Bunnybrains Love You 2008

barnes and noble site-"Though the Box the Bunny set that came out on Narnack would seem to be the be-all end-all of the early years of the Bunny Brains, Dan Bunnybrain and his various associates and/or minions had plenty of singles-only efforts that had been previously collected on Sin Gulls, providing an equally memorable peek into the enjoyably deranged world of the band. Inhabiting a zone where punk, trash, metal and noise don't so much co-exist or overlap as simply engage in rough and sticky genetic interchange, Bunny Brains hit the ground running with the yelped rumble of "For You I'd Kill" (with one of the most drawn out vocal falsettos ever). From there the compilation, running from 1988 to 1998, wends a very woozy but entertaining way over a decade's worth of enjoyable strangeness. In some cases, the song titles are so perfect the music itself almost seems secondary -- what else to say when reading the words "GG's Dead (And I'm Not Feeling Too Good Myself)," "Creeping Round Yer Window" and above all else "How Am I Supposed To Tell You I Love You (When Your Dick's Stuffed in My Mouth?)" But it's hardly just about that, and part of the beauty of Bunny Brains is the rough-and-ready anthem in spite of itself -- songs like "Wilderness" and "You Got It Coming" may never top charts, but that's the charts' problem. Other songs are definitely in their own world, though -- "I'm Obsessed with My Looks" starts out as a first person account of being a supermodel (perhaps) that would go down perfectly well in a John Waters film. The liner notes are their own mishmash of entertainment, with a photo collage of history and various scrawled flyers amidst the various recording details and memories. Wryest effort: "T. Ohnny/Onic Outh (AM Holland Tunnel Mix)," both sides of their 1994 single, saluting a certain well-known NYC band and one of their protégés (not to mention O. J. Simpson). Ned Raggett, All Music Guide"

Some press for your mess.

From Sept 2006 Wire magazine--review of Campfire Sounds Festival in Acra NY

"feral freak-act"
"head-scratching mindfuck circus show"
"Beefheart disciples"----------------Justin Stewart

 

from skyscraper magazine..."THE BUNNYBRAINS
Box the Bunny 4CD/DVD Narnack
For those who werent splattered the first time around, Box the Bunny gathers the sick, demented, out of print, until now vinyl-only material of a band that truly didnt know how to play their instruments: The BunnyBrains. Hopping quickly from Matador, LHG, Now Sound, and Blackjack Records, the nihilistic ensemble, through their lack of regard for the boundaries of what sounds immediately pleasing to the ear, made fuzz-soaked garage noise you simply cant hear anywhere else. Quaintly packaged with four discs consisting of five proper full-lengths, a full disc of unreleased material, and a DVD for a generous price tag Box the Bunny is a one-stop shop of horrors that leaves little to chance. Led by one Daniel Saxton Bunny, from Danbury, Connecticut, The BunnyBrains are funny, druggy, soggy, groggy, grungy, dingy, and still engineer chaos to this day, tweaking and geeking like scab-picking chemists earning their keep in a trailer park meth lab. An adequate description of the terror encaged within Box is futile, but here goes: Take the scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where Benecio Del Toro is bloated, spittled, and blubbering at a group of Las Vegas seniors from the passenger seat of a convertible; pull slimy chunks of influence from garage rock circa Zumm Zumm and early, early Guided By Voices psyche, punk and noise; smear it in jagged, amateur-night guitar riffs, and youre not far off the trail. Inevitably the scourge of many and the fave of few, The BunnyBrains can at least be credited with following their art down the rabbit hole, for better and for worse, neglecting to contemplate whether the public at large (or even 1/25 of Americas population) followed them to the depths of psychosis or not, weathering the scorn of critics and neighbors, whom are heard to ramble on Box the Bunnys first disc, Will you please shut that stuff off, that you call music? (Grant Purdum) "











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)

BUNNYBRAINS, THE: Box the Bunny: 5X CD
Drugged-addled, psychosis-informed, noisy as hell - all are apt descriptions for what's going down here, a collection of this band's assorted works. Imagine The Swans at their noisiest, Flipper at their least proficient, and The Butthole Surfers at their silliest and you still ain't even close, bucko. There is a method to it all, though, and, if you pay close attention, you might actually suss out some actual thought-out tunes amidst all that bashing and crashing. Hell, if nothing else, you can derive hours of entertainment from the song titles alone: "Seat Me in the (Vivisection)," "(The Gibbons) Aren't the Only Monkees (on the Planet)," "Crispy Sensation." Rarely these days does a record put me in a position of trying to decide whether I wanna crank it up or run away from it as fast as my legs can carry me. I'm almost afraid to watch the accompanying DVD. -Jimmy Alvarado (Narnack)


from the great Church of Me blog-4. BUNNYBRAINS Box The Bunny
This may be the most staggering personal discovery I made in 2005 (but many thanks to Paul Brownell for pointing me in its direction in the first place) – four CDs, plus a DVD, of what is virtually the missing link between the ‘80s arsequake of the Butthole Surfers, Big Black and Happy Flowers, and the ‘00s brainquake of Animal Collective, Sunburned Hand Of The Man and Wolf Eyes; the complete recorded works of this not quite scrutable group from the ‘90s – noisy, confrontational, hilarious, sick, moral, atonal, hummable; Box The Bunny really is like discovering a record collection you never knew existed, and will be written about in full on CoM at some stage early next year.

discorder-Best box set to pick up if you can’t afford the Merzbox:
Bunny Brains– Box the Bunny It’s pretty damn ambitious for a noise band to release a five CD BOX SET. It’s also pretty ambitious to sit down and listen to the damn thing all the way through. Despite its girth, this is a pretty entertaining listen. Recommended for the strong.

from Aquarian Weekly-Jessica Arnason

Bringing mischief and mayhem wherever they go, upstate New York’s
Bunny Brains provided an ample amount of both at Webster Hall last
month. I attended the show to see if the notoriously outrageous troupe
could still deliver the psychedelic punch that solidified their reputation in
the ’90s.

The costumed group, opening for Devendra Banhart And The Hairy
Fairies, took the stage sometime after 9 p.m. Daniel Saxton Bunny
(singer/guitarist/co-founder and, for all intents and purposes, ringleader)
began the extravaganza amid dwarves, S&M wolves and scantily clad
love children. The spectacle resembled what the Manson family might
have looked like if they replaced the killing and devil worship with acid
and instruments. Many punctual show-goers and befuddled bartenders
were appalled, and judging by the proud smirk on Saxton’s face, it was
a reaction elicited with the most purposeful of intentions. But the audience
weren’t the only ones who were in for a surprise. When Bunny Brains’
wolf in bassist’s clothing invited a lively girl onstage to wrestle, a
disgruntled bouncer quickly ended the match before even the slightest
pinning.The Bunny Brains moaned and shrugged about their unfortunately
conservative setting, then proceeded to clang on brazenly breaking
strings, squealing incomprehensible lyrics and displaying a dissonant
orgy of sound. And somehow, by the close of their set, onlookers seemed
to warm up to the Bunny Brains’ style. The songs became a bit more
melodic and Saxton did us the service of changing into a dress for
the finale. Surely there were both the bewildered and adoring sects
of the crowd, but the Bunny Brains’ requests during Tarantula A.D.’s
following set proved they just may have slanted the ratio towards the
latter. Bunny on!
                                
            
                    
    
      

 

BUNNY BRAINS VS FREE KITTEN

 

“If the madness ceases to exist then my full throttle warp weary mind shall follow the robust entanglement of black hole suck slurp spaghettification. And if my thoughts turn to confetti, let the grated cheese rain down on the milk menders sack and have him carry forth the sliced sins of all tomorrow’s parties”.
Duke Miserable
There must be some dark underworld in the freshly mowed grass. I mean, think of all the science and chaos that’s hyperventilating beyond the clouds, where dark matter rules the space junky jungle. Now, how can there not be some similar plant life cosmos in all that photosynthesis which the little fury creatures chomp on to digest into energy, in order to hop along, on all four paws and grown string whiskers.
Kittens and Bunnies. Same style, different species. Fluffy little poof balls that signify…something I guess. I mean, their form and features get simulated into cuddly toys for the kids to shake away nightmares to and talk to under doona’s, pre-sleep bed bound. And then there’s the cartoon massacring of these little ditties. Make them talk, give them names, personify the other, fuck difference, cut it’s umbilical noose so as to not choke the possibility that human’s might not be the gooseberry gods of unique after all.

Then there’s the bands:
Bunny brains. Mid 90’s post apocalyptic truant truth. Sincere smart-ass sophistipunk acid wash denim bare chest black swan gawking that somehow went unnoticed. Which is strange. They are on the same spastic tangent as those buttocks circumference probers, you know, the Butthole Surfers; scatter brain fucks who were surely told they’d amount to nothing by everything not worth lending an ear lobe to. But they butterflied these ha-ha’s to get their rude fingers chopped off in order to stop a midget from crossing a crucifix.
Hell, I don’t know. Bunny brains are good. If you have a short attention span and want to windsurf away from the super serious structure, sloped stair well attitude of post punk music for just a whiff of a treble clef. At times they bash prog-stomp fuck romp music. Drunk dumbfound music, sloppy, torque, sick chuckle nose blows to the uppercut chin beard dangle. Dirty, performance art, streams of nonesenseness. Like, who else, in their short attention spank career could release a six CD box set when the ghosts of nobody even knows about you? Whose some ‘songs’ are prank calls to radio stations. Like the time they called up one certain station and blamed them, amongst other priers, for the death of friend Kurt Cobain? Whose album came packed in an environmentally blasphemous pink plastic sleeve, with arbitrary magazine clippings, classroom style funny dumb notes and other junk they probably just wanted to get rid of? And is it just I? Are the guitars out of tune, or do they sound that good?
Sometimes music is an excuse and an escape from doing something with your life to doing something with your life. In Conclusion; if punks wore leather and rockers wore denim, these guys wear straight jackets….
Now Free Kitten on the other not-drowning-but waving hand, sport neon diamond studded glitter shine vacuum stitched silk etched robes. Pinkie sware, in canvas stiletto gravitron rock n’ roll hitch hiking thumb wars on the outskirts of guys Ville, left to the centre of irony laden twiddle dum, Free Kitten tease, name drop, croon, and swish gargle the wine that is pop goes the punk weasel. Shaking and slaying their raspy little rough gold rush whisper shrieks of nearly all-girl super rock bliss.


