While most people were fighting fax machines at 9-5 jobs, Birdhand spent the first week of April destroying an abandoned church in Monterey. Shooting a music video to promote their new self-titled EP, produced by Darryl Jenifer of Bad Brains, the Santa Cruz rockers were armed with 10-foot poles and told to go wild. What should have been a dream come true, turned into a strange experience. “There were 15 uncomfortable film students watching us the whole time without saying anything,” says bassist Mason Rothschild. “It was the most awkward thing ever!” But according to singer/songwriter/guitarist Joey Weed, awkward moments make the band tick. “Before each show, we huddle up and get really weird—we talk about normal stuff, like how my stomach hurts or who didn’t take out the trash,” says Weed. Once the lights come on, though, the foursome delivers hard-hitting rock ‘n’ roll, with Queens of the Stone Age-like punk riffs and occasional violin and pan flute solos.
Rothschild envisions their musical mash-up a little differently: “It’s like Alex Mack, Beetleborgs and R. L. Stine—it’s as if Alex Mack had a baby and R. L. Stine terrorized the baby, and then Beetleborgs got a motorcycle.” After requesting the cheapest beer The Avenue Bar has to offer, the bandmates reminisce. “Before we were Birdhand, we were Brown Irish, and before that I was in a band called Sandwiches, because sandwiches are my favorite,” says Weed. “Then I Googled Sandwiches and found there were 20 bands with the same name.” The self-proclaimed “biggest Subway fan ever,” ended up liking the name change due to Birdhand’s multiple meanings. Rothschild elaborates, “It’s about a conversation with Joey; a time, a place, a thing; PMA or positive mental attitude; a tattoo and a very very dirty man.”
INFO: 9 p.m. Saturday, April 16. Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Avenue, Santa Cruz. $8/adv, $12/door. 429-6994.
