We’ve played three or four shows where a cool dad is usually the most enthusiastic responder,” says David Lineal, frontman of Chicago’s Bird Names.

It’s not something new for the quintet – which also includes co-founder Colin Hartz, Albert Schatz, Eric Siegel and Naomi Caffee – to receive what is generally considered an atypical crowd reaction to the band’s performances.

After Bird Names played a set at Grinnell College, the band discovered a less-than-enthusiastic reaction on an attendee’s LiveJournal: “The second band, Bird Names, sucked. They sucked hard, and they knew it, and they loved every second of it. They were so bad that they went beyond funny into tedious. There were some drunk people in the audience who must have come just for Bird Names, because they left right afterwards, but they danced amazingly. They were like floppy dancing zombies.”

During a phone interview, the band – with the exception of the “token girl,” and only member with a paying job, Naomi – described the complaint as “beautiful,” pointing out that “they loved every second of it.”

“It gets to a core of the band, which is an attitude kind of like rock – it’s all about the attitude,” Lineal says.

The band also conceded that, “it didn’t really surprise (them) to get that kind of reaction; it’s a pretty usual response from audiences or people.”

Unable to draw a comparison between Bird Names’ music and anything else I’ve heard, I asked Lineal to describe his band’s sound for me. His response: “I like to think of the band’s music as noise-pop, or at least pop in general – the term ‘noise’ being kind of like a buzzword these days – kind of navigating the tension between your sort of being repelled by it but also your liking it. Sometimes gearing into a shit-rocking domain where it’s shitty but it rocks, you know? Teetering back and forth between ‘Oh, man, this music is obnoxious’ and ‘This music is fucking my head.’”

You’ll just have to hear it for yourself when Bird Names plays a free show Jan. 16 with Wooden Wand and Friends at the Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave.

The band name, “Bird Names,” is not one the group necessarily likes; it’s just the next step in an evolutionary cycle that has gone from “The Culinary Arse,” “More Dangerous Than Spiders” and others since their inception in June 2004. “Bird Names,” Lineal says, was better than the other options – such as “The Dads” and “Church Rape” – that were considered at the poker game where they were named – which, according to Lineal, may or may not have involved cocaine.

Described as “arty deconstructionists” on the Empty Bottle’s Web site, perhaps the unenthusiastic response to Bird Names can be attributed to their relaxed attitude and disregard for negative comments, which can be falsely associated with poor performance and musicianship. Don’t be fooled: While Bird Names may come off as peculiar for a group of mostly-unemployed and struggling artists, the members – like so many others in local, underground scenes – are dedicated to their music.

The band goes quiet in the background as we wrap up the interview and they prepare to move forward with the practice I have interrupted. Finishing with an analysis of concert crowds, Lineal guesses that about 70 percent hate Bird Names’ music.

“Most people are indifferent depending on how bad we sounded and two or three people really like it,” Lineal says. “I would guess it’s like that for most bands, which is okay,” he adds. “I mean, try not to get defeated.”