Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*)

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Nov 21, 2019 23:34:22 GMT

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Post by petrolino on Nov 21, 2019 23:34:22 GMT

Kristin Hersh : Bird Of Paradox

Martha Kristin Hersh was born on August 7, 1966 in Atlanta, Georgia. Her family moved to Newport, Rhode Island when she was six years old. Her father took up a teaching post at Salve Regina University (founded by the Sisters of Mercy) and her mother taught children with special educational needs. After her parents separated, her mother got remarried to the father of her best friend, Tanya Donelly, making them step-sisters, but they called themselves sisters. Hersh pushed Donelly to join her in a new band she was forming and the Muses were officially launched by the two young teenagers (Hersh and Donelly are born less than a month apart). The band extended its name to become Throwing Muses while both girls were still attending Rogers High School in Newport. In 1985, Throwing Muses became the first American act signed to the British independent record label 4AD.

Hersh and Donelly both play guitar, piano and organ, but as far as I'm aware, only Hersh plays keys in Throwing Muses (Donelly has played keyboards on some of her solo recordings). Bass player Elaine Adamedes and drummer Becca Blumen enjoyed short stints with the Muses during their school days. The band's line-up settled when Leslie Langston came in on bass and David Narcizo filled the drum stool. When Langston left the group in 1990, their old friend Fred Abong stepped in on bass. Having recorded one album with this new line-up, Donelly departed, taking Abong with her, which allowed for the band's close associate Bernard Georges to step in permanently on bass. Since this time, the band has mostly performed as a stripped-down power trio, with Donelly occasionally returning to the fold. All six recorded musicians' paths have crossed over the years, in various capacities, making them the Thrown Muses.

"Throwing Muses are an island band. Water imagery recurs, and experiencing their best work is much like being turned by a wave; a big roller that leaves you, battered and elated, a good distance from where you started. The number of these moments on their first few albums and EPs, from 1986’s self-titled debut through to The Fat Skier EP and 1988’s House Tornado, is astonishing. This period dominates half of Anthology, and represents the high point of a nearly constantly impressive body of work."

- Chris Power, The British Broadcasting Corporation

"Rhode Island's Throwing Muses were one of the great US alt-rock bands of the 80s and 90s."

- Dave Simpson, The Guardian

David Narcizo, Kristin Hersh, Tanya Donelly & Leslie Langston

Interview with Throwing Muses

Hersh also performs in side-projects with her fellow Muses; this includes Narcizo's electronica outfit Lakuna, and the rock 'n' roll outfit 50FootWave with Georges on bass and Rob Ahlers on drums. Hersh has been treated for schizophrenic disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic disorder and dissociative disorders, engaging diagnosis and misdiagnosis, sharper aspects of life documented within her lyrics and through her writings. The one constant is that she always gets back out on the road ...

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Throwing Muses

Interview with Throwing Muses

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'Throwing Muses' (1986) - Throwing Muses

Leslie Langston

"On a list of the best college-alternative-indie-whatever youcallit albums ever released, Throwing Muses’ debut ranks with R.E.M.'s “Murmur” and the most accomplished albums of the Replacements, Violent Femmes, Husker Du and Sonic Youth. There was no obvious precedent for “Throwing Muses.” The Muses did gather strands of influence from the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Devo, B-52’s, Yoko Ono and other underground icons. The Rhode Island-bred band also appreciated a good folk-rock melody and was open to the pleasures of a galloping, countrified beat. But the Muses (founders Kristin Hersh, Tanya Donelly and David Narcizo were still in their teens when they made the album, and bassist Leslie Langston was only slightly into her 20s) emerged with something distinctively and strangely their own.
“Throwing Muses” is an album of constant dips, turns and reversals, in which hard, driven guitar passages evoking a race through a dark and scary tunnel can give way suddenly to lovely, gently rueful ballad singing. Hersh, the main singer and songwriter, is the one doing most of the tunneling (Donelly, who went on to front Belly, contributes one song, the haunting, ethereal “Green”). Hersh’s lyrics are oblique shards of imagery and symbolism; most of the time she seems to be fighting off night fears of being blanketed by some unidentified psychosexual dread. Her voice makes vivid the barking fear of a madwoman being set upon by her worst demons, but it can subside into a quiet, intimate zone of emotional weariness.
Dread may have been the album’s keynote, but a fresh listening reveals a good deal of humor as well. The slyness and exaggeration in some of Hersh’s vocal contortions suggest that she could momentarily distance herself from the woes being enacted and gain a wry, self-mocking perspective on her Angst."

- Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times

"Throwing Muses' self-titled 1986 debut is still a startling collision of punk energy, folky melodicism, and Kristin Hersh's mercurial voice and lyrics. The violent, vibrant mood swings on songs like "Call Me" are a testament not only to Hersh's unique talent, but the elasticity of Tanya Donelly, David Narcizo, and Leslie Langston's playing. Even if the volatile moods on songs like "Hate My Way" aren't easily understood, they're easily felt; the twists and turns "Vicky's Box" and "Rabbits Dying" take are guided purely by the intense emotions they carry. Throwing Muses is almost as varied musically as it is emotionally, ranging from the scary punkabilly of "America (She Can't Say No)" to "Stand Up"'s angular, acoustic post-punk to the cathartic thrill of "Delicate Cutters"'s unsettling folk. Donelly contributes the surreal, ethereal love song "Green"; even at this early point in the Muses' career, it's clear that she is a more accessible, straightforward songwriter, despite the care taken to make the song sound more like the rest of the album. A powerful debut, Throwing Muses puts the work of most self-consciously "tortured" artists to shame; its fluid, effortless emotional shifts may not make for the most accessible music, but they're unquestionably genuine."

- Heather Phares, AllMusic

'Hate My Way' - Throwing Muses

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'The Fat Skier' (1987) - Throwing Muses

“We recorded the Fat Skier in Boston, at night, because our budget wouldn’t allow us to work during the day. Appolonia – a Prince chick, I believe – was working in our studio during the day, so her lyrics were sitting on a music stand in the vocal booth, divided into syllables that the engineers would auto-tune one at a time. Of course, we did entire vocal takes singing her lyrics instead of ours; we simply had to. They were f*cking hilarious. We also held “rat races” leaning out the window and following rats down the alley. We each chose a rat and cheered our rat on as it collected food from the dumpsters and carried it home. When we left at the end of the session, we realized that the rats which looked about 6″ long from the 5th floor, must’ve been about 2 feet long on the ground. I personally don’t remember doing any actual work on this record.”

- Kristin Hersh, With Guitars

'And A She-Wolf After The War' - Throwing Muses

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'House Tornado' (1988) - Throwing Muses

"Maybe I'm the only one who sees things this way, or maybe it's just a few people around my age, but I bracket this music in with the Sonic Youth of the second half of the eighties, the first two or three Pixies albums and Galaxie 500. This was never a scene, and as such it didn't have a name (if "indie rock" had been coined by then, it denoted a different set of music with a specific, narrower focus than it has now). But, to my mind, it adds up to a whole lot more than all of grunge and all of britpop put together.
What do I hear in these recordings that makes them important? A commitment to old-fashioned guitar/bass/drums rock music but approached askance, slightly out of tune, off-centre, or, in the case of early Throwing Muses, always on the point of cracking. As I said previously of Throwing Muses, it's the grain of Kristin Hersh's voice that embodies this for me.
As far as I remember this, their second (full-length) album, was compared unfavourably in the music press to both their first and third. Somehow that indicated to me that I might like it, and I did — from the febrile energy of the opening lines about cold lightening and feeling like an alarm clock to A Feeling, which is more sedate, but still stretched as tight as animal hide over a hand drum."

- Arcadia, Music Arcades

"Kristin Hersh specialises in opening lyrics that make one shiver triumphantly."

- M.J. Nicholls, 'House Tornado'

'The River' - Throwing Muses

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'Hunkpapa' (1989) - Throwing Muses

"Following the one-two punch of the harder-edged Throwing Muses and House Tornado, Hunkpapa was the work of a band in a time of re-appraisal and change. The twin songwriting team of half-sisters Tanya Donelly and Kirstin Hersh had settled in to their respective roles. While Donelly presented the sweeter, more melodic and vulnerable side to the foursome, Hersh used her bi-polarity to mine a series of intense and visceral rides through her own psyche.
On Hunkpapa the spoils were divided as before, with Hersh taking the lion’s share of credits. But this time her efforts were tempered with a commerciality that had previously been the domain of Donelly. A lot of this comes down to Gary Smith’s rather over-lush production. While taking off a lot of the edge, it brings Hersh’s “Dizzy” to life and can’t even begin to dull coruscating fare like her tale of a prostitute, “Bea”.
But what really keeps Hunkpapa in the realm of greatness is the band’s ability to keep up with Hersh’s idiosyncratic muse. Especially of note is drummer Dave Narcizo whose elasticity makes these angular and punchy slices of college rock come to life."

- Dennis O'Dell, The British Broadcasting Corporation

"I met Kristin Hersh on Rhode Island once. She intimidated the beeJesus out of me – and she ain’t an intimidating person. She chatted, all sweetness and light and cute cuticles, about going to an ostrich farm for her honeymoon where they use Big Gulp cups to catch the masturbated ostrich sperm in. (Small Gulp cups just don’t do it.) For some reason, that anecdote always stuck with me.
I always wondered about Throwing Muses, cos they always seemed to be the blues, the Neil Young, the blues, the awkward and the social misfits, the blues, the Tanya Donelly to me. I’m not writing well. I’m seizing up. Tongue-tied. Flailing around inside my head. This frequently happens when I’m within hearing range of genius. And yes f*ck, Kristin Hersh is a genius around a guitar and a song and an interpretation. The rest of Throwing Muses are pretty f*cking cool too. If Kristin’d been male she would have lost the “greatest female singer-songwriter” tag decades ago and been called “greatest singer-songwriter” except she is female of course and so that’s an entirely irrelevent comment about hidden sexism.
Calm down man.
Listen to the music. Listen to the music."

- Everett True, '101. Throwing Muses'

'Devil's Roof' - Throwing Muses

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'The Real Ramona' (1991) - Throwing Muses

Fred Abong

"If Throwing Muses’ lengthy recording career is one with many peaks and few troughs, few would argue that their golden age was the Tanya Donelly years, her piercing, witchy vocals a perfectly eerie counterpoint to the feral roar and harsh, jagged guitars of her step-sister (and chief muse) Kristin Hersh.
And of those Donelly-era records, the two key ones are those that bookend her tenure with the band. The boiling rage, howled trauma and convention-blind song structures of 1986’s debut Untitled still make for one of the most chokingly intense albums ever made. And then five years later we have The Real Ramona. It is not a harrowing emotional touchstone. It is, simply, a record made up of really catchy, really well-crafted indie-pop songs, not a million miles away from the type of stuff their chums (and labelmates) the Pixies were throwing out at the time. From The Smiths’ debut to Nirvana’s Nevermind, The Strokes’ Is This It and Arcade Fire’s Funeral, alt-rock always needs catchy records to rally around if it is to remain vibrant; The Real Ramona glows with vitality.
That’s maybe not something you could tell from Hersh’s lyrics, which are abstract as ever, but the moment the rinky-dink drums and stop-start rhythm of opener Counting Backwards lollop over the horizon like a friendly hound, you know this going to be fun. Sure, the grit and weirdness are still here, but they’ve taken on new forms, the wiggier moments transmuted into pretty, semi-abstract fragments like Him Dancing, Red Shoes, Graffiti and Dylan, the hammered guitars and animal snarls shaped into the grungy, anthemic hooks of Golden Thing, Ellen West and Say Goodbye. Donelly, meanwhile, plays a blinder – her lissom Not Too Soon is probably the catchiest tune she ever wrote, which is impressive given that the chorus is essentially her clearing her throat.
The Real Ramona was written by a bunch of talented weirdoes who’d spent the best part of the last decade screaming at people over demented time signatures. So yes, they wrote an album of great pop songs, but when they did so they in no way surrendered their intrinsic otherness – two decades of indie-pop later, it still sounds arresting."

- Andrzej Lukowski, The British Broadcasting Corporation

"The Real Ramona marked the perfect balance of Throwing Muses' angular songwriting and latent pop tendencies. Where Hunkpapa tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to mix these elements, this album succeeds with surreal pop songs like "Counting Backwards" and "Red Shoes." They're catchy and riveting, clearly linked to the band's early material yet more focused and accessible. "Graffiti" and "Two-Step" are two of Kristin Hersh's most appealing pop snippets, but dark, uncompromising tracks like "Say Goodbye," "Ellen West," and "Hook in Her Head" reaffirm that she can still write troubling, fascinating songs like nobody else. And just before she left the Muses to form Belly, Tanya Donelly finally arrived as a full-fledged songwriter with the giddy, gleeful "Not Too Soon" and "Honeychain," proving that she could be a charming foil to Hersh's more challenging style. Their final album as a quartet, The Real Ramona highlights the best points of the group's sound, making it a great starting point for new Throwing Muses fans."

- Heather Phares, AllMusic

'Not Too Soon' - Throwing Muses

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'Red Heaven' (1992) - Throwing Muses

Bernard Georges

"It was at Power Station, I think. I was friends with Kristin [Hersh], still am. She asked if I would come in and sing on that. There was a control room, big open recording room, and two isolation booths in the back where you might put an amp or where someone might sing. She had just had a child, months old. They put him in his bassinet in one of the isolation booths with a vintage tube microphone so if he woke up and needed anything we would’ve heard it through the control room. [Laughs] I think Art Garfunkel might’ve drifted through, too, during the day with his kid.
This was around Black Sheets Of Rain, before Sugar. That period, ’90 or ’91, that circle of friends with Kristin and Vic Chesnutt, people like that. Those were people I was always comfortable doing things with, kindred spirits. That was probably one of the first."

- Bob Mould, Stereogum

'The Visit' - Throwing Muses

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'University' (1995) - Throwing Muses

"Possibly their finest album, Throwing Muses' fifth album, University, blends the rock power of Red Heaven, their first effort as a trio, with the shiny, surreal pop of The Real Ramona. The result is a collection of songs, like the album opener, "Bright Yellow Gun," that are as ferociously kinetic as they are insinuatingly melodic. At first, Tanya Donelly's departure from the group might have been seen as a liability, but on this dreamy yet direct album, it's an asset: it gives Kristin Hersh room for her most wide-ranging collection of songs yet. "Start," "Hazing," "Shimmer," and "Teller" are some of her most immediate, deceptively sweet punk-pop confections, rivalling previous Muses classics like "Counting Backwards" in their hooky intensity. Yet the delicate "Crabtown" and "Fever Few" reaffirm Hersh's finesse with brooding, folky melodies. "That's All You Wanted" and "Snakeface" remain two of the Muses' catchiest songs, and the driven "No Way in Hell" and "Flood" show that Hersh hasn't lost any of her edge. University's smooth, streamlined production adds a bit of sheen to Hersh's jagged, elliptical guitar lines and keening vocals, but doesn't rob either of its impact; if anything, the album's polish just heightens its flowing yet diverse sound. The album the Muses had been trying to make since Hunkpapa, University is as hypnotic as it is accessible. "

- Heather Phares, AllMusic

'Bright Yellow Gun' - Throwing Muses

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'Limbo' (1996) - Throwing Muses

"Of course, they say she's not so manic now, and certainly the eighth Throwing Muses album conveys the contented aura of a band who have at last found their niche in the rock'n'roll cosmos. When the Mk1 Muses crumbled under the stress of trying to be pop stars, Kristin Hersh in effect started again, at first retreating behind oppressive metallic drapes for 'Red Heaven', then making a solo record. But last year's 'University' was a positive restatement of intent and now 'Limbo' heralds the transitional period emphatically at an end. The key lies in its low-key sonic timbre. Even the bits that convention deems should be loud - Hersh's bleak electric guitar, David Narcizo's ascetic tub-thumpery - are ruthlessly compressed. Thus 'Ruthie's Knocking', a carefree up-tempo thing that the Muses' former major label patrons would have invited Jim Steinman to remix, sounds like a bumblebee playing hopscotch in a crisp packet. It's not so much lo-fi as micro-pop, and initially threatens to underwhelm the listener. But if 'University' had a fault it was the rather self-consciously 'accessible' production, and it's surely a measure of the Muses' self-esteem that they no longer feel the need to impress anyone with their ability to rock like Satan's nasal hair clippings and have a hit single in the process.
Nor do they over-employ Martin McCarrick's cello on the likes of 'Serene', where the Muses unveil their newly patented sub-genre: chamber-folk. 'Limbo''s superficial neatness conceals much behavioural impropriety. "You lock the cuffs in your pocket around my wrists/I'll even let you pretend that I didn't resist," coos Ma Hersh on 'Tango', while the turbulent 'Tar Kissers' lauds the inherent gooeyness of human interaction: "Kissing you's like kissing gravel/It feels like getting drunk..." While the galaxy's supernova sons and daughters poke away at the sexual imperative with a blunt chainsaw, the mighty Kristin merely tugs at her cardie sleeve and reduces several houses to rubble. All this in a voice ever more woozily comic, earthy and lustrous, nurtured by the wisdom of experience.
That title is presumably ironic, then. Throwing Muses' eighth LP has blessings aplenty, negligible flaws, and can boast an unannounced extra track that actually deserves to be there. The masses are unlikely to subscribe, but then they've never really been on Kristin Hersh's Christmas list. If, however, you're of keen ear and wounded heart and not sure of exactly where you stand, then 'Limbo' is a fine place to start."

- Keith Cameron, New Musical Express

'Shark' - Throwing Muses

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'In A Doghouse' (1998) - Throwing Muses

"Throwing Muses' classic first album was never released in the U.S., nor was their follow-up EP, Chains Changed. For well over a decade, the two records were only available as imports through 4AD, which meant that Throwing Muses, one of the most influential and individual albums of late-'80s alternative rock, was very hard for anyone outside of devoted record collectors to track down. Rykodisc fortunately remedied that situation in 1998 with the release of In a Doghouse, a double-disc set that provides a comprehensive overview of the Muses' early years. The first disc is devoted to Throwing Muses and Chains Changed, while the second disc contains the group's self-released demo tape The Doghouse Cassette and five recordings of Kristin Hersh's earliest songs that the final incarnation of the Muses cut in 1996. Usually, such material would be the province of hardcore collectors only, but the Muses were such an original, unpredictable band in their early days that even the early demos are fascinating. The re-recordings don't quite match the other recordings here, but it's fortunate that Hersh had the foresight to document these songs before they were forgotten. In this context, they are a nice bonus, but the quality of the remaining music -- especially the idiosyncratic debut, which remains a fresh, unexpected listen -- is why In a Doghouse is an essential compilation."

- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic

'Lizzie Sage' - Throwing Muses

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'Throwing Muses' (2003) - Throwing Muses

"Does Kristin Hersh have the most terrifying voice in rock? Many singers embrace higher drama or shred their vocal cords with icier shrieks, but there's an eerie steadiness in Hersh's voice-- an enthrallment that goes deeper than the mere sound of her singing, part crow, part Wicked Witch of the West and part vengeful alternative rock icon. Of all the artists who've invoked the cliché of losing control to their inspiration, Hersh is one of the few to make it convincing; she delivers her most harrowing lyrics with a delicate serenity, and her simplest with a frightening, reeling delirium.
Her voice and surreal images were the key to the success of Throwing Muses, before the group disbanded. Hersh didn't want to break up the Muses, the band she's led since high school: It ended in the mid-90s for financial, not creative reasons. And that's the only way to explain how, when some funding came through, they could reform and cut a new album that sounds like they'd never been apart. Often, critics give a veteran band extra credit when they reunite-- props that were perhaps due long ago and never offered, or just bonus points for not having dropped dead in their autumn years. I can't think of many albums that need fewer crutches than this one. Without rivaling University or The Real Ramona, it's different from, yet far rawer than, anything since their debut.
Fans will suck up the nostalgia as Hersh brings back not just her last rhythm section (Bernard Georges on bass and mainstay David Narcizo on drums), but also founding Muse Tanya Donelly, who adds seraphic harmony vocals. After several years of sporadic collaborations they jumped into the project without even rehearsing: They cut the album in just three weekends with minimal overdubs, giving it a clean and "live" sound that sticks solidly to an unembellished power trio. There are no acoustic tracks, no slow or atmospheric ballads (like University's "Crabtown")-- nothing but torrential, skidding, hard rock, right from the almost anthemic first track, "Mercury", which cuts through different ways of opening the throttle before it wrenches into the chorus.
With such a consistent sound the songs bleed into each other, but Hersh's writing is still intriguingly unpredictable. Some of the songs are catchy almost after the fact-- like the perfect riff and matter-of-fact weirdness of her delivery on "Portia", or the erupting chorus on "Pretty or Not". Others sound like they were Frankensteined together from the verse, chorus and bridge of completely different songs and smoothed out by the guitars: You've got the mood change from dark to ecstatic on "Half Blast"-- if Donelly had written any songs here, this would be the one-- or the way "Solar Dip" jerks between time signatures. And that's not to ignore the grinding dirges like "Speed and Sleep" that just pound themselves into a dark hole.
Throwing Muses skip the production polish that brightened up albums like University, but they've found the perfect sweetener in Donelly's backing vocals. As limited as her contribution may be-- she sticks to backup and only sings on half the songs-- her lines are melodically gorgeous, high and pure against Hersh's lower, somewhat raspy vocals. But her presence alone isn't what makes this so joyous. Throwing Muses are the counterpart-- or maybe the antidote-- to the driven, enraptured solitude of her solo material; they deliver a release and an excitement that's been missing from her work for years. Their reunion is heavy, driven stuff-- as inherently inexplicable as the best, darkest Muses work-- but it's also ecstatic. This band has seized an opportunity that may never strike for them again, and they're celebrating it as though there were no tomorrow."

