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BIRDIE
Some Dusty (Kindercore)
Reviewed by Jason Thornberry
My friend Dorothy loaned me this cd the other day. She's always attempting to drag me to these K Recs/Kindercore/Grrrl shows where there's three women on various guitars and keyboards, then perhaps a token guy on drums on a shaky stage or a living room rug. It usually isn't very good, but since it's (shhh!) feminist rock I'm not supposed to take notice of the fact that they can barely play, and would make The Shaggs seem like, say, The Cars, or any other semi-musically accomplished band you would care to name. I went to one such show where straight away the lead vocalist yelled "Okaaay! All you men! Go stand in the back. Give us some room! We're strong women. We don't need you anyway!" Then she said something about "Girl Power", failing to notice how much that behavior was really like Bruce Springsteen, or Jon Bon Jovi, or any other MALE giving his all on a spiel that night. The Boss between songs: "You know, when I was a kid, growing up in Jersey..." Whoever She Was: "You know, when I was a kid, growing up in Olympia...".That was in 1994. Before Dorothy. Back when Bikini Kill were crankin' out the songs alongside The Fakes, Milky Wimpshake, and Huggy Bear (who's Taking The Rough With The Smooch is one of my top 100 albums despite the fact that because I own a penis, and the tunes are supposed to go over my head). "Riotgrrrl" was a possibility back then. A few albums produced in that time actually caught my attention as being pretty innovative and catchy in ways I had never really thought of before. Unfortunately, for every one good record there were at least five others that skated by on nouveau-hippie posturing, blinkered, silly idealism, and shite, or non-existent songwriting.
Anyway, that was then. This is not to try and drag Birdie into the whole Riotgrrrl/sloganeering feminist propaganda machine that "indie rock" flirted with in the nineties. But, unfortunately, if girls like Dorothy can identify with Birdie, and at the same time stand in line to buy tickets to see Bratmobile, then this group could quickly find themselves stigmatized, or type- cast as 'cuddly', or 'twee', but also not very proficient. To Birdie's credit they actually do know how to play their guitars,, and even throw in violin, cello, viola, mellotron and trumpet,. And there's actually only really three girls in this seven piece band. 'Debsy', however, is the only member of Birdie allowed on the cover. She plays about twenty different instruments on Some Dusty so I guess she's earned it. Opening the cd jacket I notice two of her compatriots pictured, but where are the other four? Do they have terrible Limp Bizkit jock-on-probation style? Or beards? Flab? Explosive relief-map acne maybe?
I liked the production on Some Dusty quite a bit, which was not so much lo-fi as it was vintage-fi, with a warmth to the whole thing that I'm positive bands spend millions of dollars trying to capture in big studios in L.A. Overall this is a decent debut, but not anything I'll be looking for on my own. The vocals were somewhat one-dimensional, fatigued, and the whole band sounded a bit bored. Like they couldn't wait to get finished being sensitive and go back to covering Loverboy.
http://www.birdiepop.com
© 2001 - Jason Thornberry