an interview with mary timony around the release of helium's 1997 LP 'the magic city.'
mary timony was born in october, 1970, in washington, DC, where she grew up down the street from ian mackaye's family. she's played guitar and sang in groups like autoclave, helium, wild flag, and--currently--ex hex, in addition to several solo release and other projects.
she first got into punk rock from a rites of spring/beefeater show she attended when she was 15. in addition to this, she's pretty much a guitar prodigy. just watch the videos and listen. she slays.
go far.
autoclave was started by timony and christina billotte, along with nikki chapman and melissa berkoff. they released two EPs, the first being a 7" collboration between K and dischord (under the moniker disKord records), and the second being released on billotte's label mira, with dischord distributing.
i'll take you down.
because timony was attending college at boston university (where she majored in english lit), autoclave shows were infrequent, and the band broke up after doing a weeklong tour with fugazi. billotte went on to play in DC post-punks slant 6, while timony took over mary lou lord's position in a new group called helium.
XXX.
after a couple lineup changes, helium's lineup solidifed as timony on vocals and guitar, shawn king devlin on drums and polvo guitarist ash bowie on bass. their first releases were the 7" singles 'american jean' and 'hole in the ground' (b/w 'lucy').
the american jean.
in 1994, helium released the 'pirate prude' EP on matador records, for whom they would record until their breakup.
i'll get you, i mean it.
love $$$.
in 1995, they released 'the dirt of luck' LP, which gained some radio play. around this time, timony began to suffer from depression.
beavis and butt-head watch the video for 'pat's trick.'
three singles were released from TDOL: 'pat's trick,''superball,' and 'honeycomb.' they all recieved airplay on MTV's '120 minutes,' but not a lot happened in terms of huge record sales.
honeycomb.
pat's trick.
superball.
in 1995, there was also an EP released, featuring 'superball' and additional songs. 1996 saw the release of the 'no guitars' EP, produced by mitch easter (REM, pavement, pylon, etc), who would also produce their final album, 'the magic city.'
sunday.
silver strings.
as mentioned above, mitch easter produced the sessions for 'the magic city' (named after the famous strip club in atlanta where some say twerking was invented, if that seems significant to anyone).
leon's space song.
'I still feel like that when I walk into music stores sometimes, so I tend to just go places where I know people. If I ever go to a repair shop where there's an old guy I don't know, it's possible that they could be condescending. I know as a young woman in my 20s, I definitely noticed that people were like, Oh, she's just a singer, she doesn't know how to play guitar. They're shocked that you know how to play guitar; that's weird. Now, at my age, I don't know; if anyone made a judgment about me, I wouldn't really care. It's not my problem. Also, it's really different in rock music now. I think in the '90s when I was playing in bands, there were less girls; it was much more like you were a female car mechanic or something. It was weird, especially coming from the hardcore scene, which was all men. I grew up in D.C. in the '80s hardcore scene, and it was pretty much all guys' bands.'
from an interview with NY mag, on the subject of being a female guitarist.
lady of the fire.
devil's tear.
in 1999, timony teamed up with carrie brownsein of sleater kinney, and they released an EP, 'the age of backwards,' under the name the spells, for calvin johnson's international pop underground series on K records. they would team up again in 2008 to release another EP (digitally this time, via brownstein's 'monitor mix' blog for NPR), 'bat vs. bird.'
the age of backwards.
can't explain.
bat vs. bird
champion vampire.
after helium split, timony found herself alone and broke in boston. she had dated ash bowie for a time while helium were doing their thing, but that ended. she was depressed again, probably even moreso than during the helium time, and used her two solo records released during this time, 'mountains' and 'the golden dove' to address and work through her feelings.
i fire myself.
the valley of one thousand perfumes.
blood tree.
dr. cat.
in 2005, she teamed up with devin ocampo, formerly of DC math group faraquet, to record and release 'the ex hex' for lookout! records, as well as contributing to deftones singer chino moreno's side project team sleep, performing vocals on the tracks 'the tomb of ligeia' and 'king diamond.'
