So, hey, you’ve snagged tickets for Buddy Guy and you’re looking forward to a great show, but you’re worried you might still be hankering for some more music Friday night at Ellnora? Or maybe the $10-$48 price range for tickets to the big shows makes your poor student ass clench in dismay? Well, you should check out Buke and Gase at 10:45 or whenever Mr. Guy stops playing, because this duo is interesting, rocking, and maybe best of all, totally free.
Buke and Gase are Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez, originally from Brooklyn, and they play indie rock on homemade instruments: Dyer plays the buke, a baritone ukulele made from scrapped automotive metal, which she made because she needed an instrument that would be easy to play with her carpal tunnel syndrome. Sanchez plays the gase, a guitar-bass hybrid he invented.
Now, when I first heard of this girl-boy duo from New York playing homemade instruments I thought I’d get an earful of gimmicky hippie shtick when I listened to them on YouTube; I was pleasantly surprised to find that their music has enough novelty paired with actual singing/songwriting chops to make me want to go to their show on Friday and listen close.
Dyer’s buke is nervous and skittery and doesn’t stay in the same octave for more than a few beats, while Sanchez’s gase provides a sinister and plodding low-end rumble. Dyer’s voice is just as slippery as her gase playing and works with the instrumentation to create some pretty tense songs, ducking in and out of riffs and runs and being, in turns, strident and melodic. Because these aren’t conventional instruments, our ears have a hard time placing them, and our brains don’t really know what to make of the music; Buke and Gase heighten this sense by running their instruments through effects pedals to further distort and muddle and obfuscate.
This is hypnotic live; I guarantee there will be times at the show where you’ll think “How are those two people even making those sounds?” Good artists sharpen their craft by restricting themselves, by imposing limits by either taking something away or launching themselves into unfamiliar territory. Buke and Gase do the latter, playing on instruments that might as well be from another planet, and the fact that their art loses nothing in the process testifies to their chops.
Buke and Gase play at 10:45ish, whenever Buddy Guy finishes. They’re playing at the Sonic Garden. Cost = totally free, although they’re accepting donations.