Music and Birds (sort of)
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May 27, 2009 | by Adrian Binns
Austin proudly calls itself The Live Music Capital of the World, and there is little doubt once you have set foot here. On any given night thousands of people can find themselves entertained by rock and roll, the blues, country, hillbilly, jazz and tejano, at any of the cities two hundred plus bars and venues, and this does not count the aspiring street buskers. You name it, you can hear it here, tonight.
This got me thinking about music and my other passion birds. Everybody surely has heard of eagles, hummingbirds, ravens, doves, orioles, flamingos, swallows, sparrows and even mynah birds. But, what do they have in common?
“They can all be found on audio recordings?” you ask. Well you are correct in a sense – they are names of musical groups that span an eclectic bunch from young to old, from one hit wonders (those that vanish faster than an Ivory-billed Woodpecker from an Arkansas swamp…) to established bands.
I grew up with Budgie, Wild Turkey, Hummingbird, Stone the Crows and soon was following the Byrds and the Eagles, who are still going strong. There was also a band called the Sparrows. They got about as much respect as their avian namesakes, but more importantly changed their name to Steppenwolf just before releasing “Born to be Wild”. The eighties and nineties saw the emergence of A Flock of Seagulls, the Counting Crows and Black Crows.
More recently we have had the House Martins, the Doves, (Ryan Adams band) the Cardinals, and the Guillemots. With a name like the Guillemots and an album called “From the Cliffs” how could you not like such an offering? I heard a discussion between DJ’s as to what Guillemots were? They did not have a clue. Well it is the British name for Murres, as in Common and Thick-billed. The Murre’s, just would not sound right, so they made a good choice.
Before my time bird names were popular with vocal groups and these included The Orioles, The Ravens, Swallows and The Flamingos, a Chicago based group that was a major inspiration to what would become known as Motown and Philadelphia Soul. The Flamingos just happen to be in the the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the Eagles, The Byrds and the Yardbirds – that counts doesn’t it?
I’m sure that over time some of these acts have dropped into Austin.