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BIRDS and ARROWS create unique music that is “full of romance and energy”, “enchanting”, and “the kind you fall in love with”. The trio, based in Chapel Hill, NC, is Andrea Connolly(vocals and guitar), Pete Connolly(vocals and drums) and Josh Starmer(cello), and together they create a rich sound that is much more than the sum of their parts. The romance between Andrea and Pete’s voices is distinctly captivating and intertwines with beautiful yet haunting cello melodies. BIRDS and ARROWS accomplish an elegant, warm sound that is truly their own. Their compelling and road tested live show appeals to a surprisingly wide range of audiences; they are the cherished rock band for folk lovers and the favorite folk group for rock fans.
The group was formed in 2007 by husband and wife Andrea and Pete Connolly who released 2 critically acclaimed EPs. Grayson Currin praised “Woodgrain Heart” as “complementary voices wrapping together in rustic contentment and comfort, like a happy pair making music because that’s how love makes them feel.” Josh joined the group on cello during the recording of the band’s first full length record “Starmaker” in 2009, expanding the narrative to describe tales of coming of age while still remaining intensely personal. Upon its release, “Starmaker” was picked by the Independent Weekly as the “Album of the Month”.
BIRDS and ARROWS released it’s second full length record “We’re Gonna Run” in May of 2011 and was considered “the best moment of the band’s career, a promise that they’ve got real range.” Grayson Currin of Independent Weekly
Frank Stasio NPR/WUNC State of Things said this
“The honeymoon sweetness of their earlier work has been replaced with a maturity anddepth appropriate for musicians whose lives and work are gaining seriousness and acclaim.”
With multiple east coast and mid-west tours under their belts, the band is now working on completing their third album “Coyotes” which embraces the original folk spirit of Birds and Arrows combined with confident and experienced songwriting. These new songs embody Birds and Arrows best effort as a band to date.
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Thanks to our friends, family and faithful fans
BIRDS and ARROWS JUST MET THEIR GOAL ON KICKSTARTER
check out our video
We have just recently finished recording all the songs after six months of writing and arranging. We are very proud of all the thought, creative energy and hard work we have put into this project so far and are extremely happy with the sound.
Earlier this week we sent it off to be mixed. This will be done by an amazing local producer, engineer and musician Chris Stamey. We are very excited to hear what he brings to the sound of these new songs.
and read more about the “Help Us Make Our Record” campaign
CLICK HERE
MORE GOOD THINGS PEOPLE SAY ABOUT BIRDS and ARROWS:
“Birds and Arrows has a unique combination of great songwriting coupled with intricate vocal and instrumental arrangements. I’m impressed by Andrea, Pete and Josh’s ability to produce fresh ideas with such polish. Even in a region saturated with so much talent, their sound really stands out as something special.”
- Chandler Holt of Chatham County Line
“Coyotes, the forthcoming third LP by Birds and Arrows, shows the band evolving yet again beyond its origin… With sweeping, auditorium-filling choruses and 11 guest musicians, this trio fills out quite nicely. From the highway-at-night feel of the Wilco-esque ‘Sunday Night Blues’ to the trippy drums and groovy sitar on the opener ‘Firefly,’ prog and folk continue to merge with, you know, whatever else happens in the studio”
- Corbie Hill INDEPENDENT WEEKLY and SHUFFLE MAGAZINE
“We’re Gonna Run” is a powerfully varied document by a band suffering no drought of ideas.”
- Corbie Hill SHUFFLE MAGAZINE
“The honeymoon sweetness of their earlier work has been replaced with a maturity anddepth appropriate for musicians whose lives and work are gaining seriousness and acclaim.”
– Frank Stasio NPR/WUNC State of Things
“Built on telling lyrical details and with smartly economic swells, it’s the best moment of the band’s career, a promise that they’ve got real range.”
– Grayson Currin INDEPENDENT WEEKLY
“My new band crush”
- Caitlin Cary of The Small Ponds and Tres Chicas
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BIRDS and ARROWS plays REST OF YOUR LIFE
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BIRDS and ARROWS on HEAR IT FROM HUTCH
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BIRDS and ARROWS on SOUND SITUATIONS
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NEW!
