My run in with Dee Pop (of Bush Tetras)

On Wednesday Morning, I was riding the subway into the city to get to my internship. I sat down at the nearest available spot and pulled out my laptop. I had been experiencing some problems with my ipod earlier that morning, so while restoring it, I needed to keep my laptop open so it could complete the process. In order to keep it from closing in my bag, I had to keep it wedged open with a book. That book happened to be Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life, a collection of thirteen biographies profiling some of the most important underground bands to emerge in the 1980's.

When I pulled the laptop out, the book lay across the keyboard as I monitored my itunes library. Suddenly, the man sitting next to me with his son asks, "Can I look at the index of that book?". Intrigued by what this man could be looking for, I said "Sure". As I handed it to him and began skimming through the back I asked, "What are you looking for?" to which he replied, "my band". All of a sudden my mind started racing in a billion directions, "Oh shit! Who is this guy? He's obviously not in any of the profiled bands, then why would he look in the index? Oh man, oh man, oh man". He replied, "Bush Tetras". "Ohhhhhh!". Amazed, I ask, "You were in the Bush Tetras?". He quickly bounces back with "Still am". "'Can't Be Funky?!'" I ask. "That's us" he said. From there, we talked a lot about the no wave scene, music on late night talk shows, Brooklyn, my ipod problem, and splurging on music, for about 40 minutes or so.

For those who don't know, Bush Tetras were (and still are to some degree), a funk based post-punk band from the early 80's, from Manhattan. Their sound consisted of a mixture of liquid funk bass lines and abrasive guitar work. Over the course of the decades they released several singles, EPs, and compilations, but never a full length album. Among their most popular songs, "Too Many Creeps" and "Can't Be Funky" are definite highlights, (the latter appearing on the New York Noise compilation). Definitley worth checking out.
Bush Tetras - Too Many Creeps from Anna at ROIR on Vimeo.