Soulpatches & the Second Bananas

By Dean Poling
VDT View

REMERTON - Brian Buffington, so the poets say, can write a song about almost anything, anytime, off the cuff, and it is usually funny.
“Brian has the ability to take something from everyday life and present it in a way that is hilarious,” said Charlie Dame late last year, organizing the first of a series of Songwriters Circles with Jerry Newman. “You just never know where he’s going to take a song and it’s a lot of fun for the audience.”
This weekend, Buffington hopes the audience will find him and his band at his and wife Brooke’s Buffington’s store in Remerton for a concert and the release of “Puddin’” the band’s digital EP.
The name of the band is Soulpatches & the Second Bananas, which consists of Rusty Townsen, percussion; Andrew Alford, kepyboards, lead guitar, back-up vocals; and Brian Buffington on rhythm guitar, lead vocals and primary songwriter.
“Puddin’” features the comic sensibility that Dame and Newman mentioned last year. Take “The Ballad of Cooter Jack,” a raucous song that combines the traditional story-telling ballad topics of a simple fellow who simultaneously is a man done wrong and is the target of another man’s violent scorn, but Buffington lifts that concept and twists it into the helter-skelter, hurly-burly of the modern “Jerry Springer” era. All done with a shout-style that warns, “Watch your back, Cooter Jack/Billy down the street gotta baseball bat …,” and another line that warns Cooter to watch out for that cheatin’ gal Pearl, too.
There are more serious songs on “Puddin’” too, but throughout there is an underlying sense of riot, even when the band moves into more earnest tones. In places, Soulpatches & The Second Bananas has the raw elemental power of a mostly acoustic Violent Femmes, but with the frenetic fun of The Beatles in their “Hard Day’s Night” movie era.
Even during a photo shoot, the band eschews most band photo shoot conventions. They resist the stereotypical, overly serious band group photo of grimacing, serious men with a purpose of revolutionizing the world through music. Nope. Instead, Soulpatches & The Second Bananas pose for still photos as if it is a video shoot. Almost constantly moving and mugging for the camera.
This seems fitting since the band - Buffington in particular - making up songs on the spot, simply from audience members yelling out ideas. It was a talent that served Buffington well as an eighth-grade science teacher trying to get the attention of middle-school students.
He shares how one song was born when students requested a song about socks, electricity and i-Pods. That request became the funky “Digital Revolution,” which is the last song on “Puddin’”. It’s about a man who has nothing to do with technology until he ends up purchasing an i-Pod and loves it so much he kicks his shoes off, rubbing his socks on the carpet, feeling the flow of static electricity running through him. It’s also a wry look at how this middle-aged man hopes new technology will serve as a fountain of youth or at least a font to capture some sliver of 21st century cool.
However, teaching is something Buffington has put into his own past; he’s also shying away from writing songs on the spot. Instead, he is focusing his energies on his his music, the band, the EP, and his wife’s shop, Buffington’s, a pink shop on Plum Street, selling vintage clothing, a variety of T-shirts from the ’70s and ’80s, and boutique items such as dresses. The shop also transforms into a cafe setting most Saturday nights, hosting live performers. This is where Soulpatches & The Second Bananas will perform on June 28 and celebrate the digital release of the EP.
What exactly is a “digital release,” well, if you don’t already know, be prepared for a technological discovery that is as enlightening as the man’s discovery of the i-Pod in “Digital Revolution.”
Upon purchasing “Puddin’”, a recipient will not receive a traditional CD, cassette tape, 8-track, or vinyl record. Instead, the purchaser will receive what looks like a gift card. The card contains a set of numbers to be used at a designated Digital Revolt Web site. There, the purchaser can download “Puddin’” into an i-Pod or similar technology or burn the EP’s five tracks onto a CD.
An intriguing way to purchase music from a local band that is all about intriguing music. - Valdosta Daily Times