so did anyone go see the hairiest show on earth, or what? (aka devendra/bunnybrains tour)

Anyway, I'll save my monies for Faun Fables later this month.

It was only beginning though. After a few songs, the rest of the band came out. They were: a guitarist with like a cat mask and sunglasses, a bassist dressed as a fox, a girl dressed as like a Viking/Amazon who played a saw with a bow, and two more women who just sort of stood there screaming, one dressed as a garden gnome and one not so much. After a few songs, the original guitarist stripped down to a leotard which really didn't adequately support his, er, member, and started jumping around. You could kind of see waves of people catching on in unison about what exactly was dangling around down there and then covering their eyes and shrieking or whatnot. At one point, they brought up this very small man who sort of looked like Devendra Banhart (beard- and hair-wise, at least) and had him deepthroat a banana.

He wasn't kidding. He and a drummer done up like the Phantom of the Opera, complete with a silver mask covering his face, started the set with atonal meanderings, and were slowly joined by others in costume. There was someone dressed like a garden gnome, a young woman in a red leotard and pink tights who mumbled and shrieked into a microphone and a guitarist wearing a plastic dog snout and jowls. The singer slowly disrobed to reveal a red unitard that provided nothing close to optimal coverage of his nether region.

It would be far too generous to call anything they performed "music" or describe any of their work as "songs" - and Bunny Brains would likely agree - but there were a lot of lyrics about barnyards and salted butter.

Just when you thought free love was going out of style, Devendra Banhart & Hairy Fairy roll into town, playing an unforgettable show at Emo's Monday night. Devendra's style merges the pyschedelic songwriting and heartfelt folk of the 60s with his own spiritual, idealistic, neo-hippie voice.

The opening act, Bunny Brains, was a staged parade of costumed merry pranksters. That night, the band included a tuxedo wolf bassist, a masked, drumming cowboy, and one bearded jazz wizard on a Theremin who was apparently named "Nobody." Their lead singer eventually disrobed to a red, zip-down one-piece with white horn rimmed sunglasses.

The band's vocals ranged from convoluted (beatnik) rapping of sorts to a gurgling infant duet. The acid rock ensemble's masturbatory overload of sound is enough to take in. But by adding sideshow theatrics, including the stripping of an audience member down to his underwear on stage, to the costumes and music, the performance bordered on insanity. In a good way, though.

When Devendra took the stage, he thanked Bunny Brains "for being sweetness," and began to play. Amongst the long-haired and bearded camoflauge that is the Hairy Fairy band, Devendra Banhart crooned and cawed mystically.

Animal collective
BunnyBrains out-freak the folkies, plus Broken Social Scene
BY CAMILLE DODERO

Devendra Banhart’s audience was warned. A week ago Wednesday, percussionist/singer Gregory Rogove from openers Tarantula A.D. tried to prepare the Somerville Theatre audience for about what was to follow. "BunnyBrains is up next," he told us. "Be afraid." Even though Boston should’ve known better — BunnyBrains have been kicking around here for a decade, with a five-disc box set issued just last year on Narnack — it was sorta like alerting a coastal city about an impending tidal wave. When 15 freaks materialized on stage, in the aisles, and at the back of the theater in half-assed character masks (a white-bearded lawn troll, a fuzzy unicorn hood, a wolf-snouted bass-player), it was as if Hanna Barbera had unloaded the company dumpster into the hall. Stringy-haired BunnyBrains mystic Daniel Bunny moaned nonsensical mantras like "Wade in the water" and "Take your shackles back!" while a cacophony of horns puked, a red-dressed woman yammered into a pair of microphones, another woman choked into a CB radio, and a shirtless guy shone a near-blinding spotlight onto the crowd. Screw Don McLean: this was the day the music died.

With characters on and off the stage in full freakout, it was difficult to tell who was in the band and who wasn’t — even more so when members of the local folk/performance art collective Dreamhouse dragged an enormous sky-blue tarp down the stage-left aisle like a Chinese New Year dragon, then covered the unsuspecting middle-orchestra section with the canvas. Cue people gettng furious, holding the tarp over their heads, trying to push it off. A theater manager appeared, ordered the sound cut, and loudly, hysterically declared the tarp a fire hazard. Plunge into Death’s Mark E. Moon later reported that Banhart’s father and friends "were really pissed off." A Northeastern sophomore laughed, "I have no idea how I’m going to explain this to my friends. Like a circus without any cages?"

