One, two, three, four, five.
Try again.
One, two, three, four, five...six?
Still no luck.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Seems right. I think.

My inner metronome is hardly accurate to the nanosecond, but I have enough musical experience to make out the time signatures of most songs. Standing among a couple hundred other people in Chicago’s Fireside Bowl and watching Sweep the Leg Johnny frenetically bounce around on stage, though, I have to say I can’t figure out what the hell they are playing.
“ You can subdivide a beat down so far that you can make anything fit into anything,” explains Mitch Cheney, Sweep’s newest member and second guitarist. “I know I’m playing in a five, and John’s playing in a seven, and Chris is playing in a six. That’s not like 128 beats per minute; he’s playing more of 64 beats per minute.”
An urge rises within you upon hearing such things, especially when Cheney starts using words like “polyrhythm,” “split keys,” “syncopation” and “polymelody.” You feel the urge grow stronger as you stand slack-jawed watching Sweep the Leg Johnny, unable to quantify a song’s time signature. You must resist, though. You must fight the urge to call them “math rock.”