Philadelphia Phase-Fuzzers Invent Goth Music; Nobody Notices 'Til Two Decades Later
by George Smith
September 3 - 9, 2003

Most perverse thing I've heard in the last year or so has to be Deadsy: Rigor mortis guitar and synths from Cher's son, a SoCal parvenu who mixed up his mixed-up band's image with the gemütlichkeit of heads-of-der-Reich meetings at the Berghof.

At one time, though, there was a way to do it right. The fellows who coined this style—the electro-sludgy part—were the lads in Bunnydrums. And they worked it out almost two decades ago, on the opposite (as in Atlantic) coast, without the help of an industry to prop them up. PKD Simulacra, a reissue of their material, is listenable like Deadsy could never be.

During their run, however, Bunnydrums were never even well known in Philadelphia, their hometown. Their records—one of which had to come back into the city by way of Holland—could only be reliably found in one place, Third Street Jazz, and the most encouraging words I ever saw on them were about a paragraph or two by Ken Tucker in the Inquirer. Someone who played video guitar on a retired battleship while his Mom capered on the gun deck in a bodysuit would have split after the first EP.

Bunnydrums were Goths before most knew there was a word for them, trudging through places like the Mudd Club and Danceteria, the CD's documentation says. There were no tattoos, jackboots, or ugly hair— just guys who looked like they hung out in bookstores. Guitars were fuzzy and phasey, the tunes cold, attacking love-like-anthrax screeds or dense grinding workouts where the band sounded like it was prepping the stage for a singer who never appeared.

"Holy Moly"—one of the best—wove a dance of androids into an r&b figure. And the band covered Link Wray's "Switchblade" in a way the old guitarist would appreciate; its one-word vocal climax is killer.

 

From: The Village Voice