Album Review: Virgin of the Birds – Numberless Needs

Virgin of the Birds returns to Seattle for their first Pacific Northwest show of 2019 at the Conor Byrne on May 11, joined by The Foghorns (also playing their first show of 2019) and Sam Russell’s new old-soul band Doug Hood & The Wholly Heathens. Sam, along with Bart Cameron and Casey Ruff of The Foghorns, make up the Ballard supergroup The Cupholders, who have taken it upon themselves to review Virgin of the Birds’ latest release, the Numberless Needs EP.

Virgin of the Birds – Numberless Needs
(2019, Abandoned Love Records)

Casey Ruff:

Jon Rooney of VOTB (once again) builds upon the casual brilliance of his previous releases with the latest, Numberless Needs .

The opening track “I Fought a Turk” is led by the wonderful Faith Eliott, and whatever modesty Jon might’ve been attempting via concealment had, alas, backfired- because we can tell that we’re listening to a true, blue JR original.  It has the hallmarks that make a VOTB song important- narratives that sound more akin to a conversation that you may have never had but felt as if you did.  Complementing this interpersonal acuity is almost a history lesson, so his reputation of producing further entries within the genre of Wiki-Rock continues unabated (thanks to the genre coinage by BoW reporter Patrick Gibbs).

What follows is the matter-of-fact “In 1970, Across Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo Broke the Black Panther Party,” and the word responsibility is perhaps the moral that Jon’s laconic delivery is hopeful to transmit.  There’s implicit respect for the listener throughout JR’s music, in that he’s not going to hold your hand or yell at your brain- but he is going to make damn sure you feel the stakes.  I think we could all be better neighbors if we had more songs as civically sophisticated – a thought that allows JR’s music to be something like Schoolhouse Rock for people who can define what Thomas Hobbes meant or what excise taxes are.

JR’s backyard throughline continues into “Peter Stone Brown.”  Contained therein is a work of lyrical beauty: “I was raised to know not everyone around me means me well” – and it might be one of the better pieces of lyricism I’ve heard in a while.  It lands like an epitaph for the yet not corporeally dead, or a line from a country song left on the steps of an orphanage to be raised by prim nuns who worship brutish gods before coming of age and thus cast out alone into the urbane grey, or how a reformed hitman would introduce herself, or a quote from Roy Cohn’s autobiography, et cetera.  I can’t really hear any of the other words in the song after hearing that line, so, please excuse me.

A cover of Bart Cameron’s “Wisconsin Polka” is next, and JR takes some refreshing liberties with the source material.  It’s less bawdy and feels less fatalistic than other versions of this song, which I like to imagine was a counterpoint that JR was going for.  I am less qualified to talk about this song than both Sam and Bart are, so that’s the extent of my chiming.

Sam Russell:

First off, a disclaimer: in no way can this review claim to be objective. We’re all fairly well acquainted with Jon Rooney, captain of the U.S.S. VOtB, and consider him a vital component of our musical circle. In Bart’s case, he DEFINITELY can’t be objective since:

a) all three other band members (Colin, Paul and Ken) are also members of The Foghorns
b) Bart has contributed guitar both live and record to VOB in the past
c) VOB is covering one of Bart’s songs “Wisconsin Polka” on this EP (as have both myself and Casey for another upcoming EP, more on that later)

Furthermore, Colin J. Nelson is not only VOtB’s drummer but also producer . . . and is ALSO our producer for both our band and our individual projects.

So, with that out of the way, let’s consider this thread a community-based observation and point out that if we were disappointed in or didn’t care for this EP, we probably wouldn’t volunteer to analyze it in such a fashion.

