Today we’d like to introduce you to Library Birds
Hi Library Birds, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We first started playing together in 2021, and bonded quickly over a shared interest in experimental music and experimental visual productions. From the beginning of the project, we discussed a shared desire to push the envelope on theatrics and production alongside our live music performances. Since then, we’ve continued to look for and discuss opportunities where that’s possible – and fortunately, found a good deal of opportunity around town.
Our first show as a foursome was in 2022 at the historic Melvin Theater, a one-off live music production with a few other local acts that the current owner of the Melvin was thrilled to embrace and support. In the fall of 2022, we were invited to play at Tower Grove Pride, and the ARTICA festival – both local festivals that embrace and support high production performances. The ARTICA festival in particular gave our project a sizeable budget to work with and the time needed to put together more than mere music performance, and was a great example of the kinds of collaborative, community-oriented projects we had envisioned from the beginning.
From there, we started working on a series of video projects and studio recordings. In the same vein as our live performances, we embrace an experimental nature to video production, and are always trying to do something different and new. One of video our projects, “The Night” [directed by Brian McClelland] was selected and screened at the St. Louis Filmmakers Festival in 2023, which was a blast to be a part of.
More recently, we filmed another experimental series of live-performance videos at the new Greenfinch Theater, which we are planning to release in a video series this summer. We also continue to look for a few live show opportunities locally, in forums where a more involved production is embraced, and where we can collaborate with similarly minded creatives.
We’d also just like to add that a lot of our projects – both video and in our live show – are made possible by a series of regular collaborators who have embraced our project and have been crucial to pulling off our ambitious productions. LC Bryant, Jen Ruff, Brian McClelland, Dan & Cara Ristau, Jeremy Carpenter, Eric Tutskey, Zyi Li, Jenny Wu, Jim McGowin and others are just a few who have been regularly supportive, collaborative and an important part of the Library Birds story.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I think any artistic collaboration is going to have some tension as part of what makes it work, but we’ve had a fairly smooth ride of navigating most of that. We really foster a ‘let’s try it out’ method in embracing new ideas. We try to let the members of the project and our collaborators bring their ideas forward and see those ideas come to life. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it’s the work-in-progress, but in embracing everyone getting their share of ‘voice’, we’ve found a way that works well for keeping the creative process moving.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
We feel that our production skill sets and our theatric presentations – live and otherwise – are part of and important to our artistic message. Our members have had years-to-decades of video & production experience prior to the beginning of the Library Birds project and bring that kind of vision and production know-how to the process.
We all have a lot of experimental ideas rattling around in our brains pretty often too, and we just try to foster an environment of ‘following the thread’ of what is resonating with each of us in the moment. That seems to work pretty well for putting on cool performances and creating cool productions.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I think we’re lucky to live in a city that has a thriving art scene, and that has a lot of enthusiastic people who want to show up and support creative art scenes!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.librarybirds.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/librarybirdsstl/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LibraryBirds/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@librarybirds
Image credits
Jen Ruff, Ryan Stanley & Library Birds
