The Tender Buttons’ We Live Here Too show at The Planet Bakery on December 30 could only be described as pure inspiration. Since the band is relatively new, audiences are never sure what is going to happen. The diversity of the bands that they play with and their intricate yet somewhat familiar setup seem to leave audiences disoriented at first, but pleased once they have time to process what just happened.
It is alienating to have the concepts you’ve formed around what a three piece rock show is be so subtly subverted and shifted. And the fact that they can fit so many different kinds of bills means that your expectations, even when based on the bands playing with them, never seem to be an accurate source for predicting what is going to happen. The show promised: “Male Nudity, Reckless Use Of The English Language, Haphazard Joy, Unusual Amounts Of Trouble, Music, Anxiety & Discomfort, Drunk Kids (WLH2!), Sober Performers, & A Sombre Regard For Social Protocol.”
The start of the show was vague, guitar player and noise maker David Grenon left a tape playing on what was once a child’s toy double cassette deck and spinning coloured light projector, now circuit bent to the point of absurdity. As the echo and delay start to corrode the woman’s voice on the tape, they take the stage filled with buttons, wires and boards as drummer Bennett Bedoukian taps out a sticky tick ticky tick on the drums to get the show started, I think. “We had no intention of playing baseball,” says Wes Grist, bass player and noise maker. Baseball happened to be the first song of the set. Much of the fluidity of the show came from the highs, lows and complex use of intonation, volume and pacing to elicit certain emotions and, at points, produce anxiety around when the song was over. People were never sure when to clap and while looking out into the sea of dumbfounded faces in the audience, most looked to their friends during points of, what they thought were, silence in order to start clapping.
It wasn’t all awkwardness and anxiety, much of that was merely an unsure reaction to the very funny, joyful, interesting and unusually engaging songs. During Spring, there was a really funny bit where the Tender Buttons mused to themselves about the different friends they had with names of seasons.
Weaving all of the sonic elements to the forefront then background of your attention made for the various drumbeats, bass lines, guitar riffs and noisy bits to become present to you, then fade without leaving, then become present to you again, reformed. So it was interesting to attempt to pay attention to one single happening on stage, because if you did, something else would be missed. The guitars blended into the noise elements so gradually that it would have been difficult to determine what was organic and what was electric if it had not been for the beat of the drum and the sound of very human voices. The organic element was definitely at the forefront during the song A.Mo/Signals where the stunning conclusion is the orgasmic exasperations from the man slapping the skins. Some loved every second of the song because it replicated sensual elements so closely, but some became very reserved and unsure of what to do for the very same reason. The audience knew to clap after that one though, but the awkwardness demanded that they launch into their next song, “Wires”.
“Wires” is a song that was previously played and written by a once active Peterborough collaboration known as Gin and Sparrow. In their version it is played on a banjo and a violin. The Tender Buttons version is all their own. The raw, real, but precise passion the song demands is delivered by a stunning vocal performance by the godfather of soulless noise music, David Grenon. Wes Grist does an amazing improvised noise jam on his pedal that complimented the watery elements in the lyrics. It sounded like electric analog whale wails. Bennett layered David’s vocals but singing in an atonal sort of mumbling that gave the song its eerie heir. Wires totally hushed and humbled the entire crowd, too mesmerized to react, it took a second for everyone to get back to The Planet from wherever the Tender Buttons had just taken them. It was a perfect setup for their last song, “Demons”.
After “Demons”, Bennett, in the most humble way, was the first one to clap as to signal the end of the show. The amount of showmanship and courage displayed was unusual for a Modest Mouse-esque rock show. I hesitate to call it anything but great, “if you like fond childhood memories or feeling a little out of place, this show is for you!”
