Butterflies of New Haven flitter to the sky

Butterflies of Love: How to Know The Butterflies of Love

Local band makes good. At least, they hope so.

The Butterflies of Love pitch in and help. I know that feeling. The desert opens wide and receives them. It gets cold in the morning. Yeah, we smoke cigarettes. Bad sneakers. Maybe he should be more serious. Kings of the Road. Swollen eyes. This band is great. They're very cool. I like this album they put out, it's called How to Know The Butterflies of Love. Daniel Greene and Jeffrey Greene write the songs and sing and play guitars and keep you charmed. Mark Mulcahy plays the drums and boy does he keep the beat for you to dance to. Scott Amore and Peter Jackson Whitney, of the much mourned sky-funk trio The Positive Negative Men, keep you cool on the keyboards and bass, respectively. A variety of other musicians keep it family-like. Two words: Haunting. German.

By the time you read this, the hot new Butterflies of Love will have recorded their Peel Session across the pond. John Peel knows a classic band when he hears one. On this album, they'll remind you of space trip-out bands like Galaxy 500, Neil Young, and Pavement, and then they'll remind you of other space trip-out bands like Camper Van Beethoven and the Beatles. They might remind you of the time you went to the water tower.Their lyrics are very cool. At first you might think that they are boring. You know, cliché. Well, after you listen to him sing, "You make me feel like I could rob a bank," on the track "Rob a Bank," it grows on you and you find it works with girls at bars. You tell them you're a filmmaker. You're a travelling film projectionist. You just drove your car into a lake. Tortured. Too many dark movie rooms.

The second-longest song on the album, "Assassins," starts to become annoying as the singer repeats "the assassins are here." It just sounds too sassy. But it becomes okay relative to some of the other annoying vintage instrument sounds in the background. They are very sad or bored and it makes the whole song seem like an extended whine. A long, stoned whine. A whine that will either taste delicious or cheap in your mouth. Maybe that's why one of their recent singles won best and worst single of the week in two different British fanzines. I have to admit I used to disdain their name, The Butterflies of Love. It sounded so parochial to me. Not like Wire or Fugazi. But then I remembered I went to a parochial Catholic school where I threw up and cried in front of the class.

The Butterflies of Love have been developing and honing their alternative country sound in the Elm City, for over four years. In the past two years they've been gaining recognition in the States and especially the U.K., where people are more forward-thinking about music.

I've listened to How to Know The Butterflies of Love at least eight times since I bought it, and it works great as both background and foreground music. On the first song, "Mt. Everest," which should be a single, this huge big muff distorted guitar comes on like a cloud when the singer says, "You've got heaven in your eyes," and it might remind you of your mom and soap operas. Clair McKellar on "Tambourines" is great on the tambourine.

Why is music such a desperate defense against work for so many rockers? It must have something to do with The Butterflies of Love. I'd like to have this band in my movie. (Secret7)

—Carl Ehrhardt

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