dear matt and kim, i miss you. love, devyn

so, i was reading this interview today and it made me realize how much i miss matt and kim.
i know, i know ... i saw them last month, and the month before that but i feel like it's been forever.
they're the one band that i'll travel to the ends of the earth for, or at the very least, the outer edges of godknowswhere brooklyn.

matt mentioned a show in the interview, which was by FAR, the best matt and kim show i've ever been to.
it was the summer of 2007, 4 days before my birthday, sweltering hot, in the middle of bushwick, in a completely illegal warehouse. it was blissful.
best fwends opened, and although i could've done without that band that stole my water, it was still a fantastic night.



i might've named it best show of 2007. i probably did.
i don't remember.





this is what matt had to say about it:
"I'd have to say we probably played our first hundred shows in New York, shows Todd P had booked at whatever random art space or warehouse and things like that, so while everything might not have been perfect—the sound probably never great, the ventilation always below par and this and that—it was always unique and memorable. People see so many shows at venues they tend to become un-unique. Once Kim and I did a show with Todd at a warehouse in Bushwick that was initially set to be at a place above this auto parts store. And then the day of the show, we found out that apparently there was a sweatshop above the auto parts store. They couldn't do anything about it, when we stepped in to move stuff in to do the show there were like all these sewing tables and they were like, "Sorry, we forgot." A few hours before the show was supposed to start we had to find a new place and we ended up finding this pizza place that was getting made that was connected to a warehouse full of bricks and rubble and crap and no one was actually permitted to be there. The people building the pizza place had been using it as a workshop. Basically they ended up clearing this place out, going in, trying to get a couple porta potties and then spreading the word and they had to stop letting people in at like 650 people, at this bizarre warehouse in Bushwick where no one has a right to be there. It's probably what a rave was back in the early 90's. I met people in Australia who told me about seeing us at that show and how memorable it was and things like that. People just getting texts like, "Oh, I heard it moved here." It's things like that where memories can be created that way."

anyone who was there would agree that it was one of the most epic matt and kim shows to date.
that night, matt broke his glasses and decided to take off his shirt (he hasn't done that since) and it was the first time they played the new songs that would be on their second album "grand" ... they were overwhelmingly happy just to be home, with their friends. i was happy too.

oh p.s.
all points west lineup? FANTASTIC!

any band that...

makes jumping under a sheet seem like the most fun thing ever is fucking brilliant.
this is why i love the mae shi.
they know all the secrets to making people happy.
giving us a rainbow parachute to dance under is one of those secrets.

they played at silent barn last night ... there were maybe 50 people there at most.

their set was epic as usual.
nothing ever beats the amazingness of "i get almost everything" and group hugs and dancing til your stomach hurts.
ugh, i wish i was seeing them tonight with anamanaguchi at dba.



oh, and snakes say hisss! were so good. how have i never heard of them before??
no really, like....i can't stop listening to them right now.
it's like if best fwends, the mae shi and starfucker had some love babies and the kids were babysat by thedeathset.

"i like stars and i like unicorns, i like things that make me feel free"
seriously?? any band that sings about unicorns is good in my book.

GO CHECK THEM OUT RIGHT NOW!



and to the mae shi ... i'm glad you're alive.


btw, before last night, it had been almost a month since i had been to a show.
i think that was the longest gap between shows i had all year.
well, whatevz...i survived right?
of montreal on tuesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

no really, OH MY GOD!

so last night was the end of my epic weekend ... islands @ market hotel.
yeah, i said market hotel ... and you thought islands were superstars who only play huge venues like webster hall.
not only was it a small ass show, it was only $8 and it seemed like everyone bailed out because there were no more than like a hundred people there.

the first band, midnight masses were terrible.
think bad harmonies, mixed with shitty church choir ... yes, they were singing about god. i felt like i was in the deep south or something. it was just totally awkward and bad. i hope i never have to see them again.

next were the forms. they were pretty good. i wasn't blown away, but they had their nice moments.

right before islands was despot ... you knowww, the guy who took bus driver's place for the rapping part in "where there's a will, there's a whalebone" ... but he had his own set.
he was amusing, and he had some good songs. i just had issues taking him seriously, considering the fact that he's like 2 feet tall.
oh, and to that kid who rapped after him ... lil wiki? please stop. thanks. you're 12 ... and you curse too much.

