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Music

This Modern Love: We Are Scientists

Do you rate 'BASEketball,' love Hanes v-necks, and dancing to "goofy-ass," Prohibition-era jazz? You may be the lady Keith from We Are Scientists has been scouring the planet for.

Is Keith the man for you?

We Are Scientists are really into animals/reptiles. When they first came out in 2005 they were photographed holding kittens. Then Chris went on a date with a dog, now he's getting handsy with a 'gator. Of course they're good at doing other stuff besides handling living creatures and dying in their own videos (check "Dumb Luck," below). We suggest you listen to their recently released fifth record, TV en Français, as evidence. A sparkling example of indie-rock panache, the collection is a devilish concoction of guitar zingers and indelible hooks that flip between anthemic and yearning. They're catchier than scabies in an upturned festival port-a-potty. There's one moment on the record that reminds us of Tears for Fears and another that recalls Jimmy Eat World. This is a good thing.

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Anyway. We're terrible at dating IRL and are also simultanously flummoxed by online courting. So we started This Modern Love, a column that's merely a shamelessly cribbed questionnaire from OkCupid. We hope to learn something about life, love, and getting laid. Keith gamely took the plunge and his answers are as follows…

Age/Sex/Location/Sexual Preference:
36/ Male/ New York, NY/straight

My self-summary:
I love to laugh but hate to be embarrassed. I desperately avoid being approached by salespeople, because I’m a huge pushover. My manager thinks I hate everything, but I say that just means that I have extremely refined tastes, which, sure, happen to involve my loving the band Poison and the movie BASEketball. What I’m doing with my life:
Trying to pump out hits, and to make as many music videos that involve me somehow perishing by the end as is humanly possible. We’re at least up to four, now, but depending upon how you interpret the ending of a couple of them, I’d argue that we’re closer to seven or eight.

I’m really good at:
Big Buck Hunter, arranging harmonies, avoiding phone calls, finishing beer.

The first things people usually notice about me are:

My head of grey hair. People love commenting on it, over and over and over and over, until I change the subject by bringing up their pig-nose or their wiry ear-hairs, or whatever.

Favorite books:

Infinite Jest

by David Foster Wallace,

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The End of the Affair

by Graham Greene, any of the Parker novels by Richard Stark.

Favorite movies:
One of the very first movies Chris and I bonded over was BASEketball. It’s directed by the dingus who made Airplane! and the Naked Gun movies, but you can tell that Trey Parker and Matt Stone didn’t really bother to ready the script, and kind of took over the production. It’s madness. I’m also pretty into Crimes and Misdemeanors, Buffalo 66, The Man With Two Brains, but I kind of feeling like I’m forgetting some important touchstones. I just keep on thinking of shitty movies I love, like Stealth and The Room. Really, though, I will go to any movie at all, as long as the theater servers popcorn and fountain cola. Fortunately, only the most egregiously pretentious or illegal theaters are without those accouterments.

Favorite music:
Velvet Underground, Fleetwood Mac, Poison, Weezer, that new Vampire Weekend record. Also, I went to Sleep No More a few weeks ago, and now I’m into all this goofy-ass, Prohibition-era jazz, like Paul Whiteman and Bix Beiderbecke. It’s embarrassing, really. Now, when I’m at home, I feel like I’m in a Woody Allen film, or at a dumbass bar in Williamsburg.

Favorite TV shows:
People are going to think I’m just being willfully obscure, but my favorite show, ever, in the world, is Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. There are only six episodes, but I must have watched each one ten or twelve times. It’s kind of sad. I was also totally down the rabbit hole with LOST. For the last couple of seasons, I kept swearing off of it, because it was getting so indefensibly stupid, but then the following season would kind of make the last one seem pretty good, by comparison. I feel like the the producers were actually taking pity on their audience and weaning them off of the show, little by little. I probably would have had a heart attack if the sixth season had been as good as the first few, and then it had just ended. As it was, I was kind of relieved to wash my hands of it, by the end.

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Favorite Food:
I’m pretty much obsessed with this Szechuan place on 2nd Ave called Hot Kitchen. It’s an act of sheer discipline to not order in from there, every night of my life. I will also lose my shit over any British curry, no matter how objectively crappy it is. Why the hell can’t America approximate even the worst British curry? I guess it’s a fair trade, because their Mexican food is pretty inexcusable, but damn, they sure know their way around some Indian cuisine.

Six things I could never do without:
My 52 Reissue Fender Telecasters—I own other guitars that are way nicer, but, damn, I can’t play live without one of those Telecasters. I’ve tried a couple of times, but i always come running back. It’s a problem, really. Other things I need are margaritas, planes with seat-back entertainment, ice, movie popcorn, and literacy.

The most private thing I’m willing to admit is:
I own like two dozen Hanes V-neck t-shirts, and, if I could get away with it, I would pretty much just wear them every single day, forever. As it is, they’re pretty much my standard uniform, but I’ll occasionally become so ashamed of my lack of wardrobe variety and my crippling addiction to a $2 piece of clothing that I’ll change it up just to feel ennobled. Also, the older, yellower, and more threadbare they are, the better. I get really bummed when laundry day is arriving, and I’m down to only my fresh, new Hanes V-necks.

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On a typical Friday night I am:
Probably desperately trying to avoid going out in Williamsburg. When I’m in New York, Friday and Saturday are my big nights to stay in and get work done. The other nights of the week, all bets are off—I’ll be out until sunrise, if possible.

You should message me if:
You have a good line on cheap Hanes V-necks or movie popcorn.

We Are Scientists Tour Dates 4/16 Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle
4/17 Washington, DC @ Black Cat
4/18 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
4/19 Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
4/20 Montreal, QC @ Il Motore
4/22 Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace
4/23 Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop
4/24 Columbus, OH @ The Basement
4/25 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
4/26 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry
4/28 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
4/29 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
5/1 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
5/2 Vancouver, BC @ Electric Owl
5/3 Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
5/6 Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
5/7 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
5/8 Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
5/9 Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
5/10 San Diego, CA @ Casbah
5/11 Phoenix, AZ @ Rhythm Room
5/14 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
5/15 Austin, TX @ Red 7
5/16 Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald’s
5/17 Baton Rouge, LA @ Spanish Moon
5/18 Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
5/19 Raleigh, NC @ Kings
5/20 Greensboro, NC @ The Blind Tiger

Related:

Active Child, The GTW, Com Truise, PAPA, Astr and others take the bait and plunge into This Modern Love.