IT’S been 10 years this year, since the rise of The Beautiful Girls and for Mat McHugh – the man at its heart – he’s seen and tried it all.
He’s recorded with the band live. He’s recorded with bits of instrumentation from band members. He’s recorded an album by himself and then taught the band how to play it. He has recorded by himself and remained by himself.
McHugh released under TBG and he’s released as Mat he’s toured with horn sections and he’s toured alone.
And at the end of each and every album – regardless of differences in the process – there has stood the same incredible element, the foundational purpose of the whole damn thing: the unfaltering support and love of those who have come, watched, listened and danced.
When Mat recorded his latest album Love Come Save Me he wasn’t sure which way to go. All the elements that had once been separate had, over the past decade, merged into one.
He is The Beautiful Girls, The Beautiful Girls are Mat. And as he pondered back and forth under just what banner to release these songs, thoughts of the hundreds of thousand of albums bought and cherished, the hundreds of thousands of faces, from thousands of gigs over many a year and the 75,000 facebook buddies, floated to the front of his mind.
The decision was clear: the album would be released under his most honest of monikers, his own name, and it would be a gift. Free. No catch.
To everyone who had made the journey possible and to everyone who would like to join him from here on in. The album has since been downloaded over 30,000 times worldwide and in response to this unexpected digital flood, Mat is taking Love Come Save Me out on the road across five states for intimate summer shows to connect, thank and absorb the love.
Who: Mat McHugh (The Beautiful Girls) and The Seperatista Soundsystem. Supported by Dead Beat Band.
When: Friday, 6 September
Where: Soundlounge
