Well, yes. The violin was electric and belonged to the Dambuilders’ Joan Wasser, who performed a buzzing, free-form, dissonant, and, ultimately, rewarding set with singer-guitarist Mary Timony, of Helium, on Friday. Over at the M.E., the instruments were acoustic and the setting semi-classical. A hearty crowd greeted the Rachel’s, a sextet that weaves strings with piano, bass, guitar and, occasionally, drums. It’s original, heady music — much of it suited for soundtracks — and it was rather enthralling, not unlike the Penguin Cafe Orchestra in gentler moments or Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, at its most clamorous. It transported you to the tranquil world of “Brideshead Revisited.”
Jim Sullivan, Globe Staff
From the Boston Globe, Dec 7, 1995, reprinted without permission.
5-21-98 live review
Week’s Worth
By Michael Henningsen
Oh, the Glamour: So you think this job is all fun and games and free shows? You’re right … most of the time, anyway. Except for occasions like this past Tuesday, for instance, when I embarkedon a mini-tour of Denver, Colo., with my good friend Joanne Deers on in an attempt to witness our very own Rondelles open for SonicYouth at the Ogden Theater.
So off we went, seven boring hours spent putting more miles on my car and eating truck stop junk food. We pulled into Denver right on schedule, dropped 50 bucks apiece on mediocre sushi ata picturesque bar in picturesque downtown Denver and headed off to the show. Our names, of course, were not on the guest listas promised, at which point we would have happily purchased ticketsexcept that there weren’t any left. Imagine our surprise, though,when young Joanne managed to steal a peek at the list, finding her own name after having anxiously awaited the mysterious “updatedlist” for 20 minutes. The idiot in the box office sort of apologized, gave us our tickets and sent us to the metal detector line where we waited another 20 minutes to be “patted down”by security guards who are too stupid to be cops. We got in justin time not to see the Rondelles. At all.
Helium came on next, successfully boring everyone but me into submission. I like Helium. By the time Sonic Youth took the stage,security agent No. 111 had forced me to move six or seven times,claiming no one was allowed to lean on the railing, sit on the floor or lean against the wall while everyone but me leaned on the railing, sat on the floor or leaned against the wall. It wasall really very interesting. Joanne was nowhere to be found. The last time Mr. 111 asked me to move, I was compelled to insist that he show me where he expected me to sit, stand or whatever.He pointed out a place on the floor directly in front of a row of chairs. I dutifully sat where instructed, just in time to get kicked in the back by disgruntled Denver resident No. 638. AsI turned to, um, address Mr. 638, he attempted to spit on me.Just in time for me to stand up, wheel around and get off one decisive shot to the midface before my new friend got off his chair and gave me the ol’ right back atcha. Then we both got kicked out before Sonic Youth played any of the old shit. Then we droveback.
Incidentally, the Rondelles have been asked to open for Versus in Denver late next month. I can’t wait!
From the Weekly Wire 5/27/98
5-17-98 live review
HELIUM at the O’SHAUGHNESSY AUDITORIUM
St. Paul, MN, USA. May 17,1998.
I had had the Helium album The Magic City warmly recommended to me, so it was a nice surprise to see that this reportedly exciting band would open for avant-garde noise rock legends Sonic Youth. I was sadly disappointed.
The concert was oddly divided in two. During the first 4-5 songs, they were plain awful!! Pretentious bleeps and twangs that just did not have anything attractive about them. Then came three songs that were pretty good, with some drive and cool melody lines, before the finale: a noise attack worthy of SY themselves!
In other words, a fifty-fifty concert that nevertheless made for a negative impression since the band was so bloody amateurish. I don’t know if they were very nervous or what, but they kept having to re-tune their guitars, re-program their synth, the singer/guitar player kept unplugging her guitar by accident, etc. Annoying.
This page was originally published to Tore’s Official Concert Guide
in May 1998
3-28-98 live review
Live: Helium/Sleater-Kinney
The Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge, Mass., March 28, 1998
Sleater-Kinney: Punk, or whatever else you want to call it this year
HELIUM/SLEATER-KINNEY
The Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge, Mass., March 28, 1998
Just when it seemed as if rotating headliners Helium and Sleater-Kinney had taken rock and roll about as far as it could go in one night, Helium’s Mary Timony had an idea for an encore. “We’re gonna do a song with Sleater-Kinney,” Timony said from behind her keyboards as she beckoned Olympia, Wash.’s punk darlings back on stage to ecstatic cheers from the sold-out crowd.
