by Donte Kirby
In a room that looked like I was about to ask a mafia don for a favor, I talked with Andrew Hung and Benjamin Power. The duo forms Fuck Buttons, from the UK, and on Saturday night, they played Voyeur in Philly. Any questions about the show were answered with a sly smile and a “you’ll just have to wait and see” but, about anything else, the duo were an open book.
First question I asked, of course, was “how’d you come up with the name Fuck Buttons?” The answer? “We were really drunk and we were eating chocolate buttons,” says Hung. “I give it a B.” says Power about that particular Q&A. How their name came about gets asked so often that now they’re on a grading system.
Power explains that the name for their new album, Slow Focus, came after listening to the album all the way through, it “felt like you’ve been in a deep sleep for a long time, the moment your eyes take to readjust and refocus, you’re in a place you maybe don’t recognize not a familiar place.” I say “that was deep” and Hung hears “D”. He busts out laughing, thinking I just gave Power’s explanation a barely passing grade.
The last time Fuck Buttons were in Philly was a performance at Johnny Brenda’s. “Philly’s always good to us,”- they recall that after the show some girls were trying to get them to go to a nightclub. Not quite as memorable as the time they bumped into Michael Stipe at a car park in Nashville and he told them he was a fan of their music.
Lichens (photo credit Donte Kirby)
Fans of Fuck Buttons were in full attendance at Voyeur, its spacious dance floor full even for the opening act Lichens, by no means a small achievement. Lichens, alias of musician Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, had an electronic, trance inducing sound topped off with haunting wails. Add a few candles and a Ouija board to go along with the dark blue ambient lighting and there could have been a séance to speak to Techno spirits long past.
For those not so spiritually inclined, there were two other DJs playing simultaneously at Voyeur in separate areas, a fact I’m sure Voyeur natives are well aware of. You had South Philly natives Rocktits playing the basement and Adam playing on the upper level. Each with their own distinct sound, making it feel like three clubs for the price of one.
When Fuck Buttons hit the stage the crowd was into it from the jump. If a Lichens induced trance can send a crowd into a meditative state, a Fuck Buttons induced trance sends them into a frenzy of movement. To this séance head bangers are welcomed, in fact encouraged, exemplified in the guy in the crowd near the front of the stage head banging as if to please the God of Metal himself.
For Fuck Buttons fans who missed the show fear not because touring is number one on their agenda in 2014. As good as Philly is to Fuck Buttons, Fuck Buttons is just as good to Philly and Saturday night was just another showcase of brotherly love from our friends from across the pond. I can’t wait for them to return and do it again.
