Hasn’t it been warm lately? If it is so warm, why are there mice in my house? Any sensible mouse would be reclining in a sun lounger on a purpose-built island in the lagoon in Frank Kitts Park, or floating on an airbed atop the fountain in Oriental Bay. At any location, I imagine this mouse would be sipping on a fruity yet alcoholic cocktail, heavily garnished. The mouse would also be shaking her little mousy bottom to the sound of Butcher Blades’ ‘The Swan Machine’, and whistling between her mousy teeth, pleased to have found such an appropriate tune for her life of sunshine-y unemployment.
If this mouse had decided to go and see Butcher Blades play live at Mighty Mighty on Saturday, though, she might have been unfortunately squashed. Or drowned in sweat. The Melbourne three-piece were meant to be supported by Ghost Wave, but the Auckland-based band canceled. Ghost Wave have an excellent teenage boy surfer-rock vibe that I quite like, although they’ve become more heavy and fuzzy over the past year. I would prefer to hear the beach a little more clearly in their music, but I have particular tastes.
Replacing them on the bill was Leno Lovecraft, who has been quite a trooper of the Wellington scene for the last little while. He’s everywhere! And so, naturally, I’ve never actually seen him play. And now he’s leaving for France. I heard very good things about his performance at Campus A Low Hum, and you can get his first EP for free at lenolovecraft.bandcamp.com, so you will have something to listen to while you wait for him to return.
I think I may have been dancing too much to properly appreciate Butcher Blades, or how appropriate the red drapes and pot plants were to their kind of crazy 60s jungle electro-pop (I was also a bit drunk). I do remember having a very good time, and that the dance floor was a mass of sweating humanity, and that there was some kind of equipment failure in the middle of the set and someone put on LCD Soundsystem and everyone kept dancing. The Blades boys put their heads together over the malfunctioning electric thingie to deduce the problem. Perhaps they produced a magnifying glass and dusted for prints, then realising that the problem was a result of sabotage by an opposing band trying to distract Butcher Blades so they could set in motion their evil plan to instigate the development of a set of new apartments that would destroy the coral reefs surrounding the tropical island, mutilating the habitat of the endangered Spotty Lady fish as well as harming the peaceful and democratic island community forever. Or perhaps I imagined that.
Butcher Blades make electronic music, with keyboards and computers and things, and they seem to have a very good time on stage. One of their members looks exactly like this year’s arts co-editor Blair Everson. At their set at camp, I saw Blair 2.0 get so excited while playing that he spun around and touched the ground with his knees. I imagine that people could complain that Butcher Blades are ridiculous. I think that they are just ridiculous enough and I would love to see them play in Wellington again. I’ll bring my mouse.
You can download free singles at butcherblades.bandcamp.com.