Bird Of Youth has no business being this good. Really. If writing and recording a really beautiful album was as easy as Beth Wawerna and her crew made it look, wouldn’t everyone do it? That’s sort of the story here. For most of her decade in New York, Wawerna was, in the words of her pal Timothy Bracy, “the consummate green-room insider.” Her background in journalism and her unerring taste had led to a number of indie-rock acquaintances who eventually became friends. It sounds like a pretty good time, hanging out in Brooklyn with the Mendoza Line’s Bracy and Pete Hoffman, Will Sheff of Okkervil River, Carl Newman, Charles Bissell of the Wrens, Nada Surf’s Matthew Caws and others. But it turned out Wawerna had a secret stash of her own songs, which she’d worked on and demo’d and never, ever let anyone hear. Eventually, she decided it was time to set those songs free. Her pals not only liked them, they helped her form a crack band—guitarist par excellence Clint Newman, drummer Ray Ketchem, bassist Johnny North, keyboardist Eli Thomas and accordion player Elizabeth Bracy Nelson—and recorded them. Sheff and Phil Palazzolo (New Pornographers, Ted Leo) produced. Bissell contributed a terrific guitar lead on one song. Caws sang. Members of Okkervil River and the National played. The finished album, Defender, was released in May, just in time to give your summer a worthy soundtrack. Wawerna and Clint Newman will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week, and once a day, Wawerna is having one of her famous friends guest blog. Read our brand new Q&A with her.
Jennifer O’Connor runs Kiam Records and is currently working on a new album in Brooklyn.
O’Connor: I never really thought of myself as a dog person or a cat person or even an animal person, really, until this year. But then something happened to me. His name is Paco.
At first, he was just a dog we were watching for a friend until he could find a new apartment suitable for dogs. I was even a little annoyed that he was staying with us in the beginning.
About two weeks in, I realized that I had developed a love for this animal unlike any other I had ever experienced. I prayed we wouldn’t have to give him back.
Paco weighs 22 pounds. He’s a mutt with a scraggly gray coat and a black face that looks like it belongs to another dog. He is the cutest thing I have ever seen.
I walk him and feed him and cuddle him in my lap. He jumps like a maniac when I walk in the door. When I give him a bone, he takes it to his dog bed and holds it between his paws and gnaws at it until it’s gone. This usually takes about two minutes. He crunches on carrot sticks and whatever else happens to come his way. He really likes food.
Sometimes I take him jogging with me. The best thing, though, is when I’m able to let him run free somewhere. He runs in really big circles, tongue out, eyes on fire. It’s really quite something.
I even wrote a song for him! “Paco’s Theme” (yes, that is what it is called) is an instrumental, piano-based tune that I imagine to be the soundtrack to him trotting down the street. As you might imagine, this sounds like nothing else I’ve ever written, so it remains to be seen as to whether it could actually fit on an album of mine.
Either way, my life is so much richer because of this dog. I highly recommend finding a furry friend of your own if you don’t already have one.
