Dear Kitten,
Buttercup has been known to offer up some unusual performances: playing on a float, in a boardroom, at 7 am in a dive bar, or as mannequins in a window. But one of the queerest performances was when we beamed our likenesses into cranky vintage TVs placed in the bottom of several 55 gallon oil drums. We did this 20 years ago on a Monday in 2004. We called it “Goodbye Blue Monday” and Charlie Roadman made a documentary about it.
On October 28 we will reprise this performance. This time, the show will be bigger and more playful. And now we are calling it “Can/Cant.” I’ve been walking around muttering to myself: “It’s Buttercup in a can.”
“Can/Cant” hopes to challenge music fans to reconsider the way they listen to music. The show will redirect the audience’s gaze downwards and encourage them to move their bodies about in order to gain new perspectives. The goal is to tease us to listen more with our eyes by creating a slowly shifting tunnel-vision. This will be a bit of tight rope walk—all will hinge upon glitchy technology from the early 1990’s.
Because of the size and scope of this show, there will be documentarians, cinematographers and photographers pitching in to wrangle the futzy tech, including artists Alejandro de Hoyos, Anthony Garcia, Dru Barcus and Angela Martinez. We are always at our best when we collaborate—it takes a village, after all.
Hills Snyder in Glass Tire describes the Buttercup collaborative thusly: “[Buttercup] is an existential levitation, a kind of rising above the mortal surface via the bond of making music with others; a dream of how to live in the face of disappointment; a locked-hands agreement with the larger self to carry on.”
The word “cant” means “peculiar language.” So, the title “Can/Cant” alludes to the watery nature of spoken language and the mysterious language of music. About the possibility of real communication and of its failure. How beauty can be construed even from what we might think at first is a failure. At least that is the hope.
We received a grant for this performance—and that money will go towards making “Can/Cant” visually beautiful and sonically pleasurable. We are going to let folks pay what the want at the door. These proceeds will go towards our new record and to Everytown for Gun Violence.
Monday, October 28
La Zona Art Everywhere Popup Gallery
337 W. Commerce
doors 6p
performance 7:30p
$20 suggested donation
(a portion of proceeds will be donated to Everytown for Gun Violence)
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