Ladybirds 'Regional Community Theater' album

What do Gym Class Heroes’ Tyler Pursel, Say Anything’s Max Bemis, and The Get Up Kids’ Matt Pryor have in common? Well, apart from playing in a handful of this nation’s finest pop bands, those performers, along with Justin Johnson from Philly area band The Danger O's and Neil Sabatino from Jersey-based band Fairmont, all play on LadybiRdS’ debut LP, Regional Community Theater.

The project --to put out a record of glitched up dance pop guested on by his friends-- was the brainchild of Pursel’s. Everyone was excited to be involved, the songs were laid out, but then something happened; the record, initially conceived as more of mix-and-match project, found a frontwoman in New Jersey-bred fireball Teeter Sperber, former lead singer of the little known yet sort of well-liked Ley Royal Scam.

Says Pursel, “I always had these sketches for songs. When we first sat down, we thought of having Teeter sing on a song or two, but before long we thought she was just such a good match that we’d have her on the whole thing. The record was easy in that way. It just happened so naturally.”

So the tie that binds all these birds of a feather is none other than LadybiRdS vocalist, Teeter Sperber, and you’d hardly know at first listen that this is something she’s fairly new to, “singing is way scary for me,” says Sperber from her home on the Oregon coast.

Longtime friend Pryor doesn’t share her doubts, “Teeter has so much charisma that on some level you can’t help but assume her personality would shine through in the studio. I have known her for the better part of 10 years. I met her ages ago at a slew of Get Up Kids shows; she’d pop up in suburban New Jersey or in Glasgow, Scotland. She was a star long before she sang her first note.”

Bemis agrees, “I really liked vocally dueling with Teet in the studio and I hope everyone enjoys the fruits of our joust. LadybiRdS is as fun as Teet herself, like splurging your entire allowance on comic books.”
Sperber, herself is something of a jackie of all trades, her career has run the gamut: she’s been a rock publicist, handled A&R duties at Virgin Records, peddled band t-shirts at MerchDirect, and currently co-runs a family-owned tote bag and accessories company called 31 Corn Lane that's made everything from heart-shaped change purses to dufflebags for The Darkness. Really, she’s done everything but front a band. Sperber muses, “Now that I know both sides fairly well, I’d take thrashing about on stage singing wildly off key any day over being chained to a desk, drinking watery coffee from that perpetually broken dispenser in the corporate kitchen.”

While Sperber’s contributions are hopelessly infectious, you’d be hard pressed to discount Pursel’s stellar song craft. “Tyler’s instrumentation,” says Teeter, “is the work of a full-on musical baby genius. You can totally hear the born-n-raised in suburbia style Atari 2600 influences embedded in every note.” Pursel blushes, "Making this record was a cool experience for me because I got to combine my love of pop songs and lo-fi indie electronica. Teeter's voice just sits perfectly over all of it."

So what about the music? All too many side projects feel a bit half-baked, just a little under cooked. Thankfully, that isn’t the case here. The record is front-to-back as solid a slab of pepped up sugary glitch pop-spunk as you are likely to hear this year. The band touts their tracks as, "Cyndi Lauper superfan meets – a cupcake pop version of – The Postal Service on diet pills before Ephedra was banned by the FDA.” Which isn’t far from the truth, but in their attempt at downplaying their skills they’ve ignored how rare it is to write a record this saccharine; Regional Community Theater is a joyous listen, filled to the brim with top-notch production details, rich hooks, and stunning contributions all serving as a backdrop from which Sperber might finally settle into her new role, but then again, maybe not.

Sperber closes, “I'm a total spazz who has her hand lightly placed in a bazillion different treasure chests. I do lots of things at once, whether it be LadybiRdS, running 31 Corn Lane with my sisters, working at a summer snowboard camp for faux-punk teens, or bird watching like a retired granny on the Oregon Coast – I like to keep the Teeter wheels in constant motion. I’m too restless and attention deficit to live any other way.”

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Ladybirds - Regional Community Theater