One bit Sonic Youth (Kim Gordon) with a sprinkle of p-p-Pussy Galore (Julie Kafritz) and a whip-tinged bout of the no-no Boredoms (Yoshimi), while tagging heart-hearts on a Pavement (Mark Ibold). This is the cameo band of all one off swinger swagger. Sloppy, slow down slopes of funny gargle distortion tweetie birds branching out on the aural vines they are used to.
1-800 this is hot, fresh filled soft and sexy. You know, sucker. Beyond an occasional jam band doughnut. Quarter pint vodka shot of fake ballerina, dancing on her tipsy tippee toes. Like Kim is doing all the stuff her youthies were too serious to Chinese water torture.
Free Kitten pretty much prettily embezzles the sheik dialect that will never be written. Their logo is a kitty made out of the anarchy symbol. They shed hairs of joke chuckle woo-hoo off their head nod rock. Ten-bit hip-hop, twentieth century slogans and thirty times the dirty of dirty, kinda.
Hell. It’s social commentating from the viewpoint of kinder kids breaking from being on tour. I try and wonder when they’d find the time to rehearse, being all tied up in the tongue stain wash denim dented butt seat slap-slap of cool band land. Plus they live in different cities and countries.
They’ve released several nutcracker sweet albums. Not just just fun, just justified hums. Sing along, in your alter voice and cross your fingers. Ultra.

Now go and tell your mommy you want to go build an ark like Noah for all the furry garden types who climb and hop and meow and twitch and fish for cuddles. And listen to these bands if you’re sick of all the deadpan fry sizzle music that’s cooking up a bogus stormwater drainpipe leak. Some bunnies and cats are cute, and some are wild. These here sausages are untamed baby.


Dusted Reviews

Artist: Bunnybrains

Album: Box the Bunny

Label: Narnack
    

Mark Van de Walle’s 1994 essay “Spleen Dreams” was supposed to be about structuralist rockers Pavement. Van de Walle, however – in like some sort of tip-of-the-cap to Creem’s mid-’70s circumlocution – penned a paean to holism instead. According to ArtForum’s haute scribe, Pavement was nowhere and everywhere; like a giant, culture starved loofah, they lapped up the permanent, the ephemeral; the high and low, the virginal and the promiscuous – every binary opposite one might come up with.

Van de Walle’s points were interesting to say the least, but when connected they showed the shape of the wrong band: If any group can encapsulate points as tangential – and as absurd – as what Van de Walle attributed to Pavement, it’s New England’s Bunnybrains.

Box the Bunny, with its four discs of previously released material and a live DVD, is pretty epic, if not a bit intimidating. Not to worry, though; BB cover a considerable amount of ground over the course of the near four hours of music with equal parts of The Trashmen-meet-trash-rock, Hawkwind-esque overdrive, and just plain silliness.

Of course, this isn’t an accurate cocktail; listening to all of this stuff in one sitting would be akin to trying to finish off the complete oeuvres of Sun City Girls, Happy Flowers, The Frogs, and the Butthole Surfers in under 12 hours. To be sure, BB owes much to all four of these bands, but listening to Box the Bunny shows their crafty capability in mixing cultural honesty, crude mirth, and often-powerful music to great effect.

Examples? Disc 3 starts out with “Eg the Poet” calling out the fly-the-flannel generation: “Kurt Cobain was not your friend,” Eg begins, “he hated you all. You turned him into a cartoon. You bought all his records; you thought you were buying his soul.” And this type of critique is channeled into – or onto – their instruments. See disc 4’s “F98000 Cool White Ho,” for its sloppy Mascis string mangling and pie-in-the-face lyrics, which manage to eviscerate the whole of “electric white boy blues” for even attempting to trade feigned angst for a lay. When it’s over, it’s difficult to decide whether this was surreptitious social crit or Sovtek aided screech. If this is irony, it’s Socratic: This is a song meant to make others show their asses, not crawl up its own.

Not to say that this is music as message: Disc 1’s “I am not your friend (I am your destiny)” manages to combine the primeval violence of Harry Pussy with Flipper’s sole feel-good tune, Generic’s “Sex Bomb.” Conversely, “I Prize You (I Praise You)” straddles Siltbreeze and Drag City demarcation, deciding to forgo the title’s semantics and serve up some type of classic rock tribute that sounds like a Librium’d Monoshock attempting to cover Yahowa’s “Penetration.”

“There’s no sell-out because their desire is strength, it wants for nothing,” said Van de Walle of Pavement. But Pavement’s “nihilism” is worn and not so toothy. And Box the Bunny is a mound of evidence that Bunnybrains has incisors; they’re just key-wound and chattering in the corner.

By Stewart Voegtlin

Dude From Linkin Park Gets Esoteric On Your Ass


Dan Bunnybrain knows how to Google like nobody else. If you think you can slip a mention of The Bunnybrains on the net past him, well, think again.

"Chester Bennington", apparently a bona fide commercial rock star of some repute (and not the spokesperson for a nutty theme restaurant) was recently interviewed in the Allentown Morning Call. If that weren't exciting enough, check this out :

Q: What CDs have you bought recently?

Bennington: I bought Bunnybrains' ''Holiday Massacre '98.'' They are this independent punk band from New York. I also bought a reggae mix covering old R&B songs. I also bought the first Candlebox album because I only had it on tape.

OK, so there you have it. A member of one of the most undistinguished bands on Planet Earth likes to kick back and relax to the swirling ball of chaos that is the Bunnybrains. And who can argue with that?


(did anyone else know that Candlebox had more than one album?)



Reviews for Box The Bunny-Narnack-2004

Pittsburgh City Paper-Bruce Miller


Here’s the brilliancy of a set like this: Take a band whose ’90s vinyl output, even its lone Matador-released 1995 LP, has been findable only on the thorniest of paths, and nonexistent on CD, dump the lot onto four discs, add a DVD of random concert footage and backstage drooling idiocy, and sell the thing for $16. Then the question is, “Do I need all of this?” One can hear the record-store clerks now, nodding their heads while snatching this thing off the display wall and chanting, “Oh, you do, you do!” Like you need a good thrashing, a downsizing, a re-configuring.

 

Led by guitarist/singer/instigator Daniel Saxton Bunny, this revolving troupe of mental patients and sociopaths oozed out of Connecticut’s stony landscape in the early ’90s, upping the ante on rock ’n’ roll stupidity to nearly unreachable peaks with shows that started out at total meltdown and proceeded to use electricity as torture. While comparable to early Flipper or the escapades of the Butthole Surfers, the Brains lack the focus, the control or even the song structure of those two. Instead, they rely on improvisation and instant poetry of the vilest sort. Imagine the Grateful Dead jacked to the gills on PCP and paranoia while someone butchers sheep behind them and you might get an idea of what these guys are about. Then again, you might not.

 

Box the Bunny’s earliest material concentrates on foreboding guitar-driven cavern jams a la Yeti-era Amon Düül II, but performed under the influence of worse drugs. Here, the band’s individual statements get lost in a pit of wah-wah-enhanced sludge. On discs two and three, the set dips into juvenile goofs, including radio-station call-ins, bratty rants, walls of atonality and even less emphasis on musicianship, before the final disc’s climactic flail-a-thons and musical vivisections. Yet it’s the DVD of live material that truly allows the Brains to roll around in chaos like dogs do cow dung. There’s a seeming guerilla event on an otherwise sunny day at a Chicago college campus, a video of DS Bunny soaping up naked while singing, and even footage from Pittsburgh’s own beloved MIT! The ultimate white band, they’ve stripped the music from the shackles of importance and, onstage or on record, put an end to the need for any more guitar rock.


Aquarius Records-San Francisco

BUNNY BRAINS Box The Bunny (Narnack) 4cd+dvd 17.98
You probably can't handle this. Hell, we can't really handle this, but somehow we still love the Bunny Brains to death. Massive 4 cd + 1 DVD collection of absolutely everything they've ever done, all or most of which until now has been vinyl only! So now here's your chance to hear the Bunny Brains all spiffy and digital. And believe you me, the Bunny Brains DO NOT clean up nicely. This is ultra damaged retard garage stomp with clumsy riffing, stumbling drumming, howled alley cat falsetto vocals and a recording that is 70 percent tape hiss! Third rate Stooges riffage battles confusional folk ineptitude that often erupts into weirdly inspired Ur-psych freak outs. And let's not forget their excessive use of parentheses in song titles! Yep. Imagine Happy Flowers meets Half Japanese meets Fushitsusha meets Faxed Head.
That amazing. That stupid. That amazingly stupid. And yes, that stupidly amazing....
The DVD is really something else. A ramshackle mess of lo-fi guerilla widescale fuckery, live shows, bizarre shennanigans, backstage weirdness, lots of disturbing what-the-fuck moments, nudity, cable access and more. Surprisingly watchable. So much so that after I watched enough to review, my girlfriend made me leave it on, and she ended up watching it for about an hour. Which says something, since she is (thankfully) not a Bunny Brains kind of lady. Packaged in a cool multi panel fold out digipak with reproductions of all of their amazing
album art.

From CMJ.com

BUNNY BRAINS: Box The Bunny
After 15 years of being sloppy, overblown and inexplicable, Bunnybrains are given a fitting tribute by New York noiserati label Narnack—a box set that is sloppy (the track listings are totally fubar), overblown (four discs and a DVD) and (by its very existence) inexplicable. Compiling previously vinyl-only releases from labels like LHG, Now Sound, Blackjack and, yes, a totally unfathomable tantrum released on Matador of all places—Box The Bunny showcases Bunnybrains’ screeching, uncontrollable, LSD-fueled id, swinging an improvisational mace made of hideous post-Butthole Surfers psych-punk, battering its way out of the banality of Danbury, Connecticut, recorded lowest-fi whenever possible, and spreading itself like a cancer across four discs. The results, naturally, are mixed. At their most inspired (Bunny Magick and the Matador-endorsed Bunny Brains) the Bunnies make schizo grab bags of radio promos, speaker-slashing gutter-rawkers, Branca jams, retarded acoustic guitar blather, Ween-y faux-shanties, angry answering machine messages, maddening tape loops, punky fits, Jandek-on-’ludes janglers and tons upon tons of nine-minute acid jams. At their least inspired (CD 1993 and Show Me), it’s essentially Pussy Galore covering Jefferson Airplane for 14-minutes at a time. There’s enough good music hidden in this sprawling incomprehensible monster to be worth twice its $16.98(!) list price, though. Cop it before the baroque packaging makes Narnack bunnybroke.
- Christopher R. Weingarten

 






    



The Bunnybrains

CD name:     Box the Bunny
Type of music:     Eclectic
Label:     Narnack

    


By Jason Ferguson     
Published 12/23/2004     
      

Without getting into the Bunnybrains/Bunnybrains 88 soap opera (similar to the ELO/ELO II drama, but stupider), suffice it to say that this Connecticut collective was/is/will be responsible for some of the most retard-o-riffic noise-sprawl in recent memory. Willfully inscrutable, BB have refused to imply that their music was ever anything but ridiculous. Shifting lineups of thoroughly untrained musicians, vinyl-only releases, insane stage outfits and buckets of raucous sound have kept the band thoroughly obscure (as if they had a choice). This five-disc set puts five of the band's albums (including the "pink bag" album originally released on Matador) and a raft of unreleased music on CD for the first time; plus they tack on a DVD that documents their visual shenanigans. It's probably more insanity than any one person needs, but when it comes to the 'Brains, too much is always enough.

