Front-end Developer. Digital hermit. Ersatz cartoonist. All-around average dad.

Good Flying Birds

A drawing of one of my favorite new bands.

Ink sketch in a cartoon style of five people: a man with short hair and a mustache; a man with shaggy hair, glasses and a mustache in a stripped shirt; a woman with long curly hair wearing a skirt; a man with a short beard, long hair pushed back and wearing a striped buttondown shirt; and a man in a jacket and open collar with light shaggy hair and a mischievous smile.

I saw that one of my favorite bands of the last year or so, Good Flying Birds, is playing a festival an hour and a half away in September, on the same bill as Mount Eerie. It was a tough decision to not get a ticket, even though it'd be great to see them and Phil Elverum on the same day, but I can't commit to making that trip. I opted to see Phil the night before in Seattle, and I'm crossing my fingers that Good Flying Birds will add a Seattle date. I just hope it doesn't compete with Mount Eerie. I'll cry.

Every song by this band feels like something I've known my whole life, or at least since I was a young indie rock kid in the 90s feeling all the feelings. It's one of those things in life that could make you feel old but somehow makes you feel young, whether that's just triggering old synapses or it comes from a kind of continuity and connection with a younger generation, or else the sense that as fucked up as the world is, despite the atomization and immiseration of late stage capitalism, there's still a little light and hope.

And some of those people you feel connected to make perfect, joyous pop music that feels like home.