I’m in Houston for a couple days to participate in Kilian’s cardboard art show and last night I went to the sparsely attended show at Rudz to see Kilian play with some of the other participants, Mike Switzer, NAP’s own Ramon, and Joe Mathlete, who played with his band the Mathletes.
While watching these Mathletes, several people looked at me and commented on how they were barely keeping their songs together. It’s a sentiment that even other Mathletes expressed to me after the show. It’s true. The Mathletes seem to be the least rehearsed band that they can possibly be. Most of the songs are ones that they have done for years and yet they are just as sloppy as can be. And it’s true many of the members haven’t been playing them very long, but many of them have. There must have been plenty opportunity to get everything really polished over the years, so it seems that they must be sloppy for a reason: sloppy is the Mathletes aesthetic. “I don’t let them rehearse this song,” Joe told me just before playing their last song. I suppose that’s one way to make sure your songs are always fresh. Nobody will ever accuse the Mathletes of looking bored.
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Sloppy6 comments to Sloppy |
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Sorry for the delay in this being published; we had some Blogger FTP issues.
re: mathletes – Chris King had never played with us before, we’d never used the drum machine…
and I don’t think I’m the drunkest mathlete bass player ever any more…
and I think we were a great contrast to the polished sound of “bright men of learning”
the show at notsuoh a week before was very different…
there was a choir, the dimes backed Joe for the last half the set, Joe did a song with TDU…
every mathletes show is different, some more awesome than others…
and every show Joe says will be his last until he figures out how to get a band together to play his new stuff, which requires more than two practices…
It took me the first few songs to get into it, but the last half-hour was gold.
I’m not certain, but I think Mathletes might encounter diminishing returns if they adjusted to a regular lineup and practice schedule. My favorite was the abrupt bridge where someone had to switch the Casiotone into waltz mode at just the right time. Like every other moment of their set, it wasn’t exactly perfect timing.
I think that’s for the best. Mathletes please don’t get “tight.”
I guess because I was expecting it to be loose because of similar things Joe had told me about his rehearsal theories, it didn’t bother me at all that they were sloppy. I didn’t even think they were particularly sloppy.
Anyway they overcome a lot with personality.
Somebody told me they should do children’s music. But I don’t think Mr. Mathlete is into that. In that respect they reminded me of the modern lovers.
i love bands like this. there is no quicker way to kill the rock and roll than to practice too much. As far as i’m concerned the best live rock and roll always has that feeling like it could colapse at any moment. From Jerry Lee to The Spinns. There has to be that walking on a tightrope we a good buzz feel to it if its really going to make it live. The mathletes sound like they’ve got that formula right. Plus Joe’s Mamaduke explanationsare pure genius.
Yeah, I’ve always been a big fan of the sloppiness of the Mathletes… I love how Joe’s done that now; he just surrounds himself with people he knows and trusts and turns them loose on his songs… he knows this is going to result in something extraordinarily sloppy, and he’s fine with that, because he knows that that’s how you get something brilliant and transcendant… the show I did with them at Notsuoh last Saturday was pure brilliance, even when things were falling apart…