From Magnet Magazine Jan/Feb 2005


from Willamette Weekly-Oregon
Bunny Brains

Box the Bunny

(Narnack)

IF YOU'VE NEVER HEARD BUNNY BRAINS, NOW YOU CAN. BUT DO YOU WANT TO?

Acid-gobbling psychedelia, performance-art mayhem and an obscure album Matador supposedly released on a dare. These are the planks that build record geeks' wet dreams, and they are all part of the story of Connecticut's Bunny Brains. The band slithered around on its stomach through the '90s, never climbing the evolutionary chart to any sort of national recognition. You've probably never heard its records--lo-fi Rorschach tests released exclusively on vinyl, including the infamous self-titled Matador record. You've probably never seen Bunny Brains live--its touring highlight was an opening slot for Sebadoh. And even if you did, you probably wouldn't have lasted long: The band's sloppy, no-wave psych is nearly unlistenable. The Brains picked the ugliest scabs off the Butthole Surfers and ate them with a smile. Even if they weren't totally original, the band has a fascinating ability to hold attention. Every song feels like it could disintegrate, run through your fingers and fall back into the sewers it came from. So why do the Brains deserve a four-disc, one-DVD box set? Who knows? But they have one. Bunny Brains marched to their own Technicolor drummer when everyone was playing power chords and shooting heroin. Maybe this isn't a hidden box of treasure, but it will stand as an important record. Just as Lenny Kaye's first Nuggets collection kicked open the vaults on obscure '60s rock, Box the Bunny signals a trend of giving obscure '90s gems the royal treatment. (Pat Wensink)


from Deep Fry Bonanza
Tuesday February 8th, 2005:
Bunnybrains
Box The Bunny
Narnack Records
Sorry to disappoint you folks, but when it really comes down to it I probably have no business writing music reviews for this or any other publication with a readership greater than my three closest friends. Yes, I know a good bit about music. Yes, I'm more than capable of tossing about hefty, semi-invented adjectives like "rocktastic" and "Slayeresque." Yes, from time to time I can even offer a real nugget of wisdom to aid the record-buying public in choosing between the new Blood Brothers, the new Sum 41, and a bag of live scorpions (tip of the day: whatever the options, always choose the scorpions). Well, so what's the problem you might ask? Simply put, I have a sneaking suspicion that I don't have particularly good taste in music.

Case in point, a friend recently called me from a record store to recommend her something pretty and kind of poppy. Naturally, I pointed her in the direction of the new Fly Pan Am release and regaled her with descriptions of how its approximation of pop melodies and hook-based experimentalism made it one of the profound releases of this past year. A half-hour later, I received an exasperated call from her shouting into the phone, "YOU MADE ME BUY A NOISE ALBUM?!!!" See what I mean?...

Blame it on an adolescence squandered listening to ear-splitting Sonic Youth side projects and all manner of abrasive drone/noise rock acts, but it seems that in my old age my music tastes have settled somewhere well outside the conventional norms of the traditional indie/punk oeuvre. Not only do I revel in the scene's abrasive and more stylistically fucked-up progeny, but my tastes have become so acclimated to these various strains of sonic delirium that I often tend to understate precisely how brain-addled such music might objectively be.

When you see that "RECOMMENDED!" attached to a review of mine, really think carefully: Is my recommendation one that you should put a lot of stock in? Are your music tastes as wantonly preposterous as mine? Does the shrill cry of guitar feedback also fill you with an exuberant aura of girlish glee? Now, I don't think that any sane person would deny that music is a deeply subjective experience, but when it comes to a certain Connecticut noisetard ensemble known as Bunnybrains, it's probably worth underscoring just how subjective an experience it can be.

Prior to their secession into two mildly antagonistic Bunnybrains acts (Bunnybrains 88 and The Bunnybrains respectively), the nebulous Bunnybrains demi-collective endured for about a decade, flabbergasting audiences of acid-freaks, art fucks, ear-bleeders, and horrified onlookers with a low-technique onslaught of psychotic feedback-sludge. My own single live encounter with the band (back in '01, when they were opening for Landing at The Rotunda in Philly) was a blur of tormented, plodding showers of untamed sound set against quasi-"frontman" Dan Bunny's semi-conscious stream of vocal diarrhea. Despite their lack of apparent musical dexterity and my usual apprehension at being in an audience surrounded by men with giant unkempt beards, I nonetheless walked away from the set quite satisfied. It was comparable to Bardo Pond without the hippied-out riffing, or maybe even Sonic Youth without the pretension, ambition, or songwriting ability. Their sound was really quite primal at its core, a seething cauldron of fire and confusion churning and bubbling over and over and over again.

Unlike contemporary noise-rockers such as Lightning Bolt, whose music is deeply rooted in an antagonism between chaos and structure, or Kites, whose music is completely rooted in a purposeful structurelessness, Bunnybrains' brand of noise was less concerned with any coherent formalisms and simply rolled forward on its own momentum, hurtling itself in whatever direction availed it like some great big Baby Huey rambling aimlessly through a cartoon world of sonic dissonance. Rooted in the don't-give-a-shit anti-talent lexicon of punk rock, mind-warped by a decade of no-wave degradation, and no doubt sustained by a hefty share of psychedelics, Bunnybrains' characteristic sound was unique in that while the band typically demonstrated a commanding grasp over their chosen musical niche, their music was neither accessible nor remotely intellectual. From this rather paradoxical perch above the 90s experimental rock scene, over time Bunnybrains firmly distinguished themselves as the most prolific dumb-as-fuck art rock band of our generation.

Given this distinction, Narnack's Box The Bunny five-disc set is quite a fitting tribute, rehashing of much of the band's cranium-wrenching discography, from their soaring heights to their downright idiotic lows. For every distortion-soaked epiphany on this umpteen-track collection, there's almost an equal balance of crude-ass rock damage and verbal bile. For example, save for perhaps the spacey jam "(What Kind Of) SHAPE (Are You In?)" and the problematically titled proto-rocker "Love Live Freedom (Cover Your Ghetto w/ Whiteout)," the world might very well have gotten along fine without the reissue of Bunnybrains' Bunny Magick LP included in this set. Likewise the DVD, with all its promise of committing the band's cacophonous live sets into the annals of recorded history, is rendered pretty much unwatchable by protracted coverage of occasionally lackluster stage antics and a downright plethora of retarded behind-the-scenes moments (at least for those of not wholly invested in watching Dan Bunny smear moisturizer over his lint-filled belly button).

But just to be clear, consistency—the ability for a band to steadfastly produce music of a uniform character or caliber—has never been a major trait of Bunnybrains and as such it should hardly be surprising that Box The Bunny comes with its fair share of rough edges. The real question here is not whether all the content is going to meet your standards—'cause it's not; the real question is whether the Bunnybrains good outweighs the Bunnybrains bad, which in regards to both this set and the band as a whole, I really have to say it does.

If you ask me, Box The Bunny's reissue of Bunnybrains' early CD 1993 alone is about worth the set's decidedly reasonable $16.98 pricetag. Opening with the ecstasied frolic of "i am not your friend (i am your destiny)", exploding through two alternately searing versions of their no-wave ass-kicker "model bitch," and even sporting a touch of non-ironic sweetness on "i prize you (i praise you)," CD 1993 is a crucial testament to Bunnybrain's tremendous versatility and—dare I say it—their genuine and oft misunderstood talent.

The band's self-titled Matador LP and their self-released Show Me The Bunny LP are similarly worthy of serious notice, each disc dishing out nugget after disorienting nugget of pure Bunnybains gold. Even the plethora of apparent filler tracks contained within Box The Bunny are often quite enjoyable, documenting the band's varied genius in the form of homoerotic S&M love anthems and Dan Bunny's post-Cobain's death radio messages lauding Kurt as a Christ-like prophet and encouraging local youths to commit suicide.

Weirdo noise rock bands may come and go, but the material on Box The Bunny lays bare the fact that there will never be another act as peculiarly iconoclastic as Bunnybrains. Though I would heartily concede that the content on this five-disc set will be completely unlistenable to 99.99% of the general populace, for my purposes Box The Bunny is an absolute must-have collection. If you're on the prowl for some tunes that will surely alienate you from your loved ones, or are ready to educate yourself about a semi-influential noise band that will almost certainly never get its retrospective due, look no further. But make no mistake: If you end up hating this, don't say I didn't warn you!

Posted by Germ at 09:05 AM
from tinymixtapes.com
Bunny Brains / Black Tie Rubber Pussy / Harris Newman
(AS220; Providence, Rhode Island)
04.03.05

by s. kobak

Spaghetti fell from the ceiling like confetti. Bodies were thrown and scattered about by a bearded, transvestite mystic. A man dressed in a priest's robe screamed at a man dressed as an ape. Oh yeah, and there was music. Really weird, lowest-fi music played by some freaky looking gals and guys who called themselves "Bunny Brains."

Walking into a mid-'90s Bunny Brains show was like walking in close proximity of a giant firecracker with a lit fuse—like knowing something big, exciting and violent was going to happen but not knowing exactly when.

At the turn of the millennium, the band split up into two camps: Bunny Brains '88, which boasts three original members of the original band, and Bunny Brains, which boasts the only member of the band who appears on all of the original recordings: Dan Bunny. The question arises: which band is most like the classic incarnation of Bunny Brains? In a band that has run through at least 60 different members, that is hard to say. I hoped that Sunday night's Bunny Brains gig at AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island would settle this burning question once and for all! But first I had to sit through opening acts.

Harris Newman took the stage first and played a decent, somewhat boring set of Fahey-tinged acoustic guitar.

Black Tie Rubber Pussy made up for the opening yawner with a short but sweet set of psychedelic weirdness. The set was highlighted by AS220's resident artist Dennis Typhus' power drumming and goofy dub singing.

