The Okmoniks; No Bunny @ Lit

The Okmoniks; No Bunny; Hollywood
@ Lit Lounge
New York, NY - July 5, 2008

Somewhere in between Be Your Own Pet and their fellow Arizonans the Love Me Nots are the Okmoniks. Led by a feisty, organ-hammering sexpot, the Okmoniks play their brand of 60's inspired garage rock with a slight hint of pop and a whole lot of loud. And to show they get their inspirations from all the right places, they played one song that sounded lovingly lifted from the Ramones' immortal "Oh Oh I Love Her So". The band comes off a lot sweeter than they probably intend but there is nothing wrong with that. Even the most intense forms of rock n' roll need good doses of sunshine.

The performance art that is No Bunny is something to behold. 15 minutes of a man with bunny ears, make-up, a disturbingly proportional amount of facial hair, and a laptop. A yelling affair atop recordings of those same 60's and 60's-inspired tracks. Where No Bunny makes his mark though is with that technological contraption known as a computer. In a scene notorious for its rampaging presence of Luddites, it takes a lot for a dude to use a computer as his band. And it may as well have been a band. In fact, a band would have a lot of fun. But in the meantime, all a man-bunny needs is his laptop. There's an Apple Ad if there ever was one.

Hollywood do not conjure up sunny, bright, slick L.A. They are a hardcore garagepunk bit of mayhem directly descended from the great early 80's Los Angeles punk scene which then took a detour into more hardcore, thundering garage sounds. They are loud, they are grimey, they are intense. They are a total visceral experience. Most important of all, they also make it sound appealing to the uninitiated. Give it a few minutes, and its hard to resist stomping along.