, a horrible musical blob that no one should be subjected to. Unfortunately there are a lot of blobby ears."

source:AP

[method77]

I love Mogwai and I also laugh when I read their rants

[CTC Command]

mogwai rule. while they don't seem to like much of their studio output, its actually really really quite good. and live, they are a tour de force. but bring earplugs, only because they are VERY VERY LOUD. they are also doing a lot to support the scene, promoting other bands and what-not.

besides their funny as shit commentary lol.