Record Review: My Pleasure "Mostly Happy" (The Adult Teeth Recording Company)

£15 //
https://adultteeth.bandcamp.com/album/mostly-happy //

When I first heard My Pleasure I didn't know what to think.   It's this weirdo/indie rock type of sound but it has these lyrics that are pretty out there.  At one point I thought out loud "Is he really singing a song about his girlfriend organizing his space rack?"  And the thing is, as time went by, not only is that a song on here it grew to become one of my favorites and, yes, it even has a video.   But to understand the music of My Pleasure you must first perhaps play pretend with me.  I imagine My Pleasure as somehow being like this improv rock band and I don't mean in the sense of jazz where you make it up as you go (which is a pretty terrible description of jazz, I know) but in the sense that these songs are suggestions. 

By suggestions I mean that someone would shout out from the audience, "Hey, why not write a song about this!" and then a few minutes later a song would appear.    It's one of the few ways I can try to make sense of the randomness of these lyrics.   Something such as "Fluorescent Jacket" seems like he just saw someone wearing one and decided to write a song about it.    But I'm getting ahead of myself because the first song on here is called "These Things Take Time" and a different voice sings each word of the title, which is probably the weirdest part of the song.   There are lyrics otherwise about different people and it seems to have a somewhat normal sense of being a song to it, you know, in a TMBG way. (Or if you remember that band Tastes Like Burning but you probably don't)

In a large part as well this music can even begin to sound like Beck, which I know can feel like a vague comparison to make.    "Tesco Elvis" is a nice ballad and, I mean, I can relate because I often hear people (and sometimes the same people) saying weird things in public.   I think overhearing people saying weird things in public is something that happens to everyone, right?  Or is it one of those things where if it doesn't happen to you then you're probably doing it?

Fun Fact: I own the minimal amount of spices.  (No spice rack)   The majority of the spices he sings about in this song... I do not have. 

"I'm So Happy" sounds kind of like The Thermals or maybe even something Fred Schneider would do.   There is a thirty second about someone wearing a backpack and wondering what's in it and as such I'm going to use this chance to make the following Public Service Announcement:  There are certain backpacks which should be worn by kids and certain backpacks which should be worn by adults.  If you are an adult, please please PLEASE learn the difference. 

It would probably be a song for me if I was to try and create songs like My Pleasure, but when I was at the grocery store the other day my son ran ahead of me down an aisle.  As I was pushing a shopping cart, I couldn't take the turn because some guy was coming out of the aisle and taking his time about it so of course I said "My son is down that aisle unsupervised but you go ahead and take your time, guy who is obviously too old to be wearing that backpack".    The look he gave me was well worth it.

"Smoking Fags In Disneyland" is a song which makes me wonder what their smoking policy really is.   I mean, they have one of them (I can never remember which is in FL and which is in CA) in California and marijuana is legal there so could you get high with Mickey?  Now we go into a song about how signs can be misleading and this takes on a garage rock sound here.     He also says "Once bitten, twice shy" for some reason but I like when he closes the song by saying "Please go away".

He also just song-dropped Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" in "The Wednesday Excuse" (I'm still not sure what that means exactly)   "Spock from Star Trek directed 3 Men and a Baby".   That is true, but I hope putting it out there in song like this makes more people aware of it.    Some of these songs are shorter than others and some of them are about horses.   But the one thing you can't deny, even if the lyrical content can seem silly or weird, the fact of it all is that the talent is here.   I'm sure people make "silly songs" and the music feels silly as well, but there is nothing but pure talent within these songs which is perhaps the most redeeming and scary aspect of My Pleasure.