Video: The Buttertones, ‘Sadie’s a Sadist’
Kevin Bronson on
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The Buttertones, purveyors of the rock-’em, sock-’em garage- and surf-rock that probably soundtracked their renegade uncles’ hot-rodding, have signed with L.A.’s Innovative Leisure. That’s the label home to the similarly old-is-new sounds of Hanni El Khatib, Nick Waterhouse and the Molochs, among others, and in the Buttertones, IL has latched on to music that wears like pulp fiction. The quintet’s third album, “Gravedigging,” out March 31 is a collection of songs imagined as a film soundtrack. “We all love movies so much,” bassist Sean Redman says. “When you listen to a soundtrack, it has peaks and it has lows, but it’s a whole journey. That’s what we want to do. We want you to go on a journey.”
The band — Redman, singer-guitarist Richard Araiza, guitarist Dakota Boettcher, drummer Modesto “Cobi” Cobian and saxophonist London Guzman — made the album in Long Beach’s Jazzcats studio with producer Jonny Bell. The action-packed video for the single “Sadie’s a Sadist,” directed by Richard Hilton and Alex LeGolvan, time-stamps everything perfectly (except for the late-model Chrysler turning up in a period piece), telling the story of how “an ex-CIA operative stole our secret plans for a cybernetic robot bartender/rhoomba.” The band adds, “Some scenes might be dramatized for effect, but what you see in the film is essentially what unfolded that Tuesday afternoon.” Don’tcha love it when the bad guys with machine guns always miss?
||| Watch: The video for “Sadie’s a Sadist”
||| Live: The Buttertones open for the Frights on Feb. 14 at the El Rey Theatre. They also play Feb. 25 at the Glass House in Pomona.
[…] and the music backs Richard Araiza’s lyrical lament at a feverish pace. Where first single “Sadie’s A Sadist” had an overt cinematic surf tone, this tune weaves surf elements into a frenetic goth in the garage […]