The Loop: Butcher Bear
Beat music is a form that has grown out of various strains of electronic music, right in our backyard. Several local collectives are going strong with monthly live showcases and online compilations, and Texas Music Matters wants to shine a light on the scene. Each week, we’ll highlight a different artist and their music, and we’ll let them tell their own stories in order to put beat music into a Texas perspective—we’re calling it The Loop.
If you’ve been to an Exploded Drawing event, you can’t miss him–a giant red bear spinning songs. Butcher Bear is fast rising up the ranks of Austin’s beat scene, and not just for his original electronic music. The man behind the mask is Ben Webster, a founder of Austin’s Insect Records (which releases most of the city’s beat music) and along with Andrew Brown, he’s one of the co-founders of Exploded Drawing. His punk rock past inspires his music as well as the DIY nature of the scene. On this edition of The Loop, Webster talks about his unusual inspirations, his record label, and how his distrust of computers sets him apart.
