Bunny Brains – with Knifeboat, Kustomized at T.T. the Bear’s – Review

Bunny Brains

with Knifeboat, Kustomized at T.T. the Bear’s
by Jim Dennis
photo by Chris Johnson

It’s always a pleasant surprise to go to review a show and not have it be the same old thing: Three or four guys strumming their guitars, stoically churning out stale post-grunge noise-pop. This eclectic bill was a shining example of the willingness of this legendary club to showcase a wide variety of performers. (This was, after all, the place where Jane’s Addiction played when they first came to the area in ’88.)

Knifeboat was not so much a band as a riveting, avant-garde performance art unit. Utilizing an old movie projector, cello, saxophone, poetry, and passionate, unbridled noise, Knifeboat enthralled the crowd with a sample-driven cover of Madonna’s “Material Girl,” and an extended strip-tease enhanced punk ditty entitled, “Tonight I Wanna Fuck My Chocolate Easter Bunny.” A must see.

New Milford, Connecticut’s Bunny Brains followed, with more costumes and bizarre lunacy. It was a psychedelic garage-rock fest highlighted by the mutilation of a stuffed bunny at the end of the set. Do I sense a rabbit humiliation theme developing here?

Headliners Kustomized brought the enthusiastic crowd back to Earth with a high-speed vintage punk assault. Frontman Peter Prescott (ex-Mission of Burma), twitching and contorting his face as he sang, led his band through an energetic set reminiscent of classic Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, Cramps, and Sonic Youth. This bill proved there’s more to being seen than meets the ear.