Birdie Busch delivers a mellow sound that she accompanies with her electrifyingly emotional voice and lyrics. She has found her sonic and overall creative space in her home base of Philadelphia, where she also pursues visual art and photography. Keep reading to learn more about Birdie’s journey to making music, how her creativity spreads between her artistic mediums, and, of course how Philadelphia has impacted her and her work.
PPRG: How did you begin your music career? Have you always known you wanted to pursue music?
Birdie Busch: I didn’t really know it was music until post-college. I have always been someone very inspired by writing; it has always been a common thread through my youth into adulthood. I went to college at the University of Miami in Florida which has a long history of a great music program. All my friends ended up being musicians serendipitously and I found myself in the thick of living and breathing music. My major was a writing focus via an English major, but it wasn’t until I returned to Philly that it translated to making my own music. I started learning guitar and within months was heading to open mics, meeting other people with the same level of passion for it, and going from there. Philly was really where it all came together and continues to.
PPRG: What words best describe your sound?
BB: My sound goes in a lot of directions. I definitely tend to try to escape being pigeon-holed and I personally have such a wide spectrum of musical loves. But many have often said they find my sound grounding which I’ll take! We all need grounding in our lives.
PPRG: Which track is a ‘must-listen’ for someone who hasn’t heard your music before?
BB: There are songs that people tend to go towards as the kind of universally shared favs of mine but if I had to share one that’s my choice, I’d say listen to “Trap Door.” It’s a song I wrote, a B-Side of sorts for a Philadelphia themed EP I put out in 2010. It’s a meditative slow burner on the life of my friend, the late great Mr. Huff, a gospel singer whose basement I spent many many hours in over the years as a kind of retreat from the world. This tune is about that place, physically and spiritually. It’s an ode to a peaceful dreamer and shows my love of the marriage of words and sounds and Philly life.
PPRG: You are also an artist and photographer in the city, with some of your paintings on Philadelphia business windows. What inspired you to dive into these forms of art? What similarities have you found between these mediums and music?
BB: Music involves more moving parts in some ways, at least the playing, recording, and performing with other people aspect of it. This is why music is so amazing when you are bearing witness to a group of people playing as one. It’s like seeing and feeling a kind of utopia. I like to do photography and visual art as a self-activated art form in my more independent times. All of them are lovely channels to see the world and bring out different emotions and thoughts. They play off each other, so sometimes I’ll go to one if the other is feeling stagnant and that will spark something with the other form. Last year I wrote and performed a show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that was all original music I wrote inspired by paintings by women in the collection for Women’s History Month. That was a really rewarding creative experience, combining all those disciplines.
You can read more about that here: http://www.emilybirdiebusch.com/pma-show-portal
PPRG: What is your favorite memory from your performances?
BB: Many! But off the top of my head I played an outdoor show at a historic lighthouse in Saugerties, NY one summer during a full moon that was insanely beautiful. You walked a quarter of a mile trail out to the lighthouse that sat in the middle of the Hudson and had a deck built around it that folks gathered on for the show. Part of the pain and joy of being a musician is how many peculiar situations it puts you in, and that night was a true joy. As a musician I really miss those experiences right now.
PPRG: How has Philadelphia’s culture shaped your sound and approach to music?
BB: Philly is such an emotionally, sonically, and visually stimulating place. It’s a place that challenges me at every turn and I am really grateful to be in a place where I am not isolated from having to truly get to know so many people of all different backgrounds, ages, and races and learn from it. So many of my ideas for my songs come from my experiences and relationships here. It’s a town that’s walkable, bikeable, bussable, trainable. Every one of those transports has different vibes and rhythms and they all make it into my music, which varies from song to song, record to record.
PPRG: Are there any Philly artists who have influenced you?
BB: ALWAYS. I love a lot of the old Philly sound 45’s and also Sun Ra’s really ambient stuff. I always rock that Laura Nyro & Labelle record when I DJ. Horace Pippin is a favorite visual artist for me. I also am heavily influenced by the more DIY murals that pop up all over walls in the city that you catch wandering or taking the bus, more in the outsider vein. So many friends that have played through the years at all the clubs and open mics. Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun record. Whilst not from Philly, a lot of Philly folks contributed to it and it was recorded here in Philly. I love Kurt Vile’s early kind of quieter lo-fi records he would burn to CD-R and hand out at The Fire that had a lot of his more repetitive finger picked stuff. Current visual artists Sarah Gamble, Becky Suss, Alison Dilworth, Jarmel Reitz. Rose Luardo is a comedic hero of mine. I could keep going on and on and on and on and on and on and on. All my bandmates past and present. This town is an endless well.
Further explore Birdie’s music, photography, and art on her website, and visit her on Instagram and Facebook.