Then the legends took the stage. Actually, they didn't storm the stage so much as Dan Bunny appeared out of nowhere in a second-hand wedding dress and began to recite a post-punk version of Leaves of Grass accompanied by a mask-wielding drummer. Bunny was eventually joined onstage by a guitar player, who proceeded to set a skronky soundtrack to Bunny's rambling poetics. The theatrics of the ol' Bunny shows took hold mid song when Dan Bunny sensually ripped the shirt and pants off of a Basquiat look-alike and then ran into the crowd throwing those unlucky enough to be in his way in whatever direction he chose. The song came off like a Horse Cock Phepher-era Sun City Girls spoken word piece with Arto Lindsay sitting in as a special guest. The highlight of the set was the second song, a spoken word piece in which the half-naked Basquiat look-alike wove absurdist semi-political diatribes into a narrative about how September 11 is his birthday. A day-glo, no wave guitar and bass soundtrack accentuated the power and playfulness of the song. Dan Bunny and two scantly clad women did call and response vocals with the Basquiat look-alike before an almost nude Bunny grabbed a guitar and complemented the song with bursts of noise. Fifteen minutes into the set, rumor spread through the crowd that Lightning Bolt was playing a secret show at another downtown club. Eager to attend the show, Dan Bunny titled the last burst of freak core "Going to the Lightning Bolt Show."

The show may have featured half-naked girls, WWF style wrestling, and the eventual stripping Dan Bunny, but it seemed like the theatrics were trying to distract people from the excitement of the music. In this respect, Bunny Brains '88 would be the closest thing to classic Bunny Brains. After all, the classic Bunny Brains show was a train wreck of theatre and performance art that also featured somewhat annoying but sporadically brilliant music. The incarnation of Bunny Brains that performed Sunday showcased great music and featured somewhat annoying but sporadically brilliant performance art.


    


        
        
                
   REVIEW
 



experimental
Produced By:




Springsteen Stares Down 'Devils' on New Album
AC/DC To Share Their "Family Jewels" On New DVD
Cocteau Twins Announce Coachella Appearance, Consider Additional Dates
Bloc Party KO's the UK; Challenges the US

    
Box the Bunny
The Bunny Brains
Narnack Records






By its very nature (and name), a boxed set implies the inclusion of more than just aluminum, paper, and plastic -- a context for the sounds therein. In purchasing a box, you expect something more than an orgy of tunes collected in one place - you want pre- and post-coitial cuddling. Discographies, track lengths, song credits and performance notes, never-before-seen photographs, posters, artist commentaries, revelatory liners by Byron Coley or Chuck Eddy - all of these should be givens, right?

Bunny Brains chieftan Dan Seward's answer to that question would seem to be "dead wrong," if the contents of Box the Bunny are any indication. Period zine write-ups and interviews? Nah. Alternate album art? Nuh-uh. Cheesy memorabilia? Forget about it. Props to Seward's friends, family, and media aside (consider the inclusion of Jackie-O-Motherfucker a bit of foreshadowing), there are no signs or maps to guide you on your journey through his world; you must make your own way and draw your own conclusions.

Best of luck with that. Over the span of four CDs and one DVD, Box dumps millions of gallons of rubbing alcohol through dozens of strips, many of which were available only on vinyl. Brace yourself for 11 years worth of gratuitous, raw oyster nonsense: sub-Frogs-esque live performances in tiny clubs and college squares while wearing cheap wigs and dresses, effects-pedal abusing, out-psyched improv rock jams that threaten to never, ever end; angry, less-than-90-second song abortions, answering-machine messages from a harassed, sleep-starved neighbor and an apparently shunned member, Seward's hilarious call-ins to local radio stations (who shamelessly plug the band at every turn), and much, much, more.

It's good, sloppy fun, guided as much by Seward's I-know-I-can't-sing-well-but-I-dare-you-to-try-and-stop-me howls, bellows, and screeches as his willingness to equate practice-session, self-indulgent fuckery with actual songwriting. But Box begs as many questions as it hits pleasure points. Like: who are the other people playing on these songs? Do any of them get songwriting royalties? Why does one of the guitarists on the DVD wear a furry pink guitar strap, and where did he get it? Why aren't the Bunnybrains better known? Was there ever a major label deal on the table? "Drugs No Way," that children-sung, anti-narcotics PSA ditty, was it pilfered or did the band write it? If they did write it, did they mean it? Who is Carolyn Keddy, and why was a song written about her? What do Sonic Youth think of "Onic Outh" and "Call Kim Gordon"? Why the dresses? Why vinyl-only? Why a boxed-set now, particularly one that isn't totally complete, like the 7-inches and CDs and CDRs and tracks from splits? Why?



    
Raymond Cummings
The Bunny Brains
Narnack

    

    



    
    

    
from Cosmik Debris/cosmik.com


BUNNYBRAINS
Box the Bunny (Narnack Records)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz


Box sets are perfect for offering a band's creative arc, the complete document a single greatest hits album can't quite grasp. It is especially ideal when the band's discography was largely devoid of "hits" as defined by conventional music industry standards.

The Bunnybrains were spawned from Danbury, Connecticut, a town that, by the images this collection evokes, is filled with dark demented dens of iniquity. As a whole, Box the Bunny is one of the richest, 4 disc treasure chests (a 5th disc, a DVD, is included) of gems ever offered to punk/noise connoisseurs. During their career, Bunnybrains recorded LP's on Matador, LHG and Blackjack Records among other labels, none of which garnered them any measure of notoriety. For the first time these rare tales of lewd sexuality, drugs and depravity are offered on CD.

The sonic qualities range widely, from Velvet Underground fuzz rock to proto-Stooge stage show machismo. Of the four discs, the first CD, 1993, is far-and-away the most exceptional. The two versions of "Model Bitch" are unique. The "Runway Version" is a terse five minutes, while the spacey "Fashion Version" sprawls on for more than fourteen, concentrated on vast instrumental spaces. The Bunnybrains are often filled with vitriol, and there is no better example of that than "I Am Not Your Friend (I Am Your Destiny)" or "Kukla, Fran + Bunny." Discs two and three, Bunny Magick and Beach Bunny Bingo, are rougher, featuring more experimental music and recordings, filled with answering machine messages and crank radio spots. As for songs, there are fun, tepid numbers like "RU Ready Carolyn Keddy" and "Erin Go Boom! (The Pinty Song)," punk precedents to artists such as Ween or They Might Be Giants. An open minded listener might even stretch to find connections to hip-hop impresarios De La Soul, whose work thrived on inside jokes and characters. Unfortunately, by the fourth disc, the joke has largely worn thin. The songs are malformed and the production values faltered. Its only value is as an illustration of what CD 1993's promise came to. While the Bunnybrains suffered a short, obscure recording history, the catalog of work on Box The Bunny is representative of some of punk's greatest innovation. There is a humor and dedication to barbarism and bohemian howls that are as valuable now as a decade ago when they were recorded.

© 2005 - Erick Mertz

from TerminalBoredom.com
The Bunny Brains "Box the Bunny" 4CD/DVD Box Set
If you only have 20 bucks to spend and you are going by the Soriano guide of what to waste your cash on, make it this. As someone involved in flogging Lil Bunnies records, I can say with authority that the Bunny Brains are the best bunny band ever. They also were pretty much forgotten or ignored by all but total music geeks and college radio deejays (much like fellow 90s outcasts Monoshock). Loud, flippant, thuddish, obnoxious, monotonous, and full of humor (without being a joke band) is what you get on these 4 CDs, which cover all the vinyl and some unreleased stuff, and the DVD of live crud. There is so much stuff on here, it is difficult to sum it all up. Figure this: The Bunny Brains were one of the best non-garage punk bands of the 90s, one of the best bands ever to be influenced by Flipper, and they can pull off a psychadelic sea shanty. If that doesn't sell you, nothing will. Simply god-like. Narnack should close up shop, cuz it is doubtful they will ever top this.(SSR)
(Narnack Records // www.narnackrecords.com)

From Rockpile-----------

The Bunny Brains - Box the Bunny
Back in the late-’80s and early ’90s, before independent rock ’n roll became overwhelmed by derivative and fashionable prerequisites, ruggedly individualistic bands like the Bunny Brains existed. Freaky, drug-addled, outsider music was everywhere back then—King Missile, Butthole Surfers, Bongwater, Pussy Galore. Owing to the fact that most of those bands released material via small batches of vinyl seven-inches, a lot of it is extremely rare or all together impossible to find. Enter Narnack Records. Comprising numerous vinyl-only seven and 10” releases and one DVD, Box the Bunny is every bit the howling, shambolic, depraved mess of sprawling, psychedelic art-punk noise that the Bunny Brains was in its heyday. How to describe the exquisite joy of hearing Connecticut’s finest sons lurch, plod and stumble through their terrifying canon of dain-bramaged, room-clearing rock? Best to check it out for yourself. —Allan Martin Kemler


Lightning Bolt shocks, but it's all worth it for fans
By Nick Feeley
Published: Thursday, April 7, 2005

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Regardless of whether it was airborne electricity that hit Great Scotts, there was definitely something palpable in the air Monday. As the night went on it kept building until you could almost cut the current with a knife in the moments before Providence, R.I.'s Lightning Bolt began to play.

Opening the show was mongoloid noise-makers Bunnybrains. The Bunnybrains have been in existence for quite some time now, living on a strict diet of dangerous drugs, booze, and really obtuse noise, according to the band's Web site. The band isn't so much a music group as it is a performance art piece, complete with weird masks, topless girls, and men wearing dresses, all performed over dire art noise.

Needless to say, it was awesome. At times the whacked out stage act recalled such '60s "happenings" as Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable and San Francisco's Acid Tests with the confrontational bent of early 80's freak-punks the Butthole Surfers.
from some dudes blog.....The show opened up with Bunny Brains after only about half of the line was inside the building. I’ll admit to being in the minority opinion on this one, but BB was awesome. It reminded me of the types of jams I tried to create with my friends in high school. No one really seemed all that committed to playing and there was just a whole lot of messing around. It went on and on and on. The set concluded with a 15 minute “freak out” that exuded authenticity as half of the band left the stage looking bored after a few minutes while the rest just kept throwing stuff about and speaking random phrases into the mics. I saw one of the jesusfreak-looking performers’ testicles hanging out the bottom of his smock and couldn’t stop thinking about the classic “want some gum?” joke. The comparison to my high school interests makes sense considering this band has been at it in some shape or form for 17 years. You figure they must have been peaking in the mid-90’s when I was eagerly checking out Lollapalooza lineups and making tapes with a delay pedal.

