Can emo songwriters be funny? Matthew Alvarado thinks so
“Now Run” by Matt Alvarado (MPF Records):
It is supposed to be Warrensburg punk night at the Brick. On the Friday, May 2, menu: the sibling rebel yells of Kosher and Super Black Market.
But first, a skinny guy in a white wifebeater and ripped blue jeans steps up with an acoustic guitar. Matthew Alvarado knows he’s unfamiliar to most of the crowd, but rather than identify himself, he declares softly into the mic: “My name is not important.”
Then he commences to plow through a bunch of songs that seem très emo. He rails about his broken heart and how much drugs had to do with his attraction to a woman. But the lyrics and his deadpan delivery make the sad songs kind of funny. Almost uncomfortably so.
And that’s before he starts singing about wanting to touch (and fuck) Alicia Solombrino, who stands, amused and befuddled, in the middle of the room. “Who is this guy?” she exclaims with a smirk — a question that echoes around the room as Alvarado thanks the crowd and leaves the stage.
A couple of weeks later, I catch up with the unknown troubadour over a drink in the backyard at Grinders. Turns out, the 24-year-old Alvarado has several names — his legal one, plus Mati Mat and Dollface. Before he moved to Kansas City seven months ago, he performed around Warrensburg under all three monikers. (He also played with Warrensburg bands such as the 8 Ups, the Strangers, Teenager and Dynamo.)
Regardless of what he’s going by now, Alvarado is at heart a sensitive little dude who’s surprised at his sudden streak of good luck. He’s been playing out a lot, and he’s signed to a record label.
“I didn’t plan to start doing this project,” he explains. “It just sort of happened.”
He shifted his focus back to his solo act after his first KC band, the Heathers, broke up. Thanks to an old bandmate who now lives in Nashville, Alvarado’s solo act — under the name Mati Mat — instantly became part of a record label, MPF Records. It’s a tiny start-up, but the support means that Alvarado, whose Internet connection is unreliable and pirated, doesn’t have to check his own MySpace or make his own online fliers.
And ever since that May 2 gig at the Brick, he’s been needing more fliers. “I went from nothing to playing three shows in a week,” he says.
The flurry of bookings — in KC and Warrensburg — has inspired Alvarado to get better equipment for a recording he’s working on. He says it will feature more electronic elements; it’s tentatively titled EMOtional Vampire. “It’s either that or Crying Time,” he says.
Now that’s emo.
Alvarado says he writes about the “things that you tell your best friend but you don’t tell the people at work.” For instance: what it feels like to dodge bums in Westport and how a woman’s ecstatic moan can make everything else seem OK. When he punches out these phrases, his voice bobs up and down rhythmically, and he sounds a lot like one of his musical idols, Conor Oberst.
The expression of everyday and romantic dramas isn’t necessarily depressing, though. “It’s kind of making fun of myself,” Alvarado admits. “They’re real feelings — don’t get me wrong. But I also know how silly I sound.” Especially when he’s singing about Solombrino, whom he still hadn’t met at the time of our interview. “Ever since I started playing that song live, and I’ve seen her around, I’ve been kinda hesitant [to meet her],” he says.
Alvarado wrote the novelty song after reading my column about Solombrino, in which she declared herself a virgin. Whether or not that’s true, Alvarado admires Solombrino for knowing how to create a stir. But at the same time, the emo kid worries about offending the pretty girl.
In the song, he asks what Solombrino would do if he tried to touch her. “Fuck,” he says now, “I don’t want to get off the stage and have some dude go, I know what I’m gonna do!“
Let’s hope everyone gets the joke.
