Featherbeard brings his unique brand of music to the Valley on Saturday night.
(photo by Eliot Lee Hazel)

I watched a man wearing a floor-length dress and a feather beard sing a tender, heartfelt song about babies who die. The babies who don't die will become "big old baby babes." The dead babies, meanwhile, get to swim eternally in a river of milk provided by a gigantic breast in the sky.





When I saw Featherbeard play in July, I was sitting on a garage floor at a co-op in Isla Vista, U.C. Santa Barbara's college town. Angelenos now have a chance to see this L.A.-based singer perform on September 19, at a restaurant in Topanga called Abuelitas.

"Abuelita means, 'little grandmother,'" Featherbeard explained in an e-mail. "I am excited to play music inside of a little grandmother, since the only woman I have sung from inside of before is my mother."




He currently isn't signed to a label, but is open to the idea. "I want for God to reach down his furry hand and make it happen, but I will not sully myself with pettiness. I will die, then. If you have a record label, I will love to be on it, or in it, or with it."



During the show I saw, he sang his creepy lullaby, "dreem Babey dreem," with an exaggerated deep voice while playing the autoharp (an instrument that sounds prettier than a guitar, but strangely nightmarish, because there are so many more strings). There is a good recording of "dreem Babey dreem" on his Myspace page, which my friends and I have been visiting regularly.

As good as he sounds online, it still doesn't match his live performance. His lyrics are serious, and can even intimidate the audience the song was intended for.

"I sang this song for a baby once. He just cried. I think it was the horrible thought of learning meaningless things that made him cry."


At his show this weekend, he says to expect a great set and great food. " I promise to self-immolate twice and then resurrect as a mountain lion so that I can eat some of the tastymeat they will serve at Abuelitas."