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| This MTX used to be my mortal enemy in Buckhead traffic. I would think to myself, "Gee, self (this is how Evil Karla preferrs to address me), your daily commute to class would be so much more pleasant were it not through a sea of homogenized musical stylings." And you know, she was right. Sitting bumper-to-bumper with 10,000 other cars isn't all that bad when the 10,000 other cars aren't interfering with your Radiohead album. Assuming that Radiohead *is* the only CD you're hearing. But as is always the case, somebody's sitting in the far left lane with a system too big for his brain. And the rest of us, fumbling to find the volume on our modest CD converters, must suffer the hell-on-earth that is a traffic jam with a Nelly fan. The irony of people with subwoofers is that they never seem to play music that's worth the hearing loss. You know what kind of annoying song to expect from an annoyingly loud car stereo the way you know to expect a chrome-donut-sportin' lowrider to have dice in the mirror (If anything, I would say that this cab was rare.)-----because there's an instinctive musical analysis emblazoned in the ears of every motorist, and it's almost 80% true: "the bigger the speakers, the bigger the suck." Aye, a dogma for the ages. If I had it my way, all scales for weighing a song's caliber, whether it be composition, originality, or the size of the artist's rear end, would kowtow to the superior precision of the Auto Decibel System. Heh. I Iove how many people I'm pissing off with this review. Well. When I got a car with A/C and stopped rolling down my windows, the problem eventually solved itself. And I eventually stopped hating MTX, too, because I finally met the true owner of that acronym. And realized that MTX embodies a sound larger than an audio company. The sound is that of lyrical genius Dr. Frank, and the band is The Mr. T Experience. |
| ... Have you had it? |
| And that's why I love him more than toast. |
| 1.) The face of Vincent Vaughn...the disposition of Holden Caufield...the mind of Dostoevsky. 2.) "Television is great. Television is what separates us from the lower animals." 3.) Dr. Frank is not an actual doctor, but he plays one onstage. 4.) MTX has been around since 1986, shared a label (Lookout!) with the infamous Green Day (before the early '90's re-mainstreaming of punk), and yet still manages to draw about fifteen fans per show. (see: "Dumb Little Band") 5.) "The complete lack of any commercial interest has left us free to pursue our unique vision unhindered by any undue success." ...Okay, not really. Actually, only Conan O' Brien underestimates the size of his fanbase more than Dr. Frank. It must be a modesty thing. Y'know, either that, or a ploy for sympathy. =) 6.) "I feel like such a rebel not having a tattoo. It might be an offense. I might get arrested." 7.) Dr. Frank is the only known pop-punk frontman to use the adverb "surreptitiously" (at least correctly) in a song. 8.) There's no fan like an MTX fan. In fact, apropos the Conan O'Brien comment, Dr. Frank shares the same brand of unusually quality (though incidentally, unusually obsessive) followers. 9.) "I think there are alot of people that think that rock music should be tough and mean and evil. I mean, we played a show last night and there were a bunch of Lint look-alikes in the audience who were giving us the finger and stuff. I think they just want the music they're listening to to sound as ugly as they want people to think their lives are. They're just upset because they have receeding mowhawks and there's nothing they can do about it." 10.) There's basically no reason to be doing what he's doing. But he does it anyway. 11.) "The problem with midgets is that they are so short. And they can hide in irregular places where people like you and me can't hide, so I'm always afraid that if there's a midget lurking around, he's going to shoot up from behind some ledge and shoot a poison blow dart at me." 12.) Three words: Songs about girls. 13.) "Everything is an influence. Even things that you don't like. In fact, things you don't like can be more of an influence than the things that you do like." 14.) Despite the fact that he's non-political (song-wise) and writes mostly about girls (and television), Dr. Frank is the best lyricist since Robert Smith, and the only lyricist besides Robert Smith who really ellicits from me any decent amount of interest and respect. 15.) Dr. Frank attended U.C. Berkeley, receiving a B.A. in History. KNOWLEDGE is POWER! 16.) "All I can say is thank God the hippies failed! They had terrible taste in everything, not just hair and clothes, though that was abominable too. The '60's were terrible, the whole way of thinking started a trend that's led to the destruction of American Intellectual Culture. What passes for it these days is a very wishy-washy, touchy-feely substancelessness." 17.) Every album is a concept album. ... The same concept, no less. 18.) Frank's favorite quotation: "Love is like Oxygen. If you get too much, you get too high. Not enough and you're going to die. Love gets you high." 19.) And finally, yet another (but not the last) reason why Dr. Frank is freaking awesome, this song: |
