The Bye Bye Blackbirds

Background

Bradley Skaught, the group's 40-year-old principal songwriter and frontman, was originally from Tacoma, Washington. Skaught began taking drum lessons while in second grade. He later moved to Oakland, California, where his musical career included a stint as drummer for Yuji Oniki, after which Skaught became better known as a guitarist and vocalist. His vocals have been called "distinctive and lovely," "a unique drawl reminiscent of Tom Petty", and likened to John Lennon.

Skaught was the founder of the band Belle Da Gama, which included Ian Robertson. The name Belle Da Gama was taken from the Salman Rushdie novel The Moor's Last Sigh. Belle Da Gama recorded one album, Garden Abstract, released in 2001 on 125 Records.

In 2005, Skaught and Robertson disbanded Belle Da Gama and formed The Bye Bye Blackbirds. The new group was named after the 1926 jazz standard Bye Bye Blackbird. Skaught and Robertson, both guitarists, recruited drummer Lenny Gill and bass player William Duke online. In forming the new band, Skaught and Robertson decided on a "back-to-basics approach" based on "fundamental things we loved as listeners – songwriting, harmony, cool guitar parts and sounds."

Honeymoon (2006)

The Bye Bye Blackbirds released their debut recording, an EP called Honeymoon, in 2006. Bill Swan, of the indie band Beulah, produced the seven-song EP.

In a review, Richie Unterberger likened the songs to the "late-'70s power pop of Elvis Costello," also finding similarities in approach with Badfinger and the Beatles. Skaught later referred to Honeymoon as "a bit embarrassing to me, although I like a couple songs and I love the sound... It works to me as a kind of statement of intent, but it makes me squirm to hear it."

Apology Accepted and Houses and Homes (2008)

The group released their second EP, Apology Accepted, and their first full-length album, Houses and Homes, on the American Dust label in 2008.

Unterberger likened Houses and Homes to British Invasion bands, with "tunes and the upper-register vocals [that] often echo some of the poppier Beatlesque groups of yore," praising the album's sensitive lyrics and "upbeat guitar-oriented pop/rock with a tinge of the bittersweet." In contrast to the album's dominant pop sound were the dreamy instrumental "Next Door," and the tenser, Brian Eno-like ambient track "Murray Morgan's Last Dream."

Skaught called Houses and Homes "satisfyingly better than Honeymoon to me.... We experimented a lot – goofy stuff with tape echoes and lots of layers." The bluegrass-tinged song "The Ghosts Are All Right" was featured in the book Music: What Happened?, which named it as a favorite for that year, describing the song as "a Byrds-worthy meditation on history and responsibility in a local community."

Apology Accepted, a download-only EP, included "Monster Eyes," a song written with novelist Jonathan Lethem from "lyrical fragments" of his novel You Don't Love Me Yet, and performed with Lethem at a reading. The title track of Apology Accepted was a cover of a song by The Go-Betweens.

Fixed Hearts (2011)

Before recording 2011's Fixed Hearts, bass player William Duke, who had previously shared songwriting responsibilities with Skaught, left the band. Skaught stated that writing all of the songs on Fixed Hearts was "liberating" and that the album benefited from his resulting confidence, and from the contributions of new bass player Aaron Rubin and producer Paul Tyler.

The title is a reference to drummer Lenny Gill's then-recent heart surgery, as well as to the protagonists of the songs, who emerge from heartbreak with their own hearts repaired.

Reviewing Fixed Hearts, the Aquarian Weekly cited the "general giddiness of the album," moving from a "nostalgic and swinging vibe" through songs with a "country-pop sound" and "pulsing drums," to the "peaceful" final tracks.

AllMusic's Jack Rabid wrote that the album had the "brightly ringing, polished/unthreatening, anodyne" 1960s pop vibe of a "groovy guitar pop party" where "nice guys finish first and get the girl in the finale." The review cited Skaught's "easy sincerity and the group's harmonic gifts," embracing a "Panglossian panoply of this period from when they were pups, cutting in country-pop, folk, and—heck yeah—a horns-laden opener with bits of Memphis soul."

Production notes

The group's 2013 album, We Need the Rain, was produced by Paul Tyler, except for two tracks produced by KC Bowman (of Agony Aunts and Corner Laughers). The album marks Ian Robertson's final contributions as a member, prior to his departure to form a solo project, Black Butterfly Gang.

Skaught dedicated We Need the Rain to Scott Miller, his "musical mentor." Miller was not involved with the album, but Skaught told the San Francisco Chronicle that Miller's death in April 2013 was "the most painful and devastating blow," leading Skaught to consider the album "a kind of anchor, something to channel all that chaos through ... It's the first record we've made that we couldn't take to him and get that final vote of confidence on."

Critical response and reviews

We Need the Rain was named one of the "Top 20 Releases of 2013" by Goldmine, with critic John M. Borack citing guitars that "jangle, strum and get muscular when they need to."

The San Francisco Chronicle described the album as having "sweetly melancholy jingle-jangle and satisfyingly gutsy guitar and bass parts" with "soulful crunch." Reviewer Bill Kopp wrote in Musoscribe that "chiming guitars, ear candy hooks, punchy guitar riffage, tight vocal harmonies" provide the emotional and "visceral punch" of power pop. In Dirty Impound, Dennis Cook wrote, "Every tune practically shimmies out of the speakers, cool small details etched into ceaselessly ear-snagging melodies as sweet, gently yearning voices sing about love and the weather in ways that make both seem brand new."

According to Tris McCall of the Newark Star-Ledger, the album took a new and "more aggressive approach" in which "guitars still twinkle and shimmer, on occasion, but this time around, they growl, twist, stutter and snap, too." McCall wrote, "Although Skaught's essential optimism is always visible," this "isn't always a happy album," with songs "both more direct and more discontented" than Skaught's prior work. "Yet it is the deepest, gutsiest and most rewarding set in the band's discography, and it points the way forward for a project that once felt like a formal exercise in songcraft."