If you blink once you're a goner ... Everything just goes pell-mell
Yeah, that'll be a nice one that hopefully keeps growing for you. It sure did for a lot of us around here a few years ago when it snuck out with hardly any fanfare. Actually, zero fanfare. He was in a swing band called the Squirrel Nut Zippers that was kind of fun, and I have one of their LPs, but it's nothing like he went on to do on his own. I remember reading a little thing at the time, can't remember where now, but just some little interview thing where he was talking about how he felt out of touch with current music and so picked up a few things like the Flaming Lips "Soft Bulletin" and was knocked out, and it kind of knocked his music into a different direction, onto a more modern and eclectic plane. Sounded pretty cool to me so I read the blurb on the album at Ryko and found the CD at Best Buy, of all places. I remember it being hard to find at the time because Stoney was looking for it too. And so I did a comp back in the middle of 2001 called Half Gone and included the "Case In Point" song and most people who heard it were flipped. Great song. Very inventive. And then we soon thereafter did a group comp called Rave Recs Discoveries that our old buddy PwrPopGuy put together based on songs people discovered on Rave Recs comps that they really liked. And the "Case In Point" song was one of them so that turned a few more onto the joys of Bird. Great idea that turned into a pretty nice comp by the way, although if you follow the link and look at the tracklist credits, you'll notice that it was unfortunately a little over-represented by one of the popular indie hooligans around here.
But anyway, that's your Rave Recs history of the Bird lesson for today ;)
And for another word of the Bird from Snowbuns --> http://archive.audioreview.com/10/0EEB5D5B.php