Birdhouse
Santa Cruz, California, United States | SELF
Music
Press
Though the opening acts were a wonderful way to start the evening, it was the headliner, Birdhouse that really got the drinks flowing and the crowd going. By the time the amazing Santa Cruz jam band was set up, the house was full and the energy escalating. The fellas of Birdhouse, were able to turn calm into crazy as their enthusiastic fans began to dance and sing along with every song. - The Rising Tide- KZSC
"Birdhouse lights up an ever-changing set through a knack for tight improv and technical precision. An appreciation for bluegrass and funk certainly informs the set, with Wilson favoring African rhythms and atypical syncopation as the lively undercurrent to the band’s rock meanderings, while Carter’s stinging pedal steel guitar is scene-stealing."
"Maintaining a nod to sounds of the past while laying down spacious seven-minute and 11-minute numbers with fresh appeal, Wilson says Birdhouse is all about eschewing trends. “Music for a long time has been about what’s cool and what’s not cool in the moment. We’re just trying to be good people playing real music.” - Good Times Weekly
Discography
Birdhouse EP- Available on iTunes and Amazon.com
Birdhouse live at 19 Broadway- Streaming on Archive.org
Birdhouse live at Moe's Alley- Streaming on Archive.org
Photos
Bio
In an equal emphasis on songwriting and unique musical composition, Birdhouse intertwines an articulated jazz vocabulary into a country and rock n’ roll form.
As for the boys themselves, Daniel Talmantes and Jeff Carter began playing together in the Folsom High School Jazz Band around 2006. The two came together off a greater mutual interest in the Grateful Dead. Jeff and Dan kicked off composing songs together immediately. Chris McIntyre and Dan met their freshman year of college at UC Santa Cruz in 2008, sharing their own music and jamming bluegrass. Jeff Carter moved to Santa Cruz in 2009 and soon after Jeff and Dan met up with Jeff Wilson to start a Grateful Dead cover project with Evan Penza (now the producer of Birdhouse’s first album). After a few gigs, Jeff and Dan began working with a few of their own songs and had Chris and Jeff Wilson sit in. It was then original songs manifested to what sound would come to know as Birdhouse.
Jeff Carter and Dan pose a sophisticated vocal arrangement, with subtle yet powerful harmonies, doubling a layer cake of raw poetic exploration with mystical phrasings and ecstatic melodies. Sustaining a collage of rhythmic patterns, Jeff Wilson weaves an enlightened transgression of change into one continuous jam. On bass, Chris McIntyre intuits expansive phrasings enveloping the greater sound, walking Birdhouse to new land.
Birdhouse has played at prestigious venues like 19 Broadway, The Fernwood Resort in Big Sur as well as venues in Monterey, Fairfax, San Francisco, Petaluma, and the very well known Santa Cruz favorites: The Catalyst, Moe's Alley and The Crepe Place many times. With the first Birdhouse album released this past August, listeners be ready for upcoming shows and recorded releases to come!
-- Brian Merrill
Links
