@crim you are right. the old IT Crowd “turning it off and turning it on again” trick seemed to sort it out. I think the new clock behaviour was also confusing me; it seems like now taking out the trig source from the crow input, crow remembers the set BPM and continues at that rate, whereas before I seem to remember that taking out the trig in source would stop crow from running.
either way, made this short vid to show crow/animator kicking into high gear. also checked with awake which seems to do just as well. thanks for looking into it and the work on the script. 