The Red & Black’s altar to the lords of thundering bass and lightening fast shreddery in Athens Feb. 16-20.

Bird of Another Feather: Bird Names

Dude, lets start a metal/jam/funk/blues/operatic thrash punk band!

Step 1: listen to some influential bands. Step 2: learn some covers of stuff you will eventually rip off. Step 3: brainstorm wicked band names.

It’s a pretty simple formula. Bird Names chose a slightly more taxing path.

“When you make a band … you have to figure out all the rules for yourself,” said David Lineal, Bird Names’ lead songwriter. “You can fall back on like, ‘We’re a band, we should do this, this is what music should sound like,’ but really it’s all totally free form.”

For Lineal and musical compatriot/Bird Names partner Phelan Lavelle, starting this band was an exercise of breaking down the process to its naked core.

“You have to make music to be in a band, that’s a rule most people would agree on,” Lineal said. “But it’s pretty open-ended on what it means or how you could interpret it or what you can do with it.”

The musicians just moved to Athens from Chicago in August, where they’d been developing their sound since 2005.

“If you’re gonna move anyplace, this is a good place to move because there are so many talented working musicians doing cool stuff now,” Lavelle said.

Included in the “cool stuff now” crew is indie-freakpop band Quiet Hooves, with whom Bird Names had toured when the band was living in Chicago.

“That’s part of our reason to move to Athens, ‘cause it’s a place where you can be in an underground pop band and it’s OK,” Lineal said. “Most places it’s not.”

That underground pop sound is a specialty of Bird Names. Sparse or seemingly random instrumentations, layered harmonies that don’t necessarily harmonize, simple, child-like melodies that are layered and reduced to the point of ambiguity.

There’s something infectious in this simplicity/confusion though, like the beauty in a whole flock of birds singing at the same time.

An important step in Lineal and Lavelle’s painstakingly authentic process was something many musicians never bother to do: thinking about what they’re doing.

“There is an ideology about how you see the usefulness of music,” Lavelle said. “If you want it to be beneficial or at least interesting to yourself, you have to ask yourself these questions.”

The reason many overlook this step: it’s hard, Lineal said.

“‘What are you doing with music?’ I feel like that’s something we constantly wrestle with,” he said.

So what is the point? What makes it worth the struggle?

“It’s like, making noise and feeling human and being human together, to me that’s a really incredible political thing that’s happening in the world today,” Lineal said. “It’s like, quasi-revolutionary, and somehow it gets to happen.”

This music, this DIY, underground, authentic-centric experiment is important, Lineal and Lavelle said, because it’s real, it’s finite, and it’s bigger than just a diversion.

“It’s this private culture that goes on that just lights up and dies away,” Lineal said. “And it’s fun, but I feel like there’s more words also for what it is. You can sense that the word fun is not totally accurate… there’s something there besides that.”

Passion for the act of making music drives Bird Names to tour often, just as it is about to embark on an East Coast tour after its show Friday. “To me, that we’ve been able to do that on a total shoe string, barely any money for years and years, we’ve managed to keep it going along, it’s cool,” Lineal said.

Bird Names

When: Friday at 11 p.m.

Where: Farm 255

Price: Free

Also Playing: Hot New Mexicans, Wade Boggs

THURSDAY

The Bad Manor

9 p.m., $5 (21+), $10 (18+)

The Movement

Beach-ready reggae ska on U.S. tour

Caledonia Lounge

10 p.m., $5 (21+), $7 (18+)

The Desarios

Big, chunky pop-rock; amped and awfully catchy

Groove Tangent

Anthemic rock covers just for the love of it

The Personal Favorite

Brand new band; maybe your new favorite?

