MC Lars: Nerd up, yo

He's got fresh rhymes, statistics courses and a laptop. Meet MC Lars

By Dave Surratt

For all it's become, rap still remains a sort of free-associative, stream of consciousness exercise--what's really on your mind? California native and Stanford undergraduate MC Lars tells us what's on his: instant messaging, U.S./British relations, 19th century Romanticism (he's an English major) and statistical analysis.

These aren't passing concerns, either. His recently released Laptop EP features a flow called "STAT-60" that details just what the required class has done to his head: "The probability that you'll crash your bike/ in White Plaza on the way to Psych:/ .34 on your cellphone, .85 if you hit a cone." It continues like this, even into the realm of doomed romance with a hot sophomore. "It's hard to escape thinking about that stuff," says Lars, "so I wrote that song to help get it out of my system. It's therapeutic, you know?"

His loss is our gain--maybe--as the stuff is directly presented and catchy enough to re-infect anyone who paid their dues in statistics class long ago. Or English class. "Mr. Raven" sends up Poe ("We got EAP in the house tonight!") while the identity-check piece "Straight Outta Stockholm" explains: "Euphonic epiphany like Keats' lyre trope/ I am it, iambic's rap's last hope."

It's a nerdy but well-meaning tradition that Lars sees himself extending as he juggles texts and touring. He unabashedly cites a few more and less obscure pioneers: King Missile, Weird Al Yankovic and one-man band Atom and His Package. "Weird Al is a big influence. [Atom] writes songs about the metric system. You can make music educational and entertaining. It's fun."

The Yankovic connection is apparent on the Laptop EP, particularly on the CD's second single, "Signing Emo"--a whimsically spun cautionary yarn of the music industry and its recent milking beyond meaning of post-Dashboard Confessional emo imitators. The tune jaunts along to Lars' disarming narrative (his creative impulse evokes Weird Al--his voice does not), with each chorus erupting into a slicked-out screamfest made to sound culled from an actual hit single by Hearts That Hate, a fictitious band destined for quick glory and then instant ignominy when the emo bubble bursts. An MTV-bound video for "Signing Emo" was shot this past December.

Despite the offbeat composition and some highbrow content, MC Lars says he's bothered by the frequent assumption that a brainy, white rapper equals mere novelty. "I think people don't realize that hip-hop is changing," he says. "Demographically and culturally it's not what it was in the mid-'90s, and I think it's frustrating when people see it as a joke when I don't intend it to be."

He's not joking on "UK Visa Versa" when he refers to George W. Bush as a "cowboy Genghis Khan," or when he included on his website something called "Fuck Bush," a four-song side project co-penned with a friend. The latter effort provoked some unexpected ire from part of his fan base. "There's an interesting conservative backlash in the punk community," he explains. "It was just facts about the Bush administration, and some people were posting on the guestbook, like, 'Too bad! He won! You're such an asshole!' -stuff like that. It's so weird to think that punk, as this revolutionary genre, has that component."

Undaunted by the red-state mentality, MC Lars kicked off his "first legitimate U.S. tour" about a week ago in Amarillo, Texas. He's going with a Spartan setup, befitting the brand of music he's dubbed "post-punk laptop rap."

"I usually have my band with me," he says, "but they're in school and doing other stuff...they're only joining me for California shows, so it's just me with the laptop for most of it. It's minimalist, but it works."

For Lars, the tour means taking a couple months off from Stanford, the source of so much inspiration. "Hopefully, I'm going back in the spring to get my B.A...I'm so close, I just have 15 units. It's been challenging balancing the two worlds, but I'm figuring it out."