With guitars duly strapped on, plugged in and tuned up, the crew plunged headfirst into the crushed-out bliss of “The Revolution of Hearts Parts I and II,” a swirling, ethereal epic from Helium’s magnificent ’97 LP The Magic City. The song, stretched well beyond its eight-minute studio version, amply demonstrated what Timony’s art-damaged outfit has been up to since the release three years ago of their debut, The Dirt of Luck.
Although no one would ever accuse Helium of becoming subdued, they have (for the moment at least) smoothed the splintered Sonic Youth-via-Pavement rhythms of their earlier work, embracing instead the elegant menace of underground rock godparents the Velvet Underground. With Timony trading vocals with Sleater-Kinney lead singer Corin Tucker and S-K guitarist Carrie Brownstein pinwheeling her strumming arm like Pete Townshend’s upstart kid sister, the moment ultimately proved to be the evening’s highlight.
Elsewhere during Helium’s enthralling, enigmatic sixty-minute set, Timony didn’t let her hometown audience down, distilling jagged slices of glittery guitar on numbers like “Ocean of Wine” and “Devil’s Tear.” Again and again, Helium carefully constructed distortion-saturated pop melodies, tastefully toeing the line between coherence and indie-cred dissonance.
Minutes before, Sleater-Kinney had offered a compelling reminder of how simple, direct and effective rock and roll (or punk, or whatever else you want to call it this year) can be. Though a little of Tucker’s fluttery yet piercing warble went a long way, the band’s urgent, minimalist (no bass) assault made for a fiercely honest statement that seemed to instantly erase the boundaries between artist and audience. In Sleater-Kinney’s hands, raw, startling blasts of expression like “Heart Factory” and “One More Hour” became more than just songs. They became imperatives. A revolution of the heart indeed.
from Rolling Stone Online
5-28-99 live review
Flin Flon/Mary Timony/Sleater-Kinney 05.28.99…Trocadero Philadelphia, PA
I felt a little out of place at this show. It seemed that every punk from southeastern PA was at this, and then there was me. It’s a shame that I had to go to this show alone because it was such a good show. When I got inside, it seemed like it took forever for Flin Flon to come on stage. I was standing in front of the stage on the left, and surrounded by smoking, loud kids, and a few nice ones, but once Flin Flon was on stage I was happy. Flin Flon contains Nattles, who was in Cold Cold Hearts, and Mark Robinson, of Air Miami and Unrest fame. They played a little less than an hour’s worth of very good, deranged pop songs, much to the chagrin of most of the crowd. It’s a shame that Mark Robinson isn’t relevant anymore, or else he could have shown the kids how to rock, but he does still write a mean pop song.
Between sets it was drool city for me because my two indie rock crushes, Mary Timony and Carrie Brownstein, were on stage, standing right next to each other. Mary Timony was next (she was supposed to go first, but got caught in traffic, most likely the Schuykill Expressway lie everyone else) and she played a damn fine set of more deranged pop songs. I was hoping for a Helium song for two, but she stuck to new stuff. Hopefully there will be a solo album out of this because these were some incredible songs. It was just her and a drummer, and one song it was her on violin and the drummer, which was the best song of the night.
I think Sleater-Kinney broke a land speed record when they got ready to play. There equipment was set up in less than ten minutes, much to delight of the people who were there just for them. A little talking and much smiling went on before they went into their first song, “Get Up”, off of their new and best album, “The Hot Rock”. The continued the night playing more and more crowd-pleasers (aren’t they all crowd-pleasers?). The songs I remember were: Taste Test, The Day You Went Away, One Song For You, Heart Factory, The End Of You, Start Together, Not What You Want, The Hot Rock, The Drama You’ve Been Craving, Hubcap, a new song, and one or two others. They came back out for two encores in which they played “Dig Me Out” and “Turn it On”, and then ended with an incredible version of “Jenny”. They didn’t talk much between the songs, but Carrie did talk about going to see the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin, and of course she was all smiles. The finest moment of the night had to be their new song. If this is the direction they are planning to take with their songwriting, then the next album should be even better than this one, if you can imagine that. S-K are such a great band to see live. Their shows are energetic, they smile a lot, and you can definitely tell they are having fun. And it doesn’t hurt to have the best damn drummer in indie rock, too.
from members.tripod.com/~pastworn/052899.html , author unknown.
