Matt & Kim @ SXSW last night

by phil on Saturday Mar 15, 2008 7:03 PM

We saw this band last night called "Matt and Kim." It's this guy named Matt and I think his wife or his girlfriend Kim. And Kim, she plays the drums, she has this really huge smile on, a wicked smile almost, like the Joker. And she's leaning in and banging the drums and she stares at her lover Matt, and Matt stares back at her. He is hitting the keys on the keyboard, and singing into the mic, and they're staring and smiling at each other, madly in love in music.

Their music is a bit of 8-bit, lo-fi, electro fun music. They're not quite "indie," but oh well. Matt takes an intermission and begins delivering his manifesto, or "manifunsto" or "funifesto" as me and my friends call it, and he begins describing his theory of the history of music in the last twenty years. The 90s, according to him, were a period where music decided to no longer be fun. That to be moody and sad was the only true music. He claimed that him and Kim were bringing fun back. And then he started hitting the keys and she started banging the drums, "doot doot doot doot doot" and the crowd went wild.

In the background were some visuals of Matt and Kim. They were like four cut-outs: a body and enlarged head for Kim, and a body and enlarged head for Matt. The bodies were stationary and the heads were moving left and right, with an extra cut-out for the mouth going up and down. In the background were a sky and castle of flourescent video game art. It was definitely a very happy situation.

The band was playing on the top of a parking garage and their music had a heavy bass. The floor swayed up and down along with the beat which also coincided with the jumping of the crowd. The concrete below me felt elastic as a result, and I tried jumping up and down to see if I could contribute to the movement of the concrete. That obviously didn't work.