From this girls blog--------
"GOSH

today is pretty great

the weather is FUCKING FANTASTIC
i walked home in a hoodie. a thin one.

other than this horrible cough and the fact that my voice keeps going, today is great.

last night was so incredible.
nick and i went to see lightning bolt. the first band that came on was pretty bad. i mean, one of the girls was pratically naked (she was only wearing underwear and a clear piece of plastic that wasn't covering her boobs) and they still sucked. well, i didnt like them anyways. they were called the bunnybrains or something, whatever, they didn't deserve to be on stage with the other 2 bands. the second band, i dont remember their name, just that it was 4 letters, from japan was awesome. fucking awesome. nick and i were in the front and got beat up by this annoying red headed kid that was like high or retarded or something but he was really annoying and got kicked out eventually. then ligthning bolt came on. they are definitely the kind of band that are completely awesome live, but can't be as easily captured on cd. oh man, i cant listen to them the same way anymore. i love when i like a band, then go see them live, and they are awesome, and from then on you put them on this pedestal from their awesomeness when they were playing live. if that makes any sense. it happened w/ me with death cab, nada surf, and cursive, where after i saw them live i liked them like x100 more. anyways, nick and i had a lot of fun jumping around being smelly and sweaty. but GOD it was so much fun. i hope that sonic youth is like that too when nick and i go see them in providence next weekend. shit, im so excited. damn, its so nice having nick to go to shows with and having an awesome time, and i know he wrote about this in his lj, but its so true, going to a show with someone whos having just as good of a time as you is so wonderful."
some more press



Show Reviews
These Connecticut goons have been playing for 15 years, and they're still a total fucking mess, which is basically the point. They churn, they bellow, they wear terrible clothes, they rub their sweaty stuffed animals all over your indie-rock. They have actual riffs, too, but they'll be much happier if you just keep things physical with them.
.......Village Voice December 3, 2003
Mentally illin' 15-years-and-counting Connecticut drug-noisers featuring Scott Seward's brother, rabbit suits, men in dresses, a tendency to meet new guitarists right before the show begins, a perfect Buzzcocks-title-parodying best-of called *Sin Gulls (Goring St. Eddy)*, a 10-inch single called "Bring Me the Head of Trent Reznor (Chuck Eddy Mix)" (though Chuck Eddy has never actually met them), and a groove suggesting how the Butthole Surfers might've slimed through the early '80s if they'd hired Pere Ubu's first rhythm section. "On the Floor Again" may well be as good as any Flipper song.
.......Village Voice 2003
Supermarket psychedelicists who probably nod knowingly when anyone refers to their Connecticut homebase by its Nutmeg State nickname, BunnyBrains have been blowing minds and speakers for a decade and a half without once lapsing into coherence. Every messy, chaotic note, however, provides a blissful contact high.
.......Village Voice October 29. 2002
Acid-washed musical psych majors for over a decade, this Connecticut freak-out ensemble harkens back to the absurdist spectacles of Butthole Surfers and MC5.
........CMJ Music Marathon 2001
"Given their rabbit suits and related performance cabaret-leanings, these noisy Connecticut artfucks come off surprisingly songful on last year's Buzzcock-title-parodying Sin Gulls (Goring St. Eddy) 1988-1998 anthology. Best reference points would be the two Butthole Surfers E.P.'s and Album Generic Flipper, though 1990's "On The Floor Again" is the catchiest Rocket From The Tombs facsimile-cum-"Subterranean Homesick Blues" rewrite you've never heard."
........Chuck Eddy, Village Voice , New York, May 15, 2001

"Connecticut's Bunnybrains spew messy noise like Linda Blair spits pea soup: except the only things possessing Bunnybrains are a love of rock and fun (hmmmm, okay, maybe the devil too)"
........Time Out  , New York, June 29, 2000
[BunnyBrains] von Connecticut, U$A wütende Combo um den besten Geschichtenerzähler seit Mani Matter... Einordnen zwischen den Cows (der Band) und Fargo (dem Film). Handgemacht. Einhändig.
........TROTZN - vol. II Summer 1997
Recent Quotes:
Q: What's the most embarrassing moment you experienced in the local music scene in the last year?"

Having to constantly apologize for The Bunnybrains. After booking them at Ocean Beach: "I'm sorry they stole the Dictators lunch meat and threw it at the audience." After booking them at Secret Theatre: "I'm sorry that Dan Bunny stole the spaghetti and rubbed it all over your stage and his crotch."
........Jana Savanapridi




Holiday Massacre '98
The Bunny Brains are weird -- but with their given name and what little I know of their bizarre existence so far, that's hardly surprising, eh? I have the vague feeling this is a live album (parts of it certainly are), and "Freshen Up" certainly lives up to the idea: lo-fi, live-sounding, and extremely devolved, it starts out sounding like the band's tuning up (and they may well be) and gradually evolves into howling kitchen-sink psychedelia. Not the psych, mind you, of guys in paisley shirts who take big tabs o' acid and play flowery epics about the summer of luv, but the scary kind -- unpredictable freakouts from guys so strange that it's frequently hard to tell whether they're serious or pulling your leg. Either way, it's pretty out there (but still surprisingly listenable). At times they remind me of Beme Seed minus the shamanistic goddess thing and with a strange sense of humor. Psychedelic punk shenanigans, titles like "Harm is comin' to me every day in every way," "Overdose of cum," and "Robert is a corpse," weird noises and deviant sounds harnessed in the name of punk, psych, and funk... sounds like a good time to me....

—Dead Angel eZine
Holy cows. Or maybe that should be holy bunnies. This CD-R release by The Bunny Brains is either horribly bad or horribly good. I can't make up my mind. I know that I haven't listened to a really 100% experimental noise amalgamation in awhile. This certainly falls into that category. Sheesh. Try as I might, I couldn't sit still through any of the first four tracks. In fact, "Stookey Ring of Evil" contained such unbelievably bad singing that I nearly chucked it. But I'm Shorty, you know. "A reasonable guy." Give me some context and I might come around. Well, I thought I heard a little Lee Ranaldo or something in here. And sure enough, track six on this album, "Birty Doots" is actually a cover of Sonic Youth's "Dirty Boots". Well duh, you say.

After that, I think I started to see how the frenetic and ungainly vocals might work with the guitar distortion and smashing drums. The bass sure is wiggly at times. Like fat white worms worms running through greasy bacon fat. Yeah. Liked the interesting record scratching on "Chocolate Party". Went back and listened to "Switchblade Sisters". That's actually not bad, in that it's a real track. What I mean is that, come on... with all that noise you need at least some semblance of songs. Otherwise you're killing off half of the 1% of the people who haven't thrown it away yet. Give 'em a bone. Make up a melody. Make a few choruses. It might help.

Crazy stuff. I'm going to give this album a 3rd spin after a few weeks rest to see if I get anything further from it. Hey, don't play this on your parents' stereo though. They'll take you outside and shoot you with a sawed off shotgun.

P.S. There have been a total of over FIFTY people who once played in this band. I kid you not, look at the website.

—Shorty 3.1.04 www.shmat.com
A recording from 1998, possibly live (at least live in someone's basement, in lack of an audience), Holiday Massacre ‘98 presents the Bunny Brains in all their sloppiness. It's definitely garage in the delivery, punk in the attitude, country in some places, Krautrock in Davo's insistent bass lines, and spacy (or at least acid) in the guitar work of Dan Bunny and Raimondo Paolucci. All that and occasionally (and intentionally, one guesses) profoundly stupid. Just listen to the lyrics to ?Stookey Ring of Evil," the introduction to ?Switchblade Sisters" (dedicated to all the switchblade sisters in the audience) and snippets like ?Never Did the Deed" and ?Robert Is a Corpse." There's something worrying in hearing a band member ask ?which one?" as the drummer has already started counting. That's what happens at the beginning of ?Upland Lane" (they get it together after a false start). When they do play (and for longer than 20 seconds), the Bunny Brains can bang your head to the wall garage style (?Freshen Up!," everything it should be) or trip with a snarl (?Overdose on Cum"). If cynical lo-fi gives you pimples, avoid at all cost. But if you crave garage punk with a tendency to foray into unusual chord changes (is it avant-garde or is the second guitarist forgetting his chords?), Holiday Massacre will bring you to your knees. Witchy Poo meets the Nihilist Spasm Band.
–François Couture AMG Review
The five piece BunnyBrains further the lo-fi side of PE, shifting into a country punk vein. Guitars, from Dan Bunny, Raimondo Paolucci and Jim Roberto are the main noise creators (with some less obvious keyboards thrown in) but the drive behind the whole set (which sounds at times like a live recording) is Davo's bass (this is a powerful motivator in most tracks) with assistance from Peter Partenio's drums. 'Freshen up!' gives the band a chance to loosen up before dropping into a swamp rock groove, some primal lyric screams in there, dirty guitar slashes before some increasing feedback and then tape effects close. Shorter than its title 'Harm is coming to me every day in every way' plays some light guitar and throbs before the introduction of vocals (back country) into the mix with 'Stookey ring of evil' where the guitars provide twangs, big sounds and pyrotechnics. The drawled vocals in 'Upland lane' get drowned in the pumping punk country rocker with squarly guitar solo. 'Switchblade sister' gets a live announcement and is a slower number that reminds me of Neil Young &Mac246; both in vocals and melody &Mac246; particularly 'Roll another number' with some noise guitars instead of a chorus. Country rock again in 'Birty doots' with shouted chorus, short twangy guitar and possible keyboards. A wall of sound from 'Overdose of cum' and a suggestion we have entered part way in, eases rebuilds and then into a more tentative conclusion. That mood continues in 'Chocolate party', twice as long as other tracks which opens slowly with scratchy loops and simple guitar and then develops into more open and experimental areas than the rest of the album. Whispered vocals, scraping slide guitar builds to a bit of warbly rock in the last few minutes. Into the final stretch of rock with the banjo loose rubbery 'Never did the deed', a brief improv in 'Robert is a corpse' then 'I love me do' driven by the bass and feedbacky guitar in the heavy instruments spoken word and a band intro which is of the Teddy Roxborough Group (?!) before a grungy climax. Dueling guitars spiral up through 'Plying and dying' into the late night meanderings of 'Greenwich mean sister' with some slurred Doors lyrics and chugging rhythm which is broken by a call of 'take 2' before continuing into the darkness. Good time rock and roll &Mac246; a hoot-nanny pleasure punk.
–Ampersand (Australian Music Mag)



Einstürzende Neubunny
That sure is dang noisy!
–Soos, Spacemouse


Bob, This mix is awful....regardless of the song being mediocre and "white bread" and common, as far as Bunny pellets go...the mix is really a piece of work....you should use some eq and take out the 4k and 8k....it is harsh and rams a red hot poker up my ass and into the side of my eardrum, in a coordinated effort that only you could manage....
–Horlick Choi, BunnyBrains



Show Me The Bunny
Short of the very strange 3" CDR "Einsturzende Neubunny" (who since the days of Can has done such a fine job of coming up with so many parodies of their band name?), this is the most modern Bunnybrains recording, and the one mostly likely to sound like the Bunnybrains if you were to chance upon them in a live setting, though guitarist Raimondo packed up and hit the road soon after these sessions were laid down. Along with "CD*1993," this has the longest and loosest jams of all their albums, and is my favorite by a long stretch. "CD*1993" had that 14 minute version of "Model Bitch (Fashion Version)" that really sends me, and this one has a 10 minute track called "Blessed Mary, Mother of All Saints" that gets my pick of the week. I guess because I like to hear the Bunnybrains stretch out and let fly more than most bands. I’d rather be hogtied and laughed at by former grade school teachers than endure another 20 minute Fushitsusha "interstellar exploration," what I’ve heard of the Charlambides gave me the hives, and in general, noisy psych jams just leave me feeling like I wasted an afternoon, perhaps because they put too much empahsis on "out" and not enough on appealing to your good-timin' glands.

