creativty, ingenuity and originality...

... three words that best describe andrew bird... it's late and i'm faded, so i apologize for any anomalies in the text...so, a couple of years ago, this dude andrew bird made my top 5 shows of the year... i went with a great friend of mine and had no previous exposure to this guy or his music. it just so happened at the time a few years ago, that this guy was on ani defranco's record label (righteous babe) and there were lots of folks there presumably on anu defranco's recommendation... anyhow, he proceeds to get up on stage with a violin, a guitar, a glockenspiel a microphone and a drummer. what transpired was truly transcendental... this guy plucked his violin... looped it. strummed his violin... looped it. picked up his guitar, played it... and looped it. meanwhile his drummer filled in appropriately. so, he's basically got a small orchestra behind him, but it was all created by him, on the spot. he would then sing over his backing symphony and play guitar or glockenspiel or strum the violin, and take everyone through these amazing and captivating songs. so, he played the shit out of this small venue, mostly filled with women.. and dudes (boyfriends of many of the women) who seemingly didn't want to be there... if only they had fucking given it a shot and paid attetion. it was amazing. so, he came back to SF last friday, to the Great American. So, i went with my same good friend, and we watched andrew bird do it again. this time, he had a different guy on drums.... first name either mark or martin, last name dosh. well, i about flipped when he told the audience that his guy dosh was on drums... he has recorded at least one record by himself, under the name dosh, and it's dope... it's like this kind of really spare, insrumental hip hop... maybe. i dunno... it could potentially defy categorization... at any rate, this dude is on drums, and he's super good... he's looping drum figures, swiveling to some keyboards, looping those. his drums sounded perfect... he was so much more than a drummer... so, these two basically made some of the most creative music i've ever seen made on stage. andrew bird had some new songs that he worked on with this dosh for his latest record... they were sick. dosh left the stage intermittently for segments of the show where it was just andrew... oh, and forgot to mention, he whistles... he whistles so beautifully... it's a key component to his sound. at any rate... if you have the opportunity to see andrew bird perform, please do yourself a favor and go see him. his records (as well as dosh's) are worth checking out as well.