- Chris Dahlen, Pitchfork

'Civil Disobedience' - Throwing Muses

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'Purgatory / Paradise' (2013) - Throwing Muses

"There’s a moment during the commentary packaged with Throwing Muses new album Purgatory/Paradise, after drummer Dave Narcizo offers up a particularly ribald interpretation of “Slippershell”, where Kristin Hersh stops and laughs away the credit: “Sure. God wrote it.” From almost anyone else, that would come off ridiculous, a megalomaniac’s humblebrag, but from Hersh it’s part of the origin story, the one that’s been repeated in everything written about Throwing Muses from the 80s onward. Hersh has always held that she’s not a songwriter so much as a woman accosted by songs; her role, she says, is more like a transcriptionist, or a vessel. Anything an outside audience might hear in them, the story goes, is coincidental. But Throwing Muses’ music never sounded like it sprung from any outside source so much as one that’s deeply personal. The chords lurch like feelings would; and the lyrics make internal sense. A track like “Fish” becomes far less surreal when you know that it’s referring to an actual fish nailed to an actual cross on Hersh’s actual apartment wall, but even then it’s like listening in on a few minutes of monologue, raw and untranslated, where the bits of dialogue, snippets of images, and the rest of the stuff of someone else’s inner life may well be a foreign language. There are plenty of Throwing Muses tracks that are oblique—and a lot more than the band gets credit for that are needle-direct—but few that explain themselves.
If this sounds at odds with finding a large audience, it’s because it is. Throwing Muses’ time on Warner in the 90s was neither pleasant nor lucrative. Hersh gave the label the rights to Hips and Makers to get out of her contract before releasing 1996’s Limbo, a title that now seems either prescient or biting. The Muses went on hiatus—or “disbanded,” which is both farther from the truth and closer to the practical reality. Hersh released solo albums on a fairly steady schedule, but Throwing Muses released only one more record: the triumphant Throwing Muses. That was in 2003. Hersh formed another project, 50 Foot Wave, around this time, but their last two EPs were released for free and quietly—as quietly, that is, as is possible for a band whose founding principle was “Throwing Muses, if they were faster, meaner and also swore a lot.” Hersh’s last solo album, Crooked, was self-released in 2009 nearly as quietly, supported mostly by house shows and smallish acoustic concerts. And though demos of Purgatory/Paradise existed online as early as 2007 (a few were meant for Crooked), the audience they found was largely the same fans who crowdfunded the record. (Hersh was among the first to adopt the pay-what-you-want and subscription models Kickstarter and its ilk would later make inescapable.) While Throwing Muses did tour behind 2011’s Anthology compilation, it would have taken close attention to think new material was forthcoming.
Purgatory/Paradise, as it turns out, is the Muses’ first album in 10 years, and “the work [the band] can die after releasing,” as Hersh jokes early in the commentary. (“We’re really looking forward to death. We work so hard to be allowed to die!”) But while 2003’s Throwing Muses was a comeback album in the familiar sense, roaring and tearing at all expectations from the first count-off, Purgatory/Paradise is more reserved. Of the Muses’ albums, it most resembles Red Heaven or Limbo, the forcefully aloof deep cuts of the Muses’ discography—but a shattered version, “like someone reached over our heads with a Looney Tunes mallet and slammed it into our record before we could stop him,” Hersh wrote. (Like Crooked, Purgatory/Paradise was devised both as a record and as a book, with essays by Hersh and art by Narcizo. It’s both a gorgeous standalone object—particularly the writing, considering 2010’s Rat Girl proved Hersh one of the best music writers around—and a sort of decoder for the album’s tracks.) Half of the album’s 32 tracks barely make it over two minutes. Some of them are reprises; sometimes the reprises come first. Some tracks are lopped-off bridges or choruses, or thoughts beginning with “and.” It’s even more disorienting for cuts like “Static” whose uncut versions have been around long enough to memorize. This doesn’t necessarily seem odd for a band whose songs tend to skitter into loping girl-group choruses halfway or careen through dozens of chords that wouldn’t normally touch or scare-quote the entirety of some kid’s anarchy pamphlet as an intro, but Purgatory/Paradise really is unlike anything I’ve heard this year; it’s a little like someone read an old Muses review that talked about their songs switching gears, recorded what they thought that sounded like, then lost half the data to a defragmenting snafu."

- Katherine St. Asaph, Pitchfork

NYC Visit ~ Throwing Muses

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Coming soon : 'Sun Racket' (2020) ...

Interview with Throwing Muses

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Lakuna

David Narcizo

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'Castle Of Crime' (1999) - Lakuna

* Musical contributors to Lakuna include Kristin Hersh, Bernard Georges, Tom Gorman (Belly), music producer Frank Gardner and Misi Narcizo.

"As drummer for Throwing Muses, David Narcizo has held one of the trickiest jobs in popular music for thirty years. Kristin Hersh’s songs are not, and have never been, simple; they are full of twists and turns, tempo changes, time signature changes and unusual feels. Narcizo has coped with it all; he’s even made it danceable. No doubt he’s been helped by the band’s series of quality bass players: Leslie Langston, Fred Abong and Bernard Georges. But still, he’s made a tough job look pretty easy and instinctive for three decades."

- Ross J. Palmer, 'Songs From So Deep'

'So Happy' - Lakuna

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50FootWave

Rob Ahlers

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'Golden Ocean' (2005) - 50FootWave

* Artwork by Lakuna Inc.

"Kristin Hersh has written (in her memoir, released as Rat Girl in the US and Paradoxical Undressing in the UK), that she has heard music in her head since a car hit knocked her off her bike in 1985 and her head slammed into the ground. In the mid-2000s, the songs she was hearing called for a different approach, particularly percussively. They needed greater aggression, more power, less finesse. David Narcizo, a player with impressive marching-band snare drum skills but fundamentally a guy with a light touch, was replaced by Rob Ahlers, who plays with enormous power and what sounds like desperation, as if his drums need to be constantly beaten off with sticks lest they do him some kind of physical injury."

- Ross J. Palmer, 'Songs From So Deep'

'Sally Is A Girl' - 50 Foot Wave

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Kristin Hersh

Interview with Kristin Hersh

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'Hips And Makers' (1994) / 'Strange Angels' (1998)

"Kristin Hersh is easy-going, effortlessly charming and down to earth. We ask if she’s looking forward to performing at Meltdown Festival this year.
“Yes, basically I play to a quarter of a million people the same way that I play in my bedroom, it’s all about focus. I like how this is artist centred, it’s Robert Smith organising. I also did the Patti Smith one, I only do the Smith’s [laughs]”.
Sultry, husky, sensual. Was Patti an influence on a young Kristin?
“My dad listened to her, so I listened to her through him. I didn’t actively listen to her myself. I’m being too honest, yeah? I shouldn’t be so honest?” as she roars with laughter.
It’s not ideal for a writer looking for soundbites, but there’s something refreshing about her candour and demeanour. There’s no pretence to her, she means business, ensuring that every word she gives is every word meant. It’s reflected in her songcraft.
“I can’t analyse my own work, I’d be making sh*t up”, she confesses. “They come from personal experiences. I don’t think about my songs, it’s my idiosyncratic view of universal appeals. I’ve heard music since I had an accident, a car crash, in my teens, I’ve been able to hear tracks. I’ve become a better editor, I used to imagine the material should play itself out. But now I edit, none of my personal baggage should get in there, it should be impactful for other people to listen to, a soundtrack for them”.
One popular soundtrack, Love Actually (2003) features a Both Sides, Now remake sung by the song’s author. Described by Joni Mitchell as the moment she understood the meaning and potency of the words she had written thirty years previously, it proved to the world that power can be attained by an artist’s past material to empower in the present. How does Hersh feel about playing older songs?
“The good ones are timeless, they’re not attached to linear time. They come off like your kids do, you let them off and they come back, a bit changed. I wouldn’t want to keep them in, I wouldn’t want to do that with any of my kids, they wouldn’t come out right. The lousy times only last a certain amount of time. I wouldn’t play anything I wouldn’t feel comfortable playing”.
And with an upcoming U.K. tour, what will she be playing?"

- Eoghan Lyng, We Are Cult

'Sundrops' - Kristin Hersh

-- --- --

'Murder, Misery And Then Goodnight' (1998) / 'Sky Motel' (1999)

'I Never Will Marry' - Kristin Hersh

-- --- --

'Sunny Border Blue' (2001) / 'The Grotto' (2003) | 'Learn To Sing Like A Star' (2007) \ 'Speedbath' (2008)

'Crooked' (2010) / 'Wyatt At The Coyote Palace' (2016) \ 'Possible Dust Clouds' (2018)

'Candyland' - Kristin Hersh

"We need a day of the dead. That's a perfect celebration."

- Kristin Hersh

Last Edit: Nov 27, 2022 1:02:28 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Nov 22, 2019 18:21:43 GMT

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Post by petrolino on Nov 22, 2019 18:21:43 GMT

Kim Deal : Biomusicology

Kimberley Ann Deal was born on June 10, 1961 in Dayton, Ohio. She is one of identical twins, her sister being musician Kelley Deal. Her father was a laser physicist stationed at the high security Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Greene and Montgomery counties. Her mother worked locally as a waitress (Mama Deal still lives in Dayton though she struggles with Alzheimer's disease since being diagnosed in 2002). The sisters formed a folk rock band while attending Wayne High School in Huber Heights, where they were both on the cheerleading squad. Kim was a prolific songwriter with a set of amps but she struggled to consolidate her unit. She later added a drum machine to the mix, creating cylindrical beats for Kelley to fashion basslines around.

Deal resisted the urge to become a deadbeat dropout, though she did her time bumming around the side-streets and dead-ends of small town Ohio. She eventually earned an associate degree in medical technology from Kettering College and became a cellular biologist. Things changed when she was hired to play bass guitar in the Pixies, a fledgling surf rock unit being moulded in Boston, Massachusetts. She joined guitarists Black Francis (aka. Frank Black, of the Catholics) and Joey Santiago (the Martinis) in search of a drummer. It was at Deal's behest that David Lovering was auditioned, a magician and percussion instructor who approached drums from a scientific angle. This recruitment proved ideal as Frank Black's multi-dimensional lyrics were often of the stargazing variety. This line-up plays on the band's first five studio albums, released between 1987 and 1991.

Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, David Lovering & Black Francis

Pixies & Throwing Muses

Black Francis & Kristin Hersh perform 'Wave Of Mutilation' at the closure of the Pleasant Street Theater in Northampton, Massachusetts

By 1991, Deal had grown restless with her subordinate role in the Pixies and needed an outlet for her own compositions. She'd reignited her old band the Breeders during a 1988 tour in which the Pixies performed with sister band Throwing Muses (both groups were signed to 4AD Records). Deal melded her sharp, disciplined guitar technique to her friend Tanya Donelly's textured strumming, psychedelic guitar lines and strange atonal flourishes, bringing in Josephine Wiggs (The Perfect Disaster) on bass and Britt Walford (Slint) on drums to record an album with an ethereal top and a heavy bottom. The line-up changed dramatically for the band's second record, with Deal being joined by her sister Kelley on guitar, violinist Carrie Bradley and surftone drummer Jim McPherson.

“Both of our bands were not doing anything for a while. Kristin [Hersh] was pregnant at the time, I think Charles [Black Francis] was driving to LA or on a solo tour or something. I’m a guitar player! I’ve played guitar since I was 13. I don’t have anything against playing bass, but if I was gonna play something or write something I’d play guitar, cos that’s what I play.”

- Kim Deal, The Guardian

Ronnie Barnett welcomes Throwing Muses to Los Angeles, California

'You And Your Sister' - This Mortal Coil (Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly)

Deal also created the rock 'n' roll unit the Amps, a mathematical meat grinder that mixed Ohio's white sheet wind effects (immortalised in song by Pere Ubu & Devo) beneath a wall of condensed sound. The Muffs - friends to the Pixies & Throwing Muses - would add the band's anthem 'Pacer' to their live shows (Black Francis recruited Kim Shattuck of the Muffs to be a Pixie some years later, after Deal had once again exited stage left abruptly). The short-lived Amps consisted of the Deal sisters (Kim assumed the guise Tammy Ampersand), guitarist Nate Farley, bassist Luis Lerma and Breeders drummer Jim McPherson. Following the band's demise, Deal continued with lifelong project the Breeders, allowing Kelley to form her own rock group in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the Kelley Deal 6000; though based in Minnesota, the 6000 shot video footage in Rhode Island.

-- --- ---- ---- --- --

Pixies

Interview with Pixies & Throwing Muses

-- --- --

'Come On Pilgrim' (1987) - Pixies

"It's worth remembering just how astonishing it was to hear a Pixies record for the very first time. Come On Pilgrim contained pop songs, although the sublime melodies were concealed in gleefully visceral noise. It was beautiful and violent; there were songs sung in Spanish and others about whores, Lou Reed and levitation. One track spoke menacingly about the "son of incestuous union". The guitar playing was extraordinary and the lead singer possessed a guttural scream that seemed to be the actual sound of a man venting his spleen. With its eight songs covering barely 20 minutes, that first listen of Come On Pilgrim was utterly thrilling and encapsulated everything I wanted from music."

- John Freeman, The Quietus

'Nimrod's Son' - Pixies

-- --- --

'Surfer Rosa' (1988) - Pixies

"One of the most compulsively listenable college rock albums of the '80s, the Pixies' 1988 full-length debut Surfer Rosa fulfilled the promise of Come on Pilgrim and, thanks to Steve Albini's production, added a muscular edge that made their harshest moments seem even more menacing and perverse. On songs like "Something Against You," Black Francis' cryptic shrieks and non sequiturs are backed by David Lovering and Kim Deal's punchy rhythms, which are so visceral that they'd overwhelm any guitarist except Joey Santiago, who takes the spotlight on the epic "Vamos." Albini's high-contrast dynamics suit Surfer Rosa well, especially on the explosive opener "Bone Machine" and the kinky, T. Rex-inspired "Cactus." But, like the black-and-white photo of a flamenco dancer on its cover, Surfer Rosa is the Pixies' most polarized work. For each blazing piece of punk, there are softer, poppier moments such as "Where Is My Mind?," Francis' strangely poignant song inspired by scuba diving in the Caribbean, and the Kim Deal-penned "Gigantic," which almost outshines the rest of the album. But even Surfer Rosa's less iconic songs reflect how important the album was in the group's development. The "song about a superhero named Tony" ("Tony's Theme") was the most lighthearted song the Pixies had recorded, pointing the way to their more overtly playful, whimsical work on Doolittle. Francis' warped sense of humor is evident in lyrics like "Bone Machine"'s "He bought me a soda and tried to molest me in the parking lot/Yep yep yep!" In a year that included landmark albums from contemporaries like Throwing Muses, Sonic Youth, and My Bloody Valentine, the Pixies managed to turn in one of 1988's most striking, distinctive records. Surfer Rosa may not be the group's most accessible work, but it is one of their most compelling."

- Heather Phares, AllMusic

"A lot of Pixies songs came out of Puerto Rico, Charles "Black Francis" Thompson said, like “Crackity Jones,” about a strange roommate. “Cactus” had its roots there as well, with its isolation, sexual deprivation, longing and revulsion. A man is locked up somewhere—a prison cell, an asylum—writing a letter to a woman he’s obsessed with (does she even know him?). He’s got a letter from her, he says, but it’s just words. He wants her flesh, her scents—the salty tang of her blood. He wants her to send him her soiled dresses, to go outside (or to another state) and rub her hand against a cactus. Because he can’t even feel pain anymore. It’s a desire for contact, for evidence of any physical act, sung by man caged like an ape.
The Pixies recorded “Cactus” in 1988 for Surfer Rosa, working with Steve Albini, who miked the room and recorded some band conversations, a few of which were used as between-song segues, and had them bring amps and gear down to the cement bathroom for better reverb (“we were in a factory building and it was a giant urinal for, like 100 guys,” recalled John Lupner, the studio assistant). “Cactus” was just a thudding shift between two power chords,* a bassline in lockstep with the guitar and a drum pattern that sounded like a man pounding on a wooden door for two minutes.

By the time he recorded Heathen, Bowie had been talking up the Pixies for nearly 15 years—he’d performed “Debaser” live with Tin Machine back in ’91, when the Pixies were still a going concern (if barely). He’d often described them as the great American band that America didn’t recognize. It was especially galling around the end of the century, when the hushed-verse/power-refrain Pixies formula was everywhere you looked on the “modern rock” charts.
Covering “Cactus” was an inspired choice, as it was one of the Pixies songs to most disclose their debt to the Stooges, from the chord progression (tonic chord (E5) to flatted III chord (G5), a standard Ron Asheton move (see “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” “1970,” “Real Cool Time”)) to the Asheton-esque guitar by Joey Santiago (the great little coda solo that shrugs off after a few notes) to Black Francis’ vocal and lyric, which was Iggy Pop’s lust and dominance games projected inward.
And Bowie also knew a glam song when he saw it, despite the austerity of Albini’s “Cactus” mix. The Pixies stole from T. Rex’s “The Groover” for the chanted “P! I! X! I! E! S!”, naturally amended here to “D! A! V! I! D!”**. Bowie’s versions, studio and live, kicked off with a guitar itching to tear into the “Get It On” riff. He bumped the song up to A major and did his usual octave-doubled backing vocals (he was playing both Kim Deal and Black Francis—very Bowie) with the EMS Synthi AKS “briefcase” synthesizer as choir.
Where Black Francis sounded like a man repulsed by himself, a man who wished he could steal someone else’s skin and shroud himself in it (the chemistry of the Pixies was in part the shambling lead male singer secretly wishing he could be his bassist, who stood to his left on stage, coolly oblivious to him, having a whale of a time), Bowie made the character delight in his depravity—it’s the nastiest old man he ever played, making his work on the revived “Liza Jane” look like a pencil sketch. Send it to meeee!
Apart from Tony Visconti on bass, the whole track was Bowie: acoustic and electric guitars, EMS Synthi,*** piano (heir to John Cale’s pounding contribution to the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog”) and his only recorded drum performance, with shaky hi-hat and thudding kick drum. It was the closest he’d come to Diamond Dogs in a generation (see the whining lead line at 1:29). Suggesting that the older you get, the dirtier you get, Bowie’s “Cactus” was a carnal relief from the Grand Old Man-isms of much of Heathen. A triumph: one of his best covers."

- The Colonel (1-2-3-4 ...), 'Bowie : Song By Song'

“The main reason I like them is for their songs, for the way they structure them, which is totally unique, very atmospheric. I wish Kim (Deal) was allowed to write more songs for the Pixies, because Gigantic is the best Pixies song and Kim wrote it.”

- Kurt Cobain, Melody Maker

'River Euphrates' - Pixies

-- --- --

'Doolittle' (1989) - Pixies

"After 1988's brilliant but abrasive Surfer Rosa, the Pixies' sound couldn't get much more extreme. Their Elektra debut, Doolittle, reins in the noise in favor of pop songcraft and accessibility. Producer Gil Norton's sonic sheen adds some polish, but Black Francis' tighter songwriting focuses the group's attack. Doolittle's most ferocious moments, like "Dead," a visceral retelling of David and Bathsheba's affair -- are more stylized than the group's past outbursts. Meanwhile, their poppy side surfaces on the irresistible single "Here Comes Your Man" and the sweetly surreal love song "La La Love You." The Pixies' arty, noisy weirdness mix with just enough hooks to produce gleefully demented singles like "Debaser," -- inspired by Bunuel's classic surrealist short Un Chien Andalou -- and "Wave of Mutilation," their surfy ode to driving a car into the sea. Though Doolittle's sound is cleaner and smoother than the Pixies' earlier albums, there are still plenty of weird, abrasive vignettes: the blankly psychotic "There Goes My Gun," "Crackity Jones," a song about a crazy roommate Francis had in Puerto Rico, and the nihilistic finale "Gouge Away." Meanwhile, "Tame," and "I Bleed" continue the Pixies' penchant for cryptic kink. But the album doesn't just refine the Pixies' sound; they also expand their range on the brooding, wannabe spaghetti western theme "Silver" and the strangely theatrical "Mr. Grieves." "Hey" and "Monkey Gone to Heaven," on the other hand, stretch Francis' lyrical horizons: "Monkey"'s elliptical environmentalism and "Hey"'s twisted longing are the Pixies' versions of message songs and romantic ballads. Their most accessible album, Doolittle's wide-ranging moods and sounds make it one of their most eclectic and ambitious. A fun, freaky alternative to most other late-'80s college rock, it's easy to see why the album made the Pixies into underground rock stars."

- Heather Phares, AllMusic

"I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band—or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.”

- Kurt Cobain, Rolling Stone

"It's all too much, Pixies are just, all too much, bro."

- Big D, 'D-Dipper : The Daytime Tripper'

“The reason we don't use as much guitar now is there are only a handful of Pixies albums. You can't keep copying them.”

- Johnny Greenwood, 'B-Sides TV'

“Doolittle changed my life.”

- Thom Yorke, Coachella

'Hey' - Pixies

-- --- --

'Bossanova' (1990) - Pixies

"One who appreciates an album which flows in a seamless order from track to track will not be happy with Bosanova, a collection of short tracks that change radically from one track to the next. The third studio album by Pixies, the album’s original material was written by frontman Black Francis. The sound includes elements of punk, new wave, Brit pop, surf rock and 60s pyschedelia. Although the album only reached #70 in the US, it fared much better in the UK, reaching the Top 5 on their charts.
The group formed in Amherst, Massachusettes in 1984 when Francis began jamming with guitarist Joey Santiago. In early 1986, bassist Kim Deal and drummer David Lovering joined to round out the quartet which chose their name from randomly arriving at “pixies” in the dictionary. In 1988, the band recorded and released their critically acclaimed first full-length album, Surfer Rosa. Producer Gil Norton produced their second full album, Doolittle, which employed a much cleaner sound than the debut but found similar critical acclaim.
In early 1990, the band members relocated to Los Angeles to write an record the album. With little time to rehearse along with a few some studio issues, some of the material may have been underdeveloped. While Francis admitting to writing lyrics on napkins just “five minutes” before he sang on some of the tracks, he has also stated that this is his favorite Pixies album."

- Ric Albano, Classic Rock Review

'Velouria' - Pixies

-- --- --

'Trompe Le Monde' (1991) - Pixies

"Trompe Le Monde may very well be the most neglected Pixies release. Possibly with good reason. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t great, so much as to say that the three albums preceding it are among the most canonized of the last 20 years. It is probably the least strange, the most straightforwardly rocking and, maybe, the most cohesive. Maybe it is too cohesive for a Pixies album, at least too much so to fully convey the singularity and incomprehensibility of their particular genius. A little less quiet/loud and more loud/loud, like on “Planet of Sound,” or quiet/not so loud.
But the Pixies had already accomplished a lot in a short time and had no intention of backtracking. And, to be sure, Trompe Le Monde is packed with quality songs, including classics of their oeuvre like “Alec Eiffel” and “U-Mass.” The latter still has the capacity to put me in stitches if, and I would happily scream, “It’s educational!” if the mood of a soirée called for it. Possibly, even, and to better effect, if it didn’t call for it."

