We’re not accustomed to featuring bands outside of Austin for the weekly Sound Off profile, but this Friday’s return of The Black Math Experiment promises to be an event worth highlighting. The Houston rockers are indescribable in sound, unless one simply reverts to “insane.” Dorky and loud and uncontrollable, the group is a raucous ecstasy of rock n roll ridiculousness, and the live shows are such spectacles of such bombast that they’ve become legendary in their hometown. Recently, BME hosted a bonanza celebrating David Arquette with the actor joining them on stage for their anthem “You Cannot Kill David Arquette,” which is chronicled below. You can also check out our review of last year’s album Last Transmission from the Blue Room, which might do better justice to the group’s glory. But we recommend you catch them live for the full effect, and you can do so this Friday, May 25 at Redrum.
Profile: The Black Math Experiment
Year Formed:
2004
Members/Instruments played:
Brian Coleman: Drums
Bill Curtner: Guitar, Keyboard, and Vocals
Christi Lain: Vocals, Keyboards
Captain Mongo Nelson: Bass, Vocals
Jef With One F: Vocals, Keyboards
Former Bands/Side Projects:
Brian Coleman: Clear Eyes (Scientology praise band), unnamed Barry Manilow tribute band
Bill Curtner: Dorian Grey, Zapgun, Cosmonaut Down
Christi Lain: Needles and Pin-ups, Dial-a-Die, The Banananas
Captain Mongo Nelson: Knee Deep in the Dead, Robotemorder, I- Sunshine
Jef With One F: Hixon, Tyler and the Barbers of Fleet Street, The Tonberries
Albums:
What We Do� Is Secret (2005, No Label)
Fake Words and Signs From Space (2005, No Label)
Last Transmission from the Blue Room (2006, No Label)
Live from the Five-Minute Hallway, Vol. 1 (2007, No Label)
All You Need is Blood (coming summer of 2007, No Label)
The Uncanny Valley (solo album by Jef With One F coming fall of 2007, No Label)
Influences:
Devo, The Pixies, Upright Citizens Brigade, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Ramones, Bill Hicks
Strangest comment or comparison ever made about your music:
“You suck! You make me see disco god” – Beaumont, TX
Favorite local bands:
SiNDADDY, Ex-Voto, and Asmodeus X from Houston. Gravity Euphonic, Uncontrollable Urge, Awen, and The Undoing of David Wright from Dallas/Ft Worth, and CTRL, Mr. Lewis & the Funeral Five, and The Zom Zoms from Austin.
Favorite local venue:
Jake’s and The Proletariat in Houston, Redrum and Elysium in Austin.
Upcoming shows scheduled:
May 25 at Redrum in Austin, June 8 in Houston at Jake’s (Pajama Jammy Jam!)
Shows over the next month that you’re excited to see (other bands):
Voltaire, Ex-Voto, Dream Theater, The Hates, Jello Biafra
Some of your favorite albums from the past year:
The Horrorpops – Hell Yeah, NIN – Year Zero, Tori Amos – American Doll Posse, Asmodeus X – Sanctuary, Goldfrapp - Supernature
Ideal band (past or present) to open for on a national tour:
The Flaming Lips
Austin Sound questions:
Your shows are notoriously insane, and Redrum has pretty much given y’all free reign. What kind of craziness do y’all have planned?
I imagine we’ll begin with our usual pageantry of 137 balloons and several quick baptisms to set the mood, followed by the traditional firing of the toilet paper cannon. Near the end we will hand out Xmas presents to those who have been good. That’s just what we’ve planned. It’s two hours to Austin, and the boredom of the drive usually ends up sparking several ill-advised courses of action. Plus, we’ll be without supervision. Allah be merciful!
Y’all have also become a favorite band of David Arquette’s, and he even sang with y’all at a show awhile back. How did that association start up?
Bill Curtner was inspired to write our song “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” by David’s performances in the many children’s movies Bill watched with his son. When he brought the idea to the band, we began to further elaborate of his awesomeness in a way that can only be described as divinely inspired. The audiences loved the song, and it was a cornerstone on Fake Words and Signs From Space. We had tried several different ways of contacting David to tell him about the track, but all to no avail. About a year after the album’s release, one of our gambits paid off. A re-mailing service had gotten the album into David’s hands, and he was both delighted and slightly disturbed (which is the appropriate emotional response to most things involving BME). Having recently set up a Myspace to promote his horror film The Tripper, he contacted us via our Myspace to thank us for the song. He promised he would send a proper thank you later. We were all on Cloud 9 just to not have a restraining order filed against us, and I mentioned that the spiritual feeling was akin to a Snoopy-dance with a cupcake in each hand in our blog. Apparently this image tickled David, who sent us a duffel-bag size box of gourmet cupcakes as a token of his appreciation. After that, we declared him the band’s honorary sixth member, and have an autographed picture of him surrounded by candles on stage with us at most shows. He again reciprocated, wearing our T-shirt on MTV’s TRL, and mentioning us as one of his favorite bands.
Later that year, David decided that he would tour the country to promote The Tripper, and asked me to set him up an appearance in Houston, preferably at a BME concert so he could see us play. With only 5 days to set it up, we managed to include almost every newspaper, website, and radio station in Houston in the event. If there has ever been another meeting like the one between David Arquette and BME, there cannot have been many. The man showed up decked to the nines with a full entourage in tow, barely able to get through the door of The Proletariat it was so packed with fans. He immediately rushed up to meet us, all handshakes, hugs. He is one of the most down-to-earth and just plain nice guys I’ve ever met, and seemed to be very touched the amount of effort we’d put into the evening. After screening the trailer for The Tripper, we played our hearts out, and asked him to join us on stage to sing his song. He obliged by pantomiming the lyrics right down to David Lee Roth’s jumps. We spent the rest of the evening just drinking and hanging out, before he drove off to New Orleans.
It was truly great.
Song Introduction:
“You Cannot Kill David Arquette”:
Our biggest hit details the virtues of the strangely immortal actor.
“Ology”:
A song about geometry that is part of the kindergarten curriculum in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
“Closer”:
Man, Trent Reznor is gonna be so mad at us. Recorded live.
Sound Off:
We’ve noticed a lot of other bands are terrified of not fitting in. Metal bands worry if they’re “metal” enough. Punk bands cringe at the thought of being called “not punk”, or worse, “pop punk”. So they burn and cut their music and lyrics until they fit, until they’re as safe in their genre as corpses in the ground. BME never has to worry about finding things to make us not fit in. All we have to worry about is the price of Silly String and finding words that rhyme with “Ohio”.
Mp3s:
You Cannot Kill David Arquette
Ology
Closer
Website:
Myspace
