Hank & Cupcakes Get Closer (The House List – Bowery Presents)
Cupcakes at Mercury Lounge. (PHOTO: Patrick J. Eves)
Cupcakes convincingly wrapped the bass-guitar strap around her neck, looked out to the audience and laughed before passing the guitar to her other half, Ariel Scherbacovsky, better known as Hank. A closer look revealed the left half of Hank’s face, back and torso painted in animalistic black and yellow spots. Offering bass rumble and synth for the band’s 11-song set, Cupcakes, clad in a white business suit, her short, bleached-blonde hair perfectly coifed, pounced onstage as a gender-blurring, Eurythmics-era Annie Lennox.
Fresh from recording their full-length debut at Berlin’s Hansa Studios, the Tel Aviv-by-way-of-Brooklyn bass-and-drum duo felt the New York City love and gave it back. The duo’s chemistry is unyielding. “Ready, naked boy?” asked Cupcakes of a shirtless Hank before her rap reviving some of Blondie’s “Rapture” toward the end of funk-pop groove of “Ain’t No Love.” Dancing, swirling and moving in front—and on top—of her drum kit, Cupcakes is full show-woman-ship. More
