Centerstage - Chicago's Original City Guide

Articles Sections >> Arts + Words Bars + Clubs Dating Festivals Fitness Food Lifestyle Music Theater Travel + Tourism Who's Who > View All Arts and Words Food and Drink Music

Andrew Bird

Violin plucks from a plucky (and popular) artist.

Friday Apr 21, 2006.     By Gavin Paul

Who's Who Feed

Andrew Bird's got swagger, an old-time Frank Sinatra bada-bing bada-boom flow. But these are indie-rock days, ladies and gents. That string section doesn't have so many members anymore. And that standoffish attitude? Non-existent. We're in the era of the one-man-band, and for Bird, it all started with a makeshift violin fashioned from a Cracker Jack box, a ruler and some fishing line at the age of four.

For as modest as Bird's musical start was, his early training was just as humble. In the suburbs of Evanston and Lake Bluff, his mother introduced him to low-pressure, "let's learn how to play" practice sessions with other neighborhood kids.

Now classically trained with a violin performance degree from Northwestern University, Bird can bust out a Paganini cadenza but possesses the wit and ear to strip it down to an airtight lull.

Bird's entrance into indie's upper tier came on the heels of the early-90's reemergence of big-band jazz and swing. He played strings with the Squirrel Nut Zippers, a band whose raw feel and talent were sucked dry by the heat of the national hype, plaguing his career with a "fiddle-boy" image that he's still trying to shake off.

He found an exit from the stereotype with his first solo record, Music of Hair, and the subsequent formation of his rock-heavy, five-piece brainchild: Bowl of Fire.

The Mysterious Production of Eggs (2005), his fifth solo record (second on Ani DiFranco's label, Righteous Babe), was born on the Bird family farm turned studio, a Galapagos-esque retreat in Northern Illinois. It's a place where "a lot of unanswered questions" and "a couple years of just observing chickens and wondering why they drop an egg every 30 hours" spawned 14 tracks of pop-culture induced, anti-kitsch, hummable and sometimes even body-rockin' tunes.

To combat the digital age's impersonal feel, Bird's teamed up with rock-n-roll printmaker Jay Ryan to create cartoonish vignettes for every track that are reminiscent of Shel Silverstein.

A performer of the looping technique, it's hard to pin down Bird's style. He's constantly improvising, attempting to "recreate the newness, the feeling that you're taking a risk" by coming up with new arrangements, melodies and sometimes lyrics for each new gig (a trait that dates back to his fondness for prewar jazz and blues).

At a show, you're likely to catch him throwing down layers of violin plucks, crescendoing into a future where "we're gonna live on our wits/throw away survival kits/trade butterfly knives for adderall/and that's not all..." He promises, "there will be snacks, there will."

Tell me who you are: I am Andrew Bird

Where'd you get your Chicago start: It was…that's a good question. I think it was at the Morseland. Which I think is maybe still open.

Here I am-rock you like a: Moose.

Up next at: Lollapalooza 2006.

What's cool in your neck of the woods: I'm a regular at Lula Cafe. When I'm in town, the first thing I do is go to Lula. And that's about it for Logan Square. Not much else going on, but I like it. It's a good place to disappear.

This band blew my hair back: That would be My Morning Jacket. I think they made a fine record.

If you truly were a bird, what kind would you be: Around my barn there's mostly finches and sparrows constantly at war; but they're scruffy, kind of mean ornery birds. I don't know. I'm partial to the cranes really. But I don't think they make much noise at all.