Me and My Monkey is so much more than a self-referring pronoun and an arguably human ancestor. An indie electronica band hailing from Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia, MAMM consists of Sandro Chinchaladze on vocals and guitar, and Gocha Bakradze on keyboards and guitar. Chinchaladze and Bakradze formed the band in 2006 and have been recording music in their modest home studio while playing numerous gigs in cities across Georgia.
With influences ranging from The Beatles, Soundgarden, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, and Beck, to list a few, the MAMM sound combines catchy electronic beats, ambient keyboards, and electric guitar riffs with lyrics dealing with freedom, revolution, identity, and, you guessed it, love. Chinchaladze’s echoing, self-assured vocals evoke Beck meets Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan, and lead the melody above textured synth harmonies, giving an effect of a potently filled acoustic space – a welcome concoction for indie-electronic-rock adoring ears.
Finding likely inspiration in teenage unrequited love, Chinchaladze first began writing songs at the age of sixteen. Having played drums as a teenager, he now focuses on keyboards and guitar. These days, depression and unhappiness prove to be loyal muses for Sandro’s songwriting, although he notes that: “London is the main inspiration for me after my girlfriend.” She’ll be happy to hear that she beat out the capital of the biggest British isle as the creative fuel behind her boyfriend’s melody and lyrics.
Plans for the release of MAMM’s first record Star Fucker are well underway. Until then several demo tracks are available for streaming on MAMM’s myspace page. “If you want I’ll kill myself, but leave me now, I’m fine” is a loving proposition from If You, a track that seeps melancholic sadness and recalls a barren landscape where hope is all that’s left for one to hang on to. The playfully anarchist Forever is a confident declaration of a self-aware bad-boy: “I am I am who I wanna be, I choose the way that I wanna live, I do not mind if you do not like me, I do not care if you do not want me”. The hauntingly eerie I Choose To Be talks about growing ambition in the face of social disaster, while the charming synth beats of Post Industrial Boys dance along with Chinchaladze’s whispery promises of love, sandwiched between ambiguous mentions of post-industrial boys’ subscription and reading preferences.
A moniker like Me and My Monkey begs the question of how the band came up with the name. “Someone wrote monkey on my PC on which I make music, and since there was only me and my PC when I started to make this project, I called it Me And My Monkey,” Sandro explains. An expectedly random name origin, as band names go, and fortunately, Me and My Monkey is in no way a reference to Robbie Williams’ song by the same name.
MAMM is releasing their first single It’s Coming Back and starting to record their first eleven-track album Star Fucker in one of Tbilisi’s major recording studios, Studio 1. As a result of the tumultuous political situation during the last several years, the Georgian economy has only recently begun a painfully slow recovery, which means that financial support for experimental musicians is low in Tbilisi. Two hundred dollars was the maximum amount of money that MAMM has been paid to play a concert in the city.
Besides the lack of money to be made, Sandro points out that: “It’s very hard to make live music in Tbilisi because there are no places where you can play, like pubs or concert halls, and there are no people who would like to help to promote your music.” Despite the odds, MAMM did find an eager manager from Germany. “My manager is German for example - it’s because I couldn’t find a person in Tbilisi who would have liked to promote MAMM. It makes me a little bit sad, but I would still rather have a German producer than no producer at all, “ Chinchaladze jokes. If MAMM’s manager is anything like the archetypal methodically precise and efficient German chap, he’s bound to do the band a lot of good.
Instead of griping about their unfortunate circumstances, Sandro decided to take action to improve the opportunities for indie musicians in Tbilisi. He plans on using future income from MAMM’s revenues to create a professional recording studio in Tbilisi. “I want bands like ours to be able to record theirs songs for free and to promote this kind of music in Georgia” Sandro muses.
Working hard to advance his musical career in a city that provides little support for up and coming indie musicians can be exhausting. It’s no wonder that at the end of the day, after coming home from his day job at a university run publishing house, Sandro refuels his creative juices with a cold beer, hoping that with the release of their first record in six months time, MAMM will gain the exposure it deserves on the international music scene.
Having performed at festivals in Germany (Saarbrucken and Frankfurt) and having toured extensively around Georgia, MAMM have their sights set on playing more shows across Europe. Until the release of their first record, their music can find an audience outside of Georgia on their myspace page. So quit monkeying around, have a listen, and give them a shout out to let them know you dig their tunes.
I rarely drink coffee, but while indulging in a mochaccino fix last night at a nearby cafe, I unfortunately missed The Magic, who opened for Islands in Montreal on Wed, May 28th. After the success of their first album Return To The Sea, Islands have released their 2008 follow up Arm’s Way and held the CD launch at Le National last night.
