The newest contribution to the Yellow Bird Project comes straight from the creative mind of the ever impressive Andrew Bird. Hailing from Chicago, Illinois, Andrew and a bike riding peacock are here to join the Yellow Bird party. Coming to expect nothing but extraordinary things from his music, it’s now clear that his creativity transcends into shirt design too.

Profits from sales of this quality torso protector will go to help the folks at Pegasus Special Riders continue to provide adults and children with special needs the complete equine therapy experience. Every week clients enjoy horse riding lessons and involvement within the riding centre in a fun and safe environment.

Click here to see (and buy??) Andrew Bird’s “Peacock On A Bike”.

Photograph above, taken by Megan McIsaac.

There was also one YBP shirt spotting (Bon Iver).

The National was the lone YBP band to take the stage and they played a great set. This was my first time hearing them play either live or recorded. I was so impressed by their level of talent. The lead singer really amazed me in his ability to channel so many different emotions even throughout a single song and with such a range of different voices. I had never really heard anything like it before. They craft there music in a really interesting and unique way. In some songs it is like they have 5 seperate concepts that they use and reuse throughout the song without an identifiable chorus or verse. That reptition had this very seductive quality that would really suck you into the music. The songs Runaway and  Afraid of Everyone are good examples of this.

The band that played after the National was the Flaming Lips whose music I was more familiar with beforehand because of some of their very famous songs like: do you realize, yoshimi battles the robots and waiting for superman.

The song waiting for superman was allegedly written about a conversation that the lead singer (Wayne Coyne) had with his brother as his father was dying of cancer. He asked his brother how his father was doing to which his brother replied “Its getting heavy”. To which he replied” I thought it was already as heavy as can be”.

The first verse goes

I Asked you a question
I didn’t need you to reply
Is it gettin’ heavy?
But then I realized
Is it gettin’ heavy?
Well I thought it was already as heavy as can be

I really like the imagery of the middle verse of this song although I am not exactly sure what he intended when he wrote it.

Is it overwhelming
To use a crane to crush a fly?
It’s a good time for Superman
To lift the sun into the sky

Peronsally, I think it’s a great metaphor for the damage we are doing to the planet. The distance between our actions and the sometimes tragic consequence are so large in time and scope that we are numb to it and unwilling to take responsibility. The image of using a crane to crush a fly reminds me of that distance.

Take for instance the recent tragic floods in Pakistan. The floods were influenced by the rapid melting of glaciers in the himalyan mountain range. It is a similar problem to what I saw first hand in Bolivia where I travelled earlier this year, where the glaciers are retreating so fast that they are devastating entire towns dependent on agriculture. The distance though between someone getting in their car and thus making a small increase to the carbon layer in the atmosphere in space and then someone dying years later in Pakistan is too big to affect most people. It’s a small world but one that can be equally distant and impersonal.

So, I’m proud of what Matt, Casey and the rest of the YBP community have achieved in briding that gap. There is obviously a lot of work to be done on all the issues that YBP supports, but as a community we can make a difference.

This is just too good not to post. Most notably, the triumphant 11 minute title track,  “All Delighted People”; an ode to Paul Simon’s “Sounds of Silence”. Listen, and enjoy.

P.S. Notice the typeset on his album cover – same font YBP !!

A few weeks ago we posted our new music video for our theme song, “A Field Of Birds”. Now, Jonathan Lindley takes us behind the scenes! A few words from Jonny, below…

When i set out to make this animation i had no idea were to start. So, i had to resort to something i knew how to do, or rather something i already felt comfortable with. i ended up drawing the characters before understanding the story or setting and after a while it just built momentum. I’ve always found the start the most difficult, once you get enthusiastic about an idea, thats the time to challenge yourself! If you can do all this your bound to learn something new!

When I started this project, I was strictly a graphic designer, i risked my degree on this video. If it had gone wrong, I would have failed my final major project and not got a degree, which would have bankrupt me and left me qualification-less. Thankfully it all seems to have paid off and people seem to like it.

The scariest part of making it was the first time I watched it! I didn’t watch the video for weeks, I was a good 5 days behind schedule all the time. I was already being forced to cut corners, around the middle of the video I realized that there wasn’t anything interesting happening and nearly had a nervous breakdown. i pulled two all nighters and cut out around 20 moles and managed to animate them in, just in time for the final cut!

In case anyone is considering animation I know now that there are more efficient ways to do all these things but being inexperienced and only planning a limited amount of my animation, I ran out of time for experimentation and had to get on with the making it. I absolutely appreciate animation and the genius behind the trade, when I watch stop motion videos now I just see the time spent on making each scene!