Hendershot’s Coffee Bar

8 p.m., Free

Exception to the Rule

Harmonies like mountain wind on North Ga. bluegrass

Hotel Indigo

6 p.m., Free

Carl Lindberg

Beloved local latin-world-jazz bassist playing originals and standards

Rye Bar

9 p.m., Free

The Nice Machine

High energy surf punk, with the occasional bosanova interlude

Taste Like Good

Heavy rock in the late-’90s vein, though with classic roots

Thieves Market

Female vocal led hard rock/metal

The Max Canada

7 p.m., Free

Crane

Thumpin’ soul roots rock with RnB/hip hop vocals

Jonathan Sexton & The Big Love Choir

Heavy hearted pop; folk ballads, driving rock, reggae-gospel, and probably more

Mississippi John Doude

Stomp and holler dirty delta blues plus a dose of country

The Melting Point

8:30 p.m., $5 in adv.

High Strung String Band

Banjo pickin’, double-bass thumpin’ blue-Americana-grass

Smokey’s Farmland Band

Dobro and fiddle heavy ATL bluegrass

WUOG 90.5 fm

Live in the Lobby

8 p.m., Free

Casper and the Cookies

Highly theatrical and false-eyelash-ed super sunshine powerpop-rock

FRIDAY

Caledonia Lounge

10 p.m., $5 (21+), $7 (18+)

Semicircle Family Band

Reptar and CocoRico incestual jammathon

Adron

Latin influenced indie-pop; classical guitars, synths, and echo drenched vocals

Little Tybee

Hugely diverse tunes based in beautifully original melodies

Farm 255

See “Birds of Another Feather”

Highwire

8 p.m., Free

Rand Lines Trio

Piano led jazz, classic standards and cerebral originals

Little Kings Shuffle Club

See “Blossoming Transplant”

New Earth Music Hall

10 p.m.,

Soul Spectacular Dance Party

Heavy hitter DJs Kurt Wood and Mahogany host Fred Schnieder of B-52s

Rye Bar

10 p.m., Free

Finley Knight

Chicago-based jam-mix to dance with and hooky melodies to sing-a-long

Sumilan

Reverb filled jam rock; mellow and danceable

Terrapin Beer Co.

5:30 p.m., $10 with a glass

JK & The Lost Boys

Acousti-rock heavy on pop melodies

Connor Pledger

Acousti-funk and folk fronted by dynamic vocals

The Classic Center

SOLD OUT

The B-52s

Roam if you want to, but not here. Happy scalping!

The Melting Point

9 p.m., $10 in adv.

The Highballs

’70s/ ’80s covers that pledge to “get the party on its feet.”

SATURDAY

40 Watt Club

‘Athens Business Rocks’

9 p.m., $5

Local business bands compete to raise money for Nuçi’s Space

Caledonia Lounge

9:30 p.m., $5 (21+), $7 (18+)

Easter Island

Melancholic and alluring indie rock

Eddie the Wheel

Minimalist acoustic with a dissonant ambience

Pile

Dirt grunge layered onto folk songs

Spring Tigers

Post-punk, hi energy electro-rock

Farm 255

11 p.m., Free

Kalen Nash

Ponderosa’s alt-country frontman does a solo set

Shovels and Rope

Folk rock-pop with a rootsy wild side

Flicker Theatre & Bar

9 p.m., Free

Howler

Mean post-punk blues and pop sensible rock from Savannah

Liars & Lovers

Rocking, rolling, Americana comfortable with it’s softer side

Hendershot’s Coffee Bar

1 p.m.-midnight, $5 all ages

Nuçi’s Space Benefit

A whole slew of Nuçi’s bred younguns do their thing for the cause

Little Kings Shuffle Club

10 p.m., Free

Emily Armond

Solo ghost-folk from Sea of Dogs frontmadam

Kate Morrissey

Local’s smooth, controlled voice guided by piano based jazz-folk-pop

Terrapin Beer Co.

5 p.m., $10 with a glass

Valero

Dance-pop-rock with classic rock roots from Clemson

The Melting Point

9 p.m., $5 in adv.

Jamie DiCiurcio

Next Best Friend’s acoustic pop played solo by frontman

Matt Joiner

Hefty, guitar-centric bluesfunk