Austin Sound

7/10/07
We almost missed the latest lo-fi production from Bill Baird for his song, “Sandy Says Zombies,” but luckily Gorilla vs. Bear caught it. We can’t pretend to have a handle on the wonderful strangeness that is Bill Baird’s mind, but the song and video seem to be a statement against mindless corporate consumerism and preserving individuality in the face of modernity’s shallow shadow. That’s our take anyway, but judge for yourself below.

Bill Baird, bassist for Sound Team, recently dropped two solo albums on us with Silence and {{{Sunset}}}, the latter of which he has adopted as his perfoming moniker. This track, called “Mister Treadmill,” comes from an earlier two-album set that Baird released entitled Light Blue/Neon Blue and that is now unfortunately out of print.

Baird wanted to share this one with us, and there are more mp3s available on his website. You can also find there a radio session recorded in December. Baird will be playing again in Austin on March 7th at Beerland for the Gulf of Mexico CD Release show, and will be part of a heck of a show during SXSW with all of the Tonewheel Collective guys on March 13th at Progress Coffee.

These two self-released albums from Sound Team bassist Bill Baird were supposedly meant to go together, though how so is not exactly clear. But then trying to make the instrumental Silence! and the acoustic oriented {{{Sunset}}} mesh is a fairly trivial endeavor, and one that it would appear Baird promotes in his characteristically playful/enigmatic manner. Baird seems to allow nothing to be taken too seriously, yet simultaneously infuses everything he does with an abstracted and even aloof sincerity and seriousness that it’s difficult to gage which aspect is actually undermining the other. This is the brilliance and frustration of his two latest releases as well. As if capturing that split outlook, both albums show moments of extraordinary beauty, subtlety and songwriting while also continually pushing the songs (and listener) with experimental turns, occasionally naïve lyrics and an aesthetic that seems to never want to leave well-enough alone.

11/29/06
In line with woodsy lo-fi charm of his latest release Lightness, Peter and the Wolf’s Red Hunter has released into the wild a lo-fi video for the title track from the album. Filmed and edited by Sound Team’s Bill Baird, the video features Hunter wandering America’s highways and byways on foot with a feel of 70’s homemade folksiness (read hippie).

Hunter is currently working up a tour of the west coast set for December and January, while Baird, as previously reported, is working up a tour of his own up the east coast in support of the two solo albums he recently released. Baird will also be showing off some more of his video work in a new DVD he is releasing on Sunday December 3 with a special show at End of an Ear at 6pm.

11/20/06
Bill Baird, bassist for Sound Team, has just released two home-made albums and is planning a solo tour up the east coast this December. The CD’s, entitled {{{Sunset}}} and Silence! are intended to be companion pieces though they are being sold separately. {{{Sunset}}} showcases some of Baird’s more acoustic songs, swinging through shades of Wilco, though not with a few bursts of horns and electric riffs. The second CD, Silence, is all instrumental with some chanting thrown in for good measure.

In addition to the double CDs, which may be purchased from his website, Baird is planning to release a DVD of short videos that he made at End of an Ear on December 3. The End of an Ear show is currently his only in Austin, though a couple in San Antonio and Houston are scheduled before he embarks north, including a “political guerrilla concert” outside of the Clear Channel World Headquarters in San Antonio on Wednesday the 22nd. Here’s the full list his solo dates: