Change Artists

—Inara George

Inara George, in a ’60s mini–shift dress with blousy gossamer sleeves, fluttered her false eyelashes as she sang and strummed softly on her bass guitar, a headband over her bangs and bobbed hair. She has the kind of crystal-clear, honey-toned voice that many singers would die for. Meanwhile, Greg Kurstin, in a crisp suit and tie, sat at his orange-painted Wurlitzer tickling out the tunes. The pair known as the Bird and the Bee were joined onstage at the Troubadour, for the release of their first full-length CD, by three backup singers — a blonde, a redhead and a brunette — all fresh-faced with ribboned pigtails, sweetly dressed in identical pale-orange baby-doll dresses. Something about the old wooden stage, the backup singers, the stylish look of the production was very Prairie Home Companion meets ’60s Brazilian electro-pop jazz. The band, known for its psychedelic, Burt Bacharach–inspired sound, was very put together, unusually so for something that started out as a mere back-burner project.

A lot of that polish comes from statuesque Italian designer Valerj Pobega, who happened to catch the band during their residency at the Silverlake Lounge.

“I thought they were fabulous,” says Pobega, raising a Sophia Loren–esque brow. She went home that night to check out their Web site and was so pleased to see them all dressed up in ’60s clothes. “The ’60s are my main inspiration, so I contacted Inara and Greg and told them that if they ever needed help, I’d be happy to do it.”

Pobega, who takes styling projects on a case-by-case basis, designs a line called KG363, a one-of-a-kind mixed-vintage collection that is sold at EM & Co., on Third Street. George’s dress and the backup singers’ baby-dolls at the CD-release show were the work of Pobega. That show also included a first-ever dress change for George so they could squeeze in one more Pobega design. It was a shimmery black frock with a plunging ruffled neckline.

“I had never done a costume change before,” says George, who now sits Indian style, dressed in skinny jeans, ballet flats and an orange sweater. She laughs because the notion is still foreign to her. It’s two weeks after that Troubadour show, and we’re hanging out in Kurstin’s new house in the Los Feliz hills. It’s modern and clean, with big glass windows and a high swank factor.

“When you go to a Bird and the Bee show,” explains George, “it’s kind of fun and the presentation is fun. I’d prefer to go to a Bird and the Bee show rather than one of my solo shows.”

Three years ago, producer/musician Mike Andrews introduced the pair, suggesting that Kurstin, who’s played with lots of artists, from Beck to Gwen Stefani, lay down some tracks on George’s record All Rise. Musically, it was love at first listen. After their very first rehearsal, they went through every old standard they knew.

“It’s fun going through songs,” says Kurstin, easing back in his chair behind the mixing board in his home studio. “It’s like this other language you know, and you converse during a sing-along.”

It wasn’t long before Kurstin started playing shows with George. “At the end,” he says, smiling, “we’d sneak in a standard, and that was really fun. We’d do a Prince song or an interesting cover. We were recording at the same time, but not really realizing we’d have a record out.”

The pair recorded off and on for three years. Last year, they finally decided to just finish the record. George (whose father, Lowell George, co-founded the band Little Feat and was a member of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention) printed up a few CDs to give to friends and to send to indie labels. She created little packages, gluing on pictures and inking the paper with a Bird and the Bee stamp.

“Somehow,” George says, “it got to somebody at Blue Note, and they really liked it and wanted to sign us before we even had a chance to send it to the indie labels.”

Next thing they knew, they were on Leno. “I’ve never done anything like that,” says George, fiddling with the collar on her cowl-neck sweater. “It’s very nice, you feel very high on the hog.”

Kurstin sits up and adds, “Actually, it crossed my mind a lot of times, ‘Wow, I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ because we just started. I thought maybe like five years down the road, maybe, if this thing grows, we’d be doing something like this. But I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”

With the success of the Bird and the Bee, George has put her solo project on hold for a Bird and the Bee tour through the U.K. and the U.S. with Lily Allen, who was an early fan.

“She’s so cute,” says George of Allen. “She found us on MySpace — she had written to her fans about us, saying, ‘This is my new favorite band, you gotta check this out — this chick’s melodies and voice are amazing.’ ”