BREAK OUT THE THREE-INCH TYPE
____________________________
ARLINGTON, Va., March 15 -- Mary got her first cowgirl
outfit at the age of five. It came from the Sears Roebuck
catalog and included a plastic holster with tin Colt Revolver,
and a hat. The absence of cowboy boots or pony from this pack-
age set her on a course she no longer pretends to understand.
(Old joke about the plot of Les Miserables: a man steals a loaf
of bread and never hears the end of it.)
Eventually, she became a newspaper reporter, and then a
foreign correspondent. The latter is a little like cowboy-ing,
only without the horses (bad), but with whiskey (good). In
1993, after several years of close attendance at revolutions,
civil wars, famines and two genocides, Mary came home wore
out in more ways than one. In the void that followed, she began
writing songs. Songs are an interesting form -- more allowing
than newsprint, but with their own mysterious internal deadlines
and not much room for navel-gazing.
Back in Maryland, Mary gravitated to Washington DC's
alt.country scene, which, as elsewhere, was full of former punk
rockers and others exploring what is now called Americana,
or American roots, music. They were all hot on the trail blazed
by Gram Parsons, the Band, the Stones, the Byrds, and the
Flying Burritos, among many others. (Mary was a Feelies and
Dolly Parton fan, herself, and a disciple of Aftermath and
Flowers.) Songwriters like Karl Straub (Graverobbers), Alice
Despard (Hyaa!, Whirligig), Kevin Johnson (Kevin Johnson
and the Linemen, an outfit that included future Last Train Home
bandleader and songwriter Eric Brace) and Michael Kentoff
(The Townies) were working up and down Arlington's Wilson
Boulevard, from IOTA to Galaxy Hut to the Bardo Rodeo.
(There was some entertaining and seriously retro stuff going
on, too. See Robbie Fulks' "Roots- Rock Weirdos.") Mary had
been feeling a need to get weird herself, and in 1997 she
put together her first band, the New Horses, with guitarist
Bobby Birdsong (recently back from Austin and stints with
Alejandro Escovedo and Two Hoots and a Holler), rockabilly
singer-songwriter Brian McGuire and veteran DC bassist
and onetime Slickee Boy Thomas Kane (all of whom would
later play in Little Pink). At the same time she began
meeting with Karl to study the science of why some stuff
works and some stuff doesn't (aka music theory).
In 1999, with New Horses on hiatus, she proposed a
band to be called Little Pink, after the Band record.
(Also, Mary was living in a pink house at the time.) Karl
liked the idea, and so in August, they went to Arlington's
Inner Ear studio, haunt of innumerable Dischord bands,
to record an eight-song demo with Graverobbers Martin Lynds
(drums) and Jim Gray (bass). Meanwhile, across town,
songwriter Philip Stevenson, former Carnival of Souls
bandleader and frontman, had returned from tours of duty
in Los Angeles and New Orleans (where he'd recorded with
Jim Dickinson). In early 2000, Mary recorded an additional
four songs with Philip at his Scary Clown Studio. The
sessions included Kane, McGuire, Chris Watling, Nick Ruggieri
and others. In 2001, Mary released all 12 tracks as "Cul-de-Sac
Cowgirl," on the Adult Swim label of Dischord co-founder
(and Minor Threat drummer) Jeff Nelson. People said nice
things about the record. No Depression called it "a … roots-
rock pageant that shines with scuffed sophistication";
the Washington Area Music Association named the CD Best
Debut Recording of the Year. And Harp Magazine put Mary
on its annual short list of "Songwriters You Should Hear".
12 Birds, a four-song acoustic EP, followed in 2003, to
enthusiastic reviews from the Greenman Review and others.
Mary then recorded a series of songs for some interesting
compilation projects, including the song "Paradise, Etc.,"
for "A Case for Case" CD. This was a 3-disc tribute to the
songs of Peter Case, and featured a Who's Who of American
songwriting, including John Prine, Joe Ely, Gurf Morlix and
many more.
In 2006, Mary went back to Scary Clown to begin recording
Gladly Would We Anchor, with Philip Stevenson as co-producer.
In addition to longtime collaborators like Watling and Stevenson,
she added DC jazz and rockabilly swing king Eric Shramek to
the band on upright bass and brought part-time Pink John
Gnorski down from his aerie in upstate New York to play guitar.
Los Angeles guitarist Ben Peeler (ex-Mavericks), a collaborator
at a 2005 California show, came east to play Weissenborn and
lap steel. The record will be released on the Night World label
on March 15, 2007.
Mary continues to write, and performs regularly with
the band and also on her own, at venues and showcases from
Arlington to Austin. She thinks music saved her life and figures
there's at least a chance she might do the same for someone
else someday, in some small way. In the meantime, the plan is
to sing some songs and help keep the good weirdness flowing.
Most nights, it comes down to pretty much the same thing.