FEATURE IN SHUFFLE MAGAZINE
page 10
PHOTO BY ADAM DODDS
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BIRDS and ARROWS on
NBC’s MY CAROLINA TODAY
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LIVE on WNRN ACOUSTIC SUNRISE
TIME ALONE – click here!!!
ARROWS IN THE AIR – click here!!!
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BIRDS and ARROWS “PRIDE OF LIONS” VIDEO by: BILLY SUGARFIX
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NIGHT SOUND’s MUSICAL CHAIRS COMPILATION
local bands covering local band
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MORE PRESS….
illustration by Nathan Golub of Independent Weekly
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BLOGS ABOUT OUR 2010 WINTER PERFORMANCES….
HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN blog (about our opening set for the BIG STAR tribute at CAT’s CRADLE)
photo taken by Conni Freestone
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MUSICAL MUSES, MEMORIES, TRAVELS and MISADVENTURES blog by Scott Gunter (about our performance at The Evening Muse in Charlotte, NC)
photo take by Daniel Coston
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“Last May, the Chapel Hill band Birds and Arrows made an instant fan out of me with a show at the Metro Gallery, previewing material from the great album Starmaker” Al Shipley, BALTIMORE CITY PAPER 9.10
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“Suspend disbelief and enter- if only for 47 pretty minutes- a world where road trips against all odds are gorgeously strung metaphors” Grayson Currin, SHUFFLE MAGAZINE 9.10
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DOWNLOAD *STARMAKER* ON ITUNES
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“There’s a sepia-toned but strong-willed romanticism to the texture- and harmony-rich tunes of Birds and Arrows, the duo of Andrea and Pete Connolly. Inside these pop-righteous, country-graceful numbers, they keep each other awake on long road trips and rejoice even in the sight of peril, one’s voice bolstering the other like lifelong support.”
Grayson Currin INDEPENDENT WEEKLY (1-20-10)
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“There is a violent tension in the moniker Birds and Arrows, but the music that couple Pete and Andrea Connolly craft, spins that friction away from brutality and into elegant, elemental heights. If you take even just one passing listen to their music, it’s apparent these are voices that aren’t in harmony so much as interlocked. It’s as if two people wandering around the woods suddenly came upon each other and realized they were singing the same song– a romantic image made all the more apropos because Pete and Andrea are newlyweds.
Cute personal history aside, it’s the instrumental textures and intimate lyrics that should really catch your attention. From their debut EP Woodgrain Heart to their latest full length Starmaker, the Connolly’s have dreamed up what can only (to my ear) be described as a shimmering deconstructed pop-country sound. There’s a grounded, vintage tone to the arrangements, but a spacey, voyeuristic disconnect in the translation. All in all, it’s a head-scratchingly beautiful mess of music”
Ashley Melzer THE MILL (1-27-10) link to full interview - http://www.carrborocitizen.com/mill/2010/01/gimme-five-pete-and-andrea-connolly-of-birds-and-arrows
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BLOG, BLOG, we LOVE it when you BLOG! (about us of course)
No but really, it is always a very nice surprise to find new bloggers out there writing about the record.Number 5 show of the year and one of the top records Here’s a new one! that’s what I’m talkin’ about!
NARROWCAST TOP 50 RECORDS – click here
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Birds & Arrows sing their life and love onto the new Starmaker
ALBUM REVIEW by ANDREW RICHEY of Independent Weekly
Birds & Arrows’ Starmaker (307 Knox Records)
Starmaker, the full-length debut from young duo Birds & Arrows, plays like a scrapbook that chronicles the love and lives of husband and wife Pete and Andrea Connolly. Both the album art and songs are deeply personal, edging on voyeuristic at times, but offering a sort of universal truth for their intimacy. On the title track, Andrea and Pete sing in unison, identifying God as the “starmaker” who pushes a pin through black paper like on a schoolchild’s art project. By casting God as the craft artist, the Connollys afford themselves the power to create their own world, one of instant nostalgia and familiarity, not unlike the best of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Artwork of Native Americans and spaceships collides with lyrics about traveling and love. Birds & Arrows’ domain is strange and beautiful, full of wide-eyed wonder.
