Radiolab - The Loudest Miniature Fuzz

Episode Date: April 21, 2010

Music duo Buke and Gass play for us, attempt to describe their genre-bending sound, and talk a bit about what's it like to play out what you don't say in this podcast.

Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab. Shorts. From. W. N. Y.

C. C. Yes. And NPR. We're going to rip Roy through this. Okay. Do I need to know anything or you just want to tell me it? I'm just going to tell you it.

Okay. Maybe I'll play you some music as well. Sure. Okay. Okay. Three, two, one. Hey, I'm Jada, Boomrod. I'm Robert Krollwich.

This is Radio. The podcast. That's right. I shouldn't say it that way. The podcast. Yeah, more declarative. So, we know music is very important to this show. Very.

It's never the explicit topic, but someday it's always there. It is the governor, really. Yeah, and today we're going to make it front and center. So I thought for the next 10 minutes or so, let me tell you about this band that we ran into. I don't think you mean that literally. It was not a band that you had a collision. No, I kind of did. Well, let me give you the backstory.

Okay, please. So you remember when we were doing the Parasite Show? Yes. We did several pieces about hookworms, the first of which was about hookworms in the South. Remember this story? I do very well. Just to jog, here's a brief clip. We think that these people are sick from something because they don't behave like we do.

What does that mean? They are slow. Not mentally. They're slow physically. They're pale. Because they've got hookworm. Okay, so. Now we were searching for the right music to use.

We went to our secret weapon. Her name's Karen Havlik. She works a couple cubicle rows down from us. We asked her, do you know anything that's kind of... Southern, but twangy, but not. Kind of has an edge, because these hookrooms are taking over people's minds, so it's got to have a little bit of an edge to it. So she gave me all this stuff, and then she's like,

oh, and check out Buk and Gas, Gase. Gase. So to make a long story short, she handed me a CD, this one right here, called Buk and Gase. And I was like, and I was like, I was totally wrong. for the show. But it was so right in so many other ways that I was like, okay.

So, yeah, so here we are. I visited Bukengase in Brooklyn in this little basement apartment where they play. And should we just hear some? Please. I've been a fan of Bukin Gase for not yet.

It's really hard music to describe. For instance, I'm Aaron. I can say your last name. I'm Aaron Dyer. Aaron is one of the members of the band. Here's how she does. describes what they do. Imagine a recently retired schoolhouse janitor riding the back of a big

horse that's galloping over different scenes. Like one scene could be a really calm rose pedal surfaced pond. Jumps over that and then it gets into another scene where there's a big party with Toplis beachgoers that are totally pruned out from hanging out on the beach and they're very surprised. And then it jumps into another scene where there's an angry mob with pitchforks and flames. And they're riding after rabbits that have just stolen all of the carrots and cabbage and they're not going to be able to eat their feast because of it the next day. So they're very angry. But that's what the janitor is jumping over and he's excited about it.

And I would be too. In this scenario, weird, weird scenario, you just made it. Are you the janitor? Are you guys a janitor on the horse? No, no, I would say the audience would be the janitor on the horse. So that's how Aaron describes it. But there's another Aaron in the band. Aaron Sanchez.

Two errands. And here's his attempt. It's like miniature, it's like the loudest miniature fuzz. Here's Bukin Gase rehearsing a song called Two Frogs. It's so hook-weary. I mean, like, right from the get-go. Totally. Now, the amazing thing is that all of that noise

just came from two people. Just trying to make as much noise as we can. The reason that they're able to make that much racket is because they've heavily messed with their instruments. Aaron, the girl, plays something called the Buk. The Bukes is a baritone ukulele. Oh, her name isn't Buk. That is the instrument she plays?

Yeah, she plays a ukulele, which, I didn't know, comes in a bass flavor. This is yours, right? Yeah. Very cute. It's like a miniature guitar. It's really light, too. and it's a wooden body.

