For further proof

As further proof of the Detroit pride/obsession, we received this interoffice email yesterday from Justin:

I'll be wishing my grandmother a happy 90th Birthday this weekend in the fine city of Detroit, MI. As such, i will not be in the office tomorrow.

I'll be available for emergencies in the afternoon via cell (flying in the morning), and will be able to see emails on my blackberry.

In case any of you were looking for more interesting tidbits on the city of Detroit, i invite you to reference this wikipedia page explaining why Franklin D Roosevelt referred to the city as "the great arsenal of democracy" on December 29th, 1940.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_of_Democracy

Oh and here's the video

Watch the M83 performance of "Kim & Jessie" on Late Night with Conan o'Brien

M83 + Conan = Love

If you've been following our blog (for the whole 3 days it's been up) then you know we've been hard at work promoting M83. Yesterday we did Conan. It was M83's first TV appearance and Mute's last Conan. For those of you living under a rock, Conan (the whitest man ever) is moving to LA. (this will help the sunscreen industry stay afloat during these 'tough economic times'). He's taking over the Tonight Show so Leno has more time to buy expensive cars, ride motorcycles and stuff.

But this blog isn't about the capricious lives of TV talk show hosts, it's about MUTE. Let's talk about what we did yesterday:

See! it really happened. It looked like this on TV:

Working at a record label is glamorous and has many perks - like hanging out in the green room. Check out how cool we are:

-LBH

the detroitness

Justin loves detroit. And oh how he loves to talk about it. Especially in marketing meetings. detroit detroit detroit. Are you reading this justin? If you are I bet you are upset with me for not giving detroit the respect it deserves. You know, like a capital "D" because it's a proper noun. whatever. 

The Not So Famous Thing About Our Building

there is one floor in the building that even your union sensor card ID can't get you onto. thats where the union magic happens. below is the first ever documentation of these "events"

once a week the union meets on the 23rd floor of our building


they perform satanic rituals...

humans are sacrificed. union members believed to have rebeled... starting their own unions ... full of other union members....


they waste NOTHING.


remains are found throughout the country, and no one [until now] has any idea where they came from.


Don't drink the water on the 23rd floor.
(written by Lauren, the one who eats babies)

Our building is, like, totally famous.

Mute's current office is located in a tall building between Soho, Tribeca and the Holland Tunnel. Aside from our music floor, which we share, the entire building is mostly populated by union headquarters. Then there's us. Oh and Uniqlo too. It's intense (don't forget your ID or the lady at the front desk will unleash the fury and it's not pretty). Our floor used to be a medical floor. You get the picture. Also the cops do this crazy drill where they get every cop car known to man to drive up 6th Avenue flashing their lights and park on our block, alarming us to no end at least once a week. A 'drill' they call it.

Well, imagine my surprise as I watched the first episode of everyone's favorite show, FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS and saw a very familiar building posing as the office building of the guys 'former' manager, Murray.

Check it:
Evidence? Not quite. But wait, there's more.

They're walking out of the building! With a table! Do you know how many times a day I walk out that door!

Here's the building in its full glory:

If you squint you can see our office on the fourth floor.

Here they're talking to their stalker fan who is protesting something. I forgot.


When I came in to share this story with the other Muteants, Justin promptly said 'Oh yeah, I knew about that.' But did he tell anyone? NO! I don't know where I was that day since I'm always here. But I missed Brett and Jemaine, in our very own building. THE HORROR! Maybe one of the more exciting things that's happened in this building. Because the set of Law & Order: Criminal Intent really just isn't that exciting (they film here sometimes too)(sorry mom). So the point is, that coworkers keep secrets from each other. Important ones involving cute New Zealanders. Clearly I had to fire him on the spot.

And, because I was so excited about this minute of stardom, I forgot to watch the rest of the episode.


- Nicole

The Mute Feast aka Mute Loaf 2009

Normally Lauren spends all her time talking about shoegaze or eating babies. Even tho she's vegetarian (we don't get it either). What started off as a conversation about chili cookoff turned into an idea for office-wide potluck of smepic (smallishly epic) proportions.

Behold, the invitation:

Now, we all spent this weekend watching M83 perform at both Irving Plaza AND open for The Killers at MSG, so somehow we had to find some time to chef up some non-poisoned food for our colleagues. Here's how it went down:

Adam - breakfast burritos
Leslie - homemade glazed donus, grapefruit/pomegranate fruit salad
Foti - Fresh squeezed honeybell orange juice
Justin - Croissants (for the record, he didn't make these)
Stephanie - Baked brie & cherry topping
Nicole - Leek Quiche
Erik - Goulash
Lauren - peanut butter & jelly sandwiches in the shape of brontosauruses
Kevin - Whoopie Pies

Jealous? Yeah we thought so. Here are some photos to go with it. We forgot to take them before we started eating.

There was also a silver foil crown made to go to the winner. Tho no one knew there was going to be a winner. But I get to choose!! Bwah hahahahaha.

Welcome to The Muteant.

You know, a lot of things go on around here. Like, a lot. "Here" being the Mute Records North American offices. We manage to amuse ourselves on a regular basis and thought, why not share this with the world? Clearly there need to be more blogs out there. So we've revived The Muteant. It used to be a paper zine (remember zines? remember PAPER?) back in "the 90s". But with this digital age and what not, no more physical cutting & pasting (tho I quite like cut & paste). So we welcome you, check back on occasion for super duper secrets, high profile missions, facts, figures, fun and of course, Mute artists' news. Maybe we'll even put up some fun stuff you can't get anywhere else. You'll just have to wait and see, wontcha.

till later, Nicole