Matt Geiler

by Rachel Benck

The 3 Clubs is as about as Hollywood as anything else these days. In an age where technology has all but erased primacy of location in the entertainment business, the legendary cocktail lounge hunkers down on the northwest corner of Santa Monica and Vine as if it’s stubbornly guarding the last patch of true Tinsletown soil; its tired brick arms and
dirty red doormat a last willful affront to the sobering reality that the dream
factory has moved over the hill.
Inside, slurging through the 3’s signature morass of thick shadows, kitschy woodwork, and generously-littered red velvet, a couple hundred black bedrenched metalheads form a single dark blanket that spills in and out of the bar in a tiresome current that makes the screamcore pouring from the overhead speakers seem Lawrence Welkish -- that is to say
common. Background, even.
But as I push through the double doors into the showroom I feel the energy change. It’s frenetic in here -- exactly the type of borderline destructive charge you’d expect from the hardcore freaks who have packed the club to see former White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult spin
ear-splitting assaults of face-melting rock. Except none of them are watching her. The entire army of darkness is marshaled around the center of the dancefloor with cell phones trained on the object of their own ear-splitting assault of cheering and laughter: a very tall man wearing a pink
and violet flower-print shirt, designer jeans, and pristine white Converse who’s dancing as though he hopes to raise the dead.

Matt Geiler is a once-in-a-lifetime talent who just happens to take his dancing as seriously as his comedy.
“I don’t normally get down to stuff that’s this hard, actually,” he
offers. We’re now on the sidewalk outside the club, having a perfectly casual conversation as a stream
of well-wishing bikers, speed freaks, goths, and Hollywood vampires hifive
Geiler, still laughing and smiling as they head for home.
“Your moves are sick, man! You mademy fuckin’ night!”
“Thanks for having me!” Geiler responds with a friendly Midwestern wave that would be positively sinister if it wasn’t so sincere. “I mean, usually my moves are better suited to a club that plays any stripe of hip-hop or rap, or anything from the golden age of rock n’roll. But if I can latch onto the rhythm then it’s all good. It’s just a little different interface. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m hardwired to groove.”
For the third time in less than as many hours tonight, my mind is blown.
The first occurrence took place a little over an hour ago about two blocks down the street at The Lounge Theatre -- an artsy, eclectic performance space in which Geiler treated a full house to a 25-minute set of freeform
musical improvisation that could best be described as jaw-dropping. A woman in the back row shouted out “sexy time” as a suggestion, and without hesitation Geiler launched into a completely improvised and
wickedly funny funk number that featured the following lyrical feast: “This is the sort of dancing I do when it’s time to get sexy/despite this hideous shirt I’m insidious when I come correct, see/you’re hiding out in the back row shielding your face with your collar/but my sexiness will jump up
underneath your seat and make you holler!”
I would never have remembered the lines unless I had recorded it with my iPhone, something at least ten other audience members were also inclined to do. This is one of those truly rare occasions that you realize you’re witnessing something definitive and legendary just before the legend starts to be written down and retold to others. Geiler walks onto the
stage with absolutely nothing prepared and unleashes a stream-of-consciousness musical concert that is honest-to-goodness hilarious
-- so verbally clever, musically catchy, and seamlessly offered that, if it weren’t for the audience suggestions, you would assume it was all written ahead of time. When I asked the lady in the back whose suggestion
Geiler turned into comedy magic if she was a plant, she crestfallenly explained that she came to see someone else in the show; a sort
of nonsensical justification of what she had just watched, the conversational equivalent of pinching yourself awake.
Geiler is only known in certain circles of the LA underground comedy scene (having just moved here in August), but after speaking with some of the crowd in the lobby following the show, I find out that every set they’ve seen him do is as legendary as this one -- or better.
“That dude is on some other shit,” says a twenty-something kid who looks like he just came from a gathering of hipsters at Upright
Citizens Brigade. “I’ve seen him twice now, and his improv is unbelievable. It’s like he just thinks a thought and, bam, there’s a whole
song.”
On stage, Geiler’s solid 6-foot-4-inch frame is in constant whirling motion as he ejects a careening tapestry of music and com - Deep Six Publications

