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Off the record: David Smyth
By David Smyth, Off the record 15.06.07
Back in demand: Devo returns to London
Jamming with birds: David Rothenberg on clarinet accompanies an attentive starling
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Birds love a bit of rock'n'roll
The battle between art and science takes a new twist on BBC4 next week, when several eminent bird scientists are pitted against the controversial theories of David Rothenberg, a philosopher and jazz musician who scampers around aviaries with a clarinet, "jamming" with anything that doesn't fly off.
The programme, Why Birds Sing (20 June, 9pm), which has the same title as Rothenberg's book on the subject, has the author arguing that birds don't just tweet because they want to mate or defend territory, but because they actually enjoy making music.
"There are certain aspects to the sound of a clarinet that interest a lot of singing birds," Rothenberg tells me.
"Flutes work well, too."
"A vacuum cleaner would have much the same affect," sniffs Professor Donald Kroodsma, who seems the most irritated by the lack of hard data in the musician's ideas.
Of course, making music to attract a mate is the thinking behind most rock bands too.
Could birds really be more sophisticated than that?
"Science says that the birds who sing the most notes have the most mating success, but while that may be true for the marsh warbler, it's not true for, say, the sedge warbler," says Rothenberg.
"Why would a nightingale need to sing so much complicated stuff for hours? There is pleasure going on in the brains of birds."
He has big name musicians on his side too.
Fans include Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and Peter Gabriel, who allowed Rothenberg and the aptlynamed band Guillemots to use his Real World recording studio to create a piece of music based on birdsong.
It will be available to hear at www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/birds-sing.shtml.
Rothenberg is a fascinating conversationalist, explaining how birds can learn new sounds while most other animals cannot, and waxing lyrical about the "grammar" of starlings.
He sportingly strips down to his underpants to impersonate a song thrush for the TV, which is all a bit daft, but he scores extra points when a neuroscientist is wheeled on to back him up with statistics about levels of dopamine, "the pleasure molecule", in birds' brains.
Not that he's too bothered about how he and his feathered friends appear.
Nothing, it seems, will divert him from his singular course - he's jamming with whales next.
Are we not men? We are Devo
Almost 30 years since they first carved out a niche with their robotic electronic sounds, the boys in the space suits and flower-pot hats are back. Devo were just about the only "new wave" band genuinely to do something new; they inspired generations and freaked out the wider populace with crazed videos before MTV was even born.
Next week, they perform as part of Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown and at Shepherds Bush Empire the week after.
"To this day, nobody looks or sounds or acts like us," Gerald Casale tells me, with evident pride.
"For a long time we've heard new generations of bands saying that they're doing what they're doing because of us, from LCD Soundsystem to Nirvana, and that's heartening."
The influence of such pioneering Devo hits as Whip It and Girl U Want can be traced in any of today's electronica bands - especially their live performances - and Nirvana covered the Devo obscurity Turnaround on their 1992 Incesticide collection.
Casale, who makes his living these days directing adverts, sounds overall like someone would have preferred riches to being an inspiration.
His wackily dressed five-man-band from Ohio were eventually written off as a novelty and never really accepted by the mainstream.
"I think we've only been invited to Europe now because the dollar is worth crap," he speculates.
"It's like you're paying us in pesos."
But when he finally gets back on a London stage next week, he'll find that Devo mean more to many than that.
An early listen to...
Richard Hawley
Lady's Bridge (Mute)
Lifelong Sheffield resident Hawley, newly 40, could be singing about big cars and awards ceremonies since his breakthrough with his last album, Coles Corner.
Instead, the followup, released 20 August, is named once again after a hometown landmark, and the music within is totally unaffected by prevailing trends, or his own success.
His rich Fifties croon washes across numerous warmhearted ballads, again creating the mellow, timeless mood familiar from past work.
The song Serious is a fun diversion into skiffle, but that's about as forward-thinking as it gets, and that's just the way his fans will like it.
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