5-11-00 live review
Mary Timony: Witchy Woman
Just about the only extravagance Mary Timony allowed herself on stage a week ago Thursday downstairs at the Middle East was the faint sparkle of glitter she wore around her eyes. Well, that and the battery of effects pedals she employed for a guitar improv that climaxed in a symphony of feedback and space-rock noise during “The Golden Fruit,” one of nearly a dozen new songs she performed from her new solo album, Mountains (Matador). For some, the glitter may have been a reminder of the fairy-dusted feel of 1998’s The Magic City (Matador), the last disc Timony released with her band-on-hiatus Helium. Overall, though, her stripped-down solo set with Victory at Sea drummer Christina Files sounded like a statement of bold new purpose and direction.
After opening with the Helium number “I Am a Witch,” Timony moved quickly into new material. Aided and abetted by Files’s intuitive drum fills and syncopated bursts, she pushed the stark and cathartic “Poison Moon” toward a heated boil; at one point — cracking a tiny smile to herself — she even mumbled a few lines from the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” before abandoning the idea. It was that kind of fetchingly unkempt night: Timony, on her own but among friends, experimenting; taking a bit too much time tuning her guitar but shrugging off the inconvenience; dashing back and forth to grab her viola or hop behind a Yamaha keyboard like a kid eager to show her classmates what she brought to show-and-tell.
What Timony brought was a flurry of ideas: indie rock’s template of fractured rhythms and rueful, minor-key meditations (“The Bell”); a dose of baroque surrealism (“Tiger Rising”); a batch of chilly, prog-rock nursery rhymes (“The Fox and Hound”) whose subjects — watery graves, worlds of doom — were more Edward Gorey than Dr. Seuss. In a live setting, the ambition and risk at the heart of her tightrope-walking approach — not to mention the notion of her having left behind the established safety net of a well-regarded band — was made explicit, especially at the show’s somewhat tentative outset. But by the time Timony was kneeling over her effects boxes, taming the electric oceans of feedback that rolled in white-noise waves over the crowd, the glitter rimming her eyes was the last thing holding anyone’s attention.
From the Boston Phoenix, reprinted w/o permission
— Jonathan Perry, May 18 – 25, 2000
10-7-00 Live Review
October 7, 2000
Versus / Mary Timony / Franklin Bruno @ Middle East (Cambridge, MA)
was to be published by Gigmania.com
You can’t call it nostalgia if it ends up looking forward. Sure, Franklin Bruno made a small joke about the night’s bill being a “Who’s Who of Indie Rock” circa 1993, but it wasn’t a comment that held any regret or sadness. In those supposedly halcyon days of the underground, Franklin was best known as the front man & songwriter for Nothing Painted Blue.His trademark in those days was his unique lyrics – intelligent, eclectic,scatological, and most often lovelorn. That hasn’t changed much in the past seven years. What has changed, however, is the backdrop of these marvelous lyrics.
Tonight, Daniel Brodo joined Franklin on stand-up bass. The evening’s set was comprised entirely of Franklin’s solo material – a request for a Nothing Painted Blue song was shot down by Franklin, noting that “that’s a different band”. That claim might seem flippant, but there’s a truth within it that becomes apparent after listening to a few songs. Taking the gentle lament of “Just Because It’s Dying”, or the insisted sway of Franklin’s don’t-let-the-bastards-get-you-down anthem “Idiots”,out of their bass and guitar setting would only weaken the songs. This sparse arrangement allows the strength of Franklin’s words and melodies to become readily apparent. Franklin spent some of the between-song banter apologizing for his performance, a totally unnecessary gesture. Whether he was playing a Jerry Vale cover (the remarkably concise “Two Purple Shadows”) or playing more of his show-tune-influenced originals (like the rollicking forbidden romance ditty “Love’s Got a Ghetto”), Franklin acquitted himself quite nicely. The highlight of the show was a new song entitled “Janet Shaw”, a ballad about a “contract ingénue” with “no box office draw” whose face and work are almost completely forgotten. Franklin’s lyrics tell the story of him finding some publicity stills at a garage sale, and digging up her filmography and other details about herlife. It’s a heartbreaking character study, and as spellbinding a performance as one is likely to ever witness.
Mary Timony has also been known to cast spells, but of a different variety. When she first emerged (as the head of Helium), her songs were both caustic and cerebral, with their impressionistic lyrics and thick, plodding guitarwork. Her work has matured somewhat, its initial anger giving way to a more measured, classical approach, and its guitar-noise aesthetic allowing for more instrumentation and varying emotion. Her latest released, Mountains, is also her first solo album, and arguably herbest work – it’s a concise amalgam of Helium’s youthful aggression and the group’s latter calm. Her live show usually bears this out – she jumps from electric piano to guitar to viola, sure-handed on all three instruments, while Christina Files (from the excellent Boston rock outfit Victory At Sea) plays drums.Tonight, however, her performance lacked both the force and restraint of previous performances – she seemed both tentative and rough, which led to messy,shapeless performances of otherwise excellent songs. The final song she performed was endemic of this – it was a slab of noise of indeterminable length, with Mary mouthing off to the microphone like a medicated Mark E. Smith. It was an unfortunate off night for a usually dependable performer.
