I thought I’d just put some funny songs up on the Internet,” he says, noting the songs were uploaded to Bandcamp before being pressed by New York buzz label Captured Tracks, which also quickly issued the follow-up, 2.
“I wasn’t really taking it seriously, and I didn’t think it would come out on a real record label, or even have a physical release. DeMarco’s de facto baritone, meanwhile, runs haughty as he fetishizes a woman’s finest pair of figure-hugging Lee’s (“Baby’s Wearing Blue Jeans”) or slyly recounts how he struts his stuff down the street (both “I’m a Man” and “Moving Like Mike” have this covered). While still marked with the intentionally dizzying, warped-tape fidelity of his earlier work, Rock and Roll Night Club’s songs were slowed down significantly in postproduction to wring every ounce of salaciousness out of their swaggering lite-funk licks.
“ Rock and Roll Night Club was definitely different than anything I had done before, so it was a good place to switch it up.” I recorded with a person here or there, but it was the same thing,” he explains over his cellphone as he and his current bandmates cruise down an Illinois highway, en route to Toronto. “Makeout Videotape was always just me, anyways. The singer-guitarist is quick to clarify, however, that the erotically charged late-night pop platter was his solo debut in name only.
MOVING LIKE MIKE MAC
After Mac DeMarco left Vancouver for Montreal, the lo-fi artist abandoned the Makeout Videotape moniker he had worked under for a handful of releases, opting to go by his birth name for last year’s steamy breakthrough release, Rock and Roll Night Club.