Alejandro de Hoyos is an Emmy award winning filmmaker and humanitarian. He's also the steady cameraman for the San Antonio Spurs. He has made many great videos for Buttercup and Demitasse. Leave the House is super fun, as is Practice Room. Alejandro is Buttercup's "fifth Beatle."
Chris Sauter is a brilliant artist with a wide scope of interests and media that he works with -- primarily sculpture, installation, video, and drawings. Lately he's been exploring the parasitic relationship between technology and our brain chemistry. Everything he makes is beautiful. He made the art for our records The Weather Here and Battle of Flowers. He also made a heckuva video for "Anti-Antarctica."
The Liberty Bar is our favorite restaurant in San Antonio. It has always trudged it's own path--serving up great food according to it's own tastes. It's eclectic and full of books. Liberty Bar has fueled our songwriting for decades.
John Dufilho co-produced our most recent recording. He's also played drums on and off with Buttercup for years. He's a phenomenal song writer, incredibly prolific. And everything he touches gets better. He's played drums with the Apples in Stereo, and Stephen King recently paid his medical bills.
Debby Andersen tirelessly built this website, with Erik Sanden providing the little drawings for the icons. This website is meant to echo the flip board easel that Buttercup uses sometimes on stage. Debby is an Ayurvedic practicioner, a dancer and yoga teacher among other things. And she just might be available to build your website, too.
Jason Garner is the only musician in our circle with a Buttercup tattoo. He is a force of nature on drums, absolutely compelling to watch. He's played with The Deathray Davies, The Paper Chase, the Polyphonic Spree and Buttercup. His drumming on our upcomming record is groovy and musical. Here he is performing a Tiny Desk Concert with the Spree.
The San Antonio Philharmonic is an amazing group of San Antonio musicians. In recent years symphonies have struggled to survive in cities all across the country. The SA Philharmonic has struggled, too, but they've gotten leaner, meaner and more DIY. With new energy and a new home they are pushing the boundaries: check out this version of our song Nov. 1 played with the SA Philharmonic.
The Bang Bang Bar is our favorite bar in San Antonio. It's got vibes for miles: something I call baroque 1970's pizza hut, in the best way possible. Bang Bang has juicy sofas to cozy into. It's dark, it's freak-friendly with great drinks, great music, and excellent pizzas to keep you from getting sloshy. Watch Joe saw Erik in half in this video shot at the Bang Bang.
Claire Rousay played drums on our record Specks and for many live shows for both Buttercup and Demitasse. Claire's solo emo-ambient music is phenomenal. She creates truly powerful work with found sounds and soundscape recording. We've created a playlist of Claire's songs for the very end of the party, when things are in the wee hours. It's perfect.
Salim Nourallah produced two albums for Buttercup: The Weather Here and our upcomming unreleased double album Send More Yellow. Salim's music is so emotionial. It's nostalgiac, optimistic, heart-wrenching and very, very melodic. Today our favorite Salim song is "Protect Your Peace"
Charlie Roadman wrote a rock opera based on Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (431-404BC). It's called Athens v. Sparta. It has so many layers. You can simply enjoy the kick ass songs, or you can dig into the wild history of a struggling democracy with quasi-imperialist ambitions. The story of a struggle against fascism. It's wild how something so old mirrors our own struggles today.