Tweak Bird Is The New Black

 If someone told me that there was a new band I should check out that was made up of two brothers from southern Illinois who grew up on a 17-acre farm and were home-schooled, I would most likely go ahead and assume that their music would be more or less... rural. Kind of a folk/country concoction. Well I couldn't be further away from the truth. Ashton and Caleb are these two brothers from Carbondale, Illinois who grew up on a farm, were home-schooled, and around middle school age began making music. The end product: a sound heavier than your weird fat uncle at 8pm on Thanksgiving night yet as beautiful as the girl you watch from across the club as you try and think of a smooth way to strike up a conversation until you see her boyfriend walk up and step on your fantasy by putting his arm around her. They call themselves Tweak Bird.

I asked where the name came from and Caleb told me that his brother came up with the name and that “it doesn't mean anything, he just sort of brainfarted it.” Many times you will see the brothers referred to as Ashton and Caleb Bird, so I went ahead and double checked to make sure that that wasn't in fact really their last name. “Nope.” is the answer Caleb gave me. Just one of the many benefits of being in a band, getting to create new names for yourselves.

I first caught wind of these guys back in 2008 when a friend and I were thumbing through a copy of Folio Weekly looking for a show to go to that night. We stumbled across a band called Tweak Bird opening up for Big Business. The description labeled them something along the lines of “stoner metal”. We both decided that this would be our best bet. Thank God we did. As we stood in front of the stage at Jackrabbits watching Caleb, on guitar, and brother Ashton, on the drums, I think our mouths were open throughout the entire set. These guys literally had a gong on stage as well as a theramin. For those of you who don't know what a theramin is, it's an antenna basically that sticks straight up and is electrically wired to something and when you move your hands near it, it emits different frequencies. Basically it just makes super trippy and cool Sci-Fi type noises. Stuff from The Twilight Zone. I was instantly a believer in “the bird”. After the set I went and bought two shirts, one for me and one for my friend, as well as the album they were touring for, Reservations. Four years later, I'm living in Pensacola and see that Tweak Bird will be playing a show at Vinyl Music Hall opening up for Melvins Lite, which is Dale Crover (drums) and Buzz Osborne (guitar/lead vox) from The Melvins with their friend Trevor Dunn on the stand up bass.

 

Tweak Bird's show at Vinyl was no exception to their reputation for bringing the rock. Ashton goes harder than Animal from The Muppets and you can just barely see his smile through his sweaty mop of hair hanging down over his face. Caleb, on the opposite end of the stage is holding it down on his baritone guitar that delivers a more bass heavy sound to make up for the absence of a bass guitar.  To this day, I've never seen a two piece band generate so much head banging from an audience. There was barely any talking going on between the two brothers during their performance. The focus seemed to be entirely on putting on the most energetic show possible.

It was fun to see them having so much fun on stage together, knowing that they have a mental connection that most band members will never get to experience with one another. We even got to see a little peek into their world as brothers in a band when during the outro to one of their songs, Ashton shouted out “Hey! You stole my part!” to which they rewound 30 seconds or so and finished the outro the right way. We all got a little laugh out of that, especially since we could sense that it was all love up on stage and no animosity. That's what makes these guys stand out from the crowd. Their message is spreading love and doing what you love.

The real highlight of their set, and I think I speak for everybody when I say this, was when Dale Crover came on stage and played along with Ashton Bird on “Pigeons”, bringing a second drum set to the table. This just made their already heavy metal pop sound that much heavier. The crowd ate it right out of their hands.

    

 

 

As if that wasn't enough rock 'n' roll for one night, we still had Melvins Lite to look forward to. I wasn't sure what to expect from them considering this was my first time seeing them live. I did know that I was in for a ride though. As Buzz Osborne took the stage the crowd went nuts. Screaming and yelling from men and women of all ages. He came out wearing what I can only describe as a black (as in the color black) wizard's cloak with a bedazzled golden breastplate sewn on the front covered with what appeared to be hundreds of tiny planets all over it. Underneath you could see his black leather high top P.F. Flyer's. I noticed those right away because I was actually wearing the same ones. Except mine are canvas.  And then of course was the signature Buzz Osborne/ Side-show Bob crazy out of control blast of hair. If you've never seen Melvins Lite, but have seen The Melvins or Big Business, you certainly can't judge one by the other. Trevor Dunn was the man responsible for bringing the sometimes thumping and sometimes crooning stand-up bass.

When the trio stepped onto the stage, they eased us into the weirdness that is Melvins Lite with Trevor eerily bowing his bass while Dale worked the symbols and Buzz drew out distorted atmospheric sounds from his amp with his guitar. This strange trance went on for about 5 minutes or so until Buzz was ready to kick it up a notch and lay down some heavier riffs. It wasn't long before Trevor tucked away his bow and started to work the thick strings with his fingers bringing out that thumping rockabilly sound that I personally can't get enough of. If you haven't had a chance to give these guys a listen but are interested in checking out what I would refer to as atmospheric sludge metal, their album is up on Spotify and of course you can pick it up on iTunes or the bands website. The album is titled “Freak Puke”. Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds.