A Salute

Just want to pop my head into cyberspace and give some quick props to formerly-local (now Athens, GA) pop wizards Bird Names for a magical and luminous performance yestereve at the Empty Bottle, pimping their gorgeous new long-player Metabolism: A Salute to the Energy of the Sun. Sun has, quite frankly, been lacking around these parts for a while now, but secret-beach season will soon be upon us (I swear it!) and the just-released Metabolism should make for some killer lakefront boomboxin', designed to freak out squares (I fondly remember summers past, cruising the path with my crackbox and blaring my Taraf de Haidouks tape--Romanian lăutari music, all eerie bow-scrapes and tense, gypsy tonality, just changed the general atmosphere of, say, North Avenue Beach in such a striking way, totally reconfiguring the lakefront vibe).

Bird Names' lovely set was punctuated by some hilarious repartee from BN sage David Lineal, who had some slightly scandalous prognostications for his former hometown of Chicago. "Too bad about Rahm (he seemed to stretch the word out, like an insult) seizing power," he quipped, shaking his head with mock-incredulity. "This city's a sinking ship." Bird Names had driven in yesterday from Detroit, where they had some epic van troubles, and Detroit, Lineal speculated, was just where Chicago was headed. There were some derisive jeers from the crowd (Go back to Georgia!, someone yelled), which Dave shrugged off. "Don't take it personally", he teased. "It's called economic reality." I don't know what David's economist-credentials are, but if Detroit means landscape of surreal, breathtaking decay like the following, a part of me hopes he's right: