Stephan Bircher

The Barr Brothers, Brad and Andrew, report the following at their Web site, among other facts:

They hail from Providence, RI.
They “discovered rock ‘n’ roll” in 1983.
Their “spirited, improv-based rock trio, The Slip” toured the country for around ten years.
“In his first apartment in [Montreal], Brad shared an adjoining wall with Sarah Page, a classically trained harpist from Montreal with a propensity for the experimental… a friendship developed and the brothers, with Sarah, began recording and performing around Montreal. Soon, their friend and multi-instrumentalist Andres Vial was brought in to lend his wide array of expertise to the outfit, playing keyboards, bass, vibes, percussion, and singing.”

Brad Barr, they say, had listened to Sarah Page through the wall of his apartment long enough to learn the melody she was playing — whereupon he went next door and played it back for her. That melody, I’m guessing, is what we hear as they duo in “Sarah Through the Wall”:

The foursome just released their first (self-titled) album a couple weeks ago. It’s eerily mature, feeling almost like some other band’s third or fourth outing. For one single, “Beggar in the Morning,” they had some help from Swiss-Canadian artist and lighting designer Stephan Bircher; its video features a visual storyline which transforms all four band members into slightly creepy marionettes, crafted by Bircher from [pause for sting of organ music] the bones of small animals:

(See more of Bircher’s Corpse Bride-ish work at his own site.)

Lyrics:

Beggar in the Morning
(The Barr Brothers)

Steady woman won’t you come on down
I need you right here on the ground
I’ve walked the outskirts of this town
Been terrorized by what I’ve found
I saw a standing virgin bride
Where holy Dionysus died
She tore the heart out of his side
And laid it dead and there she cried

Oh oh oh ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

She said hello I’m a monster too
What poisons me is what poisons you
To these animals we grew
But when we were young our eyes were blue

I take my medicine on my knees
Twice a day, but lately three
It keeps the devil from my door
It makes me rich and it makes me poor

I’m a beggar in the morning
I’m a king at night
When my belt is loose
And my trigger is tight

May come without warning
At the speed of light
Make it shine so pretty
Make it shine so bright

It seems I’ve come a long long way
To sit before you here today
they’re yours and yours the songs I play
To take with you to throw away

Oh oh oh oh ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Oh I want an angel to wipe my tears
I want my dreams, my hopes, desires and fears
We may capsize but we won’t drown
Hold each other as the sun goes down

I’m a beggar in the morning
I’m a king at night
When my belt is loose and my trigger is tight
May come without warning
At the speed of light
Make it shine so pretty make it shine so bright

“I’m a beggar in the morning/I’m a king at night”: that couplet alone is gold. Has the sound of a fairy tale, doesn’t it? I’ve looked around the Web, though, and can’t match the line up with anything other than this song (and of course recast in other words, most obviously The Prince and the Pauper). “Beggar in the Morning” alone would make a great name for a children’s game — one handed down from the Middle Ages, and involving a certain amount of role-playing and -reversal: Tag, you’re poor, and tag, I’m not.

Brad Barr recently stopped in at Guitar World to demonstrate a guitar made from a fishing-tackle box:

…Barr also employs a unique string bow technique, where individual threads are attached to guitar strings and pulled through his fingers to create a static, quivering sound.

The Guitar World article features a video of Barr demonstrating this technique, and a photo slide show of the instrument itself (crafted by a firm called Hobo Nation).