Has the thought ever crossed your mind that every avian species should be feted, with their uniqueness honored in song? Tommy Siegel (Jukebox the Ghost) and Billy Libby (Ingrid Michaelson), both world-touring musicians, have tasked themselves with creating the entrance music each bird deserves with their podcast Extremely Accurate Bird Songs. All episodes contain serious facts, amusing commentary, and original music for a specific bird, as well as an expert who critiques the song for accuracy. The result is a unique ”gateway into nature.” Tommy, an intermediate birder, hopes that he and Billy, a beginner birder, “carry some of our ineptitude into something that is a welcoming experience for new birders.”
Photo provided by Billy Libby (left) and Tommy Siegel (right)
That statement credits too little to the creativity, talent, and pure fun of Extremely Accurate Bird Songs, and the Chicago Bird Alliance (CBA) hopes you get a chance to meet the duo during The Urban Birding Festival. Not only are they the keynote speakers during Saturday’s dinner, but they are leading a walk Saturday morning at Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary and hosting a ‘Bird Rock’ songwriting workshop on Sunday. After a successful debut at the San Diego Bird Festival, Tommy and Billy are incredibly excited to meet the Chicago birding community. “It’s just so cool to meet experts and inspirational people, and help people get connected to nature, maybe in our case, in an unorthodox way,” asserts Tommy. Per Billy, “I’m really excited to do a bird festival within a city I kind of already know, get to know the birding spots and birding community there, and discover Chicago in a new way through that.”
Expect a “whole multi-media experience” during the keynote dinner, with visual comedy, videos, comics, and physical humor. Tommy and Billy have been “working on multiple animated shorts based on some of the songs, including one…for Dropout TV about the American Woodcock coming out later in the fall”; the keynote will include a preview of their animation. The aim is to create a cross between a comedy set/presentation and a live show; it’s a program very apropos for the venue, iO Theater.
Picture of cover taken from tommysiegel.net
After the performance, Tommy will be signing copies of his new field guide, Extremely Accurate Birds: An Anatomically Precise Field Guide to Common Backyard Birds of North America. For anyone unfamiliar, Tommy’s art features birds with human butts and legs appended to the end. While humorous overall, the upper part of each bird is quite detailed and beautifully drawn. It’s education disguised as a joke - between the book, calendars, podcast, and music, Tommy is “really trying to make a Trojan Horse to get people to care more about the natural world around them through humor.” With the field guide, the “real Valhalla would be somebody picking it up at a bookstore because they think it’s funny and then accidentally learning a lot about birds and becoming a birder” as they connect the images to avian wildlife around them.
The podcast Extremely Accurate Bird Songs is a similar benign ruse. The songs are the draw, but each episode begins with a casual conversation between Tommy and Billy that covers plumage, food habits, mating rituals, and other noteworthy facts about the bird in question. “Fundamentally,” declares Tommy, “we’re trying to stay in a very playful, welcoming space, and hopefully what we’re doing can be an intro path for someone who didn’t think they were into birding because they perceived it in a certain way.” Joy flows through each recording. As Billy says, “I would like to think that people who hear our songs…would be like ‘yeah, they’re writing a goofy song about a bird’… but you can tell we loved every minute of it and put all of ourselves into every part.”
Mourning Dove: Tommy’s and Billy’s spark bird
Photo by Krystal Finch/Audubon Photography Awards
To find that perfect melody, quite a bit of time goes into workshopping the composition. Explains Billy, they “listen to a podcast about the bird, but then also listen to… two albums of artists that we kind of thought made sense for us to go forward with this bird…It’s fun to do that part too, I honestly love that, you know - we are both arrangers and producers, along with songwriters. So I love doing a deep dive into an artist and having a reason to do it.”
There’s an obvious push to expand outside of their comfort zone, as Tommy illustrates: “We’re certainly trying to open the envelope a little bit of what we are, what genres we’re tackling,” as they “don’t want to tread the same ground over and over again, so we’re trying to open the box a little bit to like, what about country? What about something that’s more reggae, or hip-hop vibes, or maybe an artist that we wouldn’t have thought to try and emulate.” For Billy, “a big stretch goal for me with the podcast is like, say…a couple seasons down the road, if we move on to birds of a different part of the world to actually maybe get to know the music and the birds of the place… I always thought that could be an amazing opportunity down the road.”
