Shit Gigs My Boss Makes Me Go To: Matt And Kim

I work in the more mainstream edges of the music industry.

My boss makes me to go to shit gigs, all the time. Here I review them, anonymously. I would definitely be fired otherwise.

Next up: Matt and Kim.

I didn’t know much about Matt and Kim before I was invited along to their show at London’s Scala, a duo originating from Brooklyn that seemed to act as the poster boy for the area's gentrification. They had somehow managed to slip under my radar as a) I stopped using Tumblr over 14 years ago, b) they somehow didn’t manage to make the Juno soundtrack and c) I’m British so if they’re not wallowing in their own self-hatred it’s on the pile with you.

They’re Die Antwoord for people who had a really great relationship with their parents and own loyalty cards. That time I drank five cups of coffee in two hours personified in the form of a drummer (Kim) and synth player (Matt), two walking E numbers who soundtrack the life of a young Dad who wears thick rimmed glasses and uses Apple pay on the bus. That guy at parties who changes the music to put Harlem Shake on? He probably loves these… oh wait.

They’re a band who Topshop have based their entire business model on, or what comes to the mind of a 50-year old white man when he hears the word ‘millennial’ for the first time. The musical equivalent of a flash mob, the theme tune to Zooey Deschanel’s life or what the younger members of the Westboro Baptist Church listen to when they’re ready to sin. They would be the Swedish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest if only they could tone it down on the theatrics a little. You get the picture.

I was told beforehand that performing live they are an "energetic force", epitomising a type of energy that can only be found at one of their gigs or M&M’s World in Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday afternoon. It was a hard point to argue in fairness, something I realised as I watched them bound across the stage ripping their shirts off and telling the crowd of young girls and their bored chaperone fathers how much they loved them every 5 seconds.

I can’t help but feel that they’re the Nu Rave of this generation, something that I’m not programmed to understand because I don’t wear checkered trousers and am not Instagram famous, nor is my happiness measured in how many m’s I include in the word ‘NOMMMMZ’. A Nu Rave where the musicians pioneering such a sound would have become YouTube ukulele stars had fame not got there first. A Nu Rave where the inspiration comes not from late-80s/early-90s house music but solely from photos like the one below.

But who am I to pass judgement on a band that are so squeaky clean they could be in a match.com advert? Sometimes the world just needs to be uplifted with music you can just hug your Nan to. So for that Matt and Kim, I thank you, and keep doing what you do.