If You GoWho: Matt and KimWhere: Schine UndergroundWhen: Tonight, 8 p.m., doors open at 7:30 p.m.How much: $5

After playing an 11-song set tonight, Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino fully expect a dance party with 350 of their newest Syracuse friends.

The party would accompany tonight’s concert in Schine Underground, the second of the year in the Bandersnatch Music Series, a subdivision of University Union Concerts. Headlining the show is the Brooklyn-based duo Matt and Kim, with Matt on keyboard and Kim on drums.

Tickets are on sale at the Schine Box Office for $5 for the show at 8 p.m. tonight, with doors opening at 7:30. And the band hopes you’ll stick around after the show ends.

‘Shows should be just like a big party,’ Kim said. ‘Why else would you go to a concert?’

Matt and Kim – who call their concerts ‘an onstage pizza party’ – earned their start three years ago when the two met and began dating at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute. Though Kim played clarinet in junior high, she always wanted to learn the drums, so she began practicing, and Matt picked up the keyboard.

‘My influences then were total rave music and college punk rock,’ said Kim, whose older brother was a rave DJ at the time. Matt preferred political punk bands like The Clash, but when the two combined their talents, the sound that came out was what Kim described as ‘pop-punk.’

‘It’s Top 40,’ she said. ‘The drums are simple, but it’s totally dance-y.’

Matt and Kim began practicing in earnest about two years ago, renting out the cheapest time slots they could at a local studio from 9 a.m. to noon. They were able to record their first EP – ‘To/From’ – and began touring non-stop.

Matt said touring is the key to making it.

‘You’re not making money,’ Kim reiterated, ‘but you’re getting your name out there. You just have to play short sets and leave people wanting more.’

Their sets grew from three songs to the approximately 11 the two currently play as the duo toured around the country, hitting even a few stops in Europe.

‘In San Diego (two years ago), we were playing and kids were singing along to the EP we had just released,’ Kim said. ‘It was just mind-blowing that they knew who we were.’

They attribute some of this success to the Internet, especially their MySpace page, where they maintain show updates, links to their albums and streaming music.

After the success of their tour and single EP, the two recorded and released their first full-length, self-titled album last October.

Since then, their music has been featured on MTV2, and they played twice on stage during this past summer’s Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago, first opening the show and then taking over for a band that could not make it.

‘I’m still completely shocked that people know us,’ Kim said. ‘We played a festival in Norway, and they just kept singing along. They even voted for our (Yea Yeah) video so that it would play on their equivalent of MTV. It was on there with people like Amy Winehouse.’

After this evening’s show, the couple will go on to play only a few more spots – including the CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival in New York City this Saturday – before beginning to write and record their next album, which is expected in April.

‘It’s a full-time job touring all the time,’ Kim said. ‘But each show’s a party, and how can that not be fun?’

Published on October 16, 2007 at 12:00 pm