Song cycles

Photo: Calbee Booth

Andrew Bird
Singer-songwriter
“I’ve definitely written songs while biking,” says Bird. “Just occupying your body so your mind can wander is pretty key.” “A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left” from Bird’s 2005 breakthrough album The Mysterious Production of Eggs is one of many melodies that came to him on two wheels.

He brings his bike, a Heron (appropriately for a Bird), on the tour bus. “I bought it for myself as a reward for all the touring I do. It’s been great, but four years ago in Saint Paul [Minnesota], I spaced out and went over a curb and my handlebars, bashing the hell out of my knees.”

He likes to cruise the backstreets of Bucktown in summer, late at night. “On Hoyne or Leavitt between Division and Webster with the streetlights and canopy of trees,” he says, “it feels like a movie set.”

Photo: Calbee Booth

Mark Messing
Leader of Mucca Pazza
“I often write music in my head while riding,” says Messing, who’s been car-free since 2004. Messing says inspiration springs from spying views of the city from bridges and cycling past the A. Finkl & Sons Steel Mill on the western edge of Lincoln Park.

Members of his 30-piece “circus punk marching band” tow sousaphones and glockenspiels to gigs on bike trailers. The band’s studio, Maestromatic, shares a space with the West Town Bikes community cycle center. Shop manager Alex Wilson built Messing’s workhorse cycle, so the musician doesn’t know what brand logo lies beneath the reflective tape.

Messing says he enjoys biking Chicago because he gets to pass cars stuck in traffic. “I like thinking about all the money I no longer spend on gas, parking tickets and getting my car debooted.”

Photo: Nicole Radja

Sally Timms
Singer with the Mekons and Wee Hairy Beasties
A regular commuter, Timms likes to croon while cycling. “You can really howl away, especially on Elston where there’s no one else around.” She also uses saddle time to brainstorm song arrangements for albums she is currently recording with veteran punk rockers the Mekons and the children’s-music trio Wee Hairy Beasties.

Growing up in the town of Huby in West Yorkshire, U.K., she often rambled around the countryside on a five-speed, but now she gets around on a rugged Diamondback mountain bike. “I don’t care for it the way I should,” she says, “but it’s never let me down.”

Timms says she occasionally must endure catcalls. “If you’ve gone out in a skirt you’ll get comments, that’s for sure. But it’s faster than walking, [and] I wouldn’t walk down Elston at night but I’ll ride on it.”

Photo: Nicole Radja

John Herndon
Drummer with Tortoise and various jazz groups
“The rhythm of riding relates to my role as a percussionist,” says Herndon, an ex-messenger. “I sing along with the rhythm my legs are making.”

In 2005, Herndon bought a Klein aluminum touring bike while performing in Europe so he could quickly explore each city during brief stops. He once attempted to pedal from Chicago to his native Asheville, North Carolina, switching from highways to country roads in Kentucky. “Dogs were on my ass the whole way,” he says. He finally bailed and hitched a ride with a trucker.

Nowadays Herndon rides a Bridgestone mountain bike he bought from bandmate Doug McCombs’s inlaws’ bike shop in Ohio. He recently used it to pull a small drum kit on a trailer to his weekly residency at Danny’s bar in Bucktown. “A goal of mine,” he says, “is to bike to more shows.”