- Tyler Parks, Treble

'Planet Of Sound' - Pixies

-- --- --

'Indie Cindy' (2014) - Pixies / 'Head Carrier' (2016) - Pixies \ 'Beneath The Eyrie' (2019) - Pixies

Joey Saintago, Paz Lenchantin, David Lovering & Frank Black

“Bono even asked… He's like, "Please make a record!' Goddamn, we can't leave that unturned. That would frustrate me. It would. I think we should do it. But it's up to everybody.”

- Joey Santiago on the Pixies reforming, Spinner

'What Goes Boom!' - Pixies

-- --- ---- ---- --- --

The Breeders

Tanya Donelly

-- --- --

'Pod' (1990) - The Breeders

"Travel back to 1990. Little less than a year before, the iconic Doolittle is released. As lead singles Here Comes Your Man and Monkey Gone To Heaven receive big radio and video airplay from MTV, the band receive a tiny bit of spotlight, an unprecedented feat in their career. Further acclaim by fans and critics eventually leads to rising tensions between Francis and Deal (Frankfurt incident pops to mind). After a lengthy tour in support of the album, fatigue is visible in nearly every member of the band. Black Francis decides it's best to go on a small hiatus, to recover strength and try to calm down the tensions between Deal and himself. While the rest of the band takes some time off, Deal wastes none in assembling a different group, including Tanya Donelly from indie rock quartet Throwing Muses, to occupy her time and finally gain more freedom as a songwriter herself. The newly formed Breeders release their debut album in that same year. Pod is a superb and uncompromising record that not only showcases Kim's distinctive talent, but also further emphasizes how much Pixies missed out on by not allowing her much songwriting space later on.
Deal had begun writing material since Pixies' debut album Surfer Rosa, but Black Francis, always a control maniac we've come to know and love, kept her contributions at a minimum. Her newfound creative freedom fronting The Breeders allowed her to develop songwriting skills hugely, which would've complemented beautifully her main band's albums later on. Upon recording a demo tape, 4AD offered Kim and Tanya Donelly a low budget contract to make an album. Recruiting bassist Josephine Wiggs, the band also landed production help from noise rock household Steve Albini. At Albini's suggestion, Slint drummer Britt Walford was called to round out the lineup and begin recording. Finished in merely 10 days, Pod is a product any band could be proud of, a memorable debut album, just as catchy as it is intelligent, intriguing and playful, all in one listen. Strongly based on Pixies' sound just as much as Throwing Muses', Pod manages to be raw and melodic at the same time, all of which contribute to a memorable and overlooked alternative rock record, one of the most original and catchy of the 90's."

- Daniel Dias, Sputnik Music

"On their 1990 debut album Pod, the Breeders -- led by the Pixies' Kim Deal and Throwing Muses' Tanya Donelly -- prove that they have more potential, and more fun, than the average side project. In fact, thanks to the album's creative songwriting, immediate production (courtesy of Surfer Rosa producer Steve Albini), and clever arrangements, Pod is a fresher and more successful work than the Pixies' Bossanova and the Muses' Hunkpapa, their main projects' releases from around that time. Though the album doesn't feature as many of Donelly's contributions as was originally planned -- which was part of the reason she formed Belly a few years later -- songs like "Iris" and "Lime House" blend the best of the Pixies' elliptical punk and the Muses' angular pop. Pod reaffirms what a distinctive songwriter Deal is, and how much the Pixies missed out on by not including more of her material on their albums. With their unusual subjects -- "Hellbound" is about a living abortion -- and quirky-but-direct sound, songs like "Opened" and "When I Was a Painter" could have easily fit on Doolittle or Bossanova. But the spare, sensual "Doe," "Fortunately Gone," and "Only in Threes" are more lighthearted and good-natured than the work of Deal's other band, pointing the way to the sexy, clever alternative pop she'd craft on Last Splash. A vibrantly creative debut, Pod remains the Breeders' most genuine moment."

- Heather Phares, AllMusic

'When I Was A Painter' / Iris' - The Breeders

-- --- --

'Last Splash' (1993) - The Breeders

"It’s a little known fact that The Breeders’ second album – a curate’s egg of twisted pop, weird art-rock textures and the kind of genius that makes sense to roughly 0.836% of the general populace – sold well enough to score a platinum disc in America (indeed, it now hangs in a corridor in Dave Grohl’s recording studio in LA). The Breeders had began as a side-project for Pixies bassist Kim Deal and Throwing Muses/Belly guitarist Tanya Donnelly; by the time Last Splash hit record shelves in 1993, however, Donnelly was long gone and the Pixies had folded, Deal taking charge of The Breeders and recasting them in the image she shared with twin sister Kelly.
Their debut, 1990’s Pod, was dark, magical, wonderful; its successor was all those things again, only with hooks. Lots of them. Scientific studies have proven that the album’s lead single, Cannonball, has enough hooks to rival many lesser bands’ Greatest Hits, and bloody wars have been started over just what the best part of the song is: the ghostly hums that open it, the loping bassline, the chugga-chugga guitar/drum breaks, the Deal sisters’ hypnotic harmonies on the chorus… It filled indie dancefloors upon release, and still does, and hooked unsuspecting alternateens into the Deals’ magical, subterranean world.
Last Splash would perplex many. Its pop moments were legion and wonderful, but scattered between spooky thrash-outs like New Year, drone-slaked drug-rock meanders like Mad Lucas and Roi, the gonzo surf-rock of Flipside, and squalling instrumental S.O.S. (later sampled by The Prodigy for Firestarter). Some were left baffled; others, though, were quickly seduced by Last Splash as a whole, its weird corners, its very uniqueness.
Last Splash was every bit the equal to the Pixies’ similarly idiosyncratic discography (to these ears, better). It confirmed Deal as a bewitchingly adept songwriter, effortlessly melodious and given to tempering her most sugary compositions with electrifying twists."

- Stevie Chick, The British Broadcsting Corporation

'Divine Hammer' - The Breeders

-- --- --

'Title TK' (2002) - The Breeders / 'Mountain Battles' (2008) - The Breeders \ 'All Nerve' (2018) - The Breeders

"In a drab hotel lobby in Dayton, Ohio, an ordinary city in the American Midwest, there are pictures of the extraordinary people who have come from there. On one wall is a dusty photograph of Orville and Wilbur Wright, the two pioneer pilots flying across the prairies. An old poster of the young Martin Sheen beams from another, a smiling, hometown hero.
And then there's another Dayton star - the bassist who inspired Kurt Cobain to form Nirvana and Damon Albarn to form Blur. She bounces towards me in unconventional celebrity clobber - a waterproof anorak and beanie hat - and beckons me outside. "Get in the back, quick - me and the sister are arguing." Her twin pouts at me from behind the steering wheel. "Don't listen to the baby - she just can't give directions. Get yourself out of the cold and let's go walk the dog."
Kim and Kelley Deal, the very ordinary twins behind the extraordinary music of the Breeders, are not your typical rock stars."

- Jude Rogers, The Guardian

'Wait In The Car' - The Breeders

-- --- ---- ---- --- --

The Amps

Kelley Deal

-- --- --

'Pacer' (1995) - The Amps

"The Breeders had had something of a hit with 'Last Splash' – certainly with 'Cannonball' doing the rounds of hip radio stations and plastered across MTV. And then Kelley Deal – a major junkie – was busted and had to go into rehab.
This meant that Kim Deal had a bunch of leftover songs sitting there. Songs that would have, logically, gone on to back up 'Last Splash' and before that, 'Pod' … so, instead of sitting there, stagnating, Kim decided to record and release the songs.
She formed The Amps – a project that was going to be a solo record. Kim was going to play drums and the guitar and bass parts. The drums would have been a stretch. In the end she drafted in Breeders drummer Jim MacPherson – a good thing given that MacPherson’s playing is one of the highlights of 'Last Splash'. And it’s also the case with 'Pacer'.
Deal ended up forming a full, new band. Luis Lerma (bass) and Nate Farley (guitars) completed the new four piece."

- Simon Sweetman, Off The Tracks

'Tipp City' - The Amps

Kim Gordon & Kim Deal

"I could never make New York a go – I always seemed to end up in a basement cellar doing drugs. I liked Boston, LA, Chicago. I could have made a go of London – it’s big but it’s got a neighbourly feel."

- Kim Deal

Last Edit: Jun 11, 2021 21:43:55 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

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Revered Member

"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Nov 22, 2019 23:15:30 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Nov 22, 2019 23:15:30 GMT

Tanya Donelly : Geometric Abstraction

Tanya Donelly was born on July 14, 1966 in Newport, Rhode Island. She was a painfully shy child, raised by bohemian parents who travelled coast to coast. I've mentioned in posting about Kristin Hersh about their relationship, first as childhood friends, then as sisters. Remarkably, both Donelly and Hersh survived serious car crashes when they were children, though Hersh's injuries were more serious. They were about 15 years old when they formed Throwing Muses.

Donelly was a founding member of three influential bands - Throwing Muses, the Breeders and Belly - and a significant musical contributor to all of them. The Muses was Kristin Hersh's baby and the Breeders belonged to Kim Deal. With the creation of Belly, there was finally a vehicle for Donelly's songwriting. Moreover, core members had attended high school in Aquidneck Island. Formed in 1991, the band originally consisted of brothers Chris Gorman (Verbal Assault) and Tom Gorman (Verbal Assault) on drums and guitar respectively, and bassist Fred Abong (Vicious Circle) who'd broken away from Throwing Muses with Donelly. Abong left Belly in 1993 and was eventually replaced by Gail Greenwood (L7), with Leslie Langston (Throwing Muses) filling in on bass during an early tour.

Donelly has recorded and performed songs with Belly in French. Her friend Frank Black has performed and recorded songs in Spanish with the Pixies.

Kristin Hersh & Frank Black

Kim Deal, Tanya Donelly & Josephine Wiggs

'Judas Mon Coeur' - Belly

Donelly also records as a solo performer. Contributors to her albums include Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom), Dean Fisher (the Juliana Hatfield Three), Mark Sandman (Morphine), David Narcizo (Throwing Muses), David Lovering (Pixies) and Stacy Jones (Letters To Cleo & Veruca Salt).

-- --- ---- ---- --- --

Belly

Interview with Belly

-- --- --

'Star' (1993) - Belly

The Gorman Brothers

"Tanya Donelly's songwriting began to blossom on Throwing Muses' Real Ramona, and Belly's debut, Star, is where it reaches fruition. Using the trancy harmonies of dream pop as a foundation, Donelly expands the genre's boundaries, trimming away its pretensions and incorporating a flair for sweet, concise pop hooks and folk-rock inflections. She also spikes her airy melodies with disarmingly disturbing lyrics. Images of betrayal and death float throughout the album, but what hits home initially -- and what stays after the album is finished -- are the hooks, whether it's the rolling singalong of "Gepetto," the surging "Slow Dog," the melancholy "Stay," or the cool, detached sexiness of "Feed the Tree." Occasionally, Donelly suffers from preciousness or unformed ideas, yet Star remains an enchanting debut."

- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic

"Many of the songs on Star were originally written for the Breeders’s second album and several tracks were helmed by Pixies producer Gil Norton, so there’s a distinct post-punk quality to Belly’s music — which also includes shades of folk, country, and spaghetti-western influences. Star, however, is more sensual and surreal than anything produced by the band’s immediate progenitors; there’s a distinctly feminine quality to the album, and Tanya Donelly’s pixie-ish persona and quirky lyrics seemingly rendered the band less worthy of the critical-darling status many of their (mostly male-fronted) contemporaries earned among the rock press. But Donelly shared with Kurt Cobain a desire to combine pop with punk, which was inspired chiefly by the Pixies, and it’s that marriage of mainstream sensibilities and alt-rock aesthetic that makes Star transcend the grunge-rock label and, years later, continue to shine so brightly."

- Sal Cinquemani, Slant

"The year was 1993 and a boy said to me, “You know, you kinda look like Tanya Donelly.” I interpreted this as a pick-up line although it migh have been simply a (generous) observation, but at the time there was no higher compliment paid in my estimation. Even the boy from 1993 knew that Tanya Donelly was much more than just indie-rock cutie pie. As a founding member of Throwing Muses and the Breeders, she was rocking the cradle during the infancy of the alternative music movement. These collaborations resulted in a measured amount of critical success (particularly the Breeders’1990 LP Pod) but Donelly shifted focus in 1992 to form her own band, Belly.
Star, one of Belly’s only two albums, listens like the dangerous part of a fairy tale; tucked into bed at one turn only to be climbing out a midnight window at another. The first track, “Someone to Die For,” is a gentle, dreamy introduction to the album. On most releases, that crucial opening song is so often the pull of a ripcord but here, it’s the letting go of a balloon. The flotation ends quickly as the following two tracks, “Angel” and “Dusted” deliver a shot in the arm of swirling rhythm guitars and runaway beats. Donelly uses dynamics to emphasize her narrative, opening her throat wide and crescendoing as the drama gains momentum.
The pop triad of songs on Star – “Feed the Tree,” “Gepetto” and “Slow Dog” – saw frequent play on college radio and landed rotation in the that hallmark of alternative music credibility, MTV’s “120 Minutes.” Although “Feed the Tree” was Belly’s most commercially successful single (Sing with me now: “Take your hat off boy when you’re talking to me/ And be there when I feed the tree“), “Slow Dog” is the highlight of the album, a punchy little pop song that is anthemic in its simplicity (the secret is its jubilant yet disturbing chorus about a rifle, a dog and repeated shots). Similarly, “Witch,” the eerie lullaby of the collection, offers up the flip side of “Slow Dog”‘s emotional dissonance. The soothing introduction of major chord arpeggios on slide guitar is followed with Donelly’s breathy warning: “It’s not safe/ In this house/ In some witch’s bed/ You know the one/ She lies all lit up.” It’s this emotional juxtaposition of imagery and sound – nursery stories turned nightmare – that makes Donelly’s songwriting so compelling.
Star winds down with the lullaby sounds of “Untogether,” “Star” and “Stay,” interrupted only by “Sad Dress,” the most technically interesting effort of the album. Swinging in a 3/2 time signature, “Sad Dress” waltzes dizzily through heavy backbeats and bass riffs that are ratty like an unfinished hem. “Untogether,” an acoustic and bare offering, is the only track that features back-up vocals. Chick Graning, member of the short-lived alt-rock band Scarce, lends just an echo of a male voice in this elegy for an incompatible love.
Indeed, the beauty of Star is that Tanya Donelly’s voice and vision alone drive the album’s conceptual integrity. Her sound, luminous and evocative, was a departure from the disc(h)ord of the riot-grrrl bands that were building steam and fan bases in the mid-90’s. This is not to say that her pipes have no power. Airy and feminine for sure, Donelly can just as quickly tower a hundred stories high when the songwriting insists on it. She plays with notions of vulnerability and invincibility in her vocals, using inflection and even pronunciation (for example, “hard” as “haaaard” or “harrrrrd”) to elicit emotional connections.
Donelly’s lyrics are peculiar and specific, conjuring images that are nature-oriented, childlike and vaguely occult. They are the remnants of your baby sister’s bad dream. One of the most memorable lines from “Angel” confesses, “I had bad dreams/ So bad I threw my pillow away.” The songs of Star are subliminal sense impressions, free associations in a way that intuitively clicks. When recalling snapshots of this album rapid fire, my list was “sister doll moon dress witch” – and yeah, that’s about right. Thematically, it’s somewhat of a curious bookend to Hole’s Live Through This. Where Courtney wails wounded about doll parts and witches’ heads, Tanya murmurs dream-like about beheaded dolls and witches’ beds. Both artists identify the trauma, artifice and stigmata that accompany a postmodern womanhood, reaching that place across very different access points. Courtney Love once remarked retrospectively, “I don’t think if I had been Tanya Donelly and put out Live Through This anybody would’ve cared” – and to be fair to Donelly, the reverse might also be true, insofar as only you can sing your own songs. Whether or not Love and Donelly viewed each other as feminist contemporaries, there are disarming lyrical parallels between the two works.
For those filling out or revisiting their collection of alternative women’s rock, Star is a must, a shining example of alternative women in rock. This CD holds my personal record for most-times-bought: I replaced it at last count five times, due to (repeated) loss, damage and thievery. Please be sure to shelve it properly in your Donelly section along with her other bests, Pod (The Breeders) and The Real Ramona (Throwing Muses). Aptly named, Star was one of those albums that pierced the sky at just the right time."

- Stacey Pavlick, Spectrum Culture

'Red' - Belly

-- --- --

'King' (1995) - Belly

"Tanya Donelly will tell you that she has always been drawn to contradiction. Her song lyrics, too, are both startlingly intimate and head-scratchingly oblique, all couched in shinly pop tunes. It’s the bright, unapologetically hooky songs that pull you in, but you’ll be staying for creepy, fairy-tale lyrics straight out of a child’s fevered dreams. It’s like catching a butterfly: You’re attracted to the soaring, brilliant colors of its wings, then you turn it over, and there’s a head with pincers. Wiggling legs. A thorax."

- Jancee Dunn, Rolling Stone

"I was, fittingly, drunk the first time I heard Belly’s King. “You want to know why I can’t sleep/Unless I got a bellyful of wine,” Tanya Donelly sang on “Untitled & Unsung.” “I’m drunk and the world is wild,” she explained as the track slowly faded away. At the peak of the alt-rock boom, the little band (headed by former Throwing Muses and Breeders member Donelly) wormed its way into public consciousness with the hit “Feed the Tree,” a track from their gold-selling debut Star. Perhaps feeling the pressure to produce more chart hits, the band flawlessly transformed their cryptic, disjointed sound into the fine-tuned pop of 1995’s King. They landed on the cover of Rolling Stone, but the album fizzled, effectively derailing the band’s career.
With drummer Chris Gorman’s wicked, lightning-quick drum fills on tracks like “Lil’ Ennio,” brother Tom Gorman’s crunchy guitars, and Donelly’s left-of-center lyrics and distinctive voice, the album should have been a huge success. With the help of veteran producer Glyn Johns, “Seal My Fate” and “Red” proved Belly could cram three-and-a-half minutes with as many sugary melodies as possible. The album’s lead single, “Now They’ll Sleep,” is a quirky number reminiscent of the Doors, while the gothic “Silverfish” features a classic-rock-style guitar snaking beneath Donelly and bassist Gail Greenwood’s honey-glazed harmonies: “I don’t want to hear about your poorly timed rock career.”
Often obscure but never disposable, Donelly’s prickly situations and infectious pop hooks read like poetry: “Are there heartstrings connected/To the wings you’ve got slapped on your back?” she begs on the high-energy “Super-Connected.” “The Bees,” a lovely ballad about dying love, finds the singer a bit self-deprecated (“So come at me with mouth open wide/And I, like a jerk, I crawl inside”), while on the album’s haunting final track, “Judas My Heart” (in which Judas is a verb and the moon hangs low so that deception can be fully and painfully witnessed), Donelly is the bearer of an impossibly heavy torch. Compromise may have shrunk the band’s fanbase at the time, but it left behind a thought-provoking, near-perfect pop album."

- Sal Cinquemani, Slant

"Belly fut avant tout le groupe de Tanya Donelly (ex-Throwing Muses et ex-Breeders), de 1991 à 1996. Même si Star, leur premier album sorti en 1993, est souvent considéré comme leur meilleur, sûrement en raison de son relatif succès commercial, c'est assurément King, le deuxième et malheureusement dernier disque du groupe, qui force le respect des amateurs de rock. Pourquoi? Parce que, autant le dire tout de suite, c'est un petit chef-d'œuvre qui surpasse en tous points son prédécesseur.
En fait, il s'agit même probablement d'un des disques pop-rock les plus jouissifs des années 1990. L'explication est simple. King reprend les aspects les plus intéressants de Star, ceux qui faisaient son originalité et son excellence : les guitares tourbillonnantes, les mélodies exaltantes et, surtout, la superbe voix de Tanya Donelly, qui coule comme du miel dans les oreilles. Mais ces aspects sont ici magnifiés, en même temps que sont mis de côté certains tics assez agaçants (notamment dans l'utilisation de la voix) qui empêchaient Star d'être pleinement satisfaisant. Ici, tout est parfait. L'album commence rondement avec l'impeccable "Puberty", ses arpèges électriques, ses chœurs et son refrain entêtant (« I tame a bird to light where you live ») accompagné d'une mélodie à la guitare. Cette féerie va se poursuivre pendant les 45 minutes que dure cette merveille. Le groupe y enchaîne presque sans temps mort les morceaux pop (l'incroyable "Seal My Fate", où la voix de Tanya fait des merveilles, l'hymne "Super-Connected" et son refrain imparable), alambiqués ("Red", "Now They'll Sleep", "L'il ennio") ou carrément rock ("King").
Mais, non contente d'enfiler les perles up-tempo, Tanya et sa bande enfoncent le clou et proposent en plus trois superbes ballades qui s'avèrent être des réussites totales : l'acoustique "Silverfish", "The Bees" avec son intro à couper le souffle (où voix et guitare s'entremêlent pendant un court instant confondant de beauté), et l'incroyable "Judas My Heart", qui clôt le disque sur une note mélancolique grâce à son piano lyrique et à sa mélodie désespérée. Pour tout dire, il est bien difficile de trouver de véritables défauts à cet album. On pourra reprocher à la réalisation, pourtant signée par le vétéran Glyn Jones, de manquer de relief et de clarté à force de vouloir adopter un ton moins aérien que Star. On pourra également arguer que la mélodie de "Untitled & Unsung" fait pâle figure face à celle des autres morceaux. Mais tout cela reste bien peu en comparaison des évidentes qualités de cet album injustement méconnu.
En effet, King ne réussira jamais à réitérer le succès commercial de Star, probablement sorti au bon endroit et au bon moment. Deux ans plus tard, le grunge et le rock alternatif déferlent sur le monde et l'aspect à la fois pop, arty et tordu de la musique de Belly (sans parler du côté parfois abscons des paroles de Tanya) ne semble plus cadrer avec l'époque, malgré le choix évident d'un son plus rock et l'impressionnant travail au niveau des guitares électriques. L'année suivante, le groupe implosera et Tanya Donelly entamera une carrière solo encore une fois beaucoup trop confidentielle compte tenu de son talent. Il est temps de réhabiliter cet album qui reste le sommet de sa carrière."

