From: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org (jinglejangle-digest) To: jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Subject: jinglejangle-digest V1 #69 Reply-To: jinglejangle@smoe.org Sender: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jinglejangle-digest Sunday, April 19 1998 Volume 01 : Number 069 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [MLL] MLL Perfect? [Drew Harrington ] [MLL] another mll in rehab article [Clipamp ] Re: [MLL] Re: jinglejangle-digest V1 #67 [Kat Zelda ] [MLL] CUPS interview, part 1 [Senorita Raquelita ] [MLL] CUPS Interview, part 2 [Senorita Raquelita ] [MLL] Cups Interview, part 3 [Senorita Raquelita ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 08:51:12 -0700 From: Drew Harrington Subject: [MLL] MLL Perfect? > >Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 21:07:01 EDT >From: MryLouLord >Subject: [MLL] Re: jinglejangle-digest V1 #67 > >I guess Mary Lou isn't perfect afterall. >~RL > Sarcasm? I hope.... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 14:37:32 EDT From: Clipamp Subject: [MLL] another mll in rehab article from launch: Mary Lou Lord In Rehab, Career On Hold - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -- (4/17/98) - Folk songstress Mary Lou Lord has put her musical career on hold to undergo alcohol abuse treatment. The 32-year-old Massachusetts native has canceled shows in Chicago, Cleveland and Toronto, but plans to reschedule all missed concerts this Summer. Following her rehabilitation, Lord still intends to perform on this year's Lilith Fair tour. Lord had been sober for more than one year before a recent relapse. A spokeswoman for Sony's Work Group blamed touring and promotion pressures for Lord's backsliding. - -peter ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 16:45:26 EDT From: Kat Zelda Subject: Re: [MLL] Re: jinglejangle-digest V1 #67 MryLouLord wrote: <> none of are ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 18:00:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Senorita Raquelita Subject: [MLL] CUPS interview, part 1 From CUPS, issue 88 (Mary Lou is on the cover) by Daniel Kline The best television movie of the week script writer would do well to write fiction as strong as the fact of folk singer Mary Lou Lord. A suburban kid who broke into music by playing covers in the subway before achieving dubious recognition for her relationship with a musical icon, Lord's story has all the elements of great TV fiction. Add on her time as a DJ at a college radio station and the triumphant ending of record companies engaging in a bidding war over her services and you can practically see Tori Spelling in the promos for "Subway Sensation: The Life of Mary Lou Lord." But while Lord's story makes for good copy, the singer herself has never cultivated the image. Because playing in the subway, cavorting with Kurt Cobain and causing record companies to moon over her was never part of the plan. Lord's "story" happened because she like music and she surrounds herself with people who feel the same way. While some artists collect music industry friends to build capital towards an eventual recording contract and big payday, Lord seems incapable of doing anything so calculated. Sure, she wants a career music, but it's the songs that makes her desire that and not the prospect of a payday. Lord fell into performing while toying with a variety of careers before she got serious about making a record. Even now that she has an album, Got No Shadow, out on a major label, her goals still seem a little different from your normal music industry tale. "I want to have people believe me when I say something to them," she said. I want to be able to tell people in the industry about other performers and have them trust me. I want the record to be successful, but it has nothing to do with fame or money. It's more about power. I want people to trust me." Because of her desire to work with people she trusts and people who will trust her, Lord took her time before settling on a record deal. Though a bit of a bidding war took place over her services, Lord waited until she found the right offer. "I don't have a band. There's no drummer whose wife is starving and it's not like I've been travelling around sleeping in cat piss," she said. "I was comfortable because it's just me and I wasn't desperate for money." Before settling on the WORK Group, Lord had some big money offers from other labels. Instead of taking the most money, Lord relied on the advice of her musician friends. "I couldn't believe they were telling me not to go certain places that were offering like $525,000 more," she said. "But I listened to them and I think I made a pretty good choice. It's a really small label but they've done really well with Fiona Apple and Jamiroquai. They only have eight artists that they are going o push and I'm one of them. They understand the timing and they know how to support the songs." ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 18:11:26 -0400 (EDT) From: Senorita Raquelita Subject: [MLL] CUPS Interview, part 2 CUPS: When did you first pick up a guitar? MLL: When I was about six I played with my brother's and he came in and started screaming at me. It was useless anyway, and I didn't really approach it again until I was ten. I had a friend who had a guitar and could play a John Denver song and I was really jealous. We were rivals in everything from sports to singing and boys, so I just had to learn that tune. I got a guitar after that and took about one lesson before it was like "ow my finger hurts" and it went back under the bed. CUPS: So it wasn't an immediate love affair? MLL: I took to singing right away, since I was bout five, but guitar took me more time. I went to Berkeley College of Music as a vocalist. I didn't play, but what I wanted to do was work with music so at the time my career goal was to be a music producer. My roommate at Berkeley taught me a few chords on the guitar and she actually did a good job because I learned to play a D an A and a G. But that's actually as far as I got. A couple of years later I moved to England to go to school and was hanging out in the subway a lot. I'm not sure if it was because I wanted to avoid going home or just to have a warm place to hang out. I watched the talent that maybe someday I would produce. I was sort of talent scouting. One day a friend of mine asked me to watch his guitar and hold his spot while he went to the bathroom. So, I played the chords I knew and someone threw a pound coin in the basket. From there I had no choice. The next day I marched down Sharing Cross Road in London and bought myself a Hondo. I took it down into the subway and learned these really long folk songs. I could always remember the lyrics but I could never get the chord progressions. I found all these long songs that have a million verses but like two chords. They always had name like "The Ballad of this," or "The Battle of that." CUPS: When did you decide that this might be a career? MLL: I didn't really decide it. I just continue dot play. When I started in the