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.
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