Lip syncing, the bane of my life, well, eventually I found a way around spending years learning how to do this professionally, I was lucky in that the design of the video didn’t need it to be perfect but i still had to figure out a way of timing it rightish… in the end what i did was film myself singing along with the song, and the go through the video frame by frame and just cut out a different mouth that was kinda the same shape. Easily the most boring job ever!

Having said all of this, it was worth it in the end! I am super proud to have helped out a charity, earnt a degree and made a pretty cool little animation for ‘The Tallest Man On Earth’ who I am a big fan of! Then the really scary part was unleashing it to the world which has been very positive and rewarding, again huge thanks to Yellow Bird Project and Huddersfield University!

Jonny

You can watch the “behind the scenes” video on Jonny’s vimeo page and see more pictures on his Flickr page.

And if you still haven’t seen the final cut, watch it here!

Why are pirates cool..? Because they ARRR!

Why are our friends at Meet You At The Show so awesome? Because they’ve planned an amazing city-wide treasure hunt in collaboration with Pop Montreal. If you live in Montreal, then you must join the game! And if you don’t, what a great reason to plan a trip! Can’t think of a better way to explore the ol’ hometown. The hunt begins on August 28th, and there are plenty of great prizes to be won, including some rad YBP gear!

Check out Meet You At the Show’s website for more details.

Slow him down 800%

J. BIEBZ – U SMILE 800% SLOWER by Shamantis

Yes, I did listen to the whole thing. Reminds me of Moby crossed with Sigur Ros.

The real concern: that ambient music sped up is actually kid pop.

The Day 2 crowd at Osheaga

After an amazing first day at Osheaga, I awoke Sunday morning with nothing but great anticipation for Day 2. Instead of getting through the day on overpriced hot dogs and $4 bottled water, my friends and I decided to grab some lunch in beautiful Old Montreal before making our way to Parc Jean-Drapeau. By the time we arrived on the grounds, it was just after 1:30, and already the sun was beating down mercilessly on festival-goers. Maybe it was just the heat talking, but it seemed like everyone at Osheaga on Day 2 was there for a party, and the acts playing were only too happy to oblige. Despite Toronto DJ Deadmau5 having to cancel his main stage performance (an announcement that upset others that I talked to far more than myself), due to being hospitalized after collapsing of exhaustion at a previous night’s gig, there was more than great music to get everyone dancing. While they could’ve nicknamed it “I Heart the Nineties”, given appearances by Snoop Dogg, Sonic Youth, and Weezer, Day 2 also featured performances from some of the biggest indie rock and pop bands of today, including The Black Keys, Metric, and Ra Ra Riot  (the latter two having both designed t-shirts for YBP).

After picking up our complimentary Playstation sunglasses (corporate sponsorship for the win!), we found ourselves a comfortable sight line of the main stage, and settled in to watch Brazilian singer/songwriter Seu Jorge. You might not recognize the name, but there’s a good chance you’ve seen Jorge in action without even realizing it. The talented musician and actor appeared in one of my all-time favourite movies, City of God, as well as covering David Bowie songs in Portugese in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Backed by a full band, Almaz, Jorge played a upbeat set of songs that incorporated elements of bossa nova, samba, and Brazilian pop music (and yes, also the requisite Bowie cover). The perfect antidote to any lingering hangovers from Saturday night, I’m confidant that Jorge went away with at least a few new fans.

Seu Jorge

The Gaslight Anthem were up next, and they brought their Springsteen-esque, Vans Warped Tour-approved rock ‘n’ roll to Osheaga to try and get some fists pumping in the air and the audience’s blood rushing. I’ve been listening to the band’s albums for the past few months – 2008’s The ‘59 Sound is especially good running music – and I’ve gotten to like them, but something about this performance felt a little too…what’s the word I’m looking for?…safe. There’s wasn’t anything bad about their set, but I just kept waiting for one song to stand out, or someone to maybe stage dive, etc., etc., but nothing happened. The New Jersey band need to learn how to take advantage of their audience if they ever hope to one day play stadiums.

The Gaslight Anthem

If you don’t know by now, The Black Keys are one of the best rock bands around, if not one of the best live bands around period. If you ever get the chance to see them perform, go, I promise you will not be disappointed. It was nice to hear them play a number of songs off their most recent album, the very solid Brothers, as well.

The Black Keys

Black Keys crowd

One of the acts that I was most excited to see during the weekend was Major Lazer, the dance/reggae/dancehall/electro/surf-rock/whatever side-project of globetrotting Philly DJ Diplo and his partner-in-crime, Switch. I was far from disappointed either. While it was more a Major Lazer DJ set than a live show this time around, having scaled back to just Diplo, his hype-man, and an acrobatic and sexy dancer named Mimi, it was still a spectacle. Take a couple hundred sweaty hipsters, add alcohol (many had snuck flasks past security), subtract clothing, and you have a recipe for an outdoor dance party. Words can’t really properly describe the Major Lazer live experience, luckily I had my camera on my side to capture the insanity. As you’ll see, things go pretty NSFW in a hurry.

