Bush Tetras’ classic punk funk back
MUSIC
New York’s Bush Tetras are high on the list of bands who’d be millionaires if being influential made people rich.
Formed in 1979, they were among the first bands to cross punk with funk, fueled by Pat Place’s slashing guitar and Cynthia Sley’s striking, confrontational stage presence. Their 1980 cult classic, “Too Many Creeps,” says everything you need to know about living in New York City around that time.
“We never cared what other people thought,” Sley said this week. “In our mind, we always did dance music, but we wrote about social issues, saying things that weren’t quite so conventional. And there weren’t many girls doing what we did (the lineup was and is threequarters female). We always felt outside the norm — we didn’t work, we lived in the Lower East Side. We intimidated people because we were androgynous-looking, and the business didn’t know what to do with that. I remember going to the Rat in Boston once, and the guy at the door wouldn’t let us in. He looked at me and said, ‘I used to beat up girls who looked like you.’”
The band had the last laugh, influencing bands from the Clash (who had them open at the legendary Bond’s Casino shows, and whose drummer Topper Headon produced their first EP) to Gang of Four. The latter’s original drummer, Hugo Burnham (now a Bostonarea resident) is a friend and fan and will do a DJ set at the Bush Tetras’ Middle East show tomorrow night. Also on the bill are perennial local favorites Muck & the Mires.
Though they’ve been reunited on and off for the past 15 years, the band recently wrote new material for the first time since a disappointing major label stint in the ’90s. The result is a new EP, “Take the Fall,” that sounds remarkably close to their vintage material.
“We hadn’t written a song since 1997. It was like getting back on a bicycle that was twisted — it was squeaky and clunky and it took forever to get it out of the garage,” Sley said.
New bass player Val Opielski proved the catalyst. (Founding bassist Laura Kennedy died in 2011.)
“She conjures up Laura’s spirit. She just fit in with the bass lines she was writing, and really gave us our sound back.”
One of the new songs, “Don’t Stop It,” hits back at nostalgia for the old days.
“I always get asked if there’s any scene around like there was then — and I say, of course there is,” Sley said. “There’s exciting music going on. My son turns me on to a lot of it. Just because I’m getting older doesn’t mean I can’t feel the same spirit that I was then. And I am never going to stop feeling that way.”
Besides, being a rock frontwoman isn’t that far from Sley’s other job, teaching at a progressive grade school in the West Village.
“I teach the second- and third-grade weirdos at a hippie school. My son went there too. It’s very geared toward dance, theater and visual arts. I feel that I get along with the 8- and 9-year-olds because I’m still curious and youthful. And they know that I’m a fellow weirdo.”