- Flying Willi, Rate Your Music

'Seal My Fate' - Belly

-- --- --

'Dove (2018) - Belly

Tom Gorman, Chris Gorman, Tanya Donelly & Gail Greenwood

"Tanya Donelly occupies a unique place in the indie-rock pantheon. She is a veteran of the fabled US indie family tree that centred around the 4AD label. She cut her teeth in Throwing Muses as lieutenant to stepsister Kristin Hersh, then formed the Breeders with Pixies bassist Kim Deal before taking the plunge and forming Belly. For indie fans in the 1990s, the band – peddling morbid fairytales powered by jangle and reverb – became a sacred touchstone. Their 1993 debut album, Star, became a set text.
Their appeal was enhanced by the goofy, likable Donelly’s status as pin-up of choice for a certain model of willowy indie boy: a smart, beautiful, somewhat intimidating woman who wrote dreamy rock songs about pixies a good decade before “manic pixie dream girl” became a reductive stereotype. The video for their breakthrough hit Feed the Tree says everything about her charisma, as she wields a guitar, in a leather biker jacket in a colour-filtered forest more akin to a video by somebody like Florence + the Machine.
Donelly is reticent but comfortable with her former pin-up status. “The funny thing was, by the time Belly came along I was a solid decade older than the kids who were pinning me up. It was so funny, we were doing a signing once, and this young guy came up and said something very flowery and lyrical to me. And I said: ‘Oh, that’s so nice, I’m probably old enough to be your mom.’ And he said: ‘I wish!’ And then I was just sat there as every single emotion passed across his face as he tried to work through all these very conflicted feelings. In the end, I just held out my hands to him and reassured him how lovely it was to share this incredibly awkward moment with him.”
Belly rode the MTV goldrush, the brightest of all the 4AD family, but they lasted just two albums, splitting following 1995’s harder-edged King. “It wasn’t a case of the centre exploding, it just didn’t hold,” Donelly says. Having spent years as a sidekick, she was uncomfortable in the driving seat. Ironically, a fruitful solo career beckoned. “I wasn’t the greatest captain of that ship. If I’d been someone who saw myself as more of a leader, I might have been like: ‘Right, guys, we’re going into mediation,’ but it didn’t happen. Life just happened. And it won’t stop happening.”
The decision to reunite for a tour this summer was similarly undramatic. Donelly and her bandmates – guitarist Tom Gorman, drummer Chris Gorman and bassist Gail Greenwood – never really left each other’s orbits. You get the sense that they are reunited now simply because it is the done thing for bands of their era – Pixies have now been reunited longer than they were together the first time around; the Breeders have had irregular reunions, albeit without Donelly, who provided backing vocals on Throwing Muses’ 2003 comeback album.
She admits that, for Belly, it was a “now or never” situation. There is no epic payday – the band are funding and organising everything themselves. And with the best will, it didn’t seem as if the world was exactly screaming out for Belly to reunite. Of this, Donelly is acutely aware. When US shows started selling out quickly, she was convinced people thought they were buying tickets for Canadian rapper Belly and started firing off social media missives to that effect. Happily, the world did want them back after all. Tentative sessions to roadtest new material have grown into solid plans for a new album.
But what Belly might lack in rock psychodrama is made up for, as fans know, by the magic realist netherworld conjured by Donelly’s songwriting. On Star, twisted fairytales came to life, their sting initially masked by the music’s sugary charm. She does not dispute the suggestion that the record embodies that very modern geekish notion of the “shared universe”, and squeaks at the idea it would make excellent source material for a graphic novel. “I was so much living in that world at the time that when it was pointed out to me that it sounded like a fairytale, I couldn’t see it that way, because I was living it. In a lot of ways it’s a projection of my self-protection, I was laying things in analogue so I could protect myself from the truth. Which I suppose actually is where most fairytales come from.”
At one point on the album, a young squirrel nosedives down a staircase on a bicycle and needs all her teeth replacing with silver. At another, an insecure protagonist chews off her foot to escape an unsuitable dress. Elsewhere, a woman’s punishment for adultery is being made to parade around the village with a dead dog fastened to her back.
That song, Slow Dog, is typical of her process; the story of the adultress comes from Chinese folklore, then filtered through scarlet letter analogies, coming out on the other side as some kind of Southern gothic country jam. “It’s not actually about the dog,” she points out, perhaps mindful of how far I seem to be running with this. “It’s about the ways that we punish ourselves and each other, and in the end, what a waste.”
Post-Belly, Donelly’s increasingly mellow solo career toned down the witchy stuff and turned towards motherhood and emotions laid bare. Her recent Swan Songs series of EPs was intended as a slow withdrawal from performance altogether. “I was throwing myself a retirement party, and then this happens!”
Nowadays, she makes her living as a post-partum doula, going into homes to help new mothers with the transition. “I just started to realise that in our part of New England, new families have a hard time accepting help – not even asking for help. People will turn down help; I’ve literally sat in front of women turning down help from family and then bursting into tears as soon as they get off the phone. There’s this real culture of ‘I got this!’ and they’d rather pay somebody. So I’m there as what, in the past, would have been the village support network. Ideally, I’d prefer the village, but this is the world.”
Her new life is surely a far cry from the debauched days of the tourbus? “It’s not so different,” she cackles. “A lot of my clients are Rock Moms!”

- Daniel Martin, The Guardian

“We went to different high schools but we’re all from Aquidneck Island so we knew each other.”

Tanya Donelly on Belly, The Yorkshire Post

'Human Child' - Belly

-- --- ---- ---- --- --

Tanya Donelly

Interview with Belly

-- --- --

'Lovesongs For Underdogs' (1997) / 'Beautysleep' (2002) | 'Whiskey Tango Ghosts' (2004) \ 'This Hungry Life' (2006)

"Tanya Donelly's debut probably isn't up there with Belly's Star nor her later albums, mainly because it tries to be too likeable. But likeable it really is. Some irresistable pop tunes here but the most impressive is the beautiful closer Swoon and the album's more surreal moments like Manna."

- L. Omelasz, 'Lovesongs For The Underdogs'

"The aptly named Beautysleep finds Tanya Donelly's creative muse refreshed and revitalized after the four-and-a-half-year stint between this and her solo debut, Lovesongs for Underdogs. However, this album bears little resemblance to Underdogs' slick, slight attempt at triple-A pop. Indeed, its best moments, such as "Another Moment," share the same sweetly spooky vibe that Donelly perfected with Belly, but also belie a stronger, more grounded sound and lyrical outlook. "In the beginning my love was fierce/now I sit with my babe at my breast/I was never this good at my best," she sings on "The Night You Saved My Life," and this domestic serenity seeps into most of Beautysleep's material. Songs like "The Storm," "Keeping You," and "The Wave" hew closer to traditional singer/songwriter conventions than Donelly's earlier work -- and feature a slightly countrified twang to boot -- but still retain enough of her trademark weirdness to make the album distinctive. Beautysleep's quirky, slightly trippy production adds another layer of interest, particularly on "Life is but a Dream" and "Moonbeam Monkey," which, despite its title, is an eerie, hypnotic duet with Morphine's late singer, Mark Sandman, and one of the highlights of Donelly's entire career. Similarly, moody tracks like "Wrap-Around Skirt" and "The Shadow" wouldn't sound out of place on a Belly album. While Beautysleep doesn't offer quite as many of the giddy peaks and valleys that made Star so enthralling, it's arguably Donelly's strongest and most consistent work since that landmark album."

- Heather Phares, AllMusic

"Whiskey Tango Ghosts is without a doubt Tanya Donelly's most simple album of her career. It is also most likely her bravest. Unlike her guitar-friendly work with Belly and Throwing Muses, Donelly eases up on the electric riffs and builds on the sweetness found on 2002's Beautysleep. There isn't a clear-cut theme lingering throughout these 11 songs other than Donelly's own charming appreciation for Stephen Sondheim and some of country music's more classic sounds. She listened to a lot of Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, and Lucinda Williams and a bit from Wilco and Neko Case during the recording of Whiskey Tango Ghosts. If there was any kind of influence stemming from those particular artists, it's reflected in Donelly's streamlined approach to this album. The soft beauty that's made her a star all these years is the fruit of these songs. Her girlishly sweet vocals are as good as ever and all instruments are bare bones. Most of the time it's only Donelly and an acoustic guitar or it's her and the stylish chill of her backing band, husband Dean Fisher (guitar/bass/drums), Elizabeth Steen (piano), and Rich Gilbert (pedal steel/guitar). From the mauve-colored love song "The Center" and the jazz-like comfort of "Divine Sweet Divide" to the bittersweet melodies of "Just in Case You Quit on Me" and "The Promise," Whiskey Tango Ghosts finds solace in finding a place in life regardless of how much it changes. And as much as it is lovely, there's a hint of gray hovering over Donelly's signature musical purity. "Story High" and "Whiskey Tango" exude such somber tones. Much like Neko Case did with Blacklisted, Donelly's effort in keeping the instrumentation as simple as possible in order for the lyrics to cast a spell of wonder is exactly what makes Whiskey Tango Ghosts the enchanting album that it is."

- Mackenzie Wilson, AllMusic

"It's June," Tanya Donelly sings tenderly as this record begins, "and I'm still wearing my boots." It's an unseasonal observation, but one delivered with such cosiness and charm that it warms her fourth solo album into life. Unbelievably for fans of her old bands - Throwing Muses, the Breeders and Belly - Donelly is now a 40-year-old mother of two. But her fiery spark and the sweet rasp in her throat haven't aged. Her allegorical songwriting, most famously showcased on Belly's 1993 hit Feed the Tree, has moved on to matters of maternal concern; how to tell her children about monsters on World on Fire, and on Littlewing's tale about how "the first time lightning hit me was the night I met your daddy". Recorded live in a disused Vermont hotel, Donelly's vocal, full of personality, soars brightly over the audience and fills you with affection for hearth and for home."

- Jude Rogers, The Guardian

'Breathe Around You' - Tanya Donelly

-- --- --

'Swan Song Series (Volume 1 - 5)' (2013 - 2014)

"Considering how influential her work with Throwing Muses proved to be, and how much success she enjoyed with Belly, it's surprising that Tanya Donelly's solo career has been so low key. While she quietly released three solo albums and a live set between 1997 and 2006, none of them received much notice from listeners or critics. And beyond serious fans, who knew that Donelly had begun releasing a series of EPs in 2013? But if she has been traveling under the radar for the better part of a decade, it would seem that's our loss more than hers. Swan Song Series is a collection that brings together the material from the five EPs Donelly released between 2013 and 2015, and it represents some of her most engaging and wide-ranging work to date. Featuring contributions from Robyn Hitchcock, Bill Janovitz, John Wesley Harding, and Rick Moody, among many others, Swan Song Series gives Donelly the space to slip into a variety of styles and personas. She shapeshifts from the slinky, late-night torch singing of "Let Fall the Sky" and the cool electronic pulse beats of "Viva Karaoke," to the growling rock guitars of "Tu y Yo" and the tongue-in-cheek Irish balladeering of "Tooreloo." She packs a welcome amount of variety into these 31 tracks (which would have comfortably fit on two CDs instead of the three discs in this package), and while much of what's here fits into the broad category of semi-acoustic indie rock, Donelly finds plenty of different avenues to explore within that framework. She hasn't lost a bit of her knack for graceful but engaging melodies, and the cool, literate tone of her lyrics and vocals is as strong as ever. Swan Song Series arrived as Donelly was gearing up for a reunion tour with Belly, but this music shows she doesn't need the framework of a band in order to show off her talent to its best advantage."

- Mark Deming, AllMusic

'Mass Ave.' - Tanya Donelly

'Super-Connected : The Boston Scene Now And Then' by Michael Tedder (Stereogum)

"If my sister could completely circumvent the music industry, she would."

- Tanya Donelly

Last Edit: Jun 12, 2021 17:11:33 GMT by petrolino

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Nov 23, 2019 23:50:38 GMT

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Post by petrolino on Nov 23, 2019 23:50:38 GMT

Karin Oliver : Her Name Is Alive

I don't know anybody who knows all that much about Karin Oliver. She became a leading voice of the musical unit His Name Is Alive, an art project beguin in 1985 in Livonia, Michigan by multi-instrumentalist Warren Defever, who also spent time working in Indiana. Oliver and co-vocalist Angie Carozzo were originally called in alongside a group of musicians to cut some experimental pop records. Defever explored cut-up techniques in his hand-built, home studio, pulling off some marvels of sound editing. These multi-tracks were enhanced by the ethereal voices of Oliver and Carozzo. Shortly after arriving, Carozzo left the band, some time in the early 1990s. But in Oliver, Defever had also discovered an occasional co-writer, a cellist and an expert in the art of vocal instrumentation. Among this art collective's other vocalists, gospel singer Lovetta Pippen made her recording debut in 1996 and she'd later step up to replace Oliver, who left the project at the end of the 1990s.

'Are We Still Married?' - His Name Is Alive

Defever has co-written music with Ian Masters (Pale Saints), Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters) and His Name Is Alive drummer Trey Many (Liqorice). When Many formed his own group, Velour 100, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Defever worked on the production side. Never a consistent seller even by indie standards, His Name Is Alive parted ways with 4AD in 2002, though Defever continues to keep the band's name alive through a series of independent recordings that have become increasingly more interior in their surroundings.

Despite creative collaborations coming upon him intermittently, in principal, Defever's musical soulmate at 4AD was the enigmatic Kurt Ralske (Crash), jangle-pop guitarist turned bandleader of Ultra Vivid Scene. Ralske also struggled to sell records. By the time their third album appeared, Ultra Vivid Scene had become one of rock 'n' roll's most intense three-piece units, but sadly, the writing was already on the wall. Ralske has since taken up teaching posts at the Rhode Island School Of Design and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

"His Name Is Alive is one of the most remarkable creations of the pop underground. It stands around the mind of Warn Defever, and was born when he was still in high school. It takes place, of course, around that greatest of musical cities, Detroit. The conflicts of that metropolis inspire street tunes, club magic and suburban soliloquies. Defever's is the latter.
Unearthed from the ground of Livonia, Michigan, His Name Is Alive is a project that wouldn't be nearly as renowned without the construct of the music business. For all its ills, that construct gets music like this attention and room to grow and experiment. If, in the wake of digital freedom, we count on the artist to tour and shill themselves, it's acts like Warn's we are bound to lose. His talent is in the execution and process of pop, not in the performance or promotion."

- David Day, Dusted

'Special One' - Ultra Vivid Scene & Kim Deal

Today, it's said that Karin Oliver works in marketing. Hope she's doing well. She has remarkable vocal ability.

-- --- ---- ---- --- --

His Name Is Alive

Band Members

Jymn Auge

Kevin Callaway

Angie Carozzo

Warren Defever

Melissa Elliott

Chad Gilchrist

Scott Goldstein

Erika Hoffmann

Denise James

Damian Lang

Elden M.

Trey Many

Chelle Marie

Karen Neal

Karin Oliver

Lovetta Sharie Pippen
Fred Thomas

His Name Is Alive in a record store

-- --- -- --- --

'Livonia' (1990)

'The Dirt Eaters' (1992)

'Home Is In Your Head' (1991)

'Mouth By Mouth' (1993)

'Stars On E.S.P.' (1996)

'Nice Day' (1997)

'Ft. Lake' (1998)

'Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth' (2001)

'Last Night' (2002)

"His Name Is Alive's debut album, Livonia, is the group's artiest, most explicitly experimental release. It's also the most haphazard, in terms of musical success; the affecting ("If July," "Fossil") sits next to the affected ("You and I Have Seizures," "Reincarnation"). Even at its most contrived, however, Livonia features the elements the group used later to create their distinctive style: Karin Oliver's shimmery, ghostly voice and Warren Defever's open-minded production. Defever commented later that he saw himself as an avant-garde composer during the Livonia period; the album's found sounds, tape loops, and samples do give it an artsy and occasionally precious patina. At its best, Livonia explores death, dreams, and spirituality with transcendent music and lyrics. At its worst, it's an ambitious debut, introducing a creative, aspiring band."

- Heather Phares, AllMusic

'Wish I Had A Wishing Ring' - His Name Is Alive

-- --- ---- ---- --- --

Ultra Vivid Scene

'Medicating Angels' - Ultra Vivid Scene

-- --- -- --- --

'Ultra Vivid Scene' (1989) - Ultra Vivid Scene / 'Joy 1967-1990' (1990) - Ultra Vivid Scene \ 'Rev' (1992) - Ultra Vivid Scene

"I started playing guitar when I was 15, and shortly after, I met two other high school outcasts who wanted to start a punk band. I didn’t really know what that was. I knew quite a lot about music, because my original instrument was the trumpet, and I had worked hard to figure out how to play jazz on the trumpet, so I knew quite a lot about harmony and theory. And I liked prog rock, so when I first picked up the guitar, I was trying to figure out how to [play] King Crimson. It wasn’t like, Okay, I want to be in The Ramones, it was, I want to be Robert Fripp. But my band members had a very strong interest in what was going on in New York, as I did too, but I was more interested in the avant-garde side.
The whole thing was a little bit hardcore, a little bit avant-garde, a little bit punk funk. I wasn’t able to imitate the way most punk rock players played guitar, because I didn’t know the basics, I only knew this weird advanced stuff. So it led to this odd mash-up of styles."

- Kurt Ralske, The Quietus

'How Sweet' - Ultra Vivid Scene

-- --- ---- ---- --- --

Velour 100

'Fall Sounds' (1996) - Velour 100 / 'Of Color Bright' (1997) - Velour 100

"A few years back, I was so thrilled to open the latest Tooth and Nail catalog and see a little blurb for a brand new band called Velour 100, featuring His Name Is Alive’s drummer. I had only begun to get into His Name Is Alive and was entranced by their quirky ambient pop. I was growing tired of the increasingly punk-dominated Tooth and Nail roster, and so I was filled with great anticipation for this band. And they did not disappoint: their debut Fall Sounds could probably be the most sublime pleasure the label ever released."

- Jason Morehead, Opus

'Clouds' - Velour 100

"I started performing when I was age 5, I don’t really remember much about it. My grandfather taught my brothers and I how to play guitar, accordion, bass, slide guitar, banjo and fiddle. We played old time music including polkas, waltzes, country and western music. He believed that popular music died with Hank Williams. I was rehearsing and performing before I knew what music was. When I first heard oldies radio and rock and roll music from the 1950’s I was very excited and believed I found the ultimate and best music. Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and Elvis were my idols. I loved all the echo and reverb and all the raw sounds and energy. There is a great music scene in Michigan especially the Detroit area has a long history of great creative innovators like the MC5, Aretha Franklin, Detroit Techno, Motown, Stevie Wonder, Iggy and The Stooges and Funkadelic."

- Warren Defever

Last Edit: Jun 12, 2021 3:20:52 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 6, 2019 23:27:05 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Dec 6, 2019 23:27:05 GMT

Tanya Donelly & Kristin Hersh : Guitar Moulds

"A night at the Living Room, on Promenade Street in Providence, Rhode Island, in spring 1985. The headlining band sets up. Their gear includes a pair of mannequin legs in a gold lamé miniskirt, a decrepit Moog, a television tuned to a grey channel, and an ironing board that serves as a shelf for a Casio keyboard and hubcaps.
They are three women and one man (the drummer). When they start playing, drunks at the bar hoot “whoo! girls! The Go-Gos!!” and rush the stage to leer at them. Three songs into the set, the drunks have backed off, leaving an empty half-circle before the stage. Most of the crowd are regulars: punks, art students at RISD, junkies who sleep in a park in Wayland Square. In one corner of the club is the Hollywood eminence Betty Hutton and her priest.
The lead singer/guitarist stares into the middle distance, unblinking, craning her neck and twitching a foot. At stress points in songs she channels an eldtrich power from the pits of her lungs. My PILLOW SCREAMS TOO but SO DOES MY KITCHEN and water and my shoes…I have a gun in my head…I’m invisible…I can’t! FIND! THE! ICE! The other guitarist sings harmony: how do they kill children? Songs fray, splinter, hang together far longer than seems possible. Some seem to be only bridges and long outros. Chords are open strings and warring notes truced by a pressed finger. The drummer, on a kit without cymbals, snaps sixteenth-note marching band patterns across his snare. The bassist plays melodies the singer won’t sing, riffs the guitarists don’t play, beats the drummer doesn’t hit.
“We didn’t mean to ever be strange. I guess we were because everybody says we were,” Kristin Hersh said in 2004. “It’s almost like speaking your own language. I find we kept people out of our world by doing that.”
In the autumn of 1985, music writers, radio stations, and labels in New England, New York City, and beyond (even the UK, it turned out) got a demo cassette and typewritten press release in the mail.

~ “Kristin Hersh is a singer and guitar player and biggest writer and sometimes has blue hair and sometimes glasses. Tanya Donelly is the other singer who plays keys and guitars and noise toys. She writes some songs and shirts. Leslie Langston does very good bass and backing voice. She did punk, funk, Portuguese polkas, jazz, hardcore, acid rock, classical and even more reggae…David Narcizo does drums and hubcaps. He lives in a room with walls like a subway’s and used to be in a marching band.
We all do THROWING MUSES and average our ages at 19.”

In half a year, Throwing Muses had a contract with the British label 4AD; in a year, they had released an album and were opening for Cocteau Twins.
They were lucky, in part. They lived within a drive of Providence, Boston, and New York, and so could play a club every other week. They had a score of colleges (Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design especially took them to heart) and a healthy ecology of local newspapers, magazines, and radio stations to promote them. They had the bravado and sleep-resistance of teenagers. They became a band as a positive charge in a negative adolescence, but treated it as the only job they would ever hold. 4AD’s Ivo Watts-Russell said Throwing Muses were always working: demoing, rehearsing, improving. “So many of the bands I’d worked with had pretty much made things up in the studio and only rehearsed when they were about to tour,” he told Martin Aston.
You can hear influences in their music—X, The Raincoats, Volcano Suns, Violent Femmes, The B-52’s, early R.E.M. (see the intro of “Vicky’s Box”)—but they appeared more to have come up with a version of rock music by reading about it. Their look countered their volatile sound—they were a well-scrubbed pack of “art hardcore” college kids. Gary Smith, who recorded their essential 1985 demo, made sure their photograph was on the cassette cover because, as he told Hersh, “you’re adorable.”
The band joked that while they had to be at a Throwing Muses show, they didn’t know why anyone else was. “Sometimes I have a lot of respect for people sitting through our shows,” Hersh said to CMJ. The bands who “put on a show,” who catered to the crowds, all the would-be rock and roll stars, made no sense to them.
“People said the main problem with our music is that you couldn’t ignore it,” she added."

