Hooves on the Turf

Philly’s Drink Up Buttercup has a new 7″ for “Farewell Captain”. It’s made in Czechoslovakia and it’s red, and you would know this firsthand too if you owned it for $7. I feel like the band has an identifiable sound that can grouped into light and dark. “Farewell Captain” belongs to the dark, and with its jolting thrusts of everything (keys, bass, guitar, drums), a quirky change of tempo that takes you to rolling dark waves of the ocean sweeping across drowning sailors (quite possibly), and an echoing, semi-operatic, haunting refrain that closes the whole thing, it’s been a staple at Drink Up’s live shows. In a way, it’s in itself a portfolio of the band’s sound. For now you’re either going to have to buy this 7″ or head over to myspace in order to listen, but posted here is the b-side, “Sosey & Dosey”, which is a fair representation of their light sound. After listening to various live versions, it’s pretty exciting to have a proper mp3 of it to yourself (which comes with the 7″ of course). I love the lyrics, too: “Sosey” and “Dosey” are the names of the characters involved, and they “keep on falling”, to the rolling beat of that song thaf feels like one long tumble.

Download “Sosey and Dosey“

The single release party was at the new Bruar Falls in Williamsburg on a rainy Tuesday night (the horror, right?). It was my second time there, and the mood was weird, not festive like it was at the Afuche/Tune Yards show. Maybe it’s just me, but I come away from darkly lit venues with a general lack of happiness and a vague sense of exhaustion. Drink Up Buttercup is an especially visual band, and even though the weird venue projection they played against was kind of cool, half the fun is being able to see (not just hear) these guys play, which was difficult in this setup. The stage is small there, so they couldn’t really move around either, and whoever was doing the sound was doing a terrible job, in my opinion. It sounded like everything’d been pushed to the max with no concern for balancing the different elements (in my recording I can’t hear the drums at all). Even during the first band’s set, the volume was so loud that it was surprisingly and absolutely impossible to talk to anyone at all, which I’d never experienced before. Fortunately, Drink Up Buttercup doesn’t let anything get in the way of rocking out. Still, I wasn’t 100% satisfied, so I went to the Santos Party House show the next night, where the stage had breathing room (yes!), the sound was clear (yes!) and the audience was a whole lot funner. It was my first time there, and I really liked it. Pictures in this post are taken from that show.