Marnie Stern Gets Mad As Hell, Reads A Lot
Pitchfork’s interview with the fleet-fingered Marnie Stern is chock-full of interesting material–her creative process, how she almost named her new album after a line from Arrested Development only to have St. Vincent beat her to it, the heart-cheering tidbit that she’s working on something with fellow guitar goddess Mary Timony (!!!). But I really liked the part where she described how the sometimes-alienating experience of going to shows alone and dealing with the attendant, excruciating “shop talk” with semi-strangers wound up plunging her into a period of crazy creativity:
Pitchfork: What kind of shows were you going to?
MS: Well, Brownies was really popular, and I was going to all the underground…Todd P shows, Lightning Bolt shows, all of those kind of shows, and I’d go by myself and I’d stand around. Erase Errata, I remember seeing at some weird place, and I’d stand around, like once a week, stand around, just very awkward. It’s very awkward.
Pitchfork: I know how you feel. It’s weird to go to those kind of shows alone because there are all these social things going on around you…
MS: And you’re bored!
Pitchfork: Yeah, just kinda waiting for the things to start. Everyone is either enveloped in what they are doing, with the people they are talking to, or way too shy to deal with anyone else.
MS: Exactly. And I felt, it was really the in-between, just standing there and I’d be so bored, and this was before, like, I had a cell phone. Or most people had a cell phone. And I was just standing there, so I’d try to talk to people, and people would just be like, ‘Oh.” Or they’d be like, “So what do you do?” And I’d be like, “I play music.” “Oh, really, what label are you on?” “None.” “Oh.” It sucked! It sucked, it sucked, it sucked. And I used to call my best friend and be like “Ooooooooooh!” She calls it a “facial disgracial.” Like, “Ohhhhhhh, I want to show those people someday, damn it!” She was watching Network, and there’s a scene, the guy is like, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” And so we called our little thing Mad as Hell, like, “Fuck this shit, we’re mad as hell! What the fuck!” So we went into this crazy little world. No socializing, just reading constantly, we were nerds, nerds, nerds. And that was when the biggest creative surge of my life happened, and nothing like that has ever happened since. My mind was open. Open to anything and everything, and that was the best two years of my whole life. You want to get back to it, but it’s just not there anymore.
Maybe this just speaks to me because I’ve been trying to cultivate my hermit side lately (hey, it has the side effect of being very very cheap!), although I guess I should quit watching the Tabatha’s Salon Takeover reruns and pick up a book. (Well, I guess I can watch the Long Island ones for further creative inspiration for any endeavors based on my roots. Ha ha, no pun intended!)
Interview: Marnie Stern [Pitchfork]