by Rachel Benck

The 3 Clubs is as about as Hollywood as anything else these days. In an age where technology has all but erased primacy of location in the entertainment business, the legendary cocktail lounge hunkers down on the northwest corner of Santa Monica and Vine as if it’s stubbornly guarding the last patch of true Tinsletown soil; its tired brick arms and
dirty red doormat a last willful affront to the sobering reality that the dream
factory has moved over the hill.
Inside, slurging through the 3’s signature morass of thick shadows, kitschy woodwork, and generously-littered red velvet, a couple hundred black bedrenched metalheads form a single dark blanket that spills in and out of the bar in a tiresome current that makes the screamcore pouring from the overhead speakers seem Lawrence Welkish -- that is to say
common. Background, even.
But as I push through the double doors into the showroom I feel the energy change. It’s frenetic in here -- exactly the type of borderline destructive charge you’d expect from the hardcore freaks who have packed the club to see former White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult spin
ear-splitting assaults of face-melting rock. Except none of them are watching her. The entire army of darkness is marshaled around the center of the dancefloor with cell phones trained on the object of their own ear-splitting assault of cheering and laughter: a very tall man wearing a pink
and violet flower-print shirt, designer jeans, and pristine white Converse who’s dancing as though he hopes to raise the dead.

Matt Geiler is a once-in-a-lifetime talent who just happens to take his dancing as seriously as his comedy.
“I don’t normally get down to stuff that’s this hard, actually,” he
offers. We’re now on the sidewalk outside the club, having a perfectly casual conversation as a stream
of well-wishing bikers, speed freaks, goths, and Hollywood vampires hifive
Geiler, still laughing and smiling as they head for home.
“Your moves are sick, man! You mademy fuckin’ night!”
“Thanks for having me!” Geiler responds with a friendly Midwestern wave that would be positively sinister if it wasn’t so sincere. “I mean, usually my moves are better suited to a club that plays any stripe of hip-hop or rap, or anything from the golden age of rock n’roll. But if I can latch onto the rhythm then it’s all good. It’s just a little different interface. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m hardwired to groove.”
For the third time in less than as many hours tonight, my mind is blown.
The first occurrence took place a little over an hour ago about two blocks down the street at The Lounge Theatre -- an artsy, eclectic performance space in which Geiler treated a full house to a 25-minute set of freeform
musical improvisation that could best be described as jaw-dropping. A woman in the back row shouted out “sexy time” as a suggestion, and without hesitation Geiler launched into a completely improvised and
wickedly funny funk number that featured the following lyrical feast: “This is the sort of dancing I do when it’s time to get sexy/despite this hideous shirt I’m insidious when I come correct, see/you’re hiding out in the back row shielding your face with your collar/but my sexiness will jump up
underneath your seat and make you holler!”
I would never have remembered the lines unless I had recorded it with my iPhone, something at least ten other audience members were also inclined to do. This is one of those truly rare occasions that you realize you’re witnessing something definitive and legendary just before the legend starts to be written down and retold to others. Geiler walks onto the
stage with absolutely nothing prepared and unleashes a stream-of-consciousness musical concert that is honest-to-goodness hilarious
-- so verbally clever, musically catchy, and seamlessly offered that, if it weren’t for the audience suggestions, you would assume it was all written ahead of time. When I asked the lady in the back whose suggestion
Geiler turned into comedy magic if she was a plant, she crestfallenly explained that she came to see someone else in the show; a sort
of nonsensical justification of what she had just watched, the conversational equivalent of pinching yourself awake.
Geiler is only known in certain circles of the LA underground comedy scene (having just moved here in August), but after speaking with some of the crowd in the lobby following the show, I find out that every set they’ve seen him do is as legendary as this one -- or better.
“That dude is on some other shit,” says a twenty-something kid who looks like he just came from a gathering of hipsters at Upright
Citizens Brigade. “I’ve seen him twice now, and his improv is unbelievable. It’s like he just thinks a thought and, bam, there’s a whole
song.”
On stage, Geiler’s solid 6-foot-4-inch frame is in constant whirling motion as he ejects a careening tapestry of music and com - Deep Six Publications