The Bunnybrains still understand why drunk people will leave your party when you put the Major Stars on, but will groove and sing and dance and kiss each other (and maybe you!) when you put tracks of equal length/dissonance on by Jimi Hendrix, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Butterfield Blues Band, maybe even Can’s "Monster Movie": without a groove, it’s all just halfassed free jazz. Horlick Choi gets pretty complex on the traps at times (complex by psych rock standards) anyway, but he knows where the backbeat needs to be, and what part of your lower body it needs to kick (front or back, dont’ matter). I mean, you KNOW this is classic rock! At one point, the mystic warrior poet/guitarist Dan Bunny launches into an impromptu verse of Chicago’s "25 Or 6 To 4" in response to the driving bassline. There’s hammer-ons, things sometimes follow the beat, but they can get real gone too, daddio. It’s out, and it’s also real in, sometimes. Can’t be afraid of that either. Start with this one, not only because it’s great, but it’s very near to being sold out. You can get it from the band themselves .
–C.M. Sienko C.M. Sienko Foundation


The BunnyBrains were once named by indie music magnate Gerard Cosloy as the second best band to ever come out of Connecticut. I don't know who was number one. I'd hate to think who was number three. The BunnyBrains are loud, obnoxious, crude, crass, noisy, and loud...and obnoxious...and crude.

There is no intricate composition. No theory. No subtleties. And not much has changed over the last 10 years as far as their sound goes. Sheer gall, longevity, and habit keeps me coming back. That, and they seem to be really nice guys....demented, but well meaning.

I suppose nearly every label that has any interest in putting out a record by the BunnyBrains (including Cosloy's indie giant Matador) probably has at this point. I, myself, put out a cassette by them a few years ago during my horrible failed experiment with running a label. They've got so many records out on so many different labels that they're apparently having some trouble finding a label to give their latest material a proper release. Which is a shame, because it's every bit as good as most of their past records. Yeah, the songs are too long and most of them don't really go anywhere and it sounds like they just got loaded and turned the recorder on, but that's what makes it a BunnyBrains record, damnit.

Show Me The Bunny is actually several years old and has been available directly from the band as a CD-R for some time. If you've heard the BunnyBrains, you know what it's like. If you haven't, imagine a group of deaf drunkards with no traditional musical training attempting to cover old Sonic Youth tunes while a total maniac yells stream of consciousness gobbledy-gook from the noggin of a truely strange fella. This raving maniac is Dan Bunny, the only omnipresent member of a constantly shifting lineup of drinking buddies.

The BunnyBrains are worth checking out if you've never heard them. I'm guessing that just about anyone, at least anyone who can stomach some noise, could find something to like about them. I'm not sure why anyone would need more than a couple of their records really (why the hell do I have 6?!), but every good noise rock collection should contain at least one BunnyBrains album. Why? Because sometimes, when life's getting him down, a man has to get really drunk and have a one-man slam dancing session in his living room. And when those times come around, nothing really does the trick for reaching that point of tension-relieving, full-on demented mayhem like the BunnyBrains.
–Edward McElvain, The Independent Mind



Sin Gulls (Goring St. Eddy) 1988-1998
A singles comp, delivered from on high, using the vessel of the always-astounding Menlo Park label. Seeing the Bunnybrains live, it’s hard to imagine (if you’re a newcomer to their music like I am) that they’ve been around for at least 15 years. They are getting older, and there have been plenty of lineup changes in the interim, but everybody seems to be having so much fun up there, you imagine that they just decided to start playing shows last week. If you’ve not heard them, or had the opportunity to see them play live, it’s a big shambling circus of whit people dressed like a touring funk band. No really, there’s a guy in a dress, a gal in a sparkly halter top, a fellow with long hair, shirtless, with tight pants and a furry bass guitar strap, and when I saw ‘em, one of ‘em was dressed all in military fatigues, a straw hat, wraparound shades, and a megaphone. Tell me that doesn’t sound like the second coming of the funk mob! But it’s not.

The Bunnybrains play psych rock the way I wish more people would play it; slow n’ loose, lotta grit, very little "soloing" per se, otherworldly rants and moans, more than one person singing at the same time, people walking into the audience, stuffed animals flying everywhere. You know, fun. Not "serious," like those jagoffs in Acid Mothers Temple. Fuckin’ Makoto threw a TANTRUM when I saw ‘em at Fireside Bowl…I don’t know if his equipment wasn’t working, or he was just lost in "the moment," but he threw his guitar down, stalked off stage, and sat down by the bowling lanes all by himself. Tell you what, the stuff he was doing immediately before didn’t lift me half as high as the Dan Bunny/Chandy Pinkeye guitar phalanx either! AMT wants to show you something important. Bunnybrains wants to show you their thingies while giggling. I’d rather fart and blame it on the dog than sit in the lotus position and contemplate Byron Coley’s navel anyway, so I take the Bunnybrains every time.

Actually, a lot of people (the band included) tend to compare the Bunnybrains to the Butthole Surfers. There’s that, in the way they’re acid punks that aren’t afraid to jam, but especially in the later years, as the song structures get looser and open, they remind me more of Flipper! Compare Flipper’s "Blowin’ Chunks" live album to any BB’s live show, and you’ll see what I mean. There’s tons going on, most of which you can’t hear because it’s all so loud, with a big, solid drumbeat keeping it from falling into noodling. Drummer Horlick Choi and bassist Bobby Bunny are like a beacon in the fog: however much any person in the band gets turned around or disoriented while changing the world through a Boss super-distortion++, there’s always a focus point to come back to. And as Eddie Flowers, a man frequently more perceptive than myself once said, "once you realize that RHYTHM + SOUND = MUSIC, an infinite number of possibilities become available to you." Which is why, when I heard that Bobby Bunny (bassist who recently left the BBs proper to join BunnyBrains88, a revival band from the original lineup) was planning on releasing a 10CD/6VCD Bunnybrains boxset, I thought to myself, "You know, I’d buy that! I’d even LISTEN to it!" Probably a lot too…probably at a time when I should be reviewing other records, but no matter. That’s an issue for later this year, and we’ll not worry about it now.

Since this goes back as far as 1988 and as far forward as 1996, there is a lot of change in the sound, but it’s only apparent if you start at track 1 and then skip to track 17. The progression is pretty smooth otherwise. From the focused punk thrash of "For You I’d Kill" and the amazing "I’m Obsessed With My Looks" (an unusual take one what would seem to be a straightforward theme: "I wanna tear my face/I wanna tear it with dirty fishhooks/I wanna give ‘em something for the textbooks/’cuz I’m obsessed with my looks/I’m so pretty/I wanna charge ‘em money to look at me/cuz a face this beautiful, this unique, this glorious/you SHOULDN’T GET TO SEE FOR FREE!!!" You think "Sassy" or "Jane" might wanna release this as a flexi-disc?) down to the hulking sludge and space-rock mumble-scapes of "Space Symphony #3" and "Whitewater Bathtub," the most significant addition to the later albums is the ubiquitous Q-cord played by La Personna (of U Can Unlearn Guitar, Cock E.S.P. and others), which has the dual effect of being spacey and transportive but not especially ponderous. Sometimes sounding like the oscillator wheezes of someone like Ben Wolcott (To Live and Shave) or Alan Ravenstine (Pere Ubu), it mostly adds something even more alien to the already bugged-out spectacle.

Because it’s all recorded as small, digestible chunks (these were mostly either singles themselves or split singles with other people), it’s something you can put on and take off while you’re dressing up (and putting makeup or cologne on your beautiful face) for a night out, as opposed to full-length regular albums like "Show Me the Bunny" or "CD*1993," which tend to make me late for work/forget to eat. This also has more (and better) funny bits on it than any other albums. You get the OJ Simpson getaway narrative of "Onic Outh," the plea for responsible parenting that is "Bus Boy Bop," and such mildly smutty classics as "How Am I Supposed To Tell You I Love You (When Your Dick’s In My Mouth)" and "On The Floor Again." More fun than is allowed by the 2003 Modern Psych-Rock Policies and Procedures Manual by a factor of two.
–C.M. Sienko C.M. Sienko Foundation


The 'brains' formed in late 1988 deep in Danbury, CT; some college kids, some art freaks, people who felt that time should not be passed, but slaughtered with the primitive sweet sounds of the depraved. The Brains were never a noise band, or an art band, or particularly high brow; you could probably argue that they were never a band at all. Over the course of ten years or so the Bunnies recorded a fairly impressive output, a great many albums, singles and comp tracks. Their singles are by far some of their best work, and are collected here for you to finally get your hands all over.
–Forced Exposure


The BunnyBrains' "Sin Gulls" is a singles collection of their scum noise rock that has some solipsistic pretentions of being "art." Although the BunnyBrains probably would deny that. These sloppy garage songs heaped with sludge distortion and unapologetic tone-deaf vocals sound like Jim "V-3 / Vertical Slits" Sheppard writings song for a Pere Ubu tribute band. Just when you thought it was safe to look in the bargain bin...seriously, we miss these guys
–Aquarius Records Catalog.