On “Honeymoon Song,” they describe a broad and encompassing world, singing, “In a place so old with a life so new, it was all.” Still, Andrea picks out minute details, like stopping the car every few miles because it was smoking. The specificity paints an intimate portrait, offering an inlet into the couple’s private life. Andrea’s strummed guitar begins the track, which grows in layers—cello, piano and pedal steel as ornaments, then Pete’s simple tribal drumming on tom-toms. Add all the sounds in the world, though, and the excitement in “Honeymoon Song” stems from the palpable connection between the couple. Pete joins Andrea on harmony vocals, helping lift the line, “It was all,” into “It was always you.”
The singing throughout Starmaker is fantastic. Andrea’s voice is clear, full and stunning, seemingly designed for melancholic anthems and slow-burning love songs. With sand on his vocal chords, Pete delivers lyrics with a rootsy, quiet confidence that balances Andrea in an unexpectedly appealing way. He even tackles lead vocals on a few songs, including “Monkey Brother,” a song about his estranged adopted brother who died last year.
While the band is essentially a guitar-drums duo, “Ripe and Ruptured” features Latin-inspired claves and ooh-la-las. Coldplay could even cover “Company Keep.” The music refuses to stand still, mirroring the album’s uniting motif of drives—or, more generally, movement and progression. The theme comes to fruition on “Daisy Renee,” a joyous country ode to an old car. “Send her home,” the Connollys call together, echoing Tom Waits and Neil Young’s old-world automobile nostalgia. The ’64 Oldsmobile can be imagined heading off into the glowing sunset.
Primal and passionate, expectant and hopeful, Birds & Arrows’ Starmaker is a Victorian curio cabinet filled with personal moments and universal emotions.
⇒ Read also: Our feature story on the band, “Birds & Arrows sing their life and love onto the new Starmaker“
STARMAKER is INDEPENDENT WEEKLY’s ALBUM of the MONTH for OCT….now streaming on www.indyweek.com
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photo by Holden Richards
Seeing stars
Birds and Arrows played Local 506 Friday night to celebrate the release of their first full-length album, the stunning Starmaker. Fellow local acts Mt. Moriah and The Never opened in a fervor of drums, pianos, and haunting vocals, but it was Birds and Arrows that had the crowd in awe, weaving tender harmonies amidst a background of guitar, drums, pedal steel and cello. The Native American motif added a peculiar, if festive, ambiance to the normally dark venue. Andrea Connolly, half of Birds and Arrows, crafted the feathered headdresses herself, adding that the reason she got to wear her great-great-(great?)-grandmother’s beaded purse was because she had proven that craftiness to her mother.
If the music was any indication, the Connollys’ creativity extends far beyond beading and feathers, and as the set at Local 506 proved, Birds and Arrows are masters at crafting music. Check out the slideshow above for photos of the band’s set. THE DAILY TARHEEL
…………….photo from THE DAILY TARHEEL
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BIRDS and ARROWS/BUTTERFLIES christmas EP is available for purchase at
http://butterflies.bandcamp.com/
Thanks for listening and
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
********************Review by Brian Tucker/Bootleg Magazine*****************
Two Chapel Hill bands, Butterflies, and Birds & Arrows, related by blood and musical affiliation have put together an EP of original and traditional Christmas songs. The five song album will be released at the Christmas at the Cradle show as a download code and available as a download at bandcamp.com.
The performers involved have lent a personal touch (‘Our Christmas’) to the songs as well a little humor with a backwoods version of ‘The Chipmunk Song’. ‘Christmas Morning’ is an original song by Butterflies and its tender delivery by singer Josh Kimbrough and its easy melody feels like an old Buddy Holly number. The take on ‘Christmas Time is Here’ is close to the one we all know but their high-pitched and slow jazz version still brings to mind lightly falling snow and walking at night during the holidays. But the album’s real charmer is ‘Our
Christmas” by Birds and Arrows. Pete and Andrea Connolly trade thoughts on the fun and the duties of Christmas. Pete sings – “I’m not ready for Christmas this year/Has it really been a year?…I’m drinking way too much beer….This box of crap/ All the things you’ve got to wrap.” This is all sung with delicate aplomb and when Pete stops Andrea’s soulful and heavenly singing makes it hard to hear her words. It’s a sweet song, and her singing will entice to find their other albums. Songs to Trim Your Tree By is a homemade collection of ageless holiday songs. It will be sold for $5 and for a limited time come with a handmade Christmas ornament.