Major Lazer

Snoop Dogg then played, but at that point we were starting to feel pretty tired, so we just hung towards the back of the crowd and ate the free pita chips and hummus that they kept giving out.

Snoop Dogg

I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that my knowledge of Sonic Youth is limited, aside from playing “Teen Age Riot” on Rock Band, “Kool Thing” on my iTunes from a USB of music that I swiped from my roommate, and their typically morose cover of The Carpenters’ “Superstar” from my father. And yes, their incredibly dissonant and feedback-drenched music isn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea. But if it wasn’t for the Brooklyn band, there’d definitely be no Nirvana, no Radiohead, or countless noise-rock bands influenced by Sonic Youth’s DIY ethic and willingness to push sonic boundaries. Seeing them live also established two other facts: 1) Thurston Moore is a guitar god and 2) Kim Gordon, who was wearing a shiny silver dress, looks pretty damn good for a 57 year-old.

Sonic Youth

All weekend long Devo were selling $33 replicas of their famous plastic cone hats which, depending on your devotion to the seminal 80s synth-pop band co-founded by the Mothersbaugh brothers, was either ludicrous or a small price to pay for a piece of history. All I know is that watching the band perform on the relatively intimate Green Stage, which was set up with the most elaborate video screen backdrops, was giddy good fun.

Devo

After hearing word via Twitter that there was a secret Diplo afterparty somewhere downtown later that night, we decided to call that it for the weekend, but not before catching Syracuse’s Ra Ra Riot performing “Dying Is Fine”, and Weezer getting everyone in attendance to join in a massive sing-along of “The Sweater Song”. Hats off to the Osheaga organizers for a great weekend – can’t wait to do it again next year.

Weezer

MP3:>> The Tallest Man On Earth – A Field Of Birds (YBP Theme Song)

A few years ago we approached The Tallest Man On Earth, and asked him if he would write a song for the Yellow Bird Project. Our intention was to inspire something marvelous which would be used to help spread the word about YBP. Not long after, magic was delivered into our inbox as we heard for the first time this brand new song written for us; it was called “A Field of Birds”.

But really, it wasn’t just written for us – it was written for all of you. Now, to enable us to spread the word even further, we commissioned a talented young art student by the name of Jonathan Lindley, to put this song into graphic motion. Stop frame animation, to be precise. 300 photographs and 46o hours of painstaking work to be more precise. All of this, on a £40 budget.

Click here to watch!

Tweet yourself to a prize! 

If you’ve got Twitter, then you’ve got a chance to win a number of YBP prize packs, just by helping to spread the word about this new music vid! The prizes are…

Prize #1: A YBP hoodie and a copy of The Indie Rock Coloring Book

Prize #2: A YBP t-shirt and a copy of The Indie Rock Coloring Book

Prize #3: A YBP scarf and a copy of The Indie Rock Coloring Book

Prize #4: A copy of … (you get the picture)

For a chance to win, re-tweet us using the following text:

“RT to win a t-shirt/hoodie/coloring book from @YBP! http://www.yellowbirdproject.com/tweet”

Or just simply click here for an automatic re-tweet!

We will select 4 winners at random and will ‘Direct Message’ you if you’ve been selected.

N.B. you must be friends with us on Twitter and signed up to our mailing list in order to be eligible.

Find us on Twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/YBP.

Competition is now finished. But, you can find out about our next one by signing up to our mailing list here!

The album already gets my vote as one of the top albums of 2010. Listen for yourself! The widget below allows you to stream five songs, including the title track ‘Been Listening’ and a delectable duet with Miss Laura Marling herself!

I’ve really enjoyed his guitar playing for a while, especially his signature aggressive soloing style, and see his longtime pairing with Gillian as the consummate musical partnership. If you have any doubt of this, see them together play for an NPR Tiny Desk Concert.

Not only did Gillian join him for the show, but so did Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show on fiddle/harmonica/vocals, as well as a couple of other musicians. It was a veritable supergroup of bluegrass and Americana.

They went through most of the terrific songs on Dave Rawlings Machine’s first album, as well as a couple of classics from Gillian’s portfolio, such as Look at Miss Ohio and Wrecking Ball (two of my favorites). The song I Hear Them All, written by Rawlings and Secor, originally recorded by OCMS, covered on A Friend of a Friend, performed by both, was a nice touch. So was This Land is Your Land with all its verses intact.

I really hope that this group continues to make music together under the Dave Rawlings Machine name, especially since Gillian doesn’t seem about to follow up 2003’s Soul Journey anytime soon. They are at the top of my list.