anywayzzzz....finally, islands came on. oh how spectacular it was.
their set looked a little short based on the setlist (that was written on the back of showpaper ... see, showpaper is multipurpose, it makes a good lampshade, wallpaper, reading material, and writing material), but of course that doesn't mean anything because so many of their songs are so long.
they were totally on point and perfect, despite the fact that patrick's guitar kept getting unplugged.
they closed with "swans" ... totally epic and perfect. i love them so much. it's kind of ridiculous.
definitely the best i've ever seen them.

haha, and apparently all the kids taking pictures in the front are soulless and we ruin everyone's time ... thanks stupid guy with the glasses. you're the one who's soulless for letting photographers ruin your time. it's not like we weren't dancing and singing along too.









































































islands are forever.

oh, the things i do...

for matt and kim.

considering they ARE pretty much my favorite band ever ever ever, if you haven't already noticed, i'd do almost anything in the world for them. whether it be getting lost in bushwick, standing through a million horrible bands but keeping my cool til they come on, baking them cookies out of the love of my heart, or even spending all my money (er ... my mom's money) to go to philly.

last night was the big todd p/panache halloween party. it wouldn't have been that hard to get to if it wasn't halloween and if the streets weren't HORRIBLY crowded with crazies in terrible costumes. it took over an hour to get to "east williamsburg" ... i thought we were in bushwick, but whatever.
anywayzzzzz ... i guess we didn't realize that the venue was LEGIT, so we had no idea there would be security ... what in the fucks?! security at a todd p show? that shit is just unheard of!

by the time we got there, we had already missed screens and fiasco, who probably would've been the highlights of the bands who played before matt and kim. i have to say, i disliked every band that played before matt and kim, which was a surprise, because i always like at least one opening band, but i guess this was not the case last night.
we sat in the other room while child abuse was on. you can just tell by the name that they're bad. some grindcore shit, where every song has the same heavy drumbeat and horrendous screaming. yeah, awesome ... NOT!

next were the homosexuals. a bunch of old british guys. not horrible, but it wasn't anything i'd listen to in my free time or anything i'd be dying to see again.

after them was quite possibly the WORST band i have ever seen in my entire life ... possibly.
fucking aids wolf. like, i thought ponytail was bad ... this made ponytail seem great. is that even possible?
ughh ... it was just bad jumbled up instrumentals with this girl wearing practically no clothes shrieking into the microphone. sometimes not even shrieking, it was just death noises. i honestly thought she was dying. or maybe i was just dying. my ears felt like they were literally bleeding. it was the worst thing ever, and i hope i never see them ever again.

and then there were ponytail. i just left the room, and got beverages. i couldn't deal with ANY band at that moment.
we just sat on a bench, half-stalked a this boy with a blue hat, and laughed at everyone's costumes.

next were dmbq ... a bunch of crazy asians making noises that sounded like screams from the depths of hell.
yeah, no thanks. their performance was similar to that of monotonix, but the music was FAR FAR FARRRRRR worse.
like, at least the guys in monotonix are funny. this was just ... ugh. i don't even wanna think about it.
every time i thought it was over, it WASN'T!! :(

FINALLY were matt and kim. by then, it was almost 3. it's a miracle that i was able to stay alive until then.
matt was dressed as a chef and his hat said "born to kill" and kim was dressed as a waitress and her hat thingie it said "born to die" ... so cute. hahaa.
at first, i was in the second row behind some assholes. i never settle for anything behind front row, and i wasn't gonna make this the first time i WASN'T in the front for them, so of course i pushed some little shit out of the way and got to the front. seriously, the people next to us were the worst matt and kim fans i have every encountered. they're usually just really enthusiastic, these ones weren't even enthusiastic, they were just violent.
ANYWAYS! matt and kim only played around 10 or 11 songs, "yea yeah," "lightspeed," jesse jane," silver tiles," "grand," "good ol' fashion nightmare," "the final countdown" (in the middle of the set, wtf), that 5-4-3-2-1 song, the really fast new one, i feel like there was some other new one (this is not the order they played the songs in, obvz) and they closed with "it's a fact" and everyone in the first 2 rows got on stage to dance. probably my favorite part of the night.
but for real, for a headlining show, what a short set. when they don't headline, the setlist is 9 songs long, so i was very confused.
but they were great regardless of how many songs they played.

shit ended at 3:30, got home around 5. wtf.

oh, and that fuckhead with the bunny ears decided to stagedive, and he stepped on my bag which happened to be on the stage, and uh, broke the screen on my camera. thanks.
i took two pictures. both of which suck because i couldn't see what the picture looked like, obvz becaue my screen is all white with a big black splotch through it.
see??

looks like a skunk, i think.

matt and kim (fuckin a, really .... and i got no pictures of kim because there was some girl sitting in front of her)




happy halloween.