Animals Part The Last: January 21, 2008 (Live @ the Proletariat)

WARNING: CUSSES. PROBABLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK IF THEY DON'T LIKE YOUR COMPUTER SPEAKERS SAYING F-BOMBS.



Jeff Goodyear: Drums
Carlos Sanchez: Drums
Jose Sanchez: Bass
Ryan Goodland: Guitar
Briana Fitzpatrick: Keyboard
Cley Miller: Guitar
Jenny Westbury: Tambourine
Charles Larrabee: Lead Tambourine
Iram Guerrero: Rhythm Tambourine
Tom Adams: Other Tambourine
Mlee Marie Suprean: Saxophone
Charlie Naked: Rhythm Saxophone
Mike Switzer: Trombone
Joe Mathlete: Guitar, Vocals
GGMG: Whiskey
I can't actually remember who else was onstage at that point

So long story short: I took a job that required me to move to Austin for three months at the beginning of the year (you may or may not remember a long period of me not really posting anything on any of the blogs I keep... I mean, longer than usual). We set up one last pre-"hiatus" Mathletes show at the Proletariat, a venue that had been good to us over the last couple of years and that was to be shut down a few weeks later to make way for Houston's new light rail system. Like a good game of telephone, word got out that I was moving away for good and that the Mathletes were breaking up forever purple monkey dishwasher. It's hard to break up a band that (at that point) had no permanent members, but I wasn't 100% sure when I was coming back to Houston, and sensing opportunity I didn't contradict any of the rumors.

I decided to invite a large percentage of people who had played with us over the last year (as well as a few local musicians whose songs I really loved) to be a part of the Mathletes Symphony Dorkestra Fakeup Show. This naturally resulted in a tremendous logistical nightmare of poorly-rehearsed stumbling through songs half the band could barely remember, with lots of instrument swaps and guest vocalists and at any given point at least one or two people just playing tambourine. Also the singer of this particularly number got spectacularly drunk before the first band went on (perhaps you can tell).

So... Yeah. That's probably all the Animals the internet needs (and then some). Thanks for indulging me. Coming soon: something besides YouTube clips of my band playing the same song over and over again!

Animals Part Six: April 2008, live @ the Museum of Fine Arts Houston

Jeff Goodyear: Drums
Carlos Sanchez: Li'l Drums
Jose Sanchez: Bass
Charles Larrabee: Guitar
Briana Fitzpatrick: Keyboard
Jenny Westbury: Drawings, Animal Sounds
Cley Miller: Fancy Dances, Animal Sounds
Joe Mathlete: Singing, Guitar

This is the last show we've played to date. We were asked to open for Voxtrot at Houston's Museum of Fine Arts (now with rock bands!); unnerved by the prospect of playing on a proper soundsystem in front of more than fifty people, I tried to assemble a lineup that would be as tight and well-rehearsed as ever. We still only had one rehearsal where we all showed up, but it went off rather well all the same.

Cley was playing keyboards for most of this set and didn't have time to learn this song. He said he would figure something out. I did not think this was what what he was going to figure out.

Animals Part Four: 4/10/2007, live @ Rudyard's

Bubba Hightower: Bass
Charles Larrabee: Guitar
Gie Gie McGee: Vocals, Pianica
Joe Mathlete: Guitar, Vocals
Briana Fitzpatrick: Keyboards
Mike Switzer: Trombone

This was kind of a bummer.

We were offered a show at a bar called Rudyard's, one of the best places in Houston to see live music, as part of a bill with a number of other local musicians I really admired. We had never played at Rudyard's before, and I was really excited.

None of the three drummers who were playing with us at the time ended up able to make the show; Gie Gie and Charles had this bizarre antiquey drum machine from the early 1970s we ended up using for most of the set. We didn't have much time to rehearse (though I guess we probably wouldn't have rehearsed much more if we could've), and between a long series of instrument swaps, mangled songs about animals and robots, and general chaos, we ended up driving most of the crowd downstairs after just a few songs. To top it all off, I forgot to move my car after we loaded in our instruments and it got towed in the middle of our set. All in all, not one of our better shows, but looking back on it now with some distance (and the knowledge that I didn't give up music forever after that night), I kind of like this clip.