Although Connecticut competes with New Mexico and North Dakota for the honor of being home to the fewest rock bands, it did spawn the enduringly bizarre Bunny Brains. Similar in sound and approach to the noise-punk of early-‘90s outfits like Drunks with Guns and Strangulated Beatoffs, the Bunny Brains have been playing loud, crazily and in costume since 1988. That they’ve lasted this long is surprising, but that they’ve lasted this long without displaying a shred of musical evolution is downright astonishing—and more power to them.

Over the course of their existence, these Bunnies have hopped from label to label with alarming (in)consistency, releasing split singles with other bands, special CMJ giveaways and flexis tucked into obscure fanzines. If you missed out on “Cold Nut Soup” because it came out on a Belgian label, fear not: It’s on Sin Gulls, along with 16 more songs of the same ilk. As the disc spins, sweet memories suddenly come flooding back: the nauseatingly saturated sludge of “You Got It Coming,” singer Eg the Poet’s deranged squeals on “For You I’d Kill,” the rambling chaos of “Left Alive”, the ear-piercing noises on “Whitewater Bathtub” (which are guaranteed to make small dogs yelp and big ones try to bite you). It’s all there, and this is a truly splendid cacophony.

Granted, the Bunny Brains probably wouldn’t top anybody’s list of favorite bands, but this CD does allow us to reevaluate their, ahem, oeuvre, which firmly proves them to be one of the most consistent acts in recent memory. Proudly lo-fi (everything sounds as if the studio’s mixing board had been operated by a gang of drunken monkeys), the band has remained surprisingly solid and coherent over the years: The Bunnies were chaotic and crazed when they started, and godammit if that isn’t exactly how they are now.
–Elisabeth Vincentelli TIME OUT NEW YORK, November 2-9, 2000


***A collection of the most "on" tracks from Connecticut's messed-up, do-whatever sonic terrorizers recorded over a ten-year span of derangement and rarely-equalled retardation-of course, college radio loved them. A seventeen-song howl-and-growl rock orgy, much of which is long out-of-print and will never find its way to eBay (their fans are notoriously tight-fisted). Previous releases on Matador, Blackjack, Now Sound, and Total Piece of Shit.
–REVOLVER


Way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY off the deep end...!!! And...here's the best part...this band's music is a RIOT. Just reading the song titles had us laughing our asses off. As embarrassed as we are to admit it, up to this point we had never even heard of Bunny Brains (great goddamn band name, huh?). But now that we have, we will never forget them... This is a collection of the band's singles (?!!!?!!!), although don't expect to hear "singles" in the usual sense of the word. This band's singles have absolustely NO hit potential whatsoever. The "tunes" are sloppily and strangely concocted noise pieces in which the instruments go anywhere and everywhere...and the lead "singer" speaks, sings, screams, and just goes completely out of control. Rather than coming off as some serious art posers, however, this band comes off as more of a strange curiosity...with an intense sense of humor to boot. This is challenging stuff to be certain...and we could not recommend this music for anyone EXCEPT those very few individuals who are able to listen to ANYTHING and enjoy it. We feel sorry indeed that we were never able to experience this band live, because it must have been SOMETHING ELSE. The odd folks at Menlo Park Recordings display pure GUTS for releasing something like this (and someone at the label deserves a medal for writing an absolutely hilarious biography, which was a riot to read...). Do you have the BALLS...for Bunny Brains? We SHO duzz....! Favorite song title: "How Am I Supposed To Tell You I Love You (When Your D*ck's Stuffed In My Mouth)." Band web site: http://www.bunnybrains.net. You should check out ANYTHING put out on the Menlo Park label...see their web site at http://www.menloparkrecordings.com. (Rating: 4)
–LMNOP Baby Sue November '00


History happened and I missed it. This collects songs from a decade of madness (1988-98). Bunny Brains' particular aroma of noise reminds me of Flipper, an uncoordinated howl of raw emotion that shakes my lapels without any regard for subtlety or musicality. Building on basic riffs, Bunny Brains seems to be nothing more than an excuse for venting, ranting and hypnotizing yourself on heavy bass, thumping drums and fuzzed guitar. "GG's Dead (and I'm not feeling too good myself)" and "How Am I Supposed To Tell You I Love You (when your dick's stuffed in my mouth)" are prime examples of Bunny Brains' tenderness and sensitivity. Bonus points for the Squeeze reference in the title.
–Anton Warner Ink 19


There still is fear-inducing music to be heard, though. New York/Connecticut's Bunny Brains and I also go way back. Many, many years ago, at a college not too far away, I blurted out the name while spewing some of the verbal drek that art students are so well known for and a band was born. At the time I was in a band called Invaders From Sears, and one of my bandmates--now known as Bobby Bunny--took the name and ran with it. I didn't do much with Bunny Brains, but the band has outlived my involvement by more than a dozen years. Now the Brains have four CDs, four LPs and numerous singles under their belts, and they continue to crank out the noise unflaggingly. Sin Gulls: Goring St. Eddy 1988-1998 was released on Menlo Park Records last year, and contains 10 years of singles. Good golly, what hath I wrought?

The most infamous Bunny is Eg the Poet, a longhaired, bearded, rabble-rouser in a tutu. Or a wedding dress. Or whatever he can squeeze into that day. The Brains are noise meisters. Songs are not so much written as they are birthed--for better or worse. Eg speaks, sings and howls songs like "Seat Me in the (Vivisection)," " How Am I Supposed To Tell You I Love You (When Your D*ck's Stuffed In My Mouth)," and "For You I'd Kill." Other members include the aforementioned Bobby, bass pounder and thong wearer; Horlick Choi, drummer and stuffed animal look-alike; Chandra Pinkeye, guitar mauler; and occasionally, a guy known only as La Persona. Outfits are always spectacular and rude, often involving various states of undress.

Now when I say noise, I mean noise. Bunny Brains are extremely loud and chaotic. Some songs are great, others are like a brain flossing you didn't really need. Melody is fleeting, words are concocted on the spot, tempos come and go. There's a lot of low-end rumbling, drum pounding and the high-pitched squeals of amplifiers on overload. It can be unbearable. Or it can be amazing. I've been to many Bunny shows, and I've seen nudity, filth, diapers and hundreds of stuffed animals that get thrown around and mauled. Sometimes, when the smoke clears—and I mean that literally—you can be left standing there, laughing at the overwhelming humor and shaking your head in wonder at how adults can carry on this way. But stuff like this gives me hope. Bands like Bunny Brains laugh in the face of everything normal and good, and well, bless 'em for it.
–Elisa Flynn New Mass Media Weekly October 18, 2001



BunnyBrains (aka Matador "Pink Bag" LP)
The Brains do a total one take improvisation freak out the likes of which hasn't been seen since "Copernicus" from the late Eighties. The free forms range in style from the "Song" sounding "Cardinal" to some super-freakadelic-noise-wing-dings-extremes. Inspiration for some of the vocals provided by the penis in the rat trap pictured on the record sleeve. There's a nice little spoken word encouraging designer plaid wearing teary-eyed Cobain worshippers to "Do the Same". It's the Bunny Brains all right.
–Hairy Kari Edge of Obscurity Music Database Aug. 9, 1995


This out of print classic psychedelic rock effort by the BunnyBrains ranks up there with the best of “Silver Machine” era Hawkwind and the farthest galaxies of the B-hole Surfers – A poetic sprawling affair from one of the true iconoclastic underground bands in the USA
–eBay October 2002


Dreamtime In Halgamotha
A mixture of art-house noise and rock minus standard vocals, except for an occasional yell or telephone answering machine message, etc. Much of the tracks are repetitive and wondering at the same time. Traces of funk-psychedelia can also be found occasionally.; for the most part, Bunny Brains sound as though you were sitting in on a rock band in their garage on a 97 degree day with too much beer and not enough time..
–Michael Breece GAJOOB 6/25/99



BunnyBrains CD*93

Bunny Brains are my favorite band so I was very pleasantly surprised to see this CD release only one month after the release of their double LP. All new stuff recorded in the BB's typical one-take fashion and as fabulous as anything else they've done. Noise, guitars, bass, rhythms! Draws you in and out of a trance with the creeching-melodic vocals. Everyone should own this — Especially if you missed out on the LP.
–CK MAXIMUMROCKNROLL


The name Bunny Brains conjures images of crazed music arising from cramped quarters and players probably naked and on amphetamines. It all makes sense when the disc starts, until they settle into the organ-ground, dinosaur dirge-groove of the nine minute "You're A Stud." Bunny Brains are a rolling-thunder basement band with ancient prog rhythms and Weenlike bombast, and some entertaining butt-rock tendencies on, for instance, "Kukla, Fran and Bunny."
–Patrick Barber PUNCTURE


It doesn't get much rawer than this. The Bunny Brains start out by concocting a delicate layer of noise and banshee wailing, carefully add on more layers of noise, and then top it all off with even more noise, to boot. Carrying a sort-of art school mystique about them, The Bunny Brains seek to test the stamina of even the most jaded and avant garde music listener out there. It's like Sonic Youth, minus the snobby sophistication.
If you're into this type of thing, then The Bunny Brains are exactly what you've been looking for: brash, unrestrained, and ready to cause some serious damage to your stereo system.
–Bret Van Horn Spoiler Webzine Issue 3.01 Winter 1999-2000



Beach Bunny Bingo

Connecticut's purveyors of the world's finest anti-structure what-the-fuck rock'n'roll, present their most diverse, if uneven (perhaps appropriate), 10 inches of schizoid punk. Opening and closing the record are O.J. related chants & phone hijinx, inbetween, the facets are numerous. "Coco Yoko" is a raga-like guitar percussion and "wheedle" trio, followed immediatly by the slab of B.B. classic sludge "Mischievious wit of Susan Smith", which if I could decipher the lyrics, would certainly take her to task. "Blood On The Snacks" is appropriately tasty and represents the straightforward power of Brains gonzo riffage and psych pulse. The relentless distorted drumbeat of "Smack Subscription" buffet by molasses guitar and echoed vox. Side 2 contains the amazingly stupid live track "Country Funk ELP"- stupid, not bad; The abbreviated voice digitized version of "Mr. Tommy", credited to HAL!; and "Bring Me The Head Of Trent Renzor" which savages the arrogant faux-industrial schlop of the title character. Drugs, fuzz, beer, sarcasm, noise all add up to fun.
–Howard Beale Edge of Obscurity Music Database March 6, 1996