- Chris O'Leary, 64 Quartets

"As soon as I saw Throwing Muses at the Rat, I thought, that’s it, it’s all over for me. I don’t know how to do this, it’s everything I can’t adjust to. The drummer doesn’t play a beat, he just accents everything the singer does. The chords are weird. The melodies don’t make any sense, and yet they’re really good. If this is what’s coming next, then I’m finished."

- Johnny Angel Wendell

Kristin Hersh & Tanya Donelly in Paris, France

-- --

Tanya Donelly

"Throwing Muses breathed new life into post-punk. The band emerged onto the scene in 1986, just as classic acts like Gang of Four and Public Image Ltd were starting to fade. Their debut self-titled record returned to alternative rock a sense of youthful urgency – a frantic search for meaning amidst a sea of synthpop and Reaganites.
The face of Throwing Muses was (and continues to be) Kristin Hersh. As the Muses’ principal singer and songwriter, Hersh’s eerie, beautiful vocals simultaneously sent chills down listeners’ spines and breathed fire into their hearts. With sudden, dramatic dynamic shifts and deeply expressive phrasing, Hersh is the sort of vocalist that demands your attention.
But the unsung heroine? Lead guitarist Tanya Donelly. If Kristin Hersh laid the quavering, cryptic foundation of Throwing Muses, Tanya Donelly built the hallucinatory walls surrounding it. Her dizzying arpeggios, agitated strumming and unusual chord progressions delivered a perfect counterpoint to Hersh’s unhinged poetry.
One of the best examples of Donelly’s early work is the Muses’ 1991 breakthrough, The Real Ramona. Her consistently original style shines through in every song, providing an essential component of the band’s beautiful delirium. To enhance the effect further, Donelly used modulation and distortion to create a sound that was both hazy and angular. The Real Ramona also showcased Donelly’s flair for songwriting. “Not Too Soon” proved her capable of writing the catchiest of radio-friendly tunes, while “Honeychain” demonstrated her ability to shatter pop conventions while retaining coherence and unity.
Tanya continued to develop her writing when she departed from Throwing Muses to form Belly. The band’s debut, Star, was a stand-out in a particularly strong year for indie rock. On the opener, “Someone to Die For,” Donelly hypnotizes gently with both voice and guitar before launching into the “Angel,” a high-energy number that gives us a glimpse of her darker side.
Even as she settled into the dreaded singer/songwriter role in the late ‘90s, Tanya lost none of her creative spark. In the face of inevitable comparisons to Hersh’s successful solo career, Donelly has crafted such lovely excursions as 2002’s Beautysleep and 2004’s Whiskey Tango Ghosts.
Certainly, the ‘90s was a time of guitar goddesses: Rachel Goswell, Kim Deal, and Emma Anderson, to name a few. But among these pioneers of indie rock, Tanya Donelly stands tall – not just as one of the first, but also as one of the undisputed best.
And yes, that includes guys as well as girls."

- Adam Jazairi, Guitar Muse

"Marc Ribot, he's my favorite guitar player. And my sister Kristin and the Beatles. I admire Marc because he's so weird and because he uses the entire guitar. The entire neck is open in terms of what note follows the last. Kristin and I started playing together, and we did it from a real personal perspective. We didn't know how to play, because we didn't listen to anybody else. So we kind of learned together, and we thought the point was to be as interesting as possible and not to follow strict rules."

- Tanya Donelly, Guitar Player

"Her voice clear and hesitant, Tanya Donelly scatters surrealistic snapshots over jangly and jagged guitars. Folk-rock anxiety, '60's pop sparkle, and garage band raucousness reign supreme on King, her sophomore effort with Belly. Co-guitarist Tom Gorman conjures the Beatles, early Pretenders, and Ennio Marricone in his swirling, savvy approach, while brother Chris Gorman pounds drums and Gail Greenwood pumps bass.
Donelly first came to fame via Throwing Muses, formed with her stepsister Kristin Hersh. After five Muses albums and side projects with the Breeders and This Mortal Coil, Tanya declared her independence in 1991, later confessing, "I have become a change addict." The Gormans, her childhood pals from Newport, Rhode Island, contacted her about forming a new band, which was named after Tanya's favorite word.
Among a galaxy of early-'90s alternative releases, few shone brighter than Star [Sire/Reprise]. Haunting avant folk-rock, Belly's debut set longetivity records on college charts and established Donelly as a briliant, albeit quirky, songwriter. Her new album is likewise awash with topsy-turvy lullabies, midnight confessions, strange, sweet harmonies, and exhilerating guitar tones."

- Jas Obrecht, 'Belly Up'

"I'm always interested in dichotomy and paradox; the kind of things that I listen to are the kind of things that trick you. That's really fascinating to me. Really morbid pop has always attracted me. Something that seems... sweeettt but ends up burning you."

- Tanya Donelly, VOX

Billy Bragg, Tanya Donelly, Natalie Merchant, Harry Horgan & Bill Janowitz

'Now They'll Sleep' - Belly

-- --

Guitars

* Gibson Les Paul Deluxe

* Gibson SG-Z

'Tanya Donelly used her Gibson Les Paul Deluxe (with the JOBLESS ANTI-WORKWEAR sticker) on her tour stops in NYC.. She runs this through an effects pedalboard (consisting of mostly Boss pedals, see below for details) and a Laney VC50 guitar amplifier..
.
Tanya's signal chain starts with her Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, with the pickup switch set on RHYTHM to use the neck humbucker..
.
On the pedalboard, the signal goes through a PSM-5 Power Supply/Master Switch, to a Stage Tuner (I think it's an Arion HU-8500 Stage Tuner), to an OD-2r TURBO Overdrive, to a CH-1 SUPER Chorus, to a DD-3 Digital Delay, and finally through a Wah/Volume pedal Tanya uses for "Human".
All pedals are made by BOSS, with the possible exception of the Stage Tuner and wah-wah (I'm not sure which brand it is, though it's probably a Dunlop CryBaby).

EFFECTS SETTINGS:

Tanya uses a Boss OD-2r to provide the distortion for her guitar sound. .Setting numbers refer to the hour position in a clock
(" 12" means set the dial to point at 12 O'clock like a hand in an analog clock).

LEVEL 12
TONE 11
DRIVE 10
TURBO 12 (ON)

LEVEL TONE DRIVE TURBO
12 11 10 12
"12" "11" "10" "12"
. . . (ON)

TURBO
OverDrive

OD-2r

E.LEVEL EQ RATE DEPTH
10 10 10 10
"10" "10" "10" "10"
. . . .

SUPER
Chorus

CH-1
Next up on the signal chain after the TURBO Overdrive is the BOSS CH-1. .Only Output A (Mono) from the CH-1 SUPER Chorus is used. .Set all dials to 10 O'clock.

E.LEVEL 10
EQ 10
RATE 10
DEPTH 10

From Output A of the SUPER Chorus, plug the signal into the BOSS DD-3 Digital Delay. .Set the MODE to L.800ms.

E.LEVEL 12
F.BACK 12
D.TIME 9
MODE 12 (L.800ms)

E.LEVEL F.BACK D.TIME MODE
12 12 9 12
"12" "12" "9" "12"
. . . (L.800ms)

.
Digital Delay

DD-3

The PSM-5 is used mainly to provide power for all the other pedals (think of it like a power strip to plug all the pedals into, minus all the "wall warts"), while the STAGE TUNER helps make sure Tanya's guitar is in-tune. . You can still get pretty close to Tanya Donelly's tone if you leave these out (In fact, you'll get a stronger signal and less noise).

For "Human" engage the wah pedal and set it about 90% back. Tanya uses it more like a second distortion pedal with a foot-operated tone control (notch filter?), rather than a conventional wah. . I believe she also does this for "Lantern" except the wah is set all the way forward.

Use the neck pickup on your guitar, regardless of whether it's a Les Paul type or not (a neck humbucker would be ideal). .For the people that can't afford all those BOSS pedals, here's a few things you can try. .I substituted a ZOOM 505 Multi-effects pedal in place of the BOSS pedals and play an Epiphone Les Paul Standard instead of the pricy Gibson Les Paul Deluxe. .Any "English" sounding amplifier (like a Park or a lower cost Marshall) can be used in place of the Laney VC50.

Here are some Zoom 505 settings to emulate Tanya's live tone:

Description COMP DIST GAIN ZNR/AMP EQ MOD DLY/REV LEVEL
Overdrive Tone C1 rY 20 A6 23 C3 H2 25
Overdrive w/ Delay C1 rY 20 A6 23 C3 d6 25
Overdrive w/ Wah P8 rY 21 A6 22 C3 H1 25
Acoustic Electric L3 Ac 29 A6 20 C1 H2 25

These patch settings don't sound exactly like the BOSS pedals, but it's what I use when playing Tanya's songs. .LEVEL can be set to anything, as all it does is control the master volume. .If you also have the optional expression pedal, you can set COMP to P8 in order to get the wah pedal effect used in "Human", "Lantern", and a few other songs.'

- Live Tone

David Narcizo with Kristin Hersh

David Narcizo with Tanya Donelly

'Counting Backwards' - Throwing Muses

-- --

< Sound Affects * : "Sister, My Sister" >

'Safari' - The Breeders

-- --

Kristin Hersh

"None other than Bob Dylan once said about songwriting: “Songs don’t just come to me. They usually brew for a while, and you learn it’s important to keep the pieces until they’re completely formed and glued together.”
Kristin Hersh might agree, if only to a certain extent, because for most of her life, the songs haven’t simply brewed—they’ve churned, cascaded, and crashed like an unrelenting flood of pictures, sounds, memories, and emotions. As she recounts in her memoir Rat Girl, it all started after she sustained a double concussion in a childhood accident. After a car struck her while she was riding a bike, the trauma literally flipped a switch in her head, and the music kept coming, to the point where she felt less like a budding songwriter and more like a constantly live wire, unable to shut down the current that possessed her. She was only 16 years old.
“Eventually the songs no longer tapped me on the shoulder,” she wrote. “They slugged me in the jaw. Instead of singing to me, they screamed, burrowing into my brain as electricity. Do you want your face grabbed and shouted at? Probably not; at the very least, it’s irritating. But now that it’s happened to me, I know that music is as close to religion as I’ll ever get. It’s a spiritually and biologically sound endeavor—it’s healthy.”
That energy fueled a string of explosive albums by Throwing Muses, the defiantly eclectic indie-rock band Hersh cofounded with her stepsister Tanya Donelly when the two were still in high school in Newport, Rhode Island. The band blazed a humid trail of triumphs and broken dreams, punctuated by soul-baring anthems like “Hate My Way” (from their eponymous 1986 debut), House Tornado’s episodic “Walking in the Dark,” Red Heaven’s slow-building gem “Pearl,” and, in 1995, the yearningly sweet, critically lauded but commercially doomed University, their last album to be distributed in the U.S. by a major label, Sire/Warner.
Along the way, Hersh and her bandmates helped set the stage for the ’90s alt-rock craze, influencing the rise of the Pixies (who in their early days often opened for the Muses), Pavement, the Breeders, the Lemonheads, and, yes, even Nirvana and Radiohead. By 1997, in the wake of the aptly named album Limbo, the band went on hiatus, but Hersh was just getting revved up.
Wyatt at the Coyote Palace is her ninth solo album, going back to 1994’s Hips and Makers. Nearly five years in the making, in a sense it’s her Physical Graffiti—a beautiful and unruly 24-song, multi-instrumental, double-disc magnum opus that finds Hersh pushing open strange new doors with her writing, arranging, and recording chops. She also plays every part, including bass and drums. Coproduced with longtime friend and confidant Steve Rizzo at his Stable Sound Studios in Portsmouth, Rhode Island [see sidebar, “Studio as Sanctuary”], it’s a concept album that’s rife with expertly layered acoustic and electric guitars—including Hersh’s go-to Collings C10 cutaway acoustic, custom-shaped for her by Bill Collings himself in 2008. She still refers to it as “the guitar that love built,” because her fans helped buy it for her after she lost her house, and everything in it, in a flood.
Love in all its permutations, in fact, is the driving force behind the music here. Hersh named the album for her third son, Wyatt, who made his own discoveries while exploring an abandoned apartment building near Stable Sound that was taken over by coyotes (hence, the “coyote palace”). She was also working through the painful dissolution of her 25-year marriage, lending songs like the Bowie-esque “Hemingway’s Tell,” with its sheets of distorted lap-steel guitar, a poignant aura of catharsis. It’s just one of many moments where Hersh sounds palpably inspired, excited, and maybe even a little terrified by the possibilities of trying something new.
“When I step into the studio, I always know what I’m gonna walk out with, even if it’s five years later—and I’m always completely wrong,” she gushes. Hersh speaks animatedly, with a sharp, self-deprecating wit that goes a long way toward explaining how her music appeals to so many: she’s always open and authentic, never striking a pose."

- Bill Murphy, Premier Guitar

"Over the course of her career, Kristin Hersh has been a voice for change within the music industry and independence for recording artists. In 2007, she co-founded, and currently serves on the board of directors of, the nonprofit Coalition of Artists and Stake-Holders, or CASH Music, whose mission is to empower artists to create without boundaries. Through the organization’s website, artists can access free technical tools to sell and promote their work.
Hersh recorded Wyatt at the Coyote Palace in Portsmouth, Rhode Island with longtime engineer Steve Rizzo, who has worked with Throwing Muses since 1991’s The Real Ramona, and engineered all of Hersh’s solo albums, with the exception of Sky Motel. The songs were written during what is described as a “turbulent period” in Hersh’s life, while the prose was inspired by her autistic son, Wyatt, and his “fascination with an abandoned apartment building inhabited by coyotes.”
Although she describes herself as shy, Hersh has been fearless about baring her soul to the world, allowing listeners and readers to experience both the dark and light of her innermost thoughts. Wyatt at the Coyote Palace follows in the vein of her previous work in terms of its raw honesty and, of course, her driving electric and acoustic guitar work, which accentuates her intimate storytelling and vocals.
Hersh played all of the instruments on the album: guitar, bass, drums, piano, horns, cello, banjo, and even Irish bouzouki on one track. “She used her custom Collings guitar, my Gibson J-45’s — one from the 60s and one from the 70s, custom ’70 and ’71 Les Paul, Fender Jazz and P basses, a Reverend Rumblefish four-string bass, a custom lap steel, and a Line 6 500 Series POD for the guitar,” says Rizzo. “We didn’t use a lot of amplifiers. We used a Vox a lot and we might have used a Supro.”
“Kristin was very open to trying things,” he says. “She trusts that I’m not going to make it sound like a heavy metal record or something. She has strong opinions and she can’t relate to the macho bullshit that’s in a lot of rock music. She’s an artist and a poet. She doesn’t see herself that way, she never wanted to put the lyrics in books, but she’s grown into that with time because a lot of people love her words, so it’s nice to see it on the pages and follow along.”

- Alison Richter, She Shreds

"I was friends with Kristin [Hersh], still am. She asked if I would come in and sing on that song 'Dio'. There was a control room, big open recording room, and two isolation booths in the back where you might put an amp or where someone might sing. She had just had a child, months old. They put him in his bassinet in one of the isolation booths with a vintage tube microphone so if he woke up and needed anything we would’ve heard it through the control room. I think Art Garfunkel might’ve drifted through, too, during the day with his kid.
This was around Black Sheets Of Rain, before Sugar. That period, ’90 or ’91, that circle of friends with Kristin and Vic Chesnutt, people like that. Those were people I was always comfortable doing things with, kindred spirits. That was probably one of the first."

- Bob Mould, Stereogum

"Ha! Electro-Harmonix fuzz wah, that’s my favorite pedal, which is embarrassing because it’s been my signature sound for a while. I found that at Kingsway Studios, Daniel Lanois’ place in New Orleans, where we made a bunch of records. It distorts at the top of the wave and mellows at the bottom into this ’70s bass sound. It can carry a whole song. It’s hypnotic. It doesn’t have the effect you’d think a fuzz wah would have. I don’t know — it’s just really charming and awful, and I love it. It’s on a lot of 50 Foot Wave stuff, but the Throwing Muses song where it’s the loudest is probably “No Way in Hell” from University.
Then I lost it in my house flood with all my other equipment. I’d always wanted another one, even though I was scared to let myself play it again because I get so annoying with them. Then a friend picked one up for me for my birthday, and I was so psyched. I brought it to the studio — it was like, “Yeah, I have my sound back!” And it sounded like a beer commercial. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Do I suck now? Is it 50 Foot Wave that was good, not me? And then I realized it’s because the old one was totally screwed up, and that’s why it sounded so cool. So I soaked the new one in water, and now it works perfectly."

- Kristin Hersh, Premier Guitar

Grant-Lee Phillips & Kristin Hersh

Daniel Earwicker deconstructs 'Freeloader'

Guitars

• Collings C10 cutaway (custom)
• Nashville-tuned Gibson J-45
• Fender Telecaster Thinline (vintage)
• Fender Stratocaster (vintage)
• ’80s Michael Allison LP-style
• Danelectro Double Cutaway ’59 reissue
• Reverend Rumblefish bass
• ’62 Fender Jazz Bass
• Fender Classic Series ’69 Telecaster Thinline (live)
• ESP Xtone (live)

Amps

• Supro 16T
• Vox Cambridge Reverb
• Harmony H410
• Ampeg Rocket
• Fender Twin Reverb (live)
• Fender Bassman (live)

Effects

• Electro-Harmonix Crying Bass Wah/Fuzz

'Ruthie's Knocking' - Throwing Muses

Tanya Donelly & Kristin Hersh : 'The Last Embrace' by Andrew Catlin ...

D'Addario Strings : "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?"

• D’Addario EXP13 80/20 Bronze, Custom Light (.011–.052; acoustic) • D’Addario ECG26 Chromes Medium Gauge (.013–.056)

D'Addario Brothers come to 4AD : _ Lemon Twigs - 'Small Victories'

Last Edit: Jan 24, 2022 3:58:25 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

petrolino
Revered Member

"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

@petrolino
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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 7, 2019 0:53:34 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Dec 7, 2019 0:53:34 GMT

'Time ... Has Told Me ...' {: ELEGY :}

'Pennyroyal Tea' - Kristin Hersh

“My notes were calendars and song notebooks,” the indie-rock musician Kristin Hersh says, sitting in her home in New Orleans. “A musician’s life is so repetitive that we had those experiences and conversations over and over again. I laid out memory photographs over each other until I had an essential image of the story.”
The result is a book. On the cover of Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt, is a languorous black-and-white photograph of a young man shooting a brooding glare over the lip of an oversized bathtub, looking not unlike a 1960s French film star. Chesnutt, who took his own life on Christmas Day in 2009, was a relentlessly prolific recording artist from Athens, Georgia. A car accident at age 18 left him paraplegic, but he toured extensively and despite being physically limited to simple guitar chords, he wrote 17 critically lauded albums. In 2006, NPR placed him on a list of its top 10 living songwriters.
A substantial amount of Chesnutt’s touring life was spent playing with Kristin Hersh, a founding member of pioneering indie band Throwing Muses. Chesnutt had always played his brand of poignant indie folk, a piece of string holding his guitar around his shoulders. His songs were unswervingly personal. “An autobiography in song, recounting a storied life, documenting strained relationships, and evoking perilous despair,” was how Pitchfork described his work."

- Paul Oswell, The Guardian

"Vic Chesnutt wasn’t destined to enjoy the success many of his fans enjoyed. He influenced many and died too soon … an old story, but in this case the story of one of the best songwriters of our generation. He and I toured together on and off for about a decade or so and I’d say we were close, though nobody was ever close enough to Vic to cart him out of his valleys and push him up into the peaks where we all wished he’d just set up camp and send more songs rolling down that mountain into our waiting ears.
The car accident that left him a quadriplegic at age eighteen was probably his most gaping, obvious wound, but there were others. Vic was not gonna stick around, in other words, unless you believed his stories of Old Man Vic, parked on his porch in Athens, Georgia, with a shotgun aimed at all comers. I definitely believed that story, because I wanted to, and because when he was alive, he was so alive. I mean, every day . . . until he wasn’t anymore."

~ Kristin Hersh, Rhode Island, May 2015 (Author's Note, printed opposite a picture of Vic Chesnutt at Kristin Hersh's house in 1996 - ushering in chapter 1, 'EAT CANDY')

"All In The Family" : Kristin Hersh & her friend Vic Chesnutt

'Stay' - Belly

---

Lonesome Friend : Troubled Troubadours On The Open Road

Vic Chesnutt (Born November 12, 1964, Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. - Died December 25, 2009, Athens, Georgia, U.S.)

'Panic Pure' - Kristin Hersh (written by Vic Chesnutt)

Daniel Johnston (Born January 22, 1961, Sacramento, California, U.S. - Died c. September 11, 2019, Waller, Texas, U.S.)

Mark Linkous (Born September 9, 1962, Arlington, Virginia - Died March 6, 2010, Knoxville, Tennessee)

Elliott Smith (Born August 6, 1969, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. - Died October 21, 2003, Los Angeles, California, U.S.)

Jason Molina (Born December 30, 1973, Oberlin, Ohio, U.S. - Died March 16, 2013, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.)

'Don't Suck, Don't Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt' by Kristin Hersh (published October 2015)

R.I.P.

Last Edit: Dec 31, 2021 1:37:55 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 8, 2019 2:34:45 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Dec 8, 2019 2:34:45 GMT

Literary Adventures From Georgia & Rhode Island

-- --

Literary Origins

Both Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly spring from areas with great literary traditions. They grew up in Rhode Island, before moving to Massachusetts. Donelly in particular has spent significant time in the north-east, performing in Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Hersh is from Georgia, a state that carries a rich tradition in southern gothic, having produced writers like Margaret Mitchell, Erskine Caldwell, James Dickey, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Anne Rivers Siddons and Pat Conroy. Hersh has recently been dividing her time between Rhode Island and Louisiana, while Donelly continues to haunt Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

'The story of New England writing begins some 400 years ago, when a group of English Puritans crossed the Atlantic believing that God had appointed them to bring light and truth to the New World. Over the centuries since, the people of New England have produced one of the great literary traditions of the world—an outpouring of poetry, fiction, history, memoirs, letters, and essays that records how the original dream of a godly commonwealth has been both sustained and transformed into a modern secular culture enriched by people of many backgrounds and convictions.'