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Photo by Nate Chappell/Audubon Photography Awards
Due to the podcast, bird calls are now drilled into the two musicians’ “mental library, and hopefully for listeners too.” Right after producing the Eastern Wood-Pewee episode, they heard the bird after a hike. “I just hope to think if a listener had that same moment, now knowing the Eastern Wood-Pewee, and then, also thinking of Kenny Loggins and our rock song for the wood-pewee, that’s heaven right there,” affirmed Billy. If you haven’t already heard the Kenny Loggins-esque rock song, the Metallica-influenced jam for the Osprey, the British invasion vibes tribute for the European Starling, or others in the setlist, you can listen via their podcast, YouTube channel, and soon their new ‘balbum’ – or bird album. As a bonus to those who obtain the balbum, some of the songs have changed; for instance, the American Woodcock dance hit was modified to include some new facts.
But just because there’s a balbum doesn’t mean Billy and Tommy are taking a break. With the Roseate Spoonbill already covered via a Caribbean-inspired tune, Billy is working on a song for the flamingo and considering creating a “shrimp saga.” Tommy mentions, “Not to spill the beans too much, but we are planning on a Herring Gull song. For the American Herring Gull, we were channeling…’90s rap rock energy. I don’t think there’s any other context in which I would have checked out so much Kid Rock, Beastie Boys, and Limp Bizkit…but it was great to do a little tour and be like, okay, who do we like the best, who do we want to emulate, it ended up feeling like the Beastie Boys was the right direction for the Herring Gull.” Also on Billy’s plate is a Great Horned Owl song where he “wanted to go in the Soundgarden direction for that, and that was another reason to listen to two Soundgarden albums in a day.”
Wood Duck
Photo by Dee Langevin/Audubon Photography Awards
American Crow
Photo by Matthew Leaman/Audubon Photography Awards
When asked what bird they would want to be, Tommy replied that he would “love to be a Wood Duck.” The song they are writing for it is a “Grateful Dead pastiche” as Tommy is “a huge deadhead.” Billy would want to be a crow, which is very fitting as he wrote the song celebrating this corvid – in fact, the very first song written for Extremely Accurate Bird Songs (although not the first song released), a grunge metal track that reminds you these clever animals understand water displacement, recognize faces, and are songbirds…that eat other songbirds.
Another upcoming episode features one of Billy’s favorite birds, the “wonderful, wonderful Blue Jay – Eastern Blue Jay”; the song has a “real rocker” vibe, something akin to “AC/DC meets Boston.” In a nutshell, it exudes “clueless himbo classic rock energy,” and the duo leaned into the jay’s “charisma and confidence.” And the judge for this song? CBA’s very own executive director Matt Igleski! Matt “was a great guest to have” and “a bird rocker himself.” The hosts very much valued having him on.
Blue Jay
Photo by Charles Wheeler/Audubon Photography Awards
That gratitude extends to all the experts and fans who have kept the podcast alive. “I don’t think there are many beginning birders who have been as lucky as me to talk to bird experts right out of the gate,” Billy points out. They are immensely appreciative of fan support, including song requests during shows and even advice on who can provide expertise. Fans’ enthusiasm has also pushed them further into birding. “It’s a little intense anytime you decide you want to pursue something outside of just a hobby,” but really the podcast, and creating the songs, has begun “cueing me into birds more… there’s so many birds… that I really don’t feel that pressure in a way. If anything, I just feel super excited that some people, by listening to the podcast or coming to shows, are encouraging me to do that more. I’m just grateful and just noticing so many more birds now. I have to admit, I’ve become so much more of a birder, I love it.”
The two also shared their thankfulness to The Urban Birding Festival: “We really appreciate people taking a chance on us doing something pretty out of left field,” stated Billy. “And when we started this, we didn’t know if it would be accepted by people that do bird research as a career… we’re just super grateful to Matt and to The Urban Birding Festival for taking a chance on bird rock.” Tommy added, “We’re thrilled to be a part of the festival and honored to be asked…The mission of our podcast is just to find a way to bring people into the birding world that’s just like good, silly fun and something that hopefully expresses the joyful, silly side of being interested in the natural world around you.”
CBA is mutually appreciative and would like to warmly thank Billy and Tommy for taking the time to speak with us, and for everything they’re doing for the festival coming up in September. We look forward to viewing, reading, and listening to all the future material coming out from Extremely Accurate Birds!