around SF

We Made It!

This cactus appears to be rocking. Missing a finger, yes, but rocking nonetheless. Hopefully a magical sign of all the rocking that will be happening in San Francisco. YES! It was an exciting journey from Washington DC all the way to California by way of Nashville, Dallas/Fort Worth, Albuquerque, Phoenix, and LA. Thanks to everyone who provided us a place to crash along the way! A brief chronicle in pictures...

Between LA and SF. "No water = no crops"

Phoenix Sunset.

Freak snowstorm in New Mexico. Lots of cars and trucks in the ditch. We drove several hours behind a snowplow going 30 mph.

Almost there!!
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These last three are from our very own Virginia. We'll miss you, VA! You certainly have a place in our hearts and a charm all your own.

A Farewell to Birdlips: Friday 2/12 at The Southern

This is it folks! We're leaving for the west coast in two weeks, so this will be our last east coast show for the foreseeable future, but we will be back. Please come out, hang out with us and wish us luck, it will be a magical night. We've got new material to play for you, plus two bands we think are absolutely incredible and our favorite DJs Shay Shay the Wulf Baby and Smooth Jones spinning Mod, Soul, and RnB records. Then we're packing the van and driving to California!

Friday February 12

The Southern Presents:
A Farewell to Birdlips
with Sarah White and the Pearls
and the Cinnamon Band

Stay late and party
with DJs Shay Shay the Wulf Baby and Smooth Jones.

Doors: 9:00 PM
Ticket Price: $8.00
BUY TICKETS
All Ages General Admission

at The Southern on the downtown mall
103 South 1st St.
Charlottesville, VA 22902
(434)-977-5590

Sherman Arts "All Creatures" Compilation (a story)

*** LINK TO THE COMPILATION ZIP FILE ***

Once upon a time, Cliff and Lindsay, also known as Birdlips, lived in a cute little house in the Woolen Mills neighborhood of Charlottesville, VA. It was a glorious neighborhood, full of cute little houses; old houses with lots of personality and all kinds of characters who lived inside them. In the backyard behind Cliff and Lindsay's house there was a family of groundhogs: a mama and two babies who lived under a shed. Just down the street there was a warehouse called DUST that had lots of sweet underground shows. Lindsay and Cliff went to many of these shows and eventually played at one of these shows with a delightful band from Louisiana called The Peekers. Lindsay and Cliff had seen the Peekers before and loved them and were very happy to play with them and see them again.

After the show, the Peekers gave Cliff and Lindsay this:



It was a CD by another artist on their label (Park the Van Records), a singer songwriter named Pepi Ginsberg. Cliff and Lindsay played the CD in their car whenever they were driving around over the next few weeks and thought it was soooo coool.

Months past, and then randomly one night Lindsay and Cliff found themselves in the DC area with nothing to do. Upon checking the listings at the local venues they saw that none other than Pepi Ginsberg was performing at a small little club in the Atlas District that Birdlips had played at many times before: The Red and The Black. Lindsay and Cliff went to the show and were totally blown away. Pepi and her band were even better live than on the CD!

Cliff and Lindsay talked to Pepi after the show about music, booking shows, being in a band, etc. and it came out that Birdlips was trying to play some shows in Philly in the near future. Pepi, who is from Philly, recommended playing The Greenline Cafe. A guy named Rich Wexler set up shows there on a regular basis under the name Sherman Arts and did a great job promoting independent artists in the area.

One thing led to another and soon Birdlips was playing the Greenline Cafe every time they passed through Philly. Rich had his act together and made sure there were always some other cool local bands on the bill, and some interested peoples in the audience. He also hooked Birdlips up with some free sandwiches to fill their starving bellies on numerous occasions.

One of Birdlips' favorite memories of Rich in action at a show was when several people were talking during another band's set. The Greenline is a small place and it is so annoying when people are talking during the music! Rich walked up to them and said, "If you want to talk while the band is playing, you can do it outside." That was awesome. Rich is someone who cares about the music.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Rich is hanging up his Sherman Arts hat and passing the baton so he can pursue other paths in life for the time being. As a parting gift, he has put together a wonderful little compilation of bands he has worked with over the past few years. Birdlips is one of those bands, but there are also 36 other band on the compilation as well. It's free to download, and highly recommended.

LINK TO THE COMPILATION ZIP FILE

More info about the compilation HERE.

Farewell to DC tonight

TONIGHT we are opening for Vetiver at IOTA in Arlington!

IOTA Club and Cafe
2832 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA 22201
(703) 522-8340
** 8:30PM $15 **

Howdy folks. Cliff from Birdlips here. Lindsay and I have recently decided to move to the West Coast, specifically San Francisco. We are leaving in February so this will probably be our last show in the DC area for who knows how long. We were able to land this gig opening for Vetiver, a really awesome band who just also happens to be from San Fran, so we figured it would be an appropriate farewell show.

You can listen to Vetiver's great music here: http://www.vetiverse.com/mediaplayer/

We will also be playing a farewell show in Charlottesville Friday Feb. 12 at the Southern.

Birdlips needs your help!
Do you know anyone in San Francisco who might be hiring / subletting / renting out their place / or possibly looking for house sitters? Or any cool people we should try to hang out with when we get there? Any tips would be greatly appreciated. We need all the help we can get.

Also, you can now support us by buying our music (pay what you want) directly from us on bandcamp, or you can listen for free:
BANDCAMP

***

Holidaze

December was a whirlwind of Family Events and Holiday Things You Have To Do. As far as holidays go, I don't care much for Christmas but family is important and we are soooo lucky to have fantastic, supportive families to spend time with.

In an effort to block out the massive avalanche of xmas consumer crap that explodes in your face this time of year, we tried to make our own holiday cards and most of the meager gifts we gave. It was a semi-successful and extremely time consuming endeavor, but very much worth it. Making things is fun, especially when you are doing it with love.

I scanned some of the cards we made before we sent them so I would have something to post on this blog which we have been neglecting. Poor bloglips.

Comedy and music in DC tomorrow night

Happy Holidays! This should be a very cool night. There will be two shows that will start on time (sort of like a live movie) and it costs 6 dollars. The show times are 9:30 and 11:00PM. We've been a fan of Matt Hemerlein for a while now and he is always amazing to see live. Please check out his MySpace page. Also, there will be two very funny comedians performing as well.



Check out the FACEBOOK EVENT for more info.

Asylum
2471 18th Street Washington,
DC NW 20009
202.319.9353

Giving a Quality Cat Massage and Jammin'

culture jamming

Found this pic on the internet somewhere...


I don't know if those of you reading this birdlips blog are into cats, but I sure am.
Priceless.

Lying Low + Food Inc.

So we got back from our first national tour about two months ago. We put somewhere between nine and ten thousand miles on the tour mobile in about six weeks and had an incredible time. Now we're living with parents in the DC area since we broke the bank on our, teaching some music lessons, working on new material and plotting a move to the west coast, probably San Francisco. We're going to try to do another tour through the south and the southwest to make our way out there and then just stay.

We're going to start playing shows again this month. Charlottesville, DC, possibly New York, North Carolina... Check out our MySpace page to see what's happening.

+++

On another note, we've been reading a lot and watching a bunch of documentaries about pretty maddening things. The process of educating ourselves about our role in the world has made us really mad, and frustrated but it's also made us realize that we have to accept personal responsibility for our own actions. Everything we do matters and has an impact, even if it's a small one. This documentary, Food Inc. just came out on DVD this week and it is amazing. Everybody needs to go see it right now, for real.