Brian Tucker
butterflies.bandcamp.com/album/
butterflies-and -birds-arrows-songs-to-
trim-your-tree-by
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CARRBORO MUSIC FESTIVAL 09 – DAILY TAR HEEL
“Birds and Arrows played at Open Eye, blending its soulful melodies with the occasional whir of an espresso machine. As singer Andrea Connolly crooned, husband Pete Connolly contributed on drums. While the cellist (Josh Starmer) who played with the couple wasn’t a part of the marital bliss, the combined sounds of guitar, drums, and cello made for music that could strike love into the heart of any embittered Carrboro townie. A constant stream of people entered the coffee shop throughout the set, and at the end of Birds and Arrows’ performance, the venue was packed with standing festival attendees.” LG - DTH
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BALTIMORE CITY PAPER
By Al Shipley | Posted 5/29/2009
The Thursday show was opened by Porcelain Doll Club, a solo singer/songwriter who appeared a little nervous and inexperienced, but gave a pleasant, ingratiating performance. The real gem of the show was the other opener, Birds and Arrows, a husband/wife duo from North Carolina. Singer/guitarist Andrea Connolly’s sweetly smoky voice and twangy tunes with Pete Connolly’s complementary harmonies and bombastic drums combined to create one of the more complete, full-bodied sounds ever to come out of a two-person band. The only frustrating thing, however, was that the killer standout of Birds and Arrows’ set, “Not Interested,” is a newer tune not yet available on record. But, like Kadman, their previews of unreleased songs made a good case for keeping an eye out for a future release date.
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WOODGRAIN HEART
BIRDS & ARROWS (2008)
Woodgrain Heart is our second ep which we recently released in 2008. We are selling this and our first ep for $5.00. Please contact us at birdsandarrows@gmail.com if you are interested in purchasing one. All songs are written, recorded and released by Birds & Arrows.
Album Review in Independent Weekly
(a Durham/Raleigh/Chapel Hill Publication)
Birds & Arrows’ Woodgrain Heart
(self-released)
14 JAN 2009 • by Grayson Currin
The packaging for Woodgrain Heart, the debut EP from Chapel Hill duo Birds & Arrows, consists of a slim cardboard sleeve that’s been spray painted a deep cerulean shade, the band’s name written in a comfortable, slightly sloppy script across the top in coarse black marker. A rudimentary cutout of a human heart printed onto the sort of lumber laminate you’d use to line kitchen cabinets sits at the middle. Tucked inside, the liner notes are printed onto a single sheet of tawny paper with doodles and lyrics and acknowledgments packed onto one side, pictures of price tags and the band set in a grid on the other. It’s a decidedly handmade production, the sort of thing bandmates attached at the hip make while watching the sun come up, an old record spinning on a nearby stereo.
Indeed, Pete and Andrea Connolly (neé Nell) wed in October, becoming the most recent addition to the Triangle’s excellent collegium of married bands that includes The Rosebuds, Work Clothes and Waumiss. And their work—warm, emotional, poetic folk music played tenderly and gingerly—thrives on the relationship’s intimacy, spinning songs from domestic images like the blue flickering flame of a gas burner and the trove of persistent memories that remain like love’s kindling. Andrea, who sings and plays guitar in the bluegrass quartet Sweet By & By, takes the lead on three of the EP’s six tracks, turning in a slow-burning performance on opener “Garden Shed” and layering her reverb-tinged vocals over banjo and handclaps on the title track. With a voice that’s as workmanlike as it is worn, Pete adds a jangly lift to his tracks, like the mandolin-abetted “Old Man Winter” or the structurally convoluted “Black Shoes.” But, as things should be, the Connollys sound best when they sing together, their complementary voices wrapping together in rustic contentment and comfort, like a happy pair making music because that’s how love makes them feel. These six splendid songs beg for those feelings to continue.
