How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Andrew Bird
For Andrew Bird, Sundays hold special meaning. Those were the days when jazz would be etched into his subconscious before sunrise — as a 20-something living in Chicago, he’d doze off to late-night music broadcasts on local radio, listening to greats like Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins.
Now, two decades later, Bird’s latest album, “Sunday Morning Put-On” (with Ted Poor on drums and Alan Hampton on bass), pays homage to those early influences.
These days, Sundays look a bit different for the singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and whistler, but they're still a time for decompressing. "I don't really have a typical 9-to-5, 'Thank-God-It's-Friday' lifestyle, but Sunday is the closest thing to that," said Bird, who has released 16 studio albums since his debut in 1996. "It's the one day I can carve out time for nonwork, creative things."
Bird and his wife, Katherine Tsina, along with their 13-year-old son, have set down roots in Northeast L.A., which they've called home for the last 11 years. Bird is currently on tour and will play two shows at the Hollywood Bowl in August with Pink Martini.
For Bird, an avid mountain biker, being able to be outside any day of the year is one of the best things about living in L.A. "I love mountains," he says. "I'm just a lot healthier here than I was anywhere else."
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
8:30 a.m.: Wake up with pancakes and jazz
We'll make breakfast, coffee, put on a jazz record and take it pretty easy. Sometimes we'll make pancakes, like Dutch baby pancakes with lots of fruit on top. That's kind of a special Sunday treat. Other than that, eggs and bacon, and lots of stone fruit berries.
9 a.m.: Grab my bike and hit the trails
If I've got a mountain biking ride scheduled with some other folks, we'll either meet up at Dirt Mulholland or JPL (I just say JPL for all of the trails that are in Altadena via the Arroyo Seco River). That's my ideal spot; it's about 15 minutes away. I'll ride up the Gabrielino Trail where there's horses, hikers, bikers, but it all depends on the temperature. If the weather report says 75 to 80 degrees, it's borderline too hot. Up above when it's exposed, it's really more like 90 degrees. I've come close to having heatstroke up there.
If it's too hot, you stay down on the river bed, which right now has a lot of water in it so you get wet going across six or seven river crossings on your bike. It's an almost jungle-like environment. It's really like another world. If you're used to Griffith Park, which is just scrub and piles of loose sand and quartz, this feels much more tropical and remote.
Read more: Gravel cycling rocks. Here are 11 spots around L.A. that get you biking freely in nature
11 a.m.: Refuel with fresh pasta or sandwiches
After that, not too far away is this deli that I've just been really into lately called Ferrazzani's. It's part of Semolina Artisanal Pastas company and they make fresh pasta right there. Next door, there's an Italian market that has cheese and guanciale and fresh pasta and they make like five different sandwiches. They're all just delicious. It's a nice spot.
1 p.m.: Have a family sketch session
There was one day when [my family and I] went to the Norton Simon Museum and sketched modern art and that was a pretty awesome day, I have to say. The scale of it reminds me of a Chicago museum in a lot of ways, like a mini Art Institute. And I like the building itself, with all the heath piles on the outside.
My mom was an artist and she used to take me and a bunch of my friends down to the Art Institute and we'd bring sketch pads and sketch whatever we found interesting. I started doing that with my family and I don't know why more people don't do it. It makes it a whole different experience and you get to compare your sketches with everyone else that's sketching the same thing. I'm really not a visual artist, but that one little tradition from childhood is something I really enjoy.
Read more: 24 superb things to do around L.A. to kick off the summer of 2024
4 p.m.: Stroll through Atwater Village
We spend a lot of time in Atwater Village on Sundays. They have a farmers market and my wife has a shop there, Avion Clothier. That's been kind of a hub for us for the last nine, 10 years it's been open. It's just a cool spot.
In Atwater there's Alias Books, Proof Bakery and wide sidewalks with cafes. It has street life, which is a rare thing in L.A., and it's designed like an old western town with a super wide boulevard that you could have a parade on, wide sidewalks, and then normal commerce as opposed to the beige corner strip-mall stuff that's all over Hollywood. If you build it, they will come. It's pretty hoppin' these days.
6 p.m.: Sunday family dinner
Afterward we have Sunday family dinner with my wife and son and my sister-in-law who lives down the street. We tend to make homemade Bolognese. It's a joint effort but most of the credit goes to my wife. I'm a line cook.
7:15 p.m.: Watch a movie or jam with my son
And then the extended family comes over and hangs out and we maybe watch a movie all together. Sometimes we kind of split off and my son and I will watch "Rick and Morty" while my wife watches something that's more her speed. Or my son and I will play pingpong or tennis or something like that. He just turned 13 and he's a really good guitarist and singer, but he hasn't shown any desire to make that his life's work at the moment. He got really good at the guitar during the pandemic — he plays finger-picking-style guitar.
It's kind of a tricky dynamic because as a professional musician, every time he says he wants to jam, I'm like, "Oh great, OK," and it lasts about 10 or 15 minutes. Then he goes into a passive resistance mode. So still trying to figure that out. The key is to just kind of be very hands off, but it's hard to repress your pride [as a parent]. He has a good ear and he's a good musician. But then you say like, "Hey, are you gonna go for a solo in the choir?" And that's met with, "Back off."
9:30 p.m.: Wind down — in bed or on a tour bus
[Bedtime] depends on what phase of the year I'm in with touring or what have you. But when I'm at home, I generally start reading at like 9:30 or 10 p.m. and I'm asleep by 11, maybe. I read a lot at night. Right now I'm reading Don Carpenter's "Hard Rain Falling." It's a ’50s noir, prison, tough-guy sort of novel.
If I'm on a bus tour, I'm in the bunk as soon as the bus starts rolling, by 12:30 or 1 a.m. It's hard to describe sleeping with 10 other people in like 400 square feet as "luxurious," but you have a day sheet that tells you what your obligations are for that day, where you have to be, what time. And otherwise you're kind of off the hook. Life is very simple. So I sleep much better on tour.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