9x3.
return to pirates.
king diamond.
in 2007, kill rock stars released 'the shapes we make,' by the mary timony band.
curious minds.
sharpshooter.
here is a video of a group mary was in with jonah takagi, TJ lipple and winston h. yu, called the soft power (though the group was called pow wow before lipple joined) working on an unreleased album.
in 2010, wild flag was announced. wild flag were something of an indie supergroup, containing timony alongside carrie brownstein and janet weiss of sleater-kinney (janet also plays in quasi and used to drum with elliott smith, among loads of other stuff) and rebecca cole of the minders. wild flag released one single and one LP for merge records before quietly calling it quits.
electric band.
romance.
something came over me.
here is a really rad video of wild flag covering 'judy is a punk' and 'see no evil.'
after wild flag, there is now ex hex, consisting of mary, laura harris on drums and betsy wright on bass and vocals, who have also released one single and one album for merge (the single being the LP track 'hot and cold'; the album is called 'ex hex rips' and it's totally true). they are currently on tour everywhere (except las vegas, for which i am super heartbroken). instead of trying to describe their sound (but think garage-y power pop, i guess?), here are more videos that will give you a good idea what they sound like...
hot and cold.
waterfall.
don't wanna lose.
here is a full performance they tracked for KEXP in seattle.
ephemera, etc.
mary timony on twitter.
instagram.
ex hex.
*
p.s. Hey. Today, one of our local maestros, the inimitable Rewritedept, draws your attention to the history of the musical stylings of '90s/'00s rock god Mary Timony, and you will have fun combined with some degree of enlightenment, I'm positive, so please prove me right, if you can, thank you! And thanks a bunch, R! Also, note: Last night my glasses broke in half, and, at the moment, they are scotch taped together and balanced precariously on the bridge of my nose, and I'm doing this p.s. while looking through a film of tape, and that might affect the p.s. in some way, so, warning, I guess. ** Earl&Nadine, Hi! Welcome! You have such a cool name. Thank you a lot. I like that word robust, and I will wear it like a buttoner. Please come back any old time. ** Bacteriaburger, Hi, Natty! Really, really nice to see you, pal! You good and hopefully far more than good? 'Holy Motors' is something you should see, I think, yes. Best of the best to you! ** DavidEhrenstein, I second your 'he most certainly does.' ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh! Lavant is kind of always great. I highly recommend his other Carax films, and he's wonderful in the wonderful 'Mr. Lonely'. Thank you! ** Sypha, Hi. Oh, wow, I think you might be right about the Johnson thing in 'SiH'. Weird. 'Angels' is really good, yeah. I forgot about that one. Enjoy the crush, man. Gender's just a word. And pursue, if your heart and other organs deem that right. ** Keaton, Hi. Interesting. Facials are so symbolic. In art, I find symbolism kind of duh or something, but, in sex, it can be meta. Strange, that. You kind of like the band Tesla? Wow. I think I kind of don't. Based on the MTV hits. I think maybe the singer had really good hair though? Whoa, new, partially XXX thing by you! Everyone, Keaton has taken full advantage of Blogger's policy reversal move by building a particularly hot or at least 'hot' Emo-like post on his space with his usually mastery, so go get wowed, titillated, or whatever else by '50 Shades of Cray Cray'. ** Kier, Hi! Dennhibition's awesome. How do you do that? Will Patton, cool. Someone talked about him here just the other week. How interesting. No luck on the apartment thing yet. It's tricky. I found a few possibilities online, but they were taken by the time I queried. Now I found another few, and I'll try to jump on them. Ugh. Nice days you had, both of them. Yesterday ... Some online apartment searching. Then ... oh, Zac's mom is in town, and she's likes chocolate, so I went out to try to find her a special chocolate as a gift. My first attempt was this crazy looking thing that I had seen a photo of online. So I bought it, and, luckily, I bought a second one to taste because I didn't understand all the listed ingredients. So, I stepped outside the patisserie and bit into the extra one, and it tasted unbelievably awful. I had to spit it out. I went back inside and asked them what was in it, and they said 'crab meat'. It must have seemed like a great idea to the chef, but it was a disaster. So I searched further and just ended up buying her a more normal chocolate. Zac was still working on the tech of the promo reel yesterday, 'cos it turned out to be more complicated than we thought, so he did that, and we didn't work on the sound correction yet. I worked on the new theater piece script instead, and it's almost finished. I mostly did that. Then, fuck, in the evening, my reading glasses just suddenly broke in half! It was a horror. I tried fixing them with Super Glue, and it didn't work at all, so now they're scotch taped together and weird looking and barely work, so I have to get new glasses today, sucks. That (trying to fix the glasses) is pretty much what I did all evening until bedtime. How did today work out for you? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Good, good, about the move. And awesome about the DJing gig. Maripol, wow. It's a show of her jewelry, or ... ? ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Me, kind, why? I mean thank you! You too. Thanks for the envy. I think it's safe to say on this late date that Paris is past snow's expiration date. ** Thomas Moronic, It sure is, man. Good morning! ** Right. I will go try to find an optometrist place now, and you guys bask in Mary Timony, okay? And talk about your basking to Rewritedept maybe, okay? See you (hopefully not through a film of tape) tomorrow.