Bush Tetras

Infobox musical artist
Name = Bush Tetras


Img_capt =
Background = group_or_band
Origin = New York City, USA
Genre = Post-punk, No wave
Years_active = 1979-1983
1996-1998
2006-present
Label = ROIR
Current_members = Cynthia Sley
Pat Place
Laura Kennedy
Dee Pop
Past_members = Bob Albertson
Don Christenson
Julia Murphy

The Bush Tetras were a rock band from New York City, popular in the New York club scene in the early 1980s but never achieving much mainstream success. Their music, sometimes classified under "rare beats", combined funk rhythms and dissonant rock-guitar riffs.

Lead guitarist Pat Place and vocalist Cynthia Sley produced the most distinctive aspects of the Tetras sound. Place's guitar lines were rhythmic and distortion-filled. She had been the original guitarist and one of the founding members of the No Wave band The Contortions. With the Bush Tetras, Pat continued to pursue some of the musical ideas she had explored in that band, although her distinctive slide guitar is absent from many of the Tetras songs. Sley's vocals were half-spoken, half-sung. In songs like "Too Many Creeps" and "You Can't Be Funky," she repeated simple phrases over and over again, creating a hypnotic monotony similar to Place's guitar rhythms.

Place appeared in some of Vivienne Dick's movies co-starring with Lydia Lunch and other musicians from New York's thriving, late-1970s and early-1980s music community, an off-shoot of No Wave. These appearances contributed to the band's prominent position in downtown New York in the early 1980s. At present there has been a resurgence of interest in this period, and the band's influence can be heard in many younger bands.

The Bush Tetras briefly reformed in the late 1990s. Beginning in 2005, they again began performing in New York City and (in the summer of 2006) in Europe.

Discography

* "Too Many Creeps EP", 1980, 99 Records
* "Things That Go Boom In The Night EP", 1981, Fetish Records
* "Rituals EP", 1982, Stiff Records
* "Wild Things" [cassette only] , 1983, ROIR
* "Better Late Than Never: 1980-1983" [cassette only] , 1989, ROIR
* "Boom In The Night (Original studio recordings 1980 - 1983)", 1995, ROIR
* "Tetrafied: Previously Released Recordings", 1996, Thirsty Ear
* "Page 18", [EP] 1996, Tim/Kerr Records [http://www.comeinandburn.com/disco/page18.htm]
* "Beauty Lies", 1997, Polygram Records
* "Very Very Happy", 2007, ROIR

Compilations

* "Can't Be Funky" appears on "New York Noise" (2003, Soul Jazz Records)
* "Cowboys in Africa" appears on "I [Heart] New York punk!" [Given away free with issue 144 of MOJO magazine]
* "Punch Drunk" and a cover of John Lennon's "Cold Turkey" appear on "Start Swimming" (1981, Stiff Records), a live record documenting a one-night showcase of New York bands at the Rainbow in London on 20 Feb 1981.
* "Sister Midnight" appears on "We Will Fall" (1997)
* "Too Many Creeps" appears on "Totally Wired"
* "Too Many Creeps" appears on "New Wave Dance Hits of the '80s Just Can't Get Enough" (Rhino Records)

Members

* Cynthia Sley (vocals)
* Pat Place (guitar)
* Laura Kennedy (bass)
* Dee Pop (drums)
* Bob Albertson (bass 1983 only)
* Don Christenson (drums 1983 only)
* Julia Murphy (bass since 2005)

External links

*
* [http://punkcast.com/1076 PUNKCAST#1076] Live video from Knitting Factory NYC on Nov 22, 2006
* [http://roir-usa.com/8218.htm/ Bush Tetras ROIR page]
* [http://nowave.pair.com/no_wave/bush.html] Photos of the Bush Tetras at the New York No Wave Photo Archive
* [http://thisisoffset.co.uk/?p=25 thisisoffset] Photos, videos and biog of the Bush Tetras