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M.O.T.O.

M.O.T.O.

One songwriter, dozens of genres, and forty years of home-recorded garage punk under the name M.O.T.O.

One songwriter, dozens of genres, and forty years of home-recorded garage punk under the name M.O.T.O.

MOODS · scrappy · restless · DIY · genre-hopping · lo-fi · punk energy

BIOGRAPHY

M.O.T.O. (Masters of the Obvious) is an American garage punk band formed in New Orleans in 1981 by Paul Caporino, with an original lineup including Mike Tomeny, Jeff Tomeny, and Don Ward. Caporino has remained the sole constant through many lineup changes since. The band relocated as Caporino moved: to Boston in November 1987, where he reformed M.O.T.O. with Beck Dudley on drums, then to Chicago in June 1989, and eventually to New Hampshire, where the group is currently based. M.O.T.O. has toured the East Coast, played Europe repeatedly, and performed in Finland, Japan, Australia, and mainland China.

WHY THEY'RE COOL

M.O.T.O. functions essentially as a decades-long vehicle for Paul Caporino's songwriting, with a catalog reportedly running into the hundreds of songs spanning pop, punk rock, metal, soul, noise, garage rock, and new wave. That restless genre-hopping, paired with Caporino's status as the band's only fixed member across cities and countless lineups, gives M.O.T.O. an unusually singular, DIY through-line rarely matched by acts with this much turnover.

GEORGE'S PLAYS

George has played this artist 13 times.