Q: Will I Need To Hire A P.A.?
A: No. If it’s a small room with a small, attentive audience, it’s likely none will be needed. Most events like weddings do need sound reinforcement, though, and when there’s drums involved or a wider space than a small quiet room to cover, it’s essential. Buttercup has their own super high fidelity Bose P.A. system, whose cost is bundled into the overall fee.
 

Q: Is The Sounds System Available For Announcements and Between-set Recorded Music?
A: Yes.
 

Q: What Will It Cost?
A: It depends on the number of personnel and the travel costs. Buttercup’s base cost as a full band with drums is $3000. These rates include all of the band’s costs within Texas — travel, hotel, gas, etc. To play any where else in the continental US add $2000. Buttercup as a trio, with occasional drums by Joe, is $2000. A duo (Demitasse) or one of us solo is $1200. You can add these up for a ballpark idea, given your location and how big a band you want, but here’s one way to broadly sum it up: It has never cost anyone more than $5000 to hire Buttercup (hi there, New York and Sacramento); and if you can’t spend $1200, don’t ask.
 

Q: How Long Will Buttercup Play?
A: How long do you want? Buttercup is flexible, but a good guideline for band events is a shorter 45min mellow set and  a longer rocking 60-75 minute set: that satiates all with dancing shoes, and leaves some people wanting to hear more, which is good.
 

Q: Will Buttercup Be Amenable To Song and Set-List Requests?
A: Yes. You are hiring Buttercup a band that has written 10 albums worth of original songs. And although Buttercup knows many cover songs, it is not a cover band and cannot play songs it does not know. Also, Buttercup does not sing songs with profanity at family events (even by request!). We are delighted to hear which are your favorite Buttercup titles and which you would rather not be subjected to. Most but not all of the songs on Buttercup’s records are performance-ready.
 

Q: Will the Band Learn Special Material For My Event?
A: Yes, within reasonable limits. Classical and Eastern European pieces — yes, we have been asked to learn these — are mainly out of Buttercup’s scope and skills, but most American and British popular music isn’t. For weddings, a first-dance request is almost mandatory.

Buttercup is very flexible with requests and styles, but to try to learn more than 3 songs will mush up our minds.
 

Q: What Are Examples Of Cover Songs Buttercup Plays?
A: Buttercup knows by heart a fat hunk of the catalogs of canonical rock artists like the Kinks, Neil Young, the Beatles, Elliott Smith, Lou Reed, Morrissey, Jonathan Richman, Roger Miller, the Psychedelic Furs, the Pixies, the Talking Heads, the Tragically Hip and, for some reason a few hits by female country singers like Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette and a great song by the Wu-Tang Clan. We have a sample set-list on our EPK page to offer you for your perusal, but we prefer to call tunes out on the spot, but this should give you a good idea.

Q: Do I Have To Feed The Players?
A: Nice, and appreciated, but not necessary.

Q: Is Buttercup a Total “Damsel Of The Pave”? What Will We Not Do?
A: Buttercup will do a whole lot to make a client happy, like learn special songs, show up punctually, hang out with you and your colleagues/ friends/family into the wee hours, behave like courteous Southern/ Northern/Far Eastern-bred adults. We will perform for cheaper than many national acts, and many professional cover bands. We will even let you record the set for posterity! Here are a few things we do not like to do:

1 Act as emcee or announcer for your wedding.
2 Handle continuous heckling by angry people who want to hear Creed or Toby Keith rather than the Kinks or Neil Young.
3 Learn more than 3 songs for the occasion (and 2 is preferable).
4 Placate your angry facility staff who would be happier with a jazz piano trio than a rock band.
5 Answer to multiple, conflicting parties on basics like set length. For weddings, Buttercup wants to be answerable to the couple, not the in-laws, just for the sake of an efficient and clear chain of command.