Kind Mutation

Nice Birds began on the North Shore of Auckland at the end of January last year. Born somewhat out of the ashes of two Northcote bands (Fox In French and The Happy Rainbow band), Nice Birds’ Michael MacDonald, Tim Berry and Alex Grant bonded over a mutual appreciation of post punk (particularly Joy Division, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Velvet Underground and Echo and the Bunnymen). With Michael’s muted mumbles garbled through his simultaneously shoegazey and prickly punk guitar, Tim’s beady basslines and anguished howl, and Alex’s clever pursuit of intelligent rhythms, Nice Birds’ sound is one that’s blossomed in the local gig circuit and has grown like a snowball.

All three members bring different ideas and influences to the table; they explain that while Tim nurses a love of The Feelies, Alex’s complicated rhythms stem from a love of jazz drumming. “I think it’s where my passion for drumming started,” he says. Tim, normally a guitarist, here is bass player by default: “We didn’t have a bass player. Then me and one of my friends found a bass on the street, so we did it up. It took a long time, but it was pretty fun.”

The future of the band is clear: they will be breaking up after their first and only EP, Swirly, is released on Friday. Michael has been offered a job in Australia, which leaves the possibility of a future project for Tim and Alex up in the air. There is also talk of continuing Nice Birds via the internet.

It’s always been an ambition of the young band to release their music properly, and Swirly looks set to cement their place as potentially Auckland’s most eloquent post punk band. Tim argues, “There’s not enough recorded music coming out of the Auckland scene,” hence why they want to leave their mark. Their internet-released self-titled demos collection provided a great early introduction to the band through roughly recorded favourites, including ‘F. Scott Fitzgerald Book Club’ with its interlocking melodies (now rerecorded for the Swirly EP) and the discordant and wordy ‘Lost In A Chinese Mine’. The former came from a failed idea of Tim’s to start a book club dedicated to the writer. Ask what his favourite Fitzgerald book is, and his response is surprisingly thoughtful. “Well definitely Gatsby, it’s the best one by far, but I reckon This Side of Paradise is him going ‘Look, I’m awesome, look at all this stuff I’ve done’, and then Beautiful and the Damned I felt was a little bit of a prototype for Tender Is The Night. But Tender Is The Night’s good as well.”

The band’s literary bent lends a kind of offbeat maturity to their music that can seem thinly spread in other bands, young and old. Taking cues from favourite bands, including the punk aggression of Die Die Die and the choppy rhythms and meandering guitars of Wilberforces, Nice Birds’ stripped-back sound can be attributed to a lack of gear; not just a deliberate decision.

“There are some great bands that use fancy pedals, but we don’t have any fancy pedals,” shrugs Tim. “We don’t really have anything,” says Alex. “I’ve got a broken pedal,” says Tim. “I think we’d rather sound like The Clean than like My Bloody Valentine.”

If a cheesy b-grade horror can inspire such integrity and intelligence in music, then there is hope despite Nice Birds’ breakup. After all, it all began when the three watched Pterodactyl, in which a girl, attacked by the prehistoric bird, seeks the help of the protagonist. Tim explains, “This guy’s like, ‘Nice birds!’, and points at her chest. It’s a terrible name, right?”

WIN one of two copies of Nice Birds- Swirly.
Email your name to music@einsteinmusicjournal.co.nz
Winners drawn Monday 22 February

Swirly EP release Friday 19 Feb, $5
w/ God Bows To Math, Hypercolour (ChCh) & Sidewalk Meese
6.30pm St Barnabas Scout Hall, Mt Eden.
Swirly EP available for $5 on the door

Nice Birds- F. Scott Fitzgerald Book Club: MP3

 Free download Nice Birds’ Demos

 Nice Birds- Myspace

Posted by Sarah Gooding under Auckland, New Zealand
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