And you notice it has two pickups. This is a... She's actually taking this buke and modified it. Added some strings, electrified it with some pickups and outputs and such. Two outputs, so it's a stereo. That's the buke. Now, the gase...

It seems even more complicated. So this guy... That's what Aaron, the boy plays. This is the gase. Basically, this is a hybrid between a guitar and a bass. Get it? Guitar, bass, gase? Yeah, I'm just trying to think of how it would it look like.

Well, it actually looks just like a normal acoustic guitar, but... Two of the strings are... bass strings. The bass strings go to their own bass amp. The guitar strings go to their own guitar amp. Wouldn't it be cool if the bass string was actually an elongated and taught hookworm? Do you sing on this one? Except it would be hard to play because it'd be biting your fingers the whole time.

Anyhow, so the other thing that's happening when they play is he's beating a kick drum with his left foot. She's got bells on her ankles. This is a really high-pitched frequency. Brass bells. Yeah, so this is like one of those people who want. walk around in central Europe with like nine instruments doing them all simultaneously. A little bit, yeah.

This is Buk and Gase performing from their first album, a song called Bundletuck. How long have you guys been playing together? We met in 2000, and then we were in a band in 2003. Called hominid.

That band broke up. We broke up because we were dating at the time. This is the first time you've ever said that. Really? Yeah. What are you now, if you mind me asking? Friends? We're bandmates.

Oh, you're not even friends. Jesus Christ. No, we're friends. Now, I kept trying to push and prod the two errands about why they broke up, but they wouldn't tell me. I probably wouldn't tell me either. Suffice to say, something happened, and then they just stopped speaking to each other for a really long time.

We didn't speak for like three years. Three or four years. Really? Yeah. Aaron, the girl, basically moved away, gave up music altogether. and started racing bikes. And then one day, out of the blue, for no real reason that he can explain, Aaron the boy writes an email to Aaron the girl.

He said, so how's the cycling going or something like that? I think I did say that. He did. We've never really talked about it. Really? Yeah. And beyond that, they wouldn't really talk about it with me. But their music has something in it, some kind of like, hookwormy angst.

That maybe comes from. from the stuff they don't talk about. There's something about your music that feels possessed. My temptation, maybe wrongly, is to say possessed by some sort of the history you guys have together. Could be. If large armies of bunnies are going to steal their carrots, then they're just living in an anxious world. The truth is, they fear the rabbit. I don't think that they would disagree with either.

Well, that was Buke and Gase recorded with help from Michael Rayfield. You can find out more about Buk-N-Gase at Buk-N-G-G-N-G-G-E-N-G-G-E-B-U-K-E-G-A-D-S. If you have any trouble spelling it, you can just go to our website, RadioLab. We will link you there. And for all you New York listeners, here's something. June 1st, Buk and Gays, you're going to join, actually join us on stage for the second installment of our performance series that we're calling. Amageda. This is An explosion of... Lender.

You will never forget. So we're going to have prune and gase on our stage? Bukin Gase, but she'll be pruned out. She will. He may as well. And that's June 1st here at the Greenspace. Just check our website, RadioLab.org, for details. Oh, and by the way, the first one that we did, which was just a few days ago, ago is the video is now on our website as well,

radialab.org. It was a really fun evening. We had a basically two guys talking about swarms, swarms, you know, the science of swarms, also kind of making art from swarms. Very cool. Radiolab.org. You mean the number? Yeah. That's it. Mr. Chavis Tosbury, a radio lab listener from Oshop from the podcast is funded in part by the National Science

foundation and this one foundation. Right? You hear it like that. Now, you start on your one. One. One. Wait, you're not playing the same line as... Yes. Really?

Well, they're two different. Wait, wait, do that. We should do it together. We should do it together. And then separate. Well, no, do your baseline. Do the baseline. Because it's the same. Right, so there's your one, there's your one. Bada.

One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. And it's down here. One, two, three, four. One, yeah, yeah, so where's your...