San Antonio art-rock band Buttercup presented Can/Cant, an all-ages experimental multi-media performance on Oct. 28. The band played at La Zona Art Everywhere Popup Gallery on 337 West Commerce Street, funded by a City of San Antonio Arts and Culture grant. Can/Cant was a reprise of the band’s “Goodbye Blue Monday” project which took place 20 years ago.
The original “Goodbye Blue Monday” performance included multiple 55-gallon oil drums containing vintage TVs that broadcast live footage of the band performing their songs from an undisclosed location. Buttercup member Erik Sanden, the primary creative director of this project, was inspired by the work of installation artist Bill Viola and performance artist Chris Burden.
Throughout the creation of “Goodbye Blue Monday,” Charlie Roadman, a friend of the band, recorded the group’s process and released a documentary of the same name. According to Sanden, the overall goal of this project was to induce a sense of synesthesia, a phenomenon that causes sensory crossovers such as experiencing a sound through visual stimulation.
“My hope is that certain pieces of the music will get louder, more clearly, with your eyes. It will seem to get louder, because that’s an interesting psychological phenomenon. So we tend to literally listen with our eyes,” Sanden said. “We hear it best when we can see what the musicians are doing with their hands.”
While cleaning out the band’s studio, Sanden threw out old DVDs of the “Goodbye Blue Monday” project. It was band member odie who found the discarded DVDs and noted that this year was the 20th anniversary of the project — a discovery that led to its reprisal Can/Cant.
“I just thought, this was the first thing that Buttercup did as a public release, and I realized how long I’ve been friends and bandmates and chosen family members with Joe Reyes and Eric Sanden, that I just really [wanted to reprise the project],” odie said. “This is for me because I love them so much, and I’m so proud of them. I’m lucky.”
After this decision to reprise the project, odie applied for a grant from the City of San Antonio Arts and Culture Department to fund the Can/Cant performance. To odie’s shock, the department approved the grant, allowing the project to get off the ground. However, odie said the monetary incentive was less important to the band than the cultural significance.
“It is an honor … the city of San Antonio actually has recognized us as we’ve been a mainstay in the music scene for such a long time,” odie said. “Being awarded the grant, I think a lot has to do with our longevity in the community. We have a deep love for this city and its culture.”
Alejandro DeHoyos, filmmaker and chief cinematographer on the project, was heavily involved in preparing for the Can/Cant”project. He helped the band collect materials and set up the venue for the performance. Additionally, he recorded the band throughout the process with the intention of making his own documentary, an homage to the original “Goodbye Blue Monday” documentary by Charlie Roadman.
“This show is, I would say … 10 times what their last show [was], back 20 years ago. We have a bigger space. And so, we want to stay true to what we originally did, but also take it up another level, Buttercup style,” DeHoyos said.
Ultimately, odie emphasized that this project is a labor of love for art and the San Antonio community. According to Sanden, the emphasis on engaging performances is something Buttercup is committed to. The band strives to make a show they would like to see and to avoid the monotony of front-facing shows — a motivation that fuels the band to take on innovative projects.
“What’s always fun about them and their interesting, unique ideas is that I’ve never seen one fail. They’re always enjoyed by everybody, and they’ll say the craziest thing, ‘We’re going to try this,’ and you’re like, ‘I don’t think that’s going to work.’ But then it works … it’s a gift those guys have,” Roadman said. “I just think it’s kind of magical, what they’re able to do.”