I’d like to start off the discussion with two points of interest:

a) This is EP was recorded live in the studio, vocals included with minimal overdubs. Jon’s releases have always been tastefully produced but to my ears, the production gains vibrancy and cohesion from being done this way. It helps that between Jon’s last album Secret Kids and this release, he solidified his rhythm section to be Colin on drums and Ken Nottingham on bass instead of rotating players and then added Paul Beaudry on keys. On these recordings, you can hear a band that has been playing out live and gotten used to both each other and these songs. And from a production standpoint, the room sound gained from all the instruments bleeding into each other is fantastic.

b) As previously mentioned, “Wisconsin Polka” is a cover of Bart’s song as done by The Foghorns. It’s one of my favorite songs ever made (note: Bart and myself are both from Southeastern Wisconsin . . . Jon is decidedly NOT) and one I’ve been covering for 3 years now, albeit in a fairly straightforward fashion. What Jon has done here though is deconstruct the song lyrically (as well as add some new lines) and transplanted it into a Stax-meets-Velvet Underground 4/4 groove so the “polka” designation is now semi-ironic. It strikes me as more of a commentary on the original song than a mere “cover,” in the same way Patti Smith’s “Gloria” opened up Van Morrison’s song to be a very personal interpretation of the original song itself. Paul’s keyboard lines in the interludes greatly contribute by taking the song into whimsical and ethereal realms, and if you’re a fan of the original song you don’t even notice the original horn melody line isn’t in this version.

(Side note: plans are afoot for an eventual EP compiling VOtB’s version, The Foghorns’ original, my version and new versions from Casey and The Cupholders.) [Oh, I see. Nobody else? Fine. -ed.]

Lastly, the closing track on the EP, “Every Rival,” (unintentionally or not) pays homage to Led Zeppelin’s “Ten Years Gone” and subverts boilerplate dad-rock nostalgia (not that that’s necessarily a BAD thing) into an intellectual variation of what cheap New-Age pundits and movie therapists refer to as “letting go.” Well done sir.

Bart Cameron:

I don’t think Jon Rooney is one of us. Like the better songwriters I’ve seen through Ball of Wax, there’s just a dissonance in his damned presence. You can tell he responds to different stimuli, hears things different, etc. I’ve had more awkward beers at Ball of Wax shows than . . . okay I have a lot of awkward beer conversations, so I’ll move on.

Jon did in fact use the members of my band to record Numberless Needs. And he recorded a song I wrote. And he used my producer, Colin J Nelson. There are oceans and continents between what he came up with and what I could have done, even with my own song.

For me, “In 1970, across Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo Broke the Black Panther Party,” is everything I wanted to do with songs like “Ain’t I a Man.” Casey hits it on the head that there’s something conversational in Jon’s songs. It’s heightened conversation. Jon looks a little like a Whit Stillman character, and these great songs are like Whit Stillman monologues, at least as I remember watching them on VCR in Mankato Minnesota.

Referring to Jon all the time does this particular record a disservice. Sam mentions Paul Beaudry, but damn . . . Paul plays keys on this record, on these tracks, and it’s outstanding. That dude also kills it on guitar with Double or Muffin–his ability to vary in genres, across instruments, is almost unforgivable. [Don’t forget his saw appearance on Faith Eliott’s new record! -ed.] With these last two records, Virgin of the Birds feel more and more like a tight, imaginative band of musicians, instead of the singer-songwriter style on earlier records.

One thing, going back to why the hell three of us are reviewing Virgin of the Birds. It’s hard to overstate the impact Jon has had on us. This dude showed up at Ball of Wax with a fully formed aesthetic and then he came to the same places we make music, and used it to make these albums, Winter Seeds and Secret Kids, that feel like something Warren Zevon would have been proud to make. While he was making this stuff, we got to hear the rough mixes. Casey played a sax solo on “Nine Sisters” in Winter Seeds that has received positive reviews in Europe.

The three of us, due in large part to Ball of Wax, but also by living where we live and not being unusually offensive, have been allowed to see some successful musicians come up. I’m not sure Jon is as successful, commercially, as some of the bands we’ve seen take off, but the constant quality, and the fact that he hasn’t chosen to distance himself from us entirely (as he probably should), makes every release an event for us.

Virgin of the Birds, Doug Hood & The Wholly Heathens, and The Foghorns will be at the Conor Byrne Pub this Saturday May 11. Be there.