Le Butcherettes and the Melvins Didn't Fuck Around Last Night at Trees

Gavin Cleaver

Teri Gender Bender, for whom two instruments and singing is the very least of her talents.

The Melvins
With Le Butcherettes
Trees, Dallas
Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Teri Gender Bender, the lead singer, guitarist and keyboard player of Le Butcherettes, is the most punk person I can imagine. Now, I know there's a lot of deeply tedious discussion about what is and what is not punk, and even on a music blog no one wants to read this discussion. Someone telling you what is punk is in itself not punk. However, here is my thesis: Whatever your idea of punk is, Teri Gender Bender is exactly that thing.

Ms. Gender Bender does not give a solitary fuck what you or anyone else might think, as was evidenced by her antics Tuesday night opening for the Melvins at Trees. These included masturbating on stage, walking like the girl from the Exorcist, dancing like a person whose limbs were being controlled by someone with an uncontrollable twitch, hitting herself repeatedly in the head with a drumstick, and foraying out into the crowd to throw herself into people four or five times her fragile stature.

TGB is so free and untethered and immensely talented that she should be everyone's hero.We can all learn something by watching someone scarily good enough to write a song like "Bang!" (which, if PJ Harvey had written it, we'd still all be talking about in hushed tones today) hopping around the stage in the style of a crab that's having an aneurysm, a wall of hair covering her face, screaming off into the middle distance where there is absolutely no microphone. Then, the song finishes, and a switch is flipped. All smiles, TGB bows and shouts, "Gracias!"

Gavin Cleaver

Not a scene from The Ring, just Teri playing the guitar.

There is absolutely no way to read her. At one point she just gives a long, long speech in very fast Spanish (Le Butcherettes are from Guadalajara) and ends it by smashing the keyboard with her elbow, which is apparently a cue for the band to start. Sometimes, even her bass player looks mildly terrified of whatever it is she's going to do next. When she came over to him and did the splits, he started backing off a little bit. It's wonderful entertainment. My wife said, "It's like Tori Amos, but Tori Amos wants to cut me."

TGB is a firecracker that is constantly exploding, and Le Butcherettes' songs veer between beautiful melody, horrific dissonance, and just a drumbeat while TGB lays on the floor of the moshpit, surrounded by the crowd, shouting "TAKE MY FUCKING DRESS OFF!" The world would be a far better place with more Teri Gender Benders.

If you don't ever get to see Le Butcherettes, and you like it when music is enthralling, you have let yourself down. It should be everything to everyone.