We exchanged emails with LG Brown of Libary Birds, a group that played Artica in 2022 and 2023.
For starters, can you sketch out the group's history and personnel?
We first gelled as a four-piece in late 2021, so it's a fairly recent project in that regard. We released an EP — AION — last year and have supported that with some home-brew video productions and a lot of visual content. One thing that we feel sets us apart is our experience with and ambition for pushing the envelope on the production side for live shows and in video content. Our bass/synth/sample wizard, Jim Turner, has 15+ years of freelance cinematography work. Our guitar/songwriter/vocalist LG Brown has a community-service audio/video production project called The Sonic Chthonic since 2020, and drummer OV (Orestes Valdes) has taught various media production classes at Webster University for over 25 years. Our lead guitarist Sammy Bee is also the primary audio and video producer for his other music projects, including Groovy Butter Cakes. Right from the beginning of this project, we had a group of guys who were active in a range of production related disciplines, and are used to putting the hard work in to make visions come to life.
What's your personal history with Artica? When did you first attend and what caught your eyes/ears?
Last year was our first year participating both as performers and as volunteers. A couple of things caught our eye initially. First, it seemed that the organization was composed of artistic “true believers,” in the sense that everyone involved seems to be genuinely interested in building and supporting the local arts community. The second thing that caught our eye was that Artica was offering grants for projects that were ambitious in their production. That matched perfectly with our stated goal of high-production and ambitious live shows, and we ran with it from there.
In addition to the great pleasure of playing the festival, we've found it equally meaningful to serve in various volunteer roles before, during and after the festival, and in the opportunity to meet some of the members of the board. Like we said: the folks organizing Artica are true believers in the scene, and put in way more time than I think most people realize to make that festival and other scene-supporting events a reality. They are inspired (and inspiring) people to be around.
I know that you had our mutual friend Jim Z. McGowin providing some live visuals. Is that something that the group routinely does? Or were you looking for some added "pop" to the experience at Artica?
We are big on collaborations of all kinds and count on friends old and new to get the most out of our live shows, as well as our online productions. We actually didn't know Jim McGowin prior to discussing the Artica project, but we had seen some of his live visual work with other local acts like Subtropolis, Children of the Rat Temple and others. We asked him if he would be interested in bringing his ideas to complement our set, and lucky for us he was interested. Last year we did our own visuals, and while those turned out great, too, we recognized both the challenges of trying to do both ourselves and the value of an outside visionary bringing their own brilliance to the table. We were so thrilled at what Jim came up with and actually we heard more positive feedback about his wild visuals than the music, haha.
Can you tell me a bit about how the day felt? The vibes of the stage, backstage, post-show, follow-up of Vertigo Swirl, the look out onto the fields... the whole of it...? What was the feedback you received from your set?
Everything felt very well-organized on arrival the day we played, and it was a real treat to watch the sun go down while Vertigo Swirl played. Taking the stage just after dark was insanely cool (especially with the light show kicking off) and we were really grateful for that time slot. We got a lot of great feedback about the music, and especially the visual presentation, which we are always thrilled to hear about. Our friends in Mobile Alien Research Unit played right after us and had an even more insane and involved visual production. The whole night was just radical.
On Sunday, we were all back to help out on the volunteer squad and to catch all the great folks that played and performed.
What do you believe that Artica offers St. Louis?
A forum and resources to be ambitious with one's artistic visions, and a community of people who are legitimately interested in supporting that, independent of your artistic discipline or following.
You'd play this event again?
I am quite sure we will.
Where can people find the band online?
https://www.librarybirds.com/media
https://www.instagram.com/librarybirdsstl/
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