Margaret BauerBunnygrunt, the ’90s royalty of the St. Louis indie rock scene, are back. The trio, masters of what should be called mini-pop, played a triumphant reformation gig at Lemmon’s in South City on Friday night, reclaiming their place as St. Louis’ hookiest and most immediately likable band.
Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Matt Harnish (also known as that one dude who works at Vintage Vinyl), drummer/vocalist Karen Reed, and a revolving door of bassists, the band worked up quite a following throughout the mid-’90s, serving up short bursts of pop crammed with off-kilter boy-girl harmonies and occasional blasts of punk rock noise. They released two albums and a litany of compilation and single tracks before calling it quits near the end of the decade.
They had already played a reunion gig, but the show at Lemmon’s marked the return of Bunnygrunt as a band around town. It also served as a CD release party for a new collection of tracks previously unavailable on disc. After opening sets by two other local acts, the Grunt took the stage and launched into a series of what seemed like an impossible number of songs. With punk rock tempos and a delicious pop sweetness, the songs worked their way into listeners’ heads, then quickly killed themselves at the two- minute mark, before they became too sweet. It was a perfect handling of the problem with music this catchy-there’s a thin line between infectious and annoying, and Bunnygrunt were masters of staying on the right side of the line.
The best songs were those in which the verses were traded between Harnish and Reed, with their voices meeting for the sing-along choruses. Aging hipsters were shaken from too-cool trances and danced with abandon. Diners looked up from their amazingly filling pizza as their ears were also filled with an indie-pop dessert.
Special bonus points are awarded for their amped-up cover of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control,” probably the only song that clocked in over the two-minute mark. Turning an epic of post-punk loathing into something that sounded like it could have been a hit in the golden age of AM radio pop is no mean feat-and the B-Grizzle were able to pull it off wonderfully.
If you didn’t catch this reformation gig/CD release party, don’t despair. There’ll be plenty of chances to catch Bunnygrunt in the near future. They’re opening for Sebadoh tonight at Blueberry Hill, and if you’re under 21 you’ll only have to wait a week, because rumor has it-it has neither been confirmed nor denied at this point, but it is very likely-that the boy and girls will be opening for the Fall next Monday at the Creepy Crawl. Be sure to bring your sweet tooth.