![]() ![]() Februwas our first gig ever with Cynthia. How’d the gig come about?ĭP: It was planned. The place was packed and you sounded fantastic. Photo by Dustin Pittman.ĪG: You just played your 40th anniversary show at (Le) Poisson Rouge in February. People have read into it in amazing ways since then… Bush Tetras in 2019. So that’s the name of the band, and it means absolutely nothing. We’d also do secret gigs as the Neon Babies. We went to see Cynthia and said, ‘hey you! Here’s some words, here’s a microphone.’ And she became the singer.ĭP: Pat wanted to call us the Neon Tetras, and I wanted to call the band Bush Babies. The next day, I went to see Iggy play with Pat and Laura, and we were watching Iggy, and saying, ‘Adele’s not right, is she?’ Cynthia was our friend who made our clothes and cut our hair. We did three songs, and we had a review in The New York Times the next day that said the music was really interesting and great but the singer was terrible. We did one show with Adele as the Bush Tetras, in ’79 at The Kitchen. We played with her for a little while, but she didn’t like Jimmy, and I was hesitant about telling him that he wasn’t in the group. We played for maybe six months without a vocalist, and then we got Adele Bertei, who was also in the Contortions. When Pat left the Contortions, I ran into her one day and said, ‘I have a friend, you wanna get together?’ And she said, ‘I have a friend, Laura, you wanna get together?’ And that’s how we initially got together. Me and Jimmy were both big Contortions fans, and we went to see the Contortions a lot. The original band was Pat and Laura, and me and another guy named Jimmy Joe Uliana. Photo by Stephanie Chernikowski.ĭP: Amazingly, I remember most of it. Dee Pop drumming for Bush Tetras at Irving Plaza, 1980. My mom was a photographer for DownBeat, so I had a really great musical education because of her. ![]() We’re all like, underneath this car, and my mother says to Ed, ‘he’s got a great new band! You should sign them!’ And the next week Bush Tetras were on 99.ĭP: Yeah. Me and my mother are behind this car, and Ed and his wife Gina were by the car as well. Everyone ran out onto Lexington Avenue and started hiding behind cars. So we went to see the show, and in the middle of the show, someone took out a gun and started shooting. It was their first show in New York-I have a very cool mom. Me and my mother went to Hunter College on 68th Street to see a reggae group, Black Uhuru. ![]() We knew he was starting a record label, and he was putting out Glenn Branca’s record. First, I used to shop-well, we all used to shop-at 99, and we loved Ed, who ran the label. So how’d you get signed to the label?ĭP: This is a really good story. The shop was located at 99 MacDougal Street in Greenwich village, just a couple blocks from the location of your 40th anniversary show. With New York City under lockdown, I got a chance to talk with Dee Pop, the Bush Tetras drummer extraordinaire, about 40 years of Bush Tetras and the band’s history-from gigs at Hurrah and Danceteria to sharing bills with Delta 5, Gang of Four, X, and Bad Brains.ĪG: Bush Tetras got its start on the famous New York City label 99 Records, and your band was the second to sign to the label. While Laura Kennedy passed away in 2011, the current Bush Tetras lineup primarily reflects the band’s beginnings, with Val Opielski on bass. Bush Tetras is often characterized as one of the first women-centered bands to become synonymous with post-punk and no-wave music, and Vivien Goldman recently cited the band in a history of feminist punk. The band’s initial lineup included Laura Kennedy (bass), Pat Place (guitar), Dee Pop (drums), and Cynthia Sley (vocals). The 21st-century venue occupies the space of the Village Gate at 158 Bleecker Street, which famously featured performances from musicians as wide ranging as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Patti Smith, and the Velvet Underground. Photo By Brian Randall.īush Tetras, a band that emerged as a fixture of the New York City post-punk scene in the early 1980s, recently celebrated its 40th anniversary with a show at (Le) Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village. Bush Tetras Photo Session for ‘Too Many Creeps’ Sleeve.
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