We can't verify this for sure, but we're pretty sure that had local laws allowed it, each and every single band member would have been naked by the end of the show.

This would not have been a good thing.

I don't think they really even have songs. They just get up there and bang around on shit. It was pretty terrible. Of course, they'd probably think this is a complement. It's not. They can't even get the art rock acid shit down right. It was embarassing.

Before the show they came out and danced through the audience with an old time song in the background. You could tell they hadn't peaked yet with their highs and they looked uncomfortable and self conscious. Rightfully so.

Okay, Bunny Brains.. these guys are fucked up. The lead singer wears a pink dress and plays the guitar with a recorder. Like, he uses the recorder to play the guitar. The drummer wears and mask and jumps and hits drums placed all around the stage. The bassist wears a dog coustume and sings about animal S&M. Then there's this chick who started off playing a saw ("She's playing the saw!") but by the end she was merely rollng around on the ground making noises. The last member of the band was also female.. I think. She wore a gnome mask and big feet. Her role was to bang a microphone against random things on the stage.

All in all it was a very interesting experience.

Before the show they came out and danced through the audience with an old time song in the background. You could tell they hadn't peaked yet with their highs and they looked uncomfortable and self conscious. Rightfully so.
This was the Minneapolis show, right? Most of the kids up front were from a local Christian college and were insufferable. Thank you for making them uncomfortable.

That's all I have to say right now.

More later.

Rated:
LincolnHawks
Oct 08, 2005
[Rating2875911]
Y'know ranting about horrific opening bands is beginning to be somewhat of a regular occurrence on top of its delightful nature for me.

Bunny Brains is absolutely no exception, and when I saw Devendra Banhart's face solemnly turn to distressed stone upon hearing Bunny Brains create a life-succubus of annoying ruckus on "HIS" stage at (new Hollywood Club) Vanguard, I new that this review must become a reality.

Bunny Brains: a drunk guy in a fur towel with "Lolita" sunglasses, attempting to play two acoustic tracks only to have their retarded noise interrupted by his rising vomit or talk of how "LA drivers are fuckin' screwed up"........if this would have been the extent of Bunny Brains set, my life would be a happy one, instead his band decided to come up: tortured animal manifesto's and all!

You've got a guy with a Nixon mask and a Sumo suit, a guy with a Unicorn Mask, a chick with random shit all over her, and a third guy with a simple white fox mask. Each one of these character proceed to join their frontman and go on a high, drunken rampage all over Mr. Banhart's stage ("you getoff stage!" says Yacoff Smirnoff from the 3rd row). The worst part about this, of which set it apart from a mere on-stage neo-free love spectacle, was the fact that these people tried to play instruments, and aside from the bassist, none of them could or did.

The girl was perhaps the worst, I compare her to Fergee from the Black Eyed Peas...a blatant attempt at causing hard-on's, only this girl was slightly more of the extragenital consortium. Quite frankly, I didn't mind glancing at her protruding butt cheeks in hopes of seeing "something more", but this didn't make her a musician or anything resembling a real person. Her musical repertoire peaked at slamming her high heel against a metal folding chair while making the noise "eeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!"

Don't listen to this other guy, although Bunny Brains might represent the most intensely visceral experience of your ignorant or not-so-ignorant life, they are a complete joke, not to be bothered with.

Gime me a break. This is what morons declare brilliance because it hits them in such a tantalizing fashion of repugnant glee, they have no place to go but say it's great based on its weirdness. Weird is not good, good can be weird, and bad is sometimes weird, but a shoe is not a giraffe unless you mold it into a capillary gland

http://www.shapeshifting.org/images/battles/2.gif

http://junko.slide.com/c/Devendra+Banhart+_2B+Bunny+Brains

The Bunny Brains
Box the Bunny
Narnack
Box the Bunny is a collection of the previously vinyl-only output by Connecticut’s The Bunny Brains. It is a collection that is expansive and intense. The Bunny Brains is truly a freak show musically and performance wise. Still, this is pretty listenable set. The Bunnies have so many different sounds and styles (as well as band members) that they can continually bring something new to their noisy-psyche freakouts and make for a pretty interesting listen if you have four hours or so to trip your face off.

