I have to admit that I don’t always understand what Mo Troper is going for. The prolific Portland, Oregon songwriter’s cracked, sometimes crude take on power-pop straddles the line between earnestness and irony, delivering otherwise sweet lyrics with a warped, at times technologically enhanced falsetto and scraggly lo-fi production. I described MTV, his most recent album, as sounding like “a mysterious 45 recovered from a storm drain that was recorded by someone who would end up becoming a serial killer or a presidential assassin,” and I stand by that take. I can’t tell if he loves or hates the subjects of his songs, or even loves or hates his audience, who he sometimes seems intent on putting off, if just playfully. As I was making my way to The Sultan Room in Bushwick to see Mo Troper and The Mo Troper Band perform on May 17th, I couldn’t help but wonder how these aspects of his music, as well as the production heavy nature of his songs, would translate to the stage, and what exactly the seemingly mercurial songwriter’s disposition on stage would be.

The answer to that last question was: very, very serious. At least partly. Troper spent a good deal of time tinkering with his and his band’s amps, guitars, and pedals before they even played a note, and when the band did finally get to playing, entered the stage coat on, drink in hand, delivering a stirring rendition of not-yet-officially-released “The Billy Joel Fanclub.” It was an earnest, straightforward beginning to the show – a sign that, even though this group was about to play songs about wet T-shirt contests and Venmo, they were pro’s pros, just as the group’s pedigree (the roster includes members of Bory, Diners, and Alien Boy) would indicate. 

This isn’t to say that the show was humorless or dour – on the contrary, Troper and his bandmates frequently quipped to each other on stage, and tried to let the crowd in on their little in-jokes about the official Rickenbacker guitar forums (apparently they’re a cesspool) and the Portland scene. But the band approached the show with a sense of tenacity and killer instinct. Sure, every band (or at least every band worth seeing) wants to come off as proficient and professional – but I did get the slightest whiff of perfectionism from Troper, a kind of steely-eyed resolve to be as good at power-pop as LeBron James is at basketball or Baryshnikov was at dancing. Trooper’s genre of choice can be sweet, fun and a little melancholy, but behind all of those pleasant sounds is a lot of hard work – hard work that Troper seems intent on making both invisible and self-evident.

Part of that effort was made self-evident by the sheer volume of the show. The Mo Troper Band features three guitar players, a rarity in modern indie rock, and while the result isn’t My Bloody Valentine-level ear-splitting, it still led to heavier arrangements than one might expect from a song like “Waste Away” or “I’m the King of Rock and Roll.” But the three guitar attack added layers to these songs as well, slotting Byrds-ian jangle alongside more straightforward distorted chords. Occasionally, Troper’s high and sweet vocals would be drowned out by the surrounding noise, a function of the small room as much as the band’s set up, but other times Troper’s voice rang out loud and clear, both on faithful renditions of songs like “My Master’s Voice” and “Across the USA” and slightly more exaggerated takes on songs like “I Fall Into Her Arms” (which he described as “your national anthem”), where his falsetto reached Ann-Margret in Bye, Bye Birdie levels of ridiculousness.
The band’s set-list spanned Troper’s catalog, but primarily drew from MTV and Dilettante, his two most recent releases, and even offered some tantalizing previews at two unreleased songs (at least, setlist.fm tells me they’re unreleased – Troper’s output is so voluminous that I would not be surprised if some tracks slipped past my radar since I started listening to him two years ago), and closed with “For You to Sing,” his most recent single. Troper introduced this song by talking about an “annoying” studio in Portland that used the slogan “community, not competition.” “This song’s not about [the studio],” Troper said. “But it is about burning the competition.” Given the high praise Troper had for openers Jobber and 2nd Grade, I’m not entirely sure who this competition is that Troper wants to burn. But if his live show is any indication, these unnamed rivals are going to have their hands full trying to stop him.