Sardonic, sarcastic, bitchy, bitter, cool, caustic. These are all words you will find being bandied around when Laptop comes to town. There is however, one vital word lacking in most critiques of this electro-pop ensemble: fun. “I'm more well-adjusted and good-willed than most people who listen to my music think” defends Jesse Hartman, lead singer and mainstay of the band. “We all have a few dark feelings now and then. I just like to write about them 'cause most people don't and they can be quite funny. I’m not really that bitter…I like to tease people. Especially when they're being silly”.

After various line-up changes, Hartman now surrounds himself with five spruced up dominatrices. Yes, it’s the dream of every red-blooded male in the world to live like this, but Hartman lives that dream. Lucky guy. “One night, my wife and I were feeling bad that I might have to tour and we'd be apart”, explains Hartman, “and I thought, hmm, she plays keys, why not do the Robert Palmer thing and have an all girl band?”. There are two notable differences, however, between this purveyor of the savviest New York electro and Robert Palmer. First of all, Hartman actually looks good in a suit. Secondly, his band actually play their instruments, as opposed to just rocking backwards and forwards and looking bored. These girls don’t just stand there looking pretty; everyone on stage is part of a dynamic live act, and unless you knew them personally, it would be hard to pick out just which of the five girls is Hartman’s wife, bearing in mind he looks like he’s flirting with just about everyone in the room.

The danger is that it’s easy for an audience to perceive a line up like this as boyish fantasy, and maybe it is, but it’s really just part of the Laptop joke. You can take Laptop seriously, but not that seriously. Imagine walking in off the street one night and seeing a guy looking like John Travolta flanked by five strumpets. You could be forgiven for thinking you had just walked into a burlesque house.

Give yourself a few minutes though and you’ll see that Laptop are more than well dressed, they’re a well-oiled electro-pop machine, and watching the band play, you get a strong sense of a spirit amongst the group as a whole. The electro-typical picture of sharp suits, make-up and emotionless deadpan goes out the window. Well, Laptop have got the suits, the make-up, and even the deadpan, but they could never be accused of being devoid of emotion. Emotional deadpan? I bet you never thought it was possible, but its there, right in front of your eyes. Perhaps you could accuse the band of not following through with the savvy NY image. Surely the band shouldn’t be enjoying themselves so much? Shouldn’t they be acting aloof and striking poses? Like in the Robert Palmer video? But who made up the rules anyway? “Would it kill you to say how you feel?”, as Hartman sings achingly on ‘Let Yourself Go’. The point is that you can tackle serious subjects without being too serious about it. Hartman’s relationship with the band and his audience reflects the way that he is able to laugh at his own propensity to take things too seriously. The suits, the make-up, the girls, the smirks; it all fits into the idea that you can be light-hearted about something without making it frivolous.

The trouble is a lot of people equate revealing their emotions with being sad, and it’s fair to say that the vast majority of songwriters use their bad experiences to create nothing but sad music. The list of offenders is endless, but there are a select few who, rather than stroll down the path to self-loathing, would prefer to beat a new path to festive pastures. Hartman is one such path-beater. His songs are largely based on the age-old subjects of break-ups and make-ups but thrown in to the mix are a few spicier ingredients such as malice, sarcasm and acrimony. “I’d have lost my mind at the time if I was without you / But that is over now: you’re Yesterday’s Muse”, declares Hartman on ‘Yesterday’s Muse’. But it’s all done with good intentions, there’s no bad vibes in the place. “I want to mock myself for feeling bad about stupid things. I want other people to feel better about their problems by laughing at mine. Lou Reed did this well. So did Jonathan Richman. And don't forget Woody Allen”.

So is Jesse Hartman the next Woody Allen? A spokesperson for the average NY Joe? “No, I feel like an outsider, totally not part of any NYC scene. But I used to think the UK got my music more than people in the US. I'm not so sure these days. Maybe the USA folk are finally catching up, getting the jokes, getting more ironic. Having a monkey like George Bush as president will do that to people”.

Politics aside, tonight at the Water Rats, Laptop are again having fun. You have to give respect to a guy who’s singing about getting the boot, yet doing it with style. Songs about heartbreak, but sung with joyful defiance. Service with a smile. There’s a tonne of influences in there. Laptop is certainly nothing if not a nod to a hundred different pages of popular music history. There’s Bowie, Kraftwerk, Duran Duran, Beatles, Stones, Talking Heads, Beck, Devo and much more. If we’ve heard it all before, how can a band like Laptop fare in the 21st century? “For better or worse, I think the 21st century is all about pastiche and quoting the past. We all know there's nothing new to really say, so Laptop, with its Goddardian approach to music fits right in”.

The night reached its crescendo with the charming ‘I’m So Happy You Failed’ (allegedly aimed at the Strokes, but with hindsight the less said about that the better), the anthem designed for everyone who’s ever felt the bite of joyful bitterness in their lives. Its pretty obvious at this point that this is a song that no-one will forget soon, and is destined to remain a live favourite for years to come. And similarly Laptop should be a band that no-one will forget soon. “I hope the band heads into the stratosphere of fame and fortune, but that ain't reality, is it? In the meantime, you got any suggestions? I sort of know how to bartend”.

by Matthew Grundy