Matt and Kim
Words: Tony Cheslock
Photos: Michael Spadoni

Appeared:
May 15, 2007
Common Grounds, Gainesville

Matt and Kim have their cake and eat it too!

Happiness is infectious; this maxim holds true in most circumstances. However, as the late great William Xavier Uber (holler if you hear me Willy X!) once said to me after a drunken tirade involving copious amounts of Wild Turkey in tandem with various wrestling postures involving the house-party-going population at large, ’Man! It’s hard to keep up that kind of energy!’ There are, however, those freakishly energetic people who seem to build an apparent wind (a nautical/scientific term that has a really long and nerdy explanation I edited out here) as they whip themselves into a froth, and play the ever-loving shit out of their instrument of choice.

We all know (at least we all should know) what to expect when Matt and Kim roll through town. What may not be as obvious is how they maintain the stamina that is required to get through their set. True, the songs tend to follow a rhythmic, seemingly simplistic, and curiously mathematic formula, that tends to create it‘s own form of exhilaration. At some point, though, you would have to expect a personal elevation to take place on the part of performer; thereby transcending them to some other spiritual plain, where the body falls to the floor like so much dirty laundry and the spirit is free to fly about the room, generally sticking to creating circular patterns around light fixtures, like so many moths to the flame.

Matt and Kim explode with energy from start to finish. What their songs lack in spit and polish, their performance makes up for in bravado. In a world where technology can make anyone sound like the next big thing, it is of tantamount importance that the music culture of today produce live performers of ’Matt and Kim’ caliber.