The obvious comparison for The Bunny Brains’ music is early Butthole Surfers. Never quite reaching the cohesive heights of the Austin maniacs, The Bunny Brains also lives in a world that encompasses everything from garage-rock to Kraut-rock to psyche jams that disintegrate to swells of distorted guitars and pulsating VU drumming. One can see a distinct progression disc by disc as the bunnies seem to “mature” in the most minimal of ways, but overall noise is the message and The Bunny Brains deliver this message over and over again to a fairly satisfying effect.

The live DVD really serves to show what this band is all about. The audio quality of the performances vary, but what really shines through is that this is an exhilarating live band. Filled with cross-dressing, mind-bending light shows, on-stage fires, and a vibe of absolute insanity, this is probably the most intriguing part of the box set. It shows that this band is, first and foremost, a group of performance artists. While the recordings are worth a listen, they do not seem to hold as much weight and get their point across as well as the live performances on the DVD.

This is an extremely interesting collection, and is a must have for those of you who live for early-Buttholes or supremely noisy no-wave stuff. It’s not hard to understand why the original releases were so limited and found such a limited audience. Still, it seems that the audience for really abstract, noisy music is increasing, and in this atmosphere The Bunny Brains certainly deserves another look and listen. – Larry Hess (2005, The Daily Copper)

(I promise I am not in the bunnybrains and have never met the bunnybrains -- but if they come to Detroit I will see them)

Alsoooooo, are you still scheduled for his ATP?

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was DELETE. — JIP | Talk 20:58, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit]
Bunnybrains

Tagged for speedy as "vanity self-insertion" which, whilst sounding unpleasant, isn't among the criteria. Bands are always good AfD-fodder though. Abstain. -Splash 00:18, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

* Delete. Allmusic has a track listing of one cd, but no bio or other info. So they're real, but I see no evidence of meeting WP:MUSIC criteria. Friday (talk) 01:27, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
* Delete nn. Barely even a claim of notability. --rob 02:53, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
* Weak Keep I don't hold with "vanity self-insertion" but Goggle suggests they do it in public. And please edit it to stop shouting Dlyons493 05:37, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
* Delete. Andrew pmk | Talk 22:55, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
* Delete as per Friday. -- Kjkolb 07:59, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
* "'Keep'" They released a 4CD box-set on Narnack records, and vinyl on Matador, which is one of the biggest and most important indie labels that I know of. I cant verify that the information on the page is true, but they are a real band, a pretty good band, and an important enough band to merit inclusion here.
* Weak Delete as per Friday, but might become a decent article if left as a stub. Nihiltres 16:13, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
* Keep The band more than meets WP:MUSIC criteria as has released multiple albums on multiple important indie labels (Narnack, Matador, etc). Epheron 04:27, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.

Also, is anyone here going to that show?

bekind18
New Member

Karma: 0 Re: Bunny Brains
« Reply #1 on Sept 30, 2005, 7:54am »
Hey, Ive never heard of them before, but i just wanted to say that Devendra is fantastic live and i hope you have a great night!

Karma: 0 Re: Bunny Brains
« Reply #2 on Oct 5, 2005, 2:24pm »
I'll be there in Chicago. Check out the bunny brains at this site.

so um... have any of you seen bunny brains yet? i'm still kinda creeped out...

Karma: 1 Re: Bunny Brains
« Reply #4 on Oct 20, 2005, 1:10pm »
what i mean is... yay for bunny brains! (but please keep your clothes on mr. bunny brains...)

i couldn't help but take some pictures of him... but i decided not to take any of him when he took off his dress...

They have probably the weirdest music I've ever, ever heard.

put me in your suitcase

i just checked out some stuff. interesting to say the least!

absolutely horrible "band"--unfair to bands to call them a band. they basically ruined the boston show and were a waste of time.
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I'm sorry you didn't dig them. I wouldn't say I was into the music particularly, but they were quite an experience, if somewhat disturbing. I thought the little girl (who only looked little) was pretty awesome.

dan bunny
Guest Re: Bunny Brains
« Reply #10 on Feb 12, 2006, 9:12pm »
we do th best we can w th gifts god has given us
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Hi Dan Bunny!
That's what we all gotta do. Well, I did dig the show. I'd never seen wolf wrestling before. Had a good time.

guestita
Guest Re: Bunny Brains
«
i'm very suspicious of people who like devendra but don't "get" bunnybrains.