- 'Writing New England : An Anthology From The Puritans To The Present' (edited by Andrew Delbanco, Harvard Press)

"What steers the southern gothic is authenticity. Look at the places the aforementioned “gods” of the genre are from. Mississippi. Georgia. Alabama. Florida. These are writers who spend their imaginative energy on the “postage stamp” of soil beneath their feet; writers who know, in other words, of what they speak. What makes this crucial to the southern gothic is similar to what makes a brother able to poke fun at his sister while beating up anyone else who dares make fun of her. It’s a family thing; an intimacy that readers from anywhere can relate to. Show me a southern gothic novel written by someone who’s not from the south and the odds are that I’ll show you a bad novel. To put it more smartly, there is a difference between writing from the culture and writing about or, at its worst, above it. The southern gothic is, always, from the culture."

- Mo Walsh, The Guardian

'Drive' - Throwing Muses

-- --

Kristin Hersh

Kristin Hersh is the author of several, very different publications. She's also a diarist, a blogger, a journalist, a lyricist and a poet. She's written a memoir, entitled 'Rat Girl', which sheds light on her early days in Throwing Muses. She adapted diary entries to create the book which reads as an intimate journal.

“Rat Girl is the story of a wide-eyed soul coming to maturity in the ridiculous cacophony of modern life. Although it is supposedly about what we call, for lack of a better term, ‘manic depression,’ it has nearly no interest in such grim diagnostic thinking. It is instead awestruck – by music, feeling, perception, wild animals, mystery, dreams, ‘the gorgeous and terrible things that live in your house.’ It is an original beauty.”

– Mary Gaitskill

"At the age of 16, Kristin Hersh was involved in an accident, when a car knocked her off her bicycle and left her with double concussion. She began hearing music in a way she would later describe as “a kind of possession. I’ll give you an example. If a car drove through a puddle, most people would only hear it once. I’d hear it continually. The same with a whirring fan, on and on and on. Somehow, the sounds would alter their sonic vocabulary until I was hearing syllables, and drums. And then all these words would come.” Subsequently, just as the band were breaking big, she was diagnosed first with schizophrenia, then with bipolar disorder.
Over the years, she had tried many treatments to quell, or at least quieten, her bipolar disorder, including acupuncture. Nothing worked. But now, at last, something has. Last year, she underwent a post-traumatic stress therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).
“It involves a bar of light flashing back and forth while you hold pulsing electrodes in your hands,” she explains. “At the same time you relive the traumatic memory that caused the break in your perception, that caused you to remain stuck. It somehow pushes that memory back into the past, and re-orients your synapses.” The procedure was, she admits, “bizarre”, but it was also successful. The result is that she is no longer assailed by music the way certain houses are by ghosts. This, she says, is a relief."

- Nick Duerden, The Independent

“I was in a car accident when I was 12. I woke up, and my leg was twisted under me, and the bone was sticking out. I don’t know if it’s because I was young, but my first instinct wasn’t ‘Oh, God, I lost my leg!’ It was ‘Oh, God, cool!'”

- Tanya Donelly, Rolling Stone

The reawakening of Rat Girl

'Without the veil my resources fail,
I suck onto you and leech your sweetness,
This pilot fish will grant one wish,
As long as it's unrealistic,

Help me out
Help me out
Help me out
Help me out
I've come unveiled ...'

- 'Kundalini Slide' by Tanya Donelly

Excerpt from 'Rat Girl' :

After sound checks, while I write set lists in the dressing room, our bass player tells a story about her former life in Santa Cruz that involves living in a tree house, falling out of the tree house, breaking her leg and being attacked by banana slugs. Leslie's stories are very soothing, and I only half listen until the banana slug part. Then I stop writing and look up. "What's a banana slug?"

"They're big," answers Leslie.

I hold up the magic marker I'm using, sideways. "What, like, this big?" She swings her waist-length dreads over her shoulder and puts her hands in front of my face about a foot away from each other. "No!" Cool. "And they attack you!"

"They attacked me," she says.

"Wait a minute-" I begin.

My sister, Tea, interrupts. "But how fast are they? And what could a slug do even if it could catch you?" She talks to the ceiling because she's lying on a Universal Couch, the disgusting old sofa covered in stains, gum and cigarette burns that's common to all dressing rooms. We think this is how aliens'll colonize earth: in the form of unassuming, filthy sofas. They're everywhere. Everywhere we go, anyway.

"Yeah, Les," I say, "are they poisonous or something?"

Leslie shrugs. "They're really gross."

"Do the one about your hair in the pool drain," says Tea.

"Yeah." I love that one. "When you almost drowned. And make it suspenseful."

"How can I make it suspenseful?" asks Leslie. "You already know the ending."

"We figured out the ending to the banana slug story, too," says Tea.

"Yeah. You live." I start another set list. "Do the pool one, it's my favorite."

"Well," Leslie begins dramatically, when an elderly woman carrying a chafing dish bangs open the dressing room door and slams the dish down on a table next to a pitcher of warm orange soda. We thank her brightly. She ignores us and leaves.

"Bye!" we call after her, watching the door swing back and forth.

"Who was that?" asks Tea, lifting her head.

"I don't know. Club lady, I guess." The three of us continue to watch the door swing back and forth as if it might explain who the old lady was.

"She was like, a hundred and ten years old," says Leslie.

"Maybe she was thirty," I answer, still watching the door. "And just in bad shape."

"I guess that's what we'd look like if we lived here," says Leslie thoughtfully.

Tea sits up. "We do live here."

It is unfortunate that we spend so much time in rock clubs. Sticky, beer-soaked floors, stale cigarette smoke and scuz dripping off walls covered in Sharpie drawings of naked ladies ... it can hurt your feelings after a while. Leslie walks over to the table, lifts the cover of the chafing dish and squints into it. "What is it?" I ask her.

"Looks like a horse," she says carelessly.

"Horse in gravy?" asks Tea.

"Yep. Could be goat." Leslie's a vegetarian, so she thinks all meat is funny. "There is no love in this food," she murmurs. Carrying the chafing dish over to me, she shoves it under my nose and lifts the lid. "Here," she says. "I got this for you."

I pull my face away. "Stop that."

Tea gets up slowly. "Beer for dinner," she says, and walks out of the room. Tea and I are stepsisters- we introduced my mother to her father and they got married, of all things- but even though there's no blood between us, we look very much alike: puny little dishwater blonds. When people ask us if we're twins, she tells them we're "step-twins" and they always nod, like they know what she's talking about. Tea also says this about us: "It's good that we're ugly--it makes us funny." Of course, we think ugly is beautiful.

Leslie yawns and stretches. "Where's Dave?"

I look around the empty dressing room. "Lost?"

"You lost him?"

"I didn't lose him, he just got lost. I'm not my drummer's keeper."

'Rat Girl' (published in 2010 - reissued as 'Paradoxical Undressing')

Heather Kellog as Kristin Hersh and Christina Augello as Betty Hutton in DIVAfest’s world premiere of Stuart Bousel's play 'Rat Girl'

'Rat Girl : A Very Short Film About Kristin Hersh' (2011)

Hersh has four sons, Bodhi, Dylan, Ryder and Wyatt. I think she's dedicated at least one of her works to each of them, or, has been inspired to create something different by each of her sons. Her book 'Toby Snax', for example, was written for her fourth child, Bodhi. It's the story of a rabbit with a banana whose mother encourages him to explore new things. It's available as a hardcover book and also as an interactive book that can be downloaded with additional features. Hersh illustrated the book.

"Because she offered her latest solo recording, Crooked, as a CD, digital release, a physical book, and an app, it isn't a stretch for Hersh to write a children's book, or to choose to release the book for iPad.
Toby Snax is a bunny. Much like Hersh's sons, he has a Mama who travels. Mama would like Toby to join her on his adventures. Toby is reluctant. He thinks he would rather eat his banana. Toby's Mama gently encourages him to be willing to try new things. Spoiler alert: it ends happily!
Hersh wrote and illustrated the story. She reads the story. You can even hear her turning the pages within the app. Users can choose to read each page aloud, or push a "read to me button." Younger children might enjoy getting to push the button on every page.
An offering from Hersh would not be complete without music. Toby Snax comes with five lullabies that Hersh learned as a little girl in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. To play the song, just push the button on the last page. The button animates while the song plays. The music is a great bonus for fans, who basically get a free five song EP with the app. The music also gives newcomers a chance to hear Hersh's unique voice.
Bananas and butterflies crop up in Toby Snax. These symbols reminded me of Bananas, Blondes, and Butterflies, a blog entry Hersh wrote in 2006 about the predicted extinction of those three things."

- Emily Becker, App Advice

'Toby Snax' (published in 2007)

'Nerve Endings' is a collection of verse and lyrics written by Hersh in various guises. This collection's dedicated to all her current and former bandmates.

"I love that album “Purgatory/Paradise”. We toured with the Muses for that album. I opened and then I also played with them a little bit. It [the release method by HarperCollins] was such a smart thing to do. The guy that managed that project did approach me about doing “Swan Songs” that way, too, but I wanted to go with American Laundromat because I have a relationship with them. And American Laundromat is so unbelievably ethical and transparent in all their dealings.
But I love the HarperCollins thing. It’s such a great idea! It ties in with the fact that Kristin [Hersh] is an author as well. It really makes sense. In the context of her life and her work, it’s not really as anomalous as it would be if some other artist did it. She already has relationships on that side of things."

- Tanya Donelly, ABC News

'Nerve Endings' (published in 2016)

'Serene' - Throwing Muses

The obscure musical collection 'Speedbath' (2008) was issued using a creative commons license, leading Hersh to embrace ever more adventurous methods of distribution. The roots of Throwing Muses' album 'Purgatory/Paradise' (2013) can be found in 'Speedbath'. 'Purgatory/Paradise' comes in the form of a book and contains song lyrics, artwork and a code to download music.

The solo outings 'Crooked' (2010) and 'Wyatt At The Coyote Palace' (2016) are book-albums. 'Crooked' is a songbook containing lyrics, artwork and a digital download code. 'Wyatt At The Coyote Palace' is a hardcover book containing lyrics, essays and compact discs for aural stimulation.

"I write 50 Foot Wave songs on my SGs or my Les Paul [Gibson guitars], I write Throwing Muses songs on my Telier or my Strat and I write solo songs on my Collings guitars. So I knew they were Throwing Muses songs all along but I didn't think I had Throwing Muses itself because, in order to participate in this industry, we would have had to dumb down our product. So we felt morally bound to continue playing but not publish the music we were playing. We played shows, we played by ourselves, we did some recording but not for release.

And so when the CASH Music project wasn't realised but turned out to be fairly sustainable as a venture I called Dave [Narcizo] and Bernie [Georges] and said: I have a lot of Throwing Muses songs, I keep trying to play them in 50 Foot Wave and solo and they sound really, really lame. If - ellipsis - [laughs] - then, would you - ellipsis - and they said yeah. So, because of CASH Music we were able - slowly - to make a record. We funded the basics and then did the overdubs, mixing and mastering. The next thing we need to fund is publicity. And then we will have erased the whole concept of a record company for ourselves."

- Kristin Hersh on the evolution of 'Speedbath', Londonist

-- --

Tanya Donelly

Like her contemporaries Liz Phair, Sarah Shannon, Kay Hanley and Juliana Hatfield, Tanya Donelly has worked as a professional songwriter-for-hire to augment her family income. She worked as a staff writer for the childrens' musical troupe Girl Authority when they came to record their second album, 'Road Trip' (2007), contributing the feminist collective's anthem 'This Is The Day'. Donelly's also a member of the musical collective Band Of Their Own. Donelly is the mother of two daughters, Grace and Harriet.

"The band has no singles and no album. They don’t write songs or tour. They have no career goals or Bandcamp presence. There are a few famous Boston-associated names involved — Letters to Cleo’s Kay Hanley, Belly’s Tanya Donelly and Jennifer Trynin, among them — but it is very much a part-time band for all concerned.
“This is a joyful side project for all of us,” says singer-guitarist Donelly. “We each have other bands and this is a way for us to connect around the music that shaped us.”
They are called Band of Their Own (or BOTO), an all-female rock group that makes a rare appearance at Boston’s multi-band Harpoonfest in the Seaport District on May 18. And the expectation is they’ll provide a jolt of some of the best straight-up, old-school rock ‘n’ roll you could want on a Saturday afternoon.
It's not a band that begs for deep critical analysis — they're about overt fun, implicit feminism and good-time rock ‘n’ roll. Nearly every song they cover was played, written and/or sung by women: ‘Til Tuesday, Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Pat Benatar, the Runaways, the Cranberries and Eurythmics are all in the mix.
“It’s crazy that we feel like we can pick up the mantle from the giants of our industry,” says Hanley.
BOTO came into existence in 2016 because of Red Sox baseball and the long-running, multi-band rock-and-jock benefit called Hot Stove Cool Music that happens every winter in Boston at the Paradise, and also lately, on a summer night, in Chicago. The funds raised benefit the charity A Foundation to be Named Later."

- Jim Sullivan, WBUR

Are Throwing Muses The Most Underrated Band Of Their Generation? [20/20 Sound]

Donelly often works in close collaboration with authors and poets. Most recently, she's been performing with writer Rick Moody who's also a musician. Previously, she's worked with Wesley Stace and Mary Gaitskill. In future, she hopes to work on an artistic collaboration with Michael Chabon.

"There’s always been a glow to Tanya Donelly’s music, starting from “Green,” the sole track she penned for Throwing Muses’ 1986 self-titled debut. On Belly’s two full-length albums (1993’s Star and 1995’s King), the light’s more like a shimmer, like scary-bright stars in the kind of big black sky you don’t get to see very often. Songs like “Low Red Moon” and “White Belly” and “Judas My Heart” steal you into some weird world where everything’s lit up by Donelly’s super-heightened sense of wonder, a gently twisted fascination with both the gorgeous and the grotesque. She sings all those songs in shiny-sweet voice of a Disney fairy-tale heroine, but the lyrics are much more aligned with the Brothers Grimm side of the story, in all its creepy splendor. You could see that almost everything glittered in her mind, but that the shining sometimes hurt her too.
On Swan Song Series (an ongoing collection of EPs featuring collaborations with more than a dozen musicians and writers, including Donelly’s stepsister/Throwing Muses co-founder Kristin Hersh, Buffalo Tom frontman Bill Janovitz, novelist/essayist Mary Gaitskill, and The Ice Storm author Rick Moody), her songs are less dreamlike but just as charmed as ever."

- Elizabeth Barker, Pop Dose

Tanya Donelly and Rick Moody perform at the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival held at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2012

Tanya Donelly performs with family & friends at 'Indie Lullabies', an event held at Joe's Pub in New York City, New York in 2011

“Kristin puts a lot of pictures in front of you, and you draw your own conclusions about how they all fit together.”

- David Narcizo

Last Edit: Nov 27, 2022 0:05:20 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

petrolino
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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 12, 2019 23:33:28 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Dec 12, 2019 23:33:28 GMT

Tanya Donelly, Kristin Hersh & David Narcizo : "What's In Their Bags?"

Kristin Hersh : 12 Of Her Favourite Songs

'Uncle June And Aunt Kiyoti' - Kristin Hersh

1. VIOLENT FEMMES: "Add It Up" (from "Violent Femmes")

"This is definitely a teen angst song. People keep saying they sound like us. They’ve got this real wormy guy, this angry little rat. But that’s the only thing I can say that reminds me of me, this little wretch whining and shouting cos he wants to sleep with everybody - and nobody will. That’s what all his songs are about. I met him once. He’s really quite sweet. Did he ask to sleep with me? No."

2. BRIAN ENO: "Baby’s On Fire" (from "Here Come The Warm Jets")

"This is strikingly different from all his other stuff. It’s about 10 minutes long with a great bitchin’ guitar solo, but without being cock rock. I never realised that you could do that. Eno’s meant to be real cerebral, but this really moves me. Very few records do that these days. I hate everything! (Adopts crotchety eightysomething voice) They don’t make good music anymore, these crazy kids!"

3. X: "Blue Spark" (from "Under The Black Sun").

"This is just so beautiful. It’s kinda punk, I suppose. I heard it when I was about 13 or 14, which is pretty much when we started our band. In fact, we had three records out three years before we were legally allowed to play in clubs. Sometimes we’d play sets and then get kicked out when they found out how old we were. Actually, I got asked my age only the other night. One day, all of a sudden I’ll look 80. Then I’ll die."

4. THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: "Ocean" (from "V.U.")

"There’s this path along the cliffs where we live, and there’s ocean everywhere and - this will probably sound real goofy - this song is really like the ocean. It’s so quiet and pretty, and if there’s such a thing as a song that brings out Sensitive Emotions - capital S, capital E - then this is it. I don’t know if I’ve ever pulled it off myself, but The Velvet Underground certainly do here."

'Detox'

5. THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: "Black Angel’s Death Song" (from "The Velvet Underground And Nico")

"My father introduced me to the Velvets. When I was a kid he took me to Woodstock. I was a little, naked, hippy kid! And I went to Byrds concerts and Allen Ginsberg readings. You know, Ginsberg wrote me a poem once! Anyway, I love this song. It’s kinda droney. I heard a really incredible version recently that sounded completely different. Of course, that could have been cos I was on so many drugs at the time."

6. STEVE MILLER: "True Fine" (from "Book of Dreams")

"I totally worship Steve Miller, I think he’s incredible. I’ve been listening to him since I was nine, which might have something to do with it. He’s a pop-rock genius, but he’s so quiet about it. He’s so unpretentious, just this really faceless guy. This is kinda bouncy and Fifties. I guess you can dance to it. People dance to our music. And slamdance and stagedive. Do I ever stagedive? No, I’m too short."

7. HUSKER DU: "Chartered Trips" (from "Zen Arcade")

"It’s just a great song that completely falls apart, which is something I always wanted to do - write a song that crumbles in the middle, then picks up, then crumbles again. It never gets real chaotic, though. They’re too sweet to go totally apeshit. Bob Mould is just unbelievable. A friend of mine, when she first saw them, said ‘They’ve got this fat gay guy! And he wears a check shirt! Wow, that’s so cool!’"

8. R.E.M.: "Perfect Circle" (from ‘Murmur’)

"Michael (Stipe) got a bit performance arty for a while, but he seems to be calming down now. I guess that comes with the territory. I don’t have a driving ambition to be that famous myself, but I think the songs would eat me alive if I didn’t let them go … when I heard ‘Murmur’ I was about 15 - I was babysitting for this rock critic - and this just sounded like it came from outer space, like it came from another planet."

'The Diving Bell'

9. THE BEATLES: "Yer Blues" (from "The White Album")

"This is probably my favourite Beatles album - I like the way it’s kinda all glued together, a big collage, songs coming in and out. This one’s funny, but he (John Lennon) means what he’s yelling! ‘I don’t wanna die!’ I remember being in a bank and I had it in my head, and I was pushing my baby, and all these housewives were looking at me because I didn’t realise I was singing it out loud!"

10. VOLCANO SUNS: "Jak" (from "Bright Orange Sun")

"We’ve just covered this one on one of our B-sides. It’s a genius pop song. We used to play with them in Boston all the time. Their drummer sings and drums at once, his arms fly all over the place and there’s spit and sweat everywhere, but there’s no way he can be bad with all that going on! They were a great band. At the moment, I like Come and Pond. Pond! What a name! We were going to change our name once to Khulli Loach. It’s a type of fish. It’s a bit hard to pronounce, though. I mean, people have only just started getting Throwing Muses right."

11. MISSION OF BURMA: "Pica" (from "Verses")

"Mission of Burma are one of those bands that make you want to go out and start your own band. I think they’ve broken up now - their singer has tinnitus and he can’t hear properly. He just stares at you and comes up with some non sequitur, which makes him fascinating to talk to, but … we play really loud, louder than most bands. I like that. I like to feel the noise pumping in my chest. It feels healthy."

12. MEAT PUPPETS: "Up On The Sun" (from "Up On The Sun")

"I was listening a lot to this song when I was pregnant with Dylan, and we were working on our first album. We were out on this farm and there was nothing to do but listen to the Meat Puppets all day long. This is another one of those records from outer space. They must all have been doing drugs or something when they made this. No effects, no distortion, nothing. Perfect. I saw them the day before I went into labour with Dylan. It was probably the volume of the show that brought on the pregnancy!"

- Kristin Hersh, Melody Maker, published July 25, 1992

Throwing Muses perform at Le Transbordeur in Lyon, France on March 25, 1991

Kristin Hersh : And 12 Of Her Favourite Songs

Unrest perform 'Loyola' on a bill with Throwing Muses ...

'Crazy' - Patsy Cline

'A Change Is Gonna Come' - Sam Cooke

'Mary, Mary' - The Monkees

'Mica' - Mission Of Burma

'Motel Room In My Bed' - X

'Paris, Texas' - Ry Cooder

'Never Tell' - Violent Femmes

'Jak' - Volcano Suns

'Up On The Sun' - Meat Puppets

'Rabbit Box' - Vic Chesnutt

'Lemongrass' - Lakuna

'She's Coming On' - The Moore Brothers

"I have loved this song A Change is Gonna Come through my son’s ears. For me it was just part of Sam Cooke’s repertoire, even though he is one of my favourite singers. He takes the visceral and makes it palatable. And he was perfect. Back then you would have to do full takes of songs and you’d only have enough time to do a couple of takes. And his singing is perfect. I get a little bit tired [of music] from alterna-indie onwards with everyone thinking they can sing out of tune and it’s cool. I even scream in tune! [laughs] I do that because I’m an old f*cker but Sam Cooke just had it. ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ is not him playing along to much. It’s viscera plus bones I guess. It’s what my son Bo listens to when he’s catching lizards in New Orleans. He walks round his garden listening to this song on his iPhone when he’s catching lizards."

- Kristin Hersh (article published at The Quietus on October 28, 2013)

Kristin Hersh performs at Plato record store in Utrecht, Netherlands on March 16, 1991

Tanya Donelly : 13 Of Her Favourite Albums

'Like A Hurricane' ~ Kristin Hersh

Tanya Donelly' ~ 'Heart Of Gold'

'Abbey Road' (1969) - The Beatles

'The Point!' (1970) - Harry Nilsson

'Lust For Life' (1977) - Iggy Pop

'Beauty And The Beat' (1981) - The Go-Go's

'Conflicting Emotions' (1983) - Split Enz

'Ocean Rain' (1984) - Echo & The Bunnymen

'Treasure' (1984) - Cocteau Twins

'Various Positions' (1984) - Leonard Cohen

'Hounds Of Love' (1985) - Kate Bush

'The Mission' (1986) - Ennio Morricone

'Miss America' (1988) - Mary Margaret O'Hara

'Let Me Come Over' (1992) - Buffalo Tom

'Passenger' (2011) - Lisa Hannigan

"The Go-Go's' Beauty and the Beat is the first album that I bought with my babysitting money. It was my first purchase at all with money of my own. I took it home, and I remember holding it and looking at the cover, and staring at them the entire time I was listening to it for the first time. And really falling in love. Every day after school I put that album on. Every single day. Just listened to it over and over and over. And danced. I feel like that album gave a kid like me permission to dance, and lyrically I was fascinated by everything they were saying. And musically, the songs are just gems. Every single one is this perfect little pearl. I I think it's the closest I've ever gotten to having a Teen Beat experience, of just diving into each individual personality. I was so interested in them as people as well as a band. That actually continues to this day. They're having a renaissance here. People are becoming much more vocal about how much they meant to all of us. Their guitar sound and style, and the direct very tight melodic parts, they had a huge influence on me. And I think also, aside from the permission to dance, they gave me that feeling that pop music's nothing to be ashamed of. There's nothing wrong with verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. This is a very moving tool, a moving song shape. So that also was attractive to me, because I've always been drawn to that."