Thankfully, Versus didn’t suffer from this malaise. Touring behind their first full-length album in 2 years (the Merge Records release Hurrah), Versus rocked with the power and economy that’s always marked their best work. The new songs they played (guitarist Richard Balyut’s “Eskimoon Ice”, bassist Fontaine Toups’ “You’ll Be Sorry”) showed the growing strength of the group’s songwriting. However, it was when Versus dug into their back catalog (with”Mercy Killing”, from Secret Swingers, or “Underground” and “MorningGlory”, from Two Cents Plus Tax) that the crowd really got into the music. Versus seemed to enjoy the older songs as well, tearing into them with zest and aplomb. The group seemed loose and confident on stage – Richard,Fontaine, and even 2nd guitarist James Balyut switched off on vocals,and the mini rock epic “Frederick’s of Hollywood” featured a Gregorian chant-like interlude, with arms raised in praise and mouths agape. You almost expected some dwarf Druids to dance around a miniature Stonehenge. The groups’ 2 song encore showcased the best of Versus’ range. The first song wasa ballad with country overtones, featuring Richard affecting a near-croon.The second song was”B-9″, a scorching number off their first album, TheStars Are Insane. When the crowd caught wind of what was happening, itcheered, waiting for the song’s inevitable climax to erupt. The pastis nice to visit, but it’s the future that’s more exciting.
From NewConcerts.org
11-10-00 Live Review
Mary Timony: Mythic Peaks
There’s always potential for silliness when rock gets mythic, but there’s also the possibility that a little magic might happen. Spinal Tap’s “Stonehenge”may have nailed an entire genre, but at the end of the day it didn’t makeLed Zeppelin’s “Battle of Evermore” any less haunting.
Mary Timony is currently deep into that mythic world; her set at Lilli’s this past Friday even began with a trio of keyboard songs whose echoing electric-pianosound was guaranteed to make you think of Zeppelin’s “No Quarter.” Then again,one of those songs was “I Fire Myself,” whose violent/sexual imagery was a long way outside Robert Plant’s realm and whose love/betrayal theme sounded heart felt. That’s why Timony’s mythic excursions work (and for that matter why Zeppelin’s did): they’re attached to grabbing tunes and a strong emotional core.
Timony has stuck to the same format since putting Helium on hold last year; it’s still a two-piece band with Christina Files on drums (Timony played guitar for most of the set, with occasional swings to keyboard and viola).She’s gotten better within the limitations of that format, using various guitar pedals to fill in the bass frequencies. Still, the sound got notably fuller when a third musician came on stage (the Pee Wee Fist’s Pete Fitzpatrick, who played euphonium on the poppish “Ride on the Stormy Sea”); and a bass player would give the duo more room to cut loose. There’s also no good reason to ignore the Helium catalogue, which isn’t that far removed from her solo album Mountains (from which came the entire set save for one new song, “Pirate”).
Of course, Timony’s always gone her own way — even in Helium days, she’d throw out the old songs whenever there was a new record — and she usually provides good reason to come along. So it was with Friday’s set, which had its big rock peaks, its joyful pop flashes, and it’s haunting melancholia– but as usual with Timony, it was strongest on the last. Files is a sparer drummer than Helium’s Shawn King Devlin, but she showed a good sense of when to hold back and when to throw in some King Crimson-esque polyrhythms. Timony remains a magnetic, mysterious figure on stage (even when technical problems caused her to break into giggles), and she did her best guitar heroics on the closing “Poison Moon,” which built to a feedback-heavy finale. Somewhere the elves and dragons were dancing.
Blake Hazard was joined for the second half of her set by Jack Drag mainman John Dragonetti, whose atmospheric guitar and keyboard loops blended well with the natural charm in Hazard’s jazz-inflected pop. (The two aremaking an album together for release next year.) Opening the night were Headset, a renamed and reshuffled version of Shyness Clinic; they managed to sound as sensitive as the earlier band while playing much louder. The My Bloody Valentine-style guitar demolition on their closing number didn’t hurt their sincerity a bit.
— Brett Milano
reprinted from the Boston Phoenix 11/16/2000, w/p permission