Bukowski Lives!
By Lucas Yarbrough. October 15th, 2019.
The Bukowski Brothers’ Broken Family Band (their actual band name) has cornered the market on indie bands fronted by dead writers. Spirited frontman Jaymie Bukowski (his actual name, according to social media) claims to have been born the moment Charles Bukowski (probably not JB’s actual ancestor) died, a story which this reviewer can so far neither confirm nor deny. Whether or not there’s credence to his tale matters very little in light of the performance the BBBFB delivered Friday night at a house show put on by Lo Wave, an up and coming local promo team.
The show begins with JB monologuing about his at-birth Bukowski-possession. For a guy whose youth has been a continuation of the life of a curmudgeonly, gambling-addicted septuagenarian, JB is surprisingly energetic. The first song, an upbeat scorcher, is about how terrible every writer except him is—a Bukowski sentiment if ever there was one.
Though the term “indie rock” is too broad a category to be descriptive, The BBBFB’s guitar- and synth-centred sound falls firmly on the darker side of this genre—JB presents his lyrics with a frantic theatricality that combines an indie aesthetic with punk rock performance art. Four songs in, he appears to be wasted (but is, I suspect, not actually wasted) and is yelling a nonsensical drunken diatribe against whichever god controls the outcomes of horse races in California, with no accompaniment but a tipsy walking bass line, the band’s tight pop sensibilities set aside for a freak-jazz meander. It is, in a word, madness.
Guitarist Jo Connors (maybe an actual genius) may be known to some for her stint circa 2009 in The Ballet Llama, the kind of band that made me wish I was in a band. We’re 25 minutes in and she’s shredding scales and notes and assumptions and etc. while JB performs an onstage costume change (mailman Bukowski to journalist Bukowski). Connors has left behind her days of rage-y power chords at blistering speeds, but she hasn’t lost her intensity. Hey Jo, can we go on a date? Just kidding, it’s 2019, and that’s inappropriate.
JB’s wardrobe change fortunately doesn’t include his underwear, which, it is soon revealed, are horseshoe-patterned. The enraptured faces in the front row suggest that this is the type of classic manic pixie dreamboy young fans love to lust over. He has somehow captured the hearts of both literary-referencing intellectuals and trendy teenagers alike. (And, of course, the rad young and young-at-heart within that Venn diagram). Mind you, there may be no one outside those demographics that the band would appeal to—they’re just too weird.
JB trades his synth for an electric guitar and manages to play it while jumping up and down on the balls of his feet and spewing a ceaseless stream of lyrics naming and describing his 9 cats, almost too fast to make out, for an entire song. If he breathes, I don’t catch it. His backing band, costumed as 3 out of 9 cats, never misses a beat.
We’re nearing the end, and JB leads the rhythm section (his actual family) into a gentle ballad about the narrator’s penchant for ‘getting drunk and jacking off in bed’ (an actual line from the bridge), and I think to myself, why are we all here? We’re going to get ourselves murdered.
You’ll have no doubt heard about the tragedy by now. You’ll have heard another outburst of warnings to stay in and let the scene founder and die. But we will not stay in. I may not be in a band, but this is the next best thing, and I know you: rockers, trend-setters, and music lovers of all kinds, I remind you (not that you actually need it), this is a city that supports their friends’ band in the thick of a January blizzard, and threats of (actual) danger won’t stop us either. Shows like this are the reason why.
Bukowski finishes the set slumped on the floor, the band executing a live fade-out as his voice diminishes to a whisper. The audience cheers. This young Buk has proven that our music scene is far from dead.
RIP Kenton Weins
Bukowski's broken family band 
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