- Tanya Donelly (article published at The Quietus on May 2, 2018)

Belly perform at the Fraser Performance Studio in Boston on October 31, 2018 (with additional percussion from Dean Fisher at 46:00)

David Narcizo Selects 2 Of His Favourite Recordings

'Fakes And Liars' - The Wolfgang Press ft. Leslie Langston

;

'Jo Jones Trio' (1959) - Jo Jones

'The Drums' (1973) - Jo Jones

"Yeah, like I said, we have been best friends since we were eight years old. There are very few people more important on this planet to me than Dave [Narcizo, drums]. He is brilliant and kind. I don’t know what I would do without him. The same with Bernie [Georges, bass] and Billy [O’Connell, Hersh’s manager]. It is a very small universe, but it a universe nonetheless. I haven’t had an easy life, but they have kept me going for many years. It makes them seem magic to me."

- Kristin Hersh, Rolling Stone

"An amazing, vertical, almost wristless drummer, on stage David Narcizo looks like he's trying to hammer his kit into the floor. His jagged, explosive attack always kept even the band's darkest and densest numbers on the verge of frenzied dance ability.

"Dave had never played a set before he joined the band," Kristin Hersh explained of the origins of Narcizo's style. "He was in a marching band and was this very talented snare drummer, which really has worked well for us, although Davd and I kind of ended up playing the same part on different instruments for almost all the early songs. He had worked without cymbals for a long time, so he was forced to develop interesting patterns and not lean on just the same old backbeat."

- David Shirley, Option Magazine

Throwing Muses performing live in the KEXP studio on February 5, 2014

Last Edit: Nov 27, 2022 0:07:06 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 13, 2019 1:22:35 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Dec 13, 2019 1:22:35 GMT

Kim Deal - *Equipment Sample

Bass Guitars

Aria Pro II Cardinal Series
1962 Fender Precision Reissue
Music Man Stingray
Steinberger Headless Bass
Gibson Thunderbird

Guitars

Seagull Acoustic
1958 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop Reissue
Fender Stratocaster (1991 Strat Ultra)
Fender Telecaster
Gibson Hollowbody

Kelley Deal & Josephine Wiggs provide the Big Rundown on 'The Rig Rundown' (*Premier Guitar)

Amplification

Peavey 300 Combo, 1×15" Speaker
Trace Elliot Bass Head
Trace Elliot 1048H Bass Cabinet, 4×10" Speakers
SWR Heads
Marshall JCM 900 Head
Marshall Cabinets
Gallien-Krueger Cabinet, 4×10" Speakers
"Joe's Light" Cabinet, 1×18" Speaker
Sears Tremolo Super Amp

Effects

DBX 160x Compressor
Boss DS-1 Turbo Distortion Pedals

Recording

'Kim Deal uses the "All Wave" philosophy of recording, using no computers, no digital recording, no auto-tuning, nor any other mainstays of contemporary production. The philosophy carries through the entire production and mastering process, including mixing, editing, sequencing, post-production and the exceptional step of an all-analog direct-metal master for the vinly LP.'

'Are You Mine?' - Kim Deal & Morgan Nagler

Last Edit: Nov 27, 2022 0:13:37 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 14, 2019 23:45:47 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Dec 14, 2019 23:45:47 GMT

Warren Defever - Behind The Mixing Desk ¬

Multi-instrumentalist Warren Defever is a music producer of some note. He's produced and engineered recordings by artists based in Michigan and worked with several acts on the 4AD roster. Some of the musicians in these bands also worked at independent record labels like Teenbeat Records, Polyvinyl Records and Simple Machines.

"I've done a lot of weird things in the last 25 years; I can't explain everything,"

- Warren Defever, Detroit Metro Times

'The Everyday World Of Bodies' - Rodan

Defever produced Liquorice's only album 'Listening Cap' (1995). He'd served as producer on Grenadine's second album 'Nopalitos' (1994) and guitarist Jenny Toomey (Tsunami) was in both Grenadine and Liquorice. Defever also produced music for the band Ida featuring guitarist Dan Littleton of Liquorice. The third member of Liquorice was Defever's own bandmate, drummer Trey Many (His Name Is Alive).

There are strong connections between Ida and His Name Is Alive. In addition to his production work, Defever has worked in various capacities with members of Ida, including Littleton, Elizabeth Mitchell, and violinists Jean Cook and Ida Pearle. This particular band connection can also be tied into a longstanding respect held by Defever for multi-instrumentalist Tara Jane O'Neil (Rodan) - whom he's produced music for - as O'Neil has produced artwork for Ida.

"I don't know if it makes an artist a better person to only do art. Sometimes, I think it makes them a worse person. Maybe a better artist, but a worse person. It is hard juggling the activist head and the musician head. And it's also really hard juggling both those heads with the private head, because both of those are about being a persona, in some ways. But that said, I'd just get bored if I could only be one or the other. I want to know about these issues, and I want other artists to know about it. I think it's sad, because I think most artists can understand it, but they just assume they can't. They turn off for the first 30 minutes, but if they just paid attention for 30 full minutes, they'd get it. They'd get the basic facts, and then everything else would just fall into place."

- Jenny Toomey, Dallas Observer

Trey Many, Jenny Toomey & Dan Littleton (Liquorice)

'Cheap Cuts' - Liquorice

It's been suggested that Defever also recorded some demo material with the band Unrest in the 1990s. Guitarist Mark Robinson and drummer Rob Christiansen (Eggs) played in both Grenadine and Unrest, while Robinson played in Unrest and Air Miami with bassist Bridget Cross (Velocity Girl).

"Well, my whole family is super-musical. One of my sisters is a professional oboe and English-horn player in the Army Field Band. I played trumpet but I didn’t like it. When I got to high school I wanted to play bass but I didn’t get one until I was like 17 or 18 because my parents were like, “Hell no, you’re going to play trumpet and like it. You’re not going to be in some rock-and-roll fantasy!” I remember arguments like that with my family. I was like, “But no, really, I’m going to New York and playing a real show!” and they were just, “You are not taking the car!”
My memory’s kind of fuzzy about what happened that made me behave in the way I behaved. I know that I was pissed off all the time, and there was lots of weird drugs and freaking out. I sold everything and went to the desert one time. It was when the Hale-Bopp comet was coming toward the earth. Do you remember that? Those people in the Nikes killed themselves and thought they were going to meet the spaceship that was in the tail of the comet?
I went out there and I didn’t even know there was a comet. I was just this freaked-out person for many years, I think. I went to South Africa, but I ended up in Alaska. I thought I would leave Alaska, but it didn’t happen. I forget what the question was now."

- Bridget Cross, VICE

Mark Robinson, Bridget Cross & Phil Krauth (Unrest)

'Make Out Club' - Unrest

Defever was one of the producers of Tarnation's second album 'Gentle Creatures' (1995). Tarnation are a musical collective led by singer-songwriter Paula Frazer (Faith No More).

"My introduction to the music of San Francisco-based singer-songwriter Paula Frazer started with her breakthrough second album, 1995's Gentle Creatures (4AD), released under the band name Tarnation. I remember being blown away after listening to the very first track - the transistor-radio sounding "Game of Broken Hearts", which featured nothing but Paula's lonesome, melancholic vocals lilting over a strummed guitar. Evoking nuances of Patsy Cline and the Old West, this was probably my first intro to the musical genre of alt-country. I was immediately hooked. Over the years that followed, Paula released several additional albums under the band names 'Tarnation' and 'Paula Frazer and Tarnation', as well as a string of impressive solo albums under her own name. While the artist/band names may have varied over the years, the one constant is Paula's brilliant songwriting and trademark vocal style, contributing to the unique and immediately identifiable sound across all her recordings."

- Tom H., Sound Thread

'Halfway To Madness' - Tarnation

Last Edit: Dec 31, 2021 1:49:12 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 24, 2019 22:53:34 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Dec 24, 2019 22:53:34 GMT

Warren Defever, Bill Skibbe & Jack White : The Landing Of Cadillac

'Dance Pattern' - Electric Six

Warren Defever knows a lot of musicians and technicians who are active on his local scene. In the past, he's lent a helping hand to musicians in Michigan and neighbouring Indiana. The same can be said for guitarist Jack White (The White Stripes), a Polish-American Catholic who's worked tirelessly to lift up Michigan acts and help them enter their sound into the national consciousness. It might be said that White understands community in its truest sense. Both Defever and White have worked with my 2nd favourite (after the White Stripes) of the Detroit bands that broke through at the turn of the century, the Von Bondies.

"After officially launching his Third Man Photo Studio late last year, Jack White has now lifted the curtain on a full-service analog and digital mastering studio. Located next to Third Man's record pressing plant in Detroit's Cass Corridor, Third Man Mastering offers mastering services for formats including vinyl, CD, digital and cassette tapes. The studio, now open to public clients, promises "a streamlined process from mastering to pressing."

- Calum Slingerland, exclaim!*'#

"In 2001, Ron Murphy, the engineer responsible for mastering some of Motown’s greatest records and cutting the ultra-hot vinyl that helped define the sound of Detroit techno, told the Detroit Metro Times: “Cutting is not about music. You’ve got to love records.”
Third Man Mastering loves records. The facility, the latest in Jack White’s ventures aimed at elevating Third Man’s presence in his hometown, joins a retail store-slash-performance-venue and a vinyl pressing plant at the label’s sprawling music hub in Detroit’s revitalized Cass Corridor.
The studio represents a new chapter in the city’s music story. “Detroit—and Michigan—had been without any vinyl mastering since 2008, when Murphy passed away,” says Ben Blackwell, Third Man’s cofounder and archivist. “When the local techno artists lost the ability to go and sit in on a cutting session, to hear from someone who’d been cutting since the ’60s, they lost a step to the artists in Berlin and London who still had that access.”
Third Man Mastering plans to fill that gap. The facility offers analog and digital mastering for any format, including vinyl, CD, cassette and streaming. Its services include tape transfers and lacquer cutting, including production masters, reference discs and one-off dub plates.
To run the studio, White tapped veteran engineers Bill Skibbe and Warren Defever. Skibbe is a studio owner and gear designer who helped build Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio in Chicago; he recorded and mixed White’s album Boarding House Reach and albums by White’s bands the Dead Weather and The Raconteurs, along with projects by The Kills, Fiery Furnaces, Breeders, Jon Spencer and Boss Hog. Defever, a musician and producer known for his large body of work as His Name Is Alive on the 4AD label, has produced and engineered projects by The Stooges, The Gories, Low, Yoko Ono, the Von Bondies, Ida and Sun Ra.
After 25 years tracking and mixing, Skibbe and Defever were both looking forward to bringing their recording perspectives to mastering. “One of the things that we bring to the table that’s a little different than other places is we really do have a vast experience of recording records,” Defever says. “Between the two of us, we’ve done over a thousand records. We’ve had the experience of sending a thousand records to other mastering people. So I think that we have an insight into what the artist is intending.”
“It’s the final stage of creativity, and it’s the first stage of production,” adds Skibbe. “Just coming from being in bands and then producing records for so long, I think we’re just in the trenches with everybody. I feel sympathetic when a band sends me a record. I know exactly what they went through to finish that thing, and what they’re hoping to get out of it in the end.”

- Sarah Jones, 'Third Man Mastering : Jack White’s New Studio Venture Finds Its Groove In Detroit'

"In the last decade, Jack White’s Third Man Records has expanded from a small Nashville record store to a “Rolling Record” truck store, a second Detroit location, a pressing plant and more. “One day, I want this place to be like what I had heard about Henry Ford wanted for Ford Motor company,” Jack White said last year. “Which was you pour in raw materials on this side and out the other side of the factory pop out cars.”
He’s getting there. Today, the company announced the opening of Third Man Mastering in Detroit, where White’s team of engineers will master recordings – the final stage of the process that adjusts levels and prepares music to be played all stereos and formats – for the public. White’s team includes Bill Skibbe, who recorded and mixed White’s album Boarding House Reach and has mixed the Dead Weather, the Raconteurs and more, and Warren Defever, a musician who has produced and engineered Iggy and the Stooges, Thurston Moore and more. The spot will also provide services like vinyl lacquer cutting.
In an era when record stores have shut down at alarming rates, Third Man has found a way to grow using what White has called “ancient technology.” “I think a lot of people think, oh, you’re a Luddite, or you live in the past, or this is nostalgia or golden-age thinking,” he said last year. “I disagree. I like to take what’s beautiful about what’s already been proven—what works—and ask, how can we marriage that with what’s happening right now? And what can we do with that tomorrow?”

- Patrick Doyle, Rolling Stone

Demolition Doll Rods

The Detroit Cobras

'Not That Social' - The Von Bondies

Warren Defever and Bill Skibbe are two of the state's hardest-working studio technicians and both are skilled musicians, so it makes sense for Jack White to tap them up. Skibbe co-founded Key Club Recording in Benton Harbor, Michigan with fellow musician Jessica Ruffins. This recording facility has played host to some fiery rock 'n' roll acts since its inception around the start of the 21st century. The Black Keys have recorded there, having originated in neighbouring Ohio.

"I went to college to study film, but got caught up in punk rock and never finished. I'd say that most of what drove me to engineer was that I played music, and was into recording practices on the 4-track. Electronics was something that always interested me as well as mechanics. I had a job working on British motorcycles. They are very similar to tape machines — they have two wheels that spin and they break all the time. I like fixing things, working on things. You know, anything I can hit with a hammer! I didn't actually start building electronics 'til after I had been working at Electrical Audio, Steve Albini's studio."

- Bill Skibbe, Tape Op

"Nestled near the St. Joseph River off the southeastern shores of Lake Michigan, Benton Harbor isn’t the first town that comes to mind for music recording—it’s better known for Whirlpool appliances, the House of David religious commune, and golf. Yet the small Michigan community is home to Key Club Recording Company, one of the best and most beautiful studios in the Midwest, founded by producer/engineer duo Bill Skibbe and Jessica Ruffins.
In the 1880s, Key Club’s building was a boarding house for sailors. It changed hands and became a lumberyard in the 1920s, and in the ’60s, the building was repurposed yet again and began its life as a rock and folk venue called the Unicorn Key Club.
“You had to buy a key [to attend] because there were zoning laws about cover charges,” says Skibbe, the founder of Skibbe Electronics and a former employee of Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio. “So they just made it a private club. Question Mark and the Mysterians played here. Tommy James [and the Shondells], The Association, Neil Young—the place had some real history of being a venue and being a place to play.”
Now Key Club is decked with custom and vintage gear lining the walls of the control room, with tree-bark paneling and even more equipment in the recording rooms (which have housed the likes of The Kills, Franz Ferdinand, Adult, The Fiery Furnaces, The Sea and Cake, Nomo, Pit Er Pat, Six Organs of Admittance, Tristeza, and Chicago Underground Trio). The studio’s Flickinger console, however, could be considered its foundation. Not only is it the first piece of equipment that Key Club acquired, but it’s also a piece of rock history, once owned and operated by Sly Stone. Skibbe recalls finding the dusty relic at Paragon Studios in Chicago before Key Club existed.
“I was leaning on this thing—it was under a shipping blanket, and I looked under the blanket and was shocked,” he says. “I knew the brand, but I didn’t know it was Sly’s. I casually asked how much for ‘this old mixing console.’ He said he would sell it for seven grand, but I didn’t have it. I had two thousand bucks, and I gave it to him to hold it for me. Then I panicked and had to go out and try to find the money. That’s how we ended up out here, actually.”
Within a couple of weeks, Skibbe and Ruffins secured a loan to build their dream studio and buy gear, the latter of which has been just as essential to Key Club’s sound and success. (With Skibbe’s custom shop in the building, Key Club is a gear-head’s paradise.) And, conveniently, the former sailor hotel also is where Skibbe and Ruffins call home, meaning that the couple can be productive at any hour.
“An odd thing about our arrangement,” Ruffins says, “is that this is our record collection; this is our personal life. So when people come to work with us, they are living with us too. It’s worth it, though. The record is worth it.”
“Record-wise, it’s really fun,” Skibbe adds. “You get to be creative whenever you want. There aren’t any boundaries. One of the reasons we built the studio and came out here is because when we worked at the studios in Chicago, it was always a struggle. You had to go home at the end of the night.”

- Emily Elhaj, The Alarmist

"One of my fondest memories of Detroit was getting shown around by Danny Kroha, and it was back when the Fortune Building was still there. You know – Fortune Record Studio. And I guess we were sort of breaking into abandoned buildings, but climbing the fence, and going in there. There wasn’t much to see, but it was still very exciting for us, me and my band mates. Danny would say like, “Oh, yeah, when I first went in here you could find old paper labels.” There were still kind of pieces there that indicated what the history of what that place once was. Detroit is definitely a very cool place. It’s interesting to see, I don’t know what you call it, the rejuvenation or the reinvention.
I didn’t try to overthink things when I was making it ('Spencer Sings The Hits', 2018) so I think I tried to go with my instincts. It’s a punk record. I’ve always been a primitivist. It’s been a few years since The Blues Explosion kind of stopped. Boss Hogg had a record come out and we were doing some shows with Boss Hogg but we couldn’t do a lot because everybody had jobs. I was really missing having a band and being a part of that. So, I started thinking about trying to start something new. A couple false starts and I just figured out I’m going to do it by myself. So I wrote a bunch of songs and went out to Benton Harbor, Michigan to work at the Key Club, which is a great studio out there that I’ve done a few records at. It was the end of September. That was the tracking session. I used a local guy from Kalamazoo, M. Sord, to play drums. He’s someone that I’ve met over the years working at the Key Club. He sort of the studio handyman. He’s also a very good drummer. He played on the record and then my old friend Sam Coomes, of the band Quasi, he came in from Portland, Oregon.

I had this batch of songs and we set things up and every day I would show them. We would just work through the songs, I would play it down for them and we would figure it out and just sort of bang it out a few times. It was certainly not over rehearsed. I taught the band the songs, we figure stuff out, we played it and got a good sound, and then we got a good take and that was it. We just kind of moved quickly through it. It was good that we did that because after a few days I got a call from my wife and her father had had an accident. He actually had passed away. He had a hemorrhagic stroke. He was technically still alive but for all intents and purposes he had passed quickly. So the session got cut short, I had to fly back East to be with my family. Thankfully we had gotten all the basics done but for a day there it was very uneasy, very tense, working because we’d still be trying to record but I’d have to stop because I’d get a phone call because everything was so chaotic. I didn’t know who was where and my wife was on the move. That’s something people might not know about the record when they listen to it. And then in January I went back and just by myself and did the overdose and mixed it.

The whole record was recorded and mixed in Michigan. It was at the Key Club in Benton Harbor and working with Jessica Ruffins and Bill Skibbe, the couple that owns that studio and runs that place. And like I said it’s a punk record, it’s pretty simple, straight ahead. I guess maybe I didn’t agonize over, like “oh should I take a left turn or right turn… does this sound right or that sound right”. I just tried to keep moving through it and perhaps because I had been spending so many months and years sort of thinking about this. The pot had been stewing for so long that it was just ready to come out. So it’s a pretty straightforward type of record but that’s the kind of music I like. There’s a lot of percussion on the record and that’s kind of a nod back to my early start with Pussy Galore, that was my first band. Kind of industrial edge sort of thing. Other than that, Sam is playing, he is kind of covering the low end but he’s doing it with synthesizers. So it’s not that far away from things I’ve done in the past and I think it kind of falls in line with the rest of the stuff in my discography."

- Jon Spencer, 100% Rock

Meg White

Jack White & Alison Mosshart

'Astro' - The White Stripes'

# For more information on the Detroit rock explosion of the late 1990s / early 2000s, check out James R. Petix's documentary 'It Came From Detroit' (2009).

Last Edit: Nov 26, 2022 23:48:14 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 29, 2019 20:17:23 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Dec 29, 2019 20:17:23 GMT

Pixies In Space : Surf Volcano ~ Escape To Olympus Mons

One of Frank Black's primary musical influences is songwriter Larry Norman, from whom the Pixies' mini-album 'Come On Pilgrim' (1987) drew its name. As a keen observer of rock 'n' roll trends, there's been some speculation that Norman's late-period anthem 'Here Comes The King' drew inspiration from the Pixies' embryonic anthem 'Here Comes Your Man', which was penned before the band's 'Purple Tape' demo was recorded; this would be an interesting twist in the tale if there was any truth to it. Norman's early albums 'Street Level' (1970) and 'Only Visiting This Planet' (1972) are recommended listening for rock 'n' roll fans.

Natural catastrophes, space exploration and biblical overthrow are just some of the themes present within the Pixies' subversive lyrics and Black continued in this vein as he established a settled line-up of musicians to play around him, including Pixies bandmate Joey Santiago, multi-instrumentalist Eric Drew Feldman (Captain Beefheart's Magic Band & Pere Ubu), guitarist Morris Tepper (Captain Beefheart's Magic Band), guitarist Lyle Workman (Todd Rundgren), bassist David McCaffrey (What Now & Miracle Legion), drummer Scott Boutier (What Now & Miracle Legion) and session drummer Nick Vincent.

Interview with Frank Black in 1989

Joey Santiago's maintained a sideline as one of Frank Black's regular sidemen but he also formed his own band, The Martinis, with Linda Mallari. Musicians who've played with the Martinis include Rachel Haden (That Dog & The Rentals) and Santiago's Pixies bandmate David Lovering. Santiago has lent his talents on guitar to some notable bands, including the Melvins and the Rentals.