| This is Dr. Frank. He's the lead singer of The Mr. T Experience. He's also known as a solo performer. Dr. Frank is freaking awesome. I'm prepared to offer you 95 theses to demonstrate exactly why Dr. Frank is freaking awesome. Though I doubt it will take that many to nail it. |
| "M" for mellifluous, "T" for tempestuous, and "X" for XTREEEEEEME!!!!!!!!!!!11111 |
| Top Three Reccommended albums (for the newcomer): ****************************** 1.) Love is Dead, 1996 2.) Revenge is Sweet...And So are You, 1997 3.) ...And the Women who Love Them, 2000 (get this special edtion, if you have any sense) For a Full Discography |
| Best MTX sites: **************** Empty Starship - AWESOME site. MTX Starship.com - You must check out the lyrics collection. Then you must proceed to read some brilliant interviews. You MUST, I SAY!!!!! |
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| (Click here to see a pretty humorous picture of the band I took after a show in September of 2000. Frank, Jym, Gabe.) |
| NINETEEN out of NINETY-FIVE THESES to support Dr. Frank's (and/or MTX's) Freaking Awesomeness: |
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| I'm Like "Yeah," But she's all "No" Boy meets girl, girl teases boy Boy looks for something to destroy He's into her, she's onto him And that's the way it's always been She'll be with you if you want her to Unless she finds out that you do Then somehow she won't wanna be It turns around so suddenly. CHORUS: And I'm like "Yeah" But she's all "No" And I'm all "Come on baby, let's go," But she's like "I don't think so" And I'm going . . . The search for love and happiness Turns out to be a game of chess You can't move or You'll flip the board And you're lying in pieces on the floor --> |
| CHORUS: And I'm like "Um" And she's all "Hey" And I'm all "Come on baby, let's play" And she's like "That's okay" And I'm going . . . BRIDGE: Every day I just wanna say I love her madly, but I do it so badly And when I do, I can't get through If she even listens, she's way off in the distance. Success in these relationships Rests more or less on gamesmanship And these are ships that I can't board, Or keep in order, or afford. CHORUS: I'm like "Yeah" But she's all "No" And I'm all "Come on baby, let's go," But she's like "I don't think so" And I'm going . . . I'm going . . . I'm going . . . |
| So that was it; the reason behind my favorite rhymes and my attempt to enlist MTX aficionados in a punk rock army that will one day TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!!! ....Yeah, right. Karla Gets the Mr. T Experience You've arrived at the venue. Club 513. Downtown Atlanta. Upstreet from a crackhouse and two blocks from the cement jungle of Georgia State, where 25,000 students fight daily for degrees amidst the teeming undergrowth urban sprawl. Worming your way into line, behind a sum of 41 punks with cigarettes and a girl with a joint, who is deeply preoccupied with attempting to both speak coherently to the goup of people around her and sufficently brandish her tongue ring at the same time (NOTE: It's a time-worn statistic that 95.5% of people with tongue rings are obnoxious. Then again, 90% of people in general are obnoxious, so...), you notice that you're probably one of the least hardcore individuals present. Not that it matters. In tattered pink fishnets and clashing orange chucks, the girl in front of you looks about as hardcore as Steve Urkel. But wait----who is that unassuming lad laughing and shaking hands? A light in the postmodern darkness, Dr. Frank materializes against the backdrop of smokestacks and studs like a freakish sore thumb, wearing a plain white button-up, jeans, and a congenial grin. He then proceeds to hug you like a long lost friend and ask earnestly what you would like to hear. You regain your voice and list your favorite songs from memory (seven in all), and he produces a sharpie from his back pocket and, nodding dilligently, etches them into his open palm. After an interesting conversation around the merchandise table, you enjoy an amazing live show with a set list roughly 50% comprised by you. Does music get any more awesome than that? Okay, so I realize that dedicating an entire page to the coolness of Dr. Frank is sort of a waste of time. Such writing effectively pinions your ideas with the ropes of 'loser' and tends to say more about the author than any ultimate truth on the subject. I know all of three people besides myself who will ever have the initiative to appreciate MTX's Dr. Frank for what an aberration among musicians he truly is. That's the point. And maybe, just maybe, a bigger handfull of people will come to realize it. He's a great musician. He's a truly nice guy. And his shameless, lyrical implementation of rare words is one of many things which, however slight, helps to soothe the misanthropic Karla of a rush hour traffic jam with a heightened hope for humanity. |
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| by: Karla July 29, 2002. |
| This hulking mass of masculinity is Mr T. Not to be confused with the aforementioned Dr. Frank, who weighs approximately 120 pounds soaking wet and hasn't lifted anything heavier than a guitar in fifteen years. |
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| Quick Introduction: ************************************************ Here's a page of modge-podge, Introductory Quotes. |
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