For bonus laffs, here's a review of the show by a blogger named Justin Crane entitled "Sloppy". Most of the humor for me stems from the fact that he played guitar with us on one song.

The most important lesson learned: don't play your most "Children's Band"-esque show ever in a bar.

Animals Part Three: 8/15/07, live @ Super Happy Fun Land

Briana Fitzpatrick: Keyboards
Ryan Goodland: Guitar
Iram Guerrero: Drums
Carlos Sanchez: Other Drums
Cley Miller: Drumsticks, Lights
Jose Sanchez: Bass
Joe Mathlete: Vocals, Guitar

Eight months later and this is what "Animals" sounds like. I was lucky enough to draft the members of my favorite Houston band into being Mathletes starting in early 2007 (they had to change their name to Young Mammals earlier this year, due to a threatened lawsuit by a woefully shitty band from Portland who shared their original name, a name I will refrain from mentioning). You can't so much tell from this video, seeing as 3/4 of the band are playing drums (Jose stuck to his bass), but they're really good at doing rock and roll songs.

If you squint very carefully, you will notice that I'm the only person in both this clip and the last one.

Animals Part Two: 12/27/06, live @ the Proletariat

Gie Gie McGee: Vocals / Pianica
Joe Mathlete: Guitar / Vocals
Bill Savoie: Drums
Giorgio Angelini: Guitar
Bubba Hightower: Bass

In the winter of 2006, the Mathletes were asked to open for a touring band called 1986, fronted by a high school friend of mine by the name of Giorgio Angelini (oddly enough, the guy who set up the show didn't seem to know Giorgio and I had ever met. Small world, I guess). We hadn't really been a band for some time at this point; the last thing approximating a steady lineup disintegrated about a year prior and I'd mostly just been recording on my own, as I am wont to do. But I figured, y'know, the songs we play live aren't too tricky to pick up, and I know a lot of musicians. I'll just make some phone calls and see what happens.

We rehearsed twice, sort of. I was never actually able to get everyone together at the same time, so it was basically a couple long afternoons of me trying to teach whoever showed up how the songs went, and promising them it would sound neat when the rest of the band was there. I think there were about seven or eight of us that night, with people swapping in and out as we got to songs they did or didn't know. About two-thirds of the band met each other for the first time ever the night of the show. It ended up going over well enough, and though I did what I could do solidify around a real lineup, over the next year the "oh, we've got a gig, let's see who shows up this time" method became pretty much gospel.

"Animals" was basically written so Gie Gie could sing it live. She's a real-live elementary school teacher, I kid you not. Her schedule has always been very wonky, and even back when we had a pretty stable lineup there would be times where she couldn't make shows and we'd have to soldier on without her. It is weird for me when we play this song and I'm singing it.

Wow, I sure did write a lot. Ah, well... Just enjoy ("enjoy") the clip, and stay tuned for more. Or go read something that isn't about my band, I guess.

Animals Part One: Album Version

So let me say this up front: I write lots and lots of songs. Some are good, some are bad, some are mediocre, some are silly, some are straight-faced, some are pointless. If you would like to hear some songs I consider to be more on the "good" end of the spectrum, I'd suggest the ones I stuck up here.

Now for a pointless one:

MP3: THE MATHLETES - ANIMALS

This goes all the way back to 2003 (it ended up on an album called Jest and Earnest that had way way way too many songs on it but a lot of them I'm still pretty fond of). Basically I started off trying to write a fake Deerhoof song, and after thinking about what it'd be like to play it live I ended up with some of the worst lyrics I'd ever "written."

This is one of the most annoying songs I have ever written, and one of the worst, and I guess eventually probably one of the best. Check back tomorrow and I'll begin explaining why.