Interview with Frank Black & Joey Santiago in 1989

David Lovering is a man of science and he approaches his instrument accordingly. He's given scienctific lectures on a range of subjects, including the mechanics of percussion. He's also a magician with a strong command of physics (he studied electronic engineering at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts) who performs live as the Scientific Phenomenalist; you can see him performing tricks at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California on youtube, but be aware that some of his tricks are not permitted by IMDB2 guidelines due to their adult nature. Lovering was part of a 3-drum studio attack built by Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses, The Breeders & Belly) when she began her solo recording career in 1996, joining Stacy Jones (Letters To Cleo & Veruca Salt) and David Narcizo (Throwing Muses & Lakuna) to create a percussive merry-go-round with shifting frequencies and settings.

Interview with the Pixies in 1989

In Memory of Vaughan Oliver (1957 - 2019)

"I wanted to design record sleeves from the moment I went to see a Roger Dean lecture in Durham when I was 15. His sleeves weren’t about how the band looked, but the use of imagination. In my work, I’m keen on the ambiguous and the mysterious. This sleeve is the complete antithesis of my philosophy, but I like its innocence and directness. I’m not a fan of the graphics, but this image – given what Iggy was going through in 1977 with heroin addiction – is just extraordinary. Andy Kent’s photograph isn’t the depiction of a wasted rock’n’roller one might expect. Iggy’s a beautiful man, aged 30, but it’s like a high-school photograph and totally fits the words Lust for Life. I bought it when I was at Newcastle Polytechnic, probably because of David Bowie’s involvement. The sleeve seemed confrontational and unexpected. Iggy looks like a children’s TV presenter or someone about to present the weather forecast, but the record inside is raw and harrowing. It’s the absolute opposite of everything conjured up by the sleeve. I love that."

- Vaughan Oliver on the cover art for Iggy Pop's 'Lust For Life' (1977), The Guardian

Vaughan Oliver remembered ... (The Guardian)

"Vaughan Oliver taught me to appreciate quality. He taught me how to look at the physical world. He was a force of nature and I’m having such a hard time processing this.

I have no idea how to define in a few words the enormous impact he had on my life. Two Virgos with a tendency toward being controlling we somehow managed to compliment and bolster each other in our mission to transcend mediocrity. The breadth and scale of work is incomparable, continuously fanned by the inspiration a new collaboration would bring. I’m aware that we each considered the other a bit of an enigma, a contradiction to our own personalities, and I also know that our mutual respect for each other remained intact.
We had drifted apart having less frequent contact as the years passed and I moved to the States. This last year, aware of an unrelated but serious illness gave me cause to bully my way back into his life a little. I was scared for him then so found myself participating in more genuine, heartfelt, conversation than we’d been used to working side by side for years. So some things were said.. words of affection, admiration and eternal gratitude.. that might just have been left unspoken. For this I’m grateful. But I’m so angry that, having made a full recovery, he was still taken. And, of course, I want to have just one more conversation.
It is rare to think of someone in one’s life and know that with absolute certainty that the course of both our lives were irrevocably changed for the better as a result. The results, the fruit, is available for all to see.. in pictures at least.

Vaughan William Oliver, quite simply.. thank you for the beauty, the friendship, the work and the madness."

- Ivo Watts-Russell, 4AD

“We are incredibly sad to learn of the passing of Vaughan Oliver; there was no-one else like him. Without Vaughan, 4AD would not be 4AD and it’s no understatement to say that his style also helped to shape graphic design in the late-20th century. In 1980, he was the label’s first employee, designing his first sleeve for the Modern English single ‘Gathering Dust’ before going on to create iconic works for the likes of Pixies, Breeders, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Throwing Muses, Lush, Pale Saints, TV On The Radio, Scott Walker and countless others. The Guardian said his designs were “abstract, dreamlike, elegant” and they weren’t wrong; he gave both us as a label and our musicians an identity and a voice. We will miss you Vaughan and our thoughts are with your family and friends. We were blessed to know you and will forever be thankful for all you did.”

- A Message from 4AD

Interview with Vaughan Oliver

{* This interview was conducted at an exhibition of his work at the Espace Graslin gallery in Nantes, France which ran from 1 February to 11 March 1990 and features video clips from 4AD acts Colourbox and Wolfgang Press : Gérard Boucard & Florence Biare's mini-documentary 'Exposition-Exhibition', capturing the gallery exhibition, is available to watch unexpurgated on youtube and features music by Cocteau Twins}

R.I.P.

Last Edit: Jan 21, 2023 21:48:28 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

dianachristensen Junior Member @dianachristensen Posts: 3,935 Likes: 1,877	Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 29, 2019 20:29:00 GMT petrolino likes this Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by dianachristensen on Dec 29, 2019 20:29:00 GMT

dianachristensen Junior Member @dianachristensen Posts: 3,935 Likes: 1,877	Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 29, 2019 20:29:50 GMT petrolino likes this Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by dianachristensen on Dec 29, 2019 20:29:50 GMT

petrolino
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"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 30, 2019 2:18:46 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Dec 30, 2019 2:18:46 GMT

4AD's First American Signings ~ Throwing Muses ^ Pixies

"It’s like a swan. Above the water you see it effortlessly move — but underneath, the legs are paddling away. Underneath the surface of these beautiful sleeves and this extraordinary music was all manner of dysfunctional relationships and the kind of strife that goes on when artistic ambitions are tied up in that. It’s messy, but I don’t think 4AD is atypical of that messiness. You could look at other labels, like Factory. There was a family atmosphere with 4AD, because bands knew each other and played on each others’ records. Kristin Hersh used to call Ivo and his girlfriend — Deborah Edgely, who was 4AD’s press officer — "mom and dad." There was a paternal/maternal quality to the way they nurtured these bands. Unfortunately, children grow up and there’s tension in the house. It’s safe to say that Ivo could never have talked openly about this stuff at the time. He said he would have needed a ton of therapy, and a ton of therapy is what he had years later, due to his fragile state of mind. It seemed the best way of doing something was to react in a passive-aggressive manner and then mop it up afterwards.
Ivo chucked the Cocteau Twins off the label. They were his favorite band and they had just put out what was and still is his favorite 4AD record of all time, Heaven or Las Vegas. The fact that he would drop them two months later showed the extremity of things at 4AD. It was in reaction to something that Robin had said in an interview, but it came after so many years of arguments. During the whole episode over M|A|R|R|S and “Pump Up the Volume”, there were feuds and lawsuits. A.R. Kane never put out another record on 4AD, and Colourbox never wrote another single piece of music. They weren’t kicked off the label. They never left. That’s an extreme reaction all round. It just so happened that Ivo worked with a lot of people who had problems dealing with aspects of fame — the expectations and the public personae. Any band that sold lots of records never seemed to do so in a comfortable environment. The Pixies fractured pretty quickly after that second record. Belly didn’t like it after their first record. In the Breeders, Kim Deal had terrible issues over selling lots of records, then what? Then she did the Amps."

- Martin Aston (4AD biographer), Pitchfork

“Ivo told me Belly’s success was the beginning of the end of for him. Success meant that everything ballooned out for him.”

- Tanya Donelly, The Guardian

His Name Is Alive

"Their fingers bleeding from playing their guitars so busily and passionately, this noise coming out of these little girls, Leslie in all her glory and beauty, dripping with rhythm, and Dave, the drummer boy. The venue in Birmingham was this little, low-slung Sixties disco, which had a stage riser, and when Pixies played, the place went absolutely mental, and the riser came to pieces. Dave Narcizo was hanging off the edge of it, trying to stop Dave Lovering's drums from slipping between the gaps, and then they swapped when the Muses played."

- Deborah Edgely, 'Facing The Other Way: The Story Of 4AD'

"I never related to Kristin Hersh or Throwing Muses as being “pop” musicians. There is always some crazy element of the blues that latches on to my spleen and won’t let go. If I were going to create the perfect duet partner for Kristin Hersh, it would be Howlin Wolf. The comparison for me is not so much the direct aesthetic and stylistic elements, but the directness, the lack of filtering in the songwriting."

- Percy Howard, 'The Very Full Life Of Kristin Hersh'

"I’m not much of a performer, no. I lack the show-off gene that is so necessary in this business. I can, however, disappear and let music play itself. My only real talent, actually. Which is definitely honest, as you say, it just doesn’t always sound nice. I have an unending appreciation for the listener which would not work well with a persona. It’s important for me to be small in this picture. The music is big and the listener plays an active role in it … I’m somewhere in the background.
*I* can get a little misogynistic, to tell you the truth. Women bug me when they insist on being women to the exclusion of everything else they could be, while rejecting June Cleaver (who was actually a remarkable character: hardworking and funny) and calling Bimbo-ism pro-active sexuality. It’s selling themselves short.
I refuse to play Lillith Fair time and again for this reason. Gender segregation is not valuable to me and being female is not a plot, nor is it a problem or an excuse, it just is. Being *human* is interesting and kind. I truly believe that gender itself is just a spectrum anyway, nothing you could divide down the middle. That said, I don’t do anything consciously ’cause I’m sort of vague; I just notice tendencies as they come up."

- Kristin Hersh, A Necessary Angel

Heidi Berry & Patrick Fitzgerald

Lisa Germano

Kendra Smith

'Up In The Air' - Heidi Berry

"Spit had a goth and a gay night that played that big, booming, British-based stuff, so I would have heard 4AD by osmosis. But we did know this hip band, Throwing Muses, and this producer, Gary Smith, who was into them and then us as well. We went on tour, and in Ohio, Tim Anstaett (of Offense Newsletter), 4AD fan numero uno, picked us up, and his car license plate read "4AD". It was my first realisation that 4AD itself had fans, its own concept and sub-culture."

- Frank Black, 'Facing The Other Way: The Story Of 4AD'

"It's true that to follow Pixies, it's hard for audiences to get down and listen to subtleties when they want to crash some more. But it was such a great high to see a band that you love before you play yourself. We were tiny, goofy babies who'd sing folk songs in the van about being far away from home. My big problem was that being away from my baby tore me up. Charles was a great friend then. We'd walk in botanical gardens and he'd let me be sad where I had to be happy for everyone else. That Pixies got more attention than us was actually a relief. It meant I had the afternoon off or had more time for my songs. Pixies were driven and ambitious; they wanted to be rock stars. I guess Tanya was too, though I didn't know it at the time."

- Kristin Hersh, 'Facing The Other Way: The Story Of 4AD'

"Apparently Pixies had been turned down by every American label. Peculiarly for me, because I'd just sign what I wanted, I started playing the Pixies tape to others, asking what they thought. I really liked that 4AD had created a genre of its own, and I thought Pixies were, frankly, quite rock 'n' roll."

- Ivo Watts-Russell, 'Facing The Other Way: The Story Of 4AD'

Red House Painters

Tarnation

That Dog

'Sweet Tides' - Thievery Corporation

"I was the 4AD obsessive. Factory, too, though less so. I really related to 4AD's artwork - it had such strong imagery. I'd buy records without hearing them, like the Natures Mortes compilation and Rema-Rema. And I loved Throwing Muses. But Miki and I were both goths. We wore black lipstick and blusher, which didn't look as good on me as I was chubbier, and had wavy hair."

- Emma Anderson, 'Facing The Other Way: The Story Of 4AD'

"Emma was artier than me, more NME and The Smiths. I was more into garage bands like The Milkshakes. But we were really geeky about record labels, so we'd both buy Factory and 4AD records. We played Throwing Muses' 'The Fat Skier' to death and saw the Muses and Pixies tour in 1988. We liked that they were overly cerebral, geeky and intense, not loud and rock 'n' roll."

- Miki Berenyi, 'Facing The Other Way: The Story Of 4AD'

Throwing Muses perform 'Say Goodbye' at the Philips Halle in Dusseldorf, Germany on March 31, 1991

-- --- --

4AD Into The Future : A proven American Bandstand ever since Throwing Muses & Pixies kicked down the doors

"Ivo Watts-Russell favoured trail- blazers over anything trendy, from the Birthday Party and Pixies to Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins. But little is known about the man himself. He had a nervous breakdown in 1994, triggered by depression, fallouts with key artists and a disdain for an industry that valued videos and remixes over "pure" and "unique" ideals. In 1999, he sold his half of 4AD to business partner Martin Mills (of fellow independent Beggars Banquet) and disappeared into the New Mexico desert. He's still there, outside Santa Fe, with his three dogs.
Watts-Russell's vanishing act may explain why a book hadn't been written about 4AD – unlike indie-label peers Factory, Rough Trade and Creation – until I tracked him down in 2011 and presented him with the idea. Compared with Factory's media-savvy boss Tony Wilson, Watts-Russell was a recluse even when he ran 4AD; his artists learned not to expect him at their shows. "Some people thrive on the idea of being involved in rock'n'roll," he said when we met in 2012. "Doesn't [Creation MD] Alan McGee say the only reason he got into the music business was to get rich, take drugs and f*ck women? I don't even like being around people enough for that to appeal. I guess I was the nerdy one at home scanning the album sleeve."
Watts-Russell's art appreciation led him to hire a full-time designer, Vaughan Oliver, whose pioneering sleeves – from the David Lynch-ian image of Oliver himself wearing a belt of dead eels for the Breeders' Pod to photographer Nigel Grierson's paint-and-water abstractions for Cocteau Twins – matched 4AD's musical ideals. Through his distinctive first name (he's named after his cousin Ivo, the brother of first world war poet Julian Grenfell) and the success of 4AD collective This Mortal Coil, Watts-Russell inadvertently created a media profile, but he preferred to let 4AD's sound and vision do the talking. "What I loved about [the name] 4AD was that it meant nothing," he says. "No ideology, no attitude. In other words, just music."
According to current 4AD artist Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, "If the music industry is The Simpsons, 4AD is Lisa. She's not the most popular person in the family but the cool, intelligent, subversive one. 4AD don't sign buzz bands, they're super-tasteful instead, and often distinctively feminine." Indeed, Watts-Russell signed a higher percentage of women than any other label before or since, and This Mortal Coil was dominated by female voices, starting with Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser. However, this fact was overshadowed by the ethereal/goth tag with which 4AD was saddled. "I was just responding to things I enjoyed,that I emotionally connected to, that had possibilities," he grimaces, still clearly peeved."

- Martin Aston, The Guardian

'The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness' - The National

The National

U.S. Girls

St. Vincent

Deerhunter

Holly Herndon

The Lemon Twigs

The Lemon Twigs - 'These Words'

Last Edit: Jan 21, 2023 20:50:01 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

petrolino
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"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Jan 1, 2020 4:07:52 GMT

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Post by petrolino on Jan 1, 2020 4:07:52 GMT

Happy New Year to all the staff, artists and musicians who work so tirelessly around the clock at 4AD, to all the fans who've made this label what it is today, and to any new fans who are just getting into the label's current roster or back catalogue ...

Hope the new decade brings a ton of good music like the last few & wishing everybody all the best for the decade to come ... keep on keepin' on ...

New Year greetings from the Breeders' basement ...

Happy New Year!!

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

petrolino
Revered Member

"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Mar 1, 2020 1:16:46 GMT

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Post by petrolino on Mar 1, 2020 1:16:46 GMT

Throwing Muses issue first single from upcoming album ...

This week was a good week for me as a music fan. Lady Gaga dropped her first new single in 3 years, in anticipation of her forthcoming album, and Throwing Muses announced their return to the rock 'n' roll arena is imminent, 7 years on from the release of 'Purgatory / Paradise' (2013). The next album's working title is 'Sun Racket' and they've issued a scorching new single in advance, 'Dark Blue'. I'm glad to say they've lost none of their fire ...

'The Throwing Muses will release Sun Racket — their 10th studio album, and the college-rock favorites’ first in seven years — on the Fire Records label this May, bandleader Kristin Hersh announced this week in the latest edition of her newsletter.
The band — Hersh, drummer David Narcizo and bassist Bernard George — were in the studio last year when they played their first shows in five years, a handful of concerts and a slot handpicked by Robert Smith at The Cure’s Pasadena Daydream Festival outside the Rose Bowl in Southern California.
Hersh, who has been touring in support of 2018 solo album Possible Dust Clouds, didn’t reveal anything else about the new album, the Muses’ follow-up to 2013’s 32-song epic Purgatory/Paradise.
But she does tell fans she’s got a new memoir — “Live Donuts, Bait,” which “picks up a few years after (2010 memoir) ‘Rat Girl’ left off” — in the editing phase. Publication date TBA.
In the meantime, Hersh is touring the U.S. this month with John Doe and Grant-Lee Phillips, reprising their Exile Follies show, with dates through Valentine’s Day. She’ll then appear with her trio featuring former Muses bassist Fred Abong and Rob Ahlers at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, in March.'

- Slicing Up Eyeballs

'Dark Blue' - Throwing Muses

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

petrolino
Revered Member

"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Jul 7, 2020 22:15:36 GMT

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Post by petrolino on Jul 7, 2020 22:15:36 GMT

Frank Black & Joey Santiago : "What's In Their Bags?"

Frank Black : 13 Of His Favourite Albums

'The Threepenny Opera' - Kurt Weill

'Peace & Harmony' - The Heptones

'Musique De La Grece Antique' - Atrium Musicae De Madrid Gregorio Paniagua

'Sally Can't Dance' (1974) - Lou Reed

'New Values' (1979) - Iggy Pop

'Combat Rock' (1982) - The Clash

'Nebraska' (1982) - Bruce Springsteen

'Fegmania!' (1985) - Robyn Hitchcock And The Egyptians

'Frank's Wild Years' (1987) - Tom Waits

'The Good, The Bad & The Queen' (2007) - The Good, The Bad & The Queen

'The Last Post' (2007) - Carbon/Silicon

'Le Noise' (2010) - Neil Young

'Happy Soup' (2011) - Baxter Dury

"I like a lot of Lou Reed’s records but before I got into him, I heard this record Sally Can't Dance in my college dorm, courtesy of [Pixies guitarist] Joey Santiago. I knew that I liked the record but when I got into listening to it again, some years ago, I realised: I know the record really well. I really like the production and sound of it. It’s very toppy and it’s got some really good sounds. It’s very thin, 70s rock radio production.
I’ve never really met Lou. I mean, I’ve been in the room with him on a number of occasions on tour and hanging out in the same breakfast rooms, but they’re situations when you don’t want to bother someone. I don’t remember the Quietus interview where the guy compared me to Lou Reed, but right now if someone wanted to mention me and Lou Reed in the same breath, it’d be a huge compliment. He’s obviously one of my rock & roll heroes."

- Frank Black (article published at The Quietus on May 22, 2014)

'Manta Ray' - Pixies

Joey Santiago : 13 Of His Favourite Albums

'Donovan's Greatest Hits' - Donovan

'Are You Experienced' (1967) - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

'The White Album' (1968) - The Beatles

'Loaded' (1970) - The Velvet Underground

'Moog Indigo' (1970) - Jean-Jacques Perrey

'Electric Warrior' (1971) - T-Rex

'Harvest' (1972) - Neil Young

'Neu! 2' (1973) - Neu!

'Low' (1977) - David Bowie

'Marquee Moon' (1977) - Television

'Music For 18 Musicians' (1978) - Steve Reich

'Highway To Hell' (1979) - AC/DC

'Album' (1986) - Public Image Ltd

"The Velvet Underground - Loaded. Ah that's the one, unfortunately, Lou Reed hated. He couldn't stand it... but I liked it! There's such a variety of songs on it. There's one song on there - [line cuts out; we reconnect] - I told you Lou Reed hated that album! That song 'Who Loves The Sun', how good is that?! The breakdown on it, it's like a hoedown.
They called it an album, but this is just an art project! A lost memo for an album... Let's come up with 16 ideas and just whittle it down. 'I Found A Reason', that song, the melody [imitates it] that was just amazing. 'Rock & Roll', I first heard that in my father's car. He had a Monte Carlo, and I thought that was cool. It came on the radio and I was like, "What is this?!" It was so simple and it was talking about a radio station in New York - and I was in New York, that was where I heard it - and I just loved the rhythm guitar and also the soaring chorus, where it's just like three notes and it kind of soars around. And that became an influence on our song called 'Ed Is Dead' - another homage!"

- Joey Santiago (article published at The Quietus on May 22, 2014)

Pixies - 'Dancing The Manta Ray'

Last Edit: Dec 31, 2021 1:58:16 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

petrolino
Revered Member

"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Dec 10, 2020 0:05:34 GMT

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Post by petrolino on Dec 10, 2020 0:05:34 GMT

In Memory of Harold Budd (1936 - 2020)

'Legendary composer Harold Budd has passed from this world at 84. He left behind an endless treasure trove of unimaginably beautiful music that enriches our lives every day and will bless generations to come. Our hearts go out to his family on this sad day. Rest in peace, Harold.'

~ A Message from Ambient Church

Harold Budd & the Cocteau Twins

'Juno' - Harold Budd

Harold Budd remembered ... (The Guardian)

"A lot to digest. Shared a lot with Harold since we were young, since he was sick, shared a lot with harold for the last 35 years, period. Feeling empty, shattered lost and unprepared for this, as do my wife Florence and girls Violette and Lucy Belle. All my best to Elise, Terrence, Hugo, Matt and all the family. His last words to me were 'adios amigo'... They always were.. He left a very large 'harold budd' shaped hole whichever way we turn ..."

- Robin Guthrie, Twitter

Harold Budd & Robin Guthrie

'I can't play
When he wakes up, She said,
He can't play,
When he, thinks I'm growing up,
That song Juno, they did in the street,
So many places to go and not one for me,
Said the she ...
If they were pretty, It'd be okay to say,
But that day only,
When she wore dresses, She felt born ...
That song Juno ... say the words if you have streets ...
No one for me,

Said the she ...
That song Juno they sung in the street,
Her husband of nineteen years,
Danced madly at her feet,
Now I can be balancing ...'

- Kristin Hersh ('Juno')

'Shimmer' - Throwing Muses

R.I.P.

Last Edit: Jan 21, 2023 21:49:31 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

petrolino
Revered Member

"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

@petrolino
Posts: 27,822
Likes: 21,321

Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*) Jun 11, 2021 21:55:09 GMT

Quote

Post by petrolino on Jun 11, 2021 21:55:09 GMT

Gemini Twins : Kim & Kelley Deal At 60

Kim Deal and Kelley Deal both turned 60 this week. There were celebratory messages posted on social media sites like Twitter and Reddit, as well as several features published online. They share a birthday with Joey Santiago who turned 56.

The Deal Sisters

Happy 60th Birthday!!

Last Edit: Dec 31, 2021 1:59:45 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

Kristin Hersh, Kim Deal & Tanya Donelly (4AD*)

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