Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk at Some House in NE Portland

It seems appropriate that I have only ever seen Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk in basements or upstairs, attic-like spaces where people normally pack away all of their boxes and odds and ends that tend to pile up over time, leaving them with the task of digging through layers and layers of stuff before finding what they are looking for.

BBDDM have always been up for that task.


On their most recent album, Skeletor & Me, as well as their live performances since its release, BBDDM have slowed down that search, taking the time to build up the layers upon which noise music breathes. But, while most noise music reaches its peaks by piling on the next layer, BBDDM have discovered how to bury themselves underneath those layers, creating their moments by climbing up and resurfacing for brief moments where minimal drums and maximal guitar noise pierce through the mess.

When talking to Drew from the band after the show, I mentioned that I had wanted to see their show at the Reed College Chapel last Friday, but couldn't make it because I had to close that night. He said that they chapel was gorgeous and that they had intentionally tried to make their set more "beautiful" for that show.

That represents the entire range of this band's sound-- crawling up from underneath a basement filled with clutter to echoing downward from a chapel ceiling, and with each new release, Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk continue to push the heights, as well as the depths, further.

Umm, Getting Lost OR I Remember Person Pitch... It Sounds Different Now OR Bands That Play On The Floor

I remember the first time I ever listened to Panda Bear's Person Pitch. Actually, I remember the first 15-20 times I listened to it. My brother brought it over to my parent's house and we were listening to it in the shop and my dad was smoking a cigar and I said, "Trent, what is this?" and he said "It's the new Panda Bear album. He's one of the dudes from Animal Collective" and then I went back to my apartment that night and found it on Amazon and I bought it, and it didn't leave my cd player in my car for 2 months.


The best thing about that 2 months is that I didn't quite have a grasp on that album the entire time. I remember hearing parts that I really liked and how they faded into other parts, and hearing noises I had never really heard before, and being confused about the process that went into making these songs, and I remember wanting to listen to certain songs, but I had no idea where in the album it was, and I remember the album ending, and my cd player automatically starting it over and me thinking, "What the hell? That was the end? I thought it started over 2 songs ago!"

This was my first good memory of getting completely lost in a piece of music. And I don't mean lost like closing your eyes and swaying lost. I actually mean feeling like "What the hell is going on??" lost.

I don't really have a point to make from all of this. When I wrote this down on the back of a scrap menu at work as I often do because all of my best thoughts come when I don't really have much time to think, I wrote something like "In defense of noise and drone music," which is kind of what I'm getting at, but in kind of a sideways manner, because I am specifically referring to seeing Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk in Portland with my roommates and one of them just did not understand why they played on the floor, and I even get kind of confused and lost when listening to them sometimes, which I sort of explain in this events listing I did for that show:

You could stare at all the instruments on stage for 3 hours before Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk start playing, and you would still have no idea how those musicians are making that music with these instruments. At their loudest, BBDDM are perched behind a layered waterfall of noise; at the softest, they are sitting cross-legged in a field plucking the only unbroken string on an acoustic guitar. It’s the space in between that leaves you thinking, “I’m going to have to remember this band’s name.”

So, in defense of noise and drone music, to those who don't have the ear for it, which is understandable, there is a certain degree of enjoyment that comes from watching something happen and still not understanding it. It is kind of like "I see it and I still don't believe it."

When you have the same 4/4 beat pop songs over and over again, and then a new one comes out and you can pretty much guess what comes next upon first listen, it is nice to know there is still some really interesting, unfamiliar things going on in music that you can't predict even on the one-hundredth listen.