Biirdie’s new album Catherine Avenue drops January 22nd. Can’t wait to get my hands on a copy! Read an interview I conducted with the band back in 2005 here.
I keep trying to think of the perfect way to explain why I like Biirde. After many failed attempts over many years I have decided to forget any kind of professional presentation and just cut straight to the chase. You know that photo you have of your brother/sister/mom and you sitting in front of some monument on a vacation you took years ago. Small fragments of that time remain in your memory, it is hard to remember all of it yet it still feels like it was just yesterday. Nothing that was the norm back then is the norm now. You live somewhere else, you know different people, you do different things. That’s what Biirdie is to me, that photograph.
I was 20 in 2005, working with my friend Josh Benfield running Little Reggies Productions, putting on small rock shows for kids at the Jaycees in Melbourne, Florida. I was going through what I thought were old e-mails to delete them when I stumbled across a message from the band Biirdie about playing a show in our town. Why they wanted to play our town I really still have no idea. I was told that Jared wanted to play some shows around his home state but I was still convinced there had to be some mistake. Melbourne? Regardless we jumped on the opportunity to book them and we set up a show for March 11. In the months leading up the show, and beyond, our office was filled with their debut album Morning Kills The Dark on constant repeat.
That summer was full of boogie boarding, booking shows with my best friends, bar-b-quing, community college, and Biirdie. I was on that edge between high school, college, and the real world. I had so many plans for what I wanted to do and what I knew I could if I had the chance. Unfortunately at that stage in my life I was tied down by lack of age, experience, time, and money. I was determined to work hard despite my position and somehow booking this band would help validate all my efforts.
Before they even arrived I realized that Kala was Fred Savage’s sister. I grew up on The Wonder Years and once made a sequel to The Wizard in a CiCi’s pizza arcade, so for me this was a big deal. I had already confirmed that I wouldn’t say anything about it to her, or at least not until the end of the night. I was just this kid in a small nowhere town and this band that was 1/4 Savage family was coming all the way from LA to play for us. They represented so many things I wanted to accomplish, experience, and be a part of. LA, Hollywood, Fred Savage, success, and fulfilling goals.
Would they like the venue? Would they think the sound sucked? (btw, it probably did!) As the band stretched outside of their van I approached them with my clipboard in hand. I had done this hundreds of times before but on this occasion I was actually nervous. Unlike all the other bands who had come through our town this one truly meant something to me on a personal level. Soon my nervousness faded completely. They were everything I had hoped for. Kind, friendly, understanding, eccentric, whimsical (I hate that word but can’t think of anything better at the moment). They were all the things their music represented to me. They were from a world I had never experienced but wanted to more than anything.
That night, and on repeated visits, I kept trying to figure them out. Were Kala and Jared and item? Did they really like Melbourne or were they just being polite? Why such the obsession with LA and Florida? How is this music both happy and sad at the same time? The one thing I could confirm was that they were friendly and receiving yet still reserved. Maybe that comes with maturity, experience? I was used to having these teenage hardcore bands come through that either tore the place apart or were your instant “best friend” and invited you to go on the road because you were such a “cool brohan.” The hardcore bands were never earnest with their sentiments. Maybe Biirdie seemed so aloof because they were actually genuine? It wasn’t all or nothing like with other bands. The band members and the music were intricate, balanced, and real. They weren’t a gimmick, a fad, or some product of the times. They seemed to be doing exactly what was right and honest. They were a family not just four people hitting some notes on a stage.
They continued to play in Melbourne and Orlando for us over that year but then just as they had suddenly arrived in our lives they left again. Not in the bad way but in the way you have to split apart from a friend you make at summer camp. You both say you will remain friends and that you will write although in the back of your head you know that it may be the last time you will ever see that person and all you will have are some memories and photographs.
We continued to speak here and there on the phone. I would call Kala to see how they were doing and tell her about film school and Little Reggies. Yet despite the fact that we would occasionally chat, and I was sure I would see them again someday, I always knew that I would never get that moment of my life back and the strange obscurity the band once held. Every now and then as I drive around a new town, work a new job, or make a new friend Biirdie will come to mind and I will slip back into a time that seems so long ago but like it was just yesterday.
I know their songs about Indian Rivers and Satellite Beaches aren’t about me, or the time they spent in Melbourne, but there will always be a side of me that refuses to believe they aren’t.
