Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Bush Tetras & The dB's
Bush Tetras were a rock band from New York City, popular in the New York club scene in the early 1980s but never achieving much mainstream success. Their music, sometimes classified under "rare beats", combined funk rhythms and dissonant rock-guitar riffs.
Lead guitarist Pat Place and vocalist Cynthia Sley produced the most distinctive aspects of the Tetras sound. Place's guitar lines were rhythmic and distortion-filled. She had been the original guitarist and one of the founding members of the No Wave band The Contortions. With the Bush Tetras, Pat continued to pursue some of the musical ideas she had explored in that band, although her distinctive slide guitar is absent from many of the Tetras songs. Sley's vocals were half-spoken, half-sung. In songs like "Too Many Creeps" and "You Can't Be Funky," she repeated simple phrases over and over again, creating a hypnotic monotony similar to Place's guitar rhythms.
Along with Let’s Active, the dB’s defined the Southern power pop/jangle pop movement of the early to mid-’80s. The band’s music was a quirky blend of smart pop and psychedelia crossed with the more experimental side of new wave. Though they never received widespread recognition outside of critical acclaim, they provided a key link between Big Star and ’80s alternative guitar acts such as R.E.M.
tracklisting:
01 bush tetras - cowboys in africa
02 bush tetras - moonlite
03 bush tetras - submerging nations (live)
04 bush tetras - too many creeps
05 bush tetras - das ah riot
06 the db's - black and white
07 the db's - dynamite
08 the db's - cycles per second
09 the db's - big brown eyes
10 the db's - amplifier
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2 comments:
Bush Tetras are really cool - they were a band I was conversationally familiar with the history and identity of but had not really heard with recognition - before the No Wave pack.
Moonlight had a very similar - or rather familiar drum beat to me. I'm actually curious if something more recently sampled it as it really did sound very very familiar on the listen.
Too Many Words is probably my favorite song I've heard of them so far.
The dB's were really pleasant. Not someone I had heard up but their sound is great and I wish I had been more aware before. Interesting and witty in lyrics and composition makes me as happy as a kid in a candy shop. Toss a little jangle in and I'm as happy as... well anything I would go to top that would probably become off color. Thanks for the exposure.
As a result of Hepatitis C Infection, original Bush Tetras bassist and founding member,Laura Kennedy needs an immediate liver transplant.
All proceeds on Bush Tetras CDs, LPs and shirts purchased through the ROIR website (www.roir-usa.com) go directly to the Laura Kennedy Liver Fund.
Sunday October 26th
Laura Kennedy Benefit Show
@ Cake Shop
152 Ludlow Street
New York, NY 10002
Appearing are:
Bush Tetras (also last ever NYC show)
James Chance
Certain General
Radio I-Ching
Lenny Kaye
Julian Stockdale
Deborah Frost
…and others TBA shortly
$15 door
myspace.com/bushtetras
For more information on Laura Kennedy and how to make a donation, please visit
http://lklf.blogspot.com
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