The Buttercream Gang are an indie/post-punk/afro-beat band from San Francisco and Napa CA. Half of the Buttercream sound relies on edgy guitar driven punk/post-punk. Think bands like The Clash, Gang of Four and even The Talking Heads. Frenetic, fast and offbeat (not literally of course) indie-dance-punk. Songs like The Birthday Party and Breakdown exemplify this side of the band. The other half comes from such inter-continental influences as Latin, Dub and especially the rhythm and feel of Fe...
The Buttercream Gang are an indie/post-punk/afro-beat band from San Francisco and Napa CA. Half of the Buttercream sound relies on edgy guitar driven punk/post-punk. Think bands like The Clash, Gang of Four and even The Talking Heads. Frenetic, fast and offbeat (not literally of course) indie-dance-punk. Songs like The Birthday Party and Breakdown exemplify this side of the band. The other half comes from such inter-continental influences as Latin, Dub and especially the rhythm and feel of Fela Kuti’s Afro-Beat music. Like Afro-Beat, the Buttercream Gangs rhythm section can be fast, and intensely dancy, but with curtains of fuzzed-up guitar and wailing vocals. The Buttercream Gangs sound combines elements of each of the band member’s own eclectic tastes and musical personality. Guitarist Bobby Renz takes after guitarists like Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa and laces the rhythm section with hugely overdriven, fuzzy, vintage-type tones and a reckless playing style that also bring to mind the more recent work of Dungen. Bassist/Keyboardist/Singer Peter Davies lays down simple, monolithic Afro and Dub style bass lines while either crooning softly, or frantically crying out lines like “Television, sweet television, lets run away, as far as your cable reaches!!!” Drummer Robinson Kuntz combines the power and depth of drummers like John Bonham of Led Zeppelin with the elegance and style of Tony Allen (Fela Kuti and the Africa ’70). The band use these different stylistic tendencies to create unique textures within the umbrella of what people call “indie-rock”. But they are not just an “indie-rock band”.
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