TEAM LAST CALL

There’s some weird love affair between Brooklyn and Bukowski that I have yet to figure out. As reviled for his boorish behavior as he was revered for his blunt, anti-literary poems and stories, Bukowski lived in a world of misery, misogyny and selfish conquest that hardly seems in line with the delicate sensibilities of today’s indie rock scene. And yet, three Brooklyn bands in a row – Chairlift, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart and minimalist pop duo Hank & Cupcakes – have declared their affinity for the old kook during Team Last Call interviews.

The latter even lifted their name from the writer, who called himself Hank in his semi-autobiographical books, and one of his countless sexual adventuresses, nicknamed Cupcakes for her legendarily ample bosom. But beyond their moniker, the husband-and-wife duo of Hank & Cupcakes share very little with Charles Bukowski apart from a brazen, devil-may-care approach to art and the prescribed notions of form and function.

Armed only with a drum kit, a bass guitar and a complete disregard for their own limitations, the two smack and slap their way through herky-jerky dance-pop songs that bristle with sass and sexuality. Hank steers the ship with imaginative, lyrical bass lines that provide both melody and pulse, carefully eschewing flashy showmanship for steady, artful loops. In that sonic sandbox, Cupcakes builds her castle, layering sturdy disco rhythms and fractured rock beats with sultry vocals chiseled on Pat Benatar’s battlefield of love. She plays the drums standing up for maximum vocal power, which is a spectacle, so much force being projected from such a diminutive package.

The same could be said for Hank & Cupcakes’ music, which, while almost comically minimalist, seems all the more ferocious plowing forth without the distraction of competing textures or countermelodies. It’s like the theory that the best way of commanding attention in a noisy room is to talk softly. But as Cupcakes explains, while the duo’s music is almost as much fun to hypothesize about as it is to hear, it’s hardly conceptual.

“There is absolutely no theory involved in what we do,” Cupcakes explains. “We just do it because that is what we find stimulating at the moment. We’re not committed to the minimalist thing. We have no problem adding 10 more players to the band if the music takes us there.”

The media buzz surrounding Hank & Cupcakes belies the fact that they’ve been performing in the States for less than a year. Prior to moving to New York last August, the couple had been playing in bands both together and separately for a decade throughout their native country of Israel. It wasn’t until after a six-month stint studying music in Cuba that the two decided to try their luck in America, where they stumbled upon the idea for their skeletal drum-and-bass arrangements almost accidentally.

“The plan was to come to New York with a tight rhythm section and find more musicians here,” Cupcakes says, “but pretty soon we found ourselves totally turned on by this new sound we were exploring. We started rehearsing on a daily basis and as we progressed, we lost the need to add more instruments to the music.”
The lovebirds preserved their sound for posterity in June, recording a seven-song EP (all in analog) that they hope will be ready for release in time for their trip to PA this month.
*Reprinted from Fly Magazine