For You I'd Kill/On The Floor Again

Bunnybrains "For You I'd Kill" (recorded in 1989 despite the topical title) sounds a lot like Jad Fair, specifically one of the early Half Japanese rockers. It's sounds so much like an early Half Japanese rocker that it's just as GREAT as an early Half Japanese rocker. I guess the difference is that the Bunnybrains get a little nastier with the imagery, repeating "For you I'd kill!!!!" over and over in a high howl. But it's not quite totally evil -- like with Fair, you get the feeling that the singer might be a shy wise library nerd in real life. Besides, the band makes it so groovin', that geekiness, barbarianism, and killing are just puppet issues, with grooving being the real issue.
–Blastitude, Issue 10 october/november 2001


At their best, Big Black; at their worst, Drunks with Guns; these Connecticut guys have my vote for lo-fi, down-and-dirty single of the year. They have a sense of humor too. The singer, Eg the Poet, hits screechy high notes and sometimes sounds like Daniel Johnston if he recorded for Amphetamine Reptile. Much better than the song titles would suggest.
–Elisabeth Vincentelli, PUNCTURE #25


Great Hats! Industrial meets grunge meets HAWKWIND with a prescription for downers. Absolute fucked up noise that made no sense. And since neither band nor anybody else cared about this flaw. I had a good time.
–FLIPSIDE #77


From the genetically mutated children of Flipper and Butthole Surfers comes a noise so thrashy, so warped, and so insane, that no one in this lifetime could possibly have any idea of what these looneytunes are all about. They must be doing some really good drugs — I'd like to meet their dealer. The homemade sleeve is done cheesily in magic marker, the record label itself has the song titles scribbled in with colored pencil, and the recordings were done in one take (probably on someone's boom box) with no rehearsals whatsoever. This is beyond awful, but that's what makes The Bunny Brains so great — ask for it by name!
–JK, UNDER THE VOLCANO #10


Fuzzed out garage raunch along the lines of PUSSY GALORE or SAD SACK but a tad less abrasive. Malcolm from BROKEN TALENT is in this band so you knew it was going to be pretty good. Great effort in the packaging dept. with lots of different sleeves, scribblings, etc.
–BD, MAXIMUMROCKNROLL


A co-worker saw a bare penis in REAL LIFE once and asked, "They let you do that?" I had a devil of a time explaining that you can do most anything if you have the bucks and don't look real hard to find a "they" to ask for an O.K. This band is a good example. They do whatever they want 'cause it's all self made and promoted, right down to the spray painted, ink stamped and magic markered cover. Most of the vocals are caterwaul and the music is a cacaphony of straight ahead bass driven beat and anarchic guitar screech and noodle. Real, honest, down home, this is us whether you like it or not. Better than loads of major label "artists" if you ask me.
–REAL LIFE IN A BIG CITY #51


L: O.K.!! Oh man what a bad riff, but tis bad ass and atonal at will. B: Yes, just like leaning into a grindstone wearing steel clothes! A car getting a flat but pushing it at full throttle. For U I'd Kill! L: Wow, y'now I really love this song, the sonics are here... another bad riff but it totally rocks... that strangely savage Southern New England narrow minded snarl but this opens wide and says welcome to rock and roll, listen and love, the world is eternally new...
–Lou Barlow, Bob Fay, POPWATCH


Raw, fuzzy, distorted punk maddness that comes off a bit like FLIPPER with female vocals. The kind of sound that could damage your tropical fish and house plants. Unique, one-of-a-kind packaging as the sleeve appears to be page 131 of a "Color Me Beautiful" book. Hand written band name and songs on the sleeve and vinyl. And a baseball card thrown in the package for some reason (Alvarado Espinoza of the Yankees if that means anything to ya.)
–EBAY


I'm Obsessed With My Looks/Busboy Bop

Pranksters from hades, The Bunny Brains, have put out their second seven-inch. It's got two songs...Two tunes that will stick in your throat like curdled tree sap. Each one comes in its own unique cover. No two ar alike. Yowza.
–HIP 3/15/93


...A feast of havoc and distortion while the singer reiterates the title... The packaging of this single is uniques too. It comes in a faded leatherette red high school diploma case.
–WARD MUSIC MONTHLY



GG's Dead 45

The Bunny Brains do “GG is dead and I’m not feeling too good either.” This band takes hard drugs! I mean you can’t really figure what they are playing. The signer [sic] is yelling so badly, and the guitar riffs are so weird. I guess you need to be on drugs to listen this. After listening to this you can agree with the song title that they are not feeling too good.
–QUEBEC HARDCORE NEWS



Bunny Magick

After watching them open for Sebadoh last fall, MAGNET's Phil Sheridan said, in all seriousness, "Bunny Brains is the worst band I have ever seen." After giving Bunny Magick a couple of spins, I can understand what he meant. Though the Supreme Dicks once described themselves as "one guy trying to play a song and six guys trying to destroy it," this description lends itself better to the racket made by Connecticut's B-Brains. But somehow these rascally rabbits make their two-chord (if that many) improvo-rock work. Breaking up Bunny Magick's originals with a few entertaining samples (including the LP-opening anti-drug number from a sincere-sounding kiddie choir), the Brains have released yet another record of frustrating songs that are both inspired and original.
–Eric T. Miller, MAGNET


Two-thirds of the records presented to a fellow like me are silly style exercises, lamely threading pop music through some freshly-derived new formula. It's like Mattel putting a different dress on Barbie and calling it a new doll. So when a stunted-growth crew like Bunny Brains take the Zip Code Rapists to heart and set about ridiculous recordmaking, the change of pace in their rehab-ready exercises really makes an impression.

This album's beutiful cartoon-surrealist jacket art by Todd Schorr masks an amnesiac assortment of wet comedy slaps and unfocused bomb jams. A children's choir sings "Drugs No Way" to push everything off to a good start. The tickling torrents of "Onic Outh" (Double Pumped Version)" and "Blackjack Bunnyjet," present a love for din as clearly heard as anywhere in the same county as Slug's practice space. The stilted "Erin Go Boom! (The Pinty Song)" recalls Caroliner's fearsome folk jams. Obscure self-commentary and tape scraps fill the gaps.
If Bunny Brains have hald the wit of ZCR or Pork Queen, they aren't letting on. Mostly concerned with their own band and indie rock in general, Bunny Magick is an ill-willed whirlwind of edgy noise and rock resentment that shrinks your skull with a purposeful lack of appeal. No sell out!
–Ian Christie, ALTERNATIVE PRESS


Nothing exceeds like excess. The Bunny Brains have built a Taj Mahal of psychedelic sludge, a two-chord Trump Tower, a Mount Rushmore of everybody playing really loud at once and sort of trying to make sure they're playing the same song. The Connecticut band, known for way-over-the-top live performances (half-naked dancers, dozens of stuffed animals flying everywhere, very long songs) and why-did-they-do-that? recordings (CDs with hand-made sleeves; one-of-a-kind cassettes), has topped itseld again. Bunny Magick has a handful of digressions, like the ridiculous acoustic tribute to a favorite DJ ("R U Ready Carolyn Keddy?") and an even more ridiculous, fume-addled jig ("Erin Go Boom!"), and a couple of short "found" pieces (like the hysterical children's choir anti-drug songthat opens the record). Most of it, though, is what the Bunny Brains do best: hugely fun, bnear-improvised two-chord rock for lots of people to jump up and down to, with songs thatgo on as long as they're still fun for everyone to play and end when everybody's gotten bored with the main riff and wandered off into solos. Carrots on sticks: "(What Kind Of) SHAPE (Are You In)?," "(The) Fight (Song)" and "Blackjack Bunnyjet."
–Douglas Wolk, JACKPOT!



You Got It (Comin')

Fuzz-guitar assault is weighted down with angry lyrics that capture some of the reckless abandon of the late-80's post-punk scene. Tucked beneath the track's bravado is a simple but contagious melody that holds promise for future recordings. Way cool for college programmers who aren't trying to be overly commercial and slick.
–Larry Flick, BILLBOARD August 13, 1994


After having released countless cassettes (rumor has it the band's once-a-week rehearsals used to produce one tape each), a bunch of singles, a CD and a double-album set, the Bunny Brains have stumbled upon a vaguely recognizeable rock sound. They actually play their instruments and write songs, sounding like a sloppy punk rock wedding band, fronted by the drunkest guy at the party. "Cold Nut Soup (punch in)" could be neo-psychedelic, if it were more coherent, and "Keyhole Waltz No. 4" is a brief guitar-pwered mess. But it is the title track which is the most memorable, with Dan Bunny blithely wailing, "You've got it comin' to you baby/you've got it comin' to your head."
–K. Sanneh, CMJ


"This band SUCKS! They are the WORST! LAME! Moronic! STUPID! FUCKED-UP! Also these guys are assholes. They CAN'T even PLAY their INSTRUMENTS! They are DILLETANTS! You are better off with a SHELLAC record because it STINKS!"
–Neil Strauss



BunnyBrains at The Cooler, July 3, 2000

Last night I had a most strange experience with the superband the BUNNYBRAINS!!!!!!!!!!!!! i Must say they are quite an interesting bunch and provided me with about an hour of undiluted, pure, raw entertainment; the like which I havent seen since balki bartokomous. They were the last band at the cooler's famous free monday night series and it was worth every penny. My favorite song was definitely the one titled OpSail 2000- i think it might've been a new one. But the absolute highlight of the night was when their smoke machine went bonkers and filled the whole club with smoke. I was not one of the brave ones who stuck around for the toxic bunny fumes and instead ran to the back of the club where there was a big fan and I proceeded to watch the spectacle on one of the many video screens that are dispersed throughout the cooler. I think I was the only one who was able to see what was really going on onstage because somehow the video fought through the blinding smoke and gave me a perfect view of headman bunny swinging from the ceiling. Well it only got better when New york city's bravest came stomping down into the club in full gear. The women started hooting and hollering and the situation turned into full-blown circus rock and roll. It was truly a nyc "fill-in-the-blank' moment. I just thought the group would enjoy this little story, and be sure to keep an eye out for future bunny exploits.

–Barry B


Sebadoh, Versus, Bunny Brains at Avalon, October 22

Bunny Brains were as weird as they were musically inept. I'm sure they are someone's idea of something, but I'm sorry-for me, no redeeming virtues, despite the seemingly endless supply of stuffed bunnies they showered the audience with. Moreover, their lead singer dude, who eventually peeled down his silver lame lounge dress to reveal altogether too much shapeless white belly, was unattractive in every way possible. My favorite part was when the gratuitous bunny thrower came out with an enormous stuffed dog. You could almost feel the spike in crowd aggression as they fell upon the hapless mutt, tearing it to shreds, and tossing the eviscerated skin back onto the stage where the bass player managed to look annoyed. Other bunnies suffered similar fates although I did see one young woman leaving with hers (a very little one, it's true) clutched to her bosom. How sweet.


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