One kind of Math I'd rather not Mute

November 12, 2009


For three seemingly endless years, Cosmo (that's me) and Wanda have tried many a time (and failed many a time) to see a little band called MuteMath, a.k.a. only the most brilliant band ever, in concert. If you know me, you know I've been trained as a writer (and especially as a journalist) to avoid absolutes. But here are three reasons MuteMath really is the most brilliant band ever.

3. The drummer, Darren King, has to duct tape his headphones to his head during shows or he'll lose them. His talent is simply... illuminating.
2. They filmed the music video for Typical backwards. Singing. Drumming. Everything.
1. They more or less invented an instrument, called the Atari, out of an old game system by the same name.

So now we agree that this band is indeed the most brilliant ever, yes? Good. Moving on.

It was a Thursday night at the House of Blues....


The opening band was As Tall As Lions. That's all I have to say about that. Well, and that the singer didn't wear any shoes onstage, which in my experience is the mark of a great musician (but I was too excited for MuteMath to pay the Lions much attention; sorry to any Lions fans out there).


Singer Paul Meany has an unusual sort of voice. It sounded different enough live to have that authentic in-the-room-with-him feel while still having the quality of the recording. Vocal quality, that is; it may have been missing an effect or two. But it was good! Definitely not one of those shows you leave wondering how the band ever got a record deal with a vocalist like that.


Meany's so cool he makes the keytar look cool. Did you know that thing got voted the lamest instrument of all time in some poll or other? Neither did Vicky T. I dunno, the only bands I know with keytars in them are awesome. Someone should revise that poll with MuteMath and Cobra Starship in mind.


I like to refer to Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas as "That Hippie Guy" - in the fondest way possible, of course! Hippie isn't an insult in my book, since I more or less am one. But I mean, look at those shades, and the hair, and the fuzzy glowy lights behind him. That man is triptastic before he even touches the bass, and once he does... just whoa.


Not only does That Hippie Guy play a mean regular bass; he plays a six-foot-tall upright bass, too! I can't remember all the songs he used it for, but he sure rocked that thing during "Reset." Rocked it like a nice chunk of granite. No, harder than that. Rocked it like a diamond, he did.


And then there's Darren King. Gosh. What can one even say about Darren King? I am in awe every time I see this man pick up a pair of drumsticks on YouTube. To finally see that live was phenomenal. During "The Odds," there was a vertical drum set positioned at the back of the stage beneath the huge arch and King went over and played this vertical drum set. Pretty lights shot out from the drum pads every time he struck them for a kaleidoscopic musical experience.


Later in the song, King returned to his regular old horizontal set, which was hooked up to a bunch of light bulbs. A different one lit up for each drum in his set. So instead of just hearing the rhythm, you could see it, too!


They closed with "Reset," and Meany finally broke out the obligatory gymnastics. The guy was dancing on his keyboard and on the drums. He walked around banging a mandolin with a drumstick for a while. Meanwhile That Hippie Guy was rocking the upright bass harder than your average diamond and King was over there hammering away at the drums...


...and then Meany brought out the Atari. Which he not only rocked, but also allowed those in the first few rows to rock. That included me and Wanda. That's right, yours truly got to play the atari! See the little red knob next to the funny green semi-orb? I played that. Yeah!!

And that, being the encore, was the end of the show.

Of all the concerts I've been to, this was definitely one of the most memorable, and definitely one I'd go to again! If you're not already a fan of MuteMath, please take a minute to check these guys out (start with the Typical video, linked above). If you are a fan and haven't seen them, please make every effort to do so (your life will be better). If you're a fan and you've seen them, you know what I mean! See you at the next show, my friend.

Here's the night, and it shines

I set out from school with a car full of bread. I mean FULL of bread. Having used all the space in the trunk, I loaded more boxes of Panera-donated baked goods into the back seat. It was for the Mae Community Outreach project me and a few other local Mae fans had been planning since August. We found out two days before that the band wasn't going to help us hand out the food, which left three of us to deal with a Beetle full of bread. Then the only guy on our team had to deal with something dumb that happened to his apartment and couldn't be there. Thankfully Renee brought a friend! But still, three girls carrying 60 pounds of bread equals not so successful. I managed to get lost on my way into Cambridge and drove around so much that my car fucked up again, and meanwhile (as Renee told me over the phone as I apologized profusely for my lateness) the band was trying to get out of Pennsylvania, where their van and trailer had been stolen the night before. So there might not even be a show.

I would've gone home, except I had this car full of bread. So I found the place, parked, and we set out. It was very lucky for our frail upper bodies that we ran into a college-age guy who was intrigued by our quest and agreed to help us out. The food was a tough sell, surprisingly. We walked around for a bit and when Noah had to leave, the rest of us took the food to the Commons via train. My friend Wanda met us there to help, but unfortunately there was no one to feed at the Commons either. We ended up taking the food to a church across the street, where there was apparently a service about to start. They were thrilled to have something to eat during fellowship and asked us to stay for the service. Everyone else was skeptical, but I hadn't been to church in a while so I thought it seemed like a good idea to stay, especially since we still weren't sure there would be a concert later. Wanda stayed with me.

It was an experience unlike any I'd had before. We began the service with a chant. Then we were invited to join in a spiritual dance... that is, the Electric Slide. I kid you not; we expressed our love for God by doing the Electric Slide in church. Then a black woman, the pastor, spoke about the events that brought her to the church and what a great impact dancing had had on her spiritual life. Even still, she said, dance is one of the most meaningful ways she worships God. After the sermon we took communion, passing the sacraments around a huge circle so that each person could offer the body and blood to the next person in line. I declined to sip the wine since about 40 people had sipped from the cup before me (at the beginning of the service they asked us not to greet one another with hugs because of swine flu o_o).

After the service I booked it back to the Middle East club in Cambridge, where Renee and her friend were holding a spot in line for me. The doors hadn't even opened yet. We were an hour behind schedule. But the band was on their way.

There was more standing and waiting to be done inside (luckily I had the stage to sit on). The opener, a local band, played three extra songs to kill time and we stood and waited some more.

Finally Mae and the others arrived! Jenny Owen Youngs played first. I wasn't too thrilled with her set, and it didn't help that I was already exhausted from walking around the city with all that bread for so long after hardly sleeping the night before. But Deas Vail - woah! Their set was great fun; I danced almost the entire time. And maybe the singer was kinda cute, too ^_~

Mae finally took the stage around 12:30. They only had an hour to play since the club had to kick us all out at 1:30, but the hour they played was epic! They poured so much heart into the set in spite of all they'd been through that day. You could tell they were tired. But you could also tell that delivering a great show was more important to them. And when it came down to it, without the 3-D videos and scratch-and-sniff CDs, Mae is still a group of great guys making great music. That's at the core of everything else.

After the show, I went to buy Deas Vail's CD and the guys thanked me for being so into their set. I was shocked they had noticed and even more shocked they recognized it was me. Then, as I was walking upstairs, two guys (one of whom played with Jenny) started talking to me. The other guy convinced me he usually plays with Mae when they're live but he didn't have a guitar since their stuff got stolen. I have not yet determined the truth of this statement; however, I couldn't find his name on any of their websites so I highly doubt he was telling the truth.

Shame because he seemed so nice at the time. We hung out for like fifteen minutes, during which he told me he wished he could make himself cry on command. This seemed like a pretty personal thing to share, so I trusted him. I should have realized he was a liar when he tried to convince some other girl Mae would be playing in her hometown in Florida in a couple weeks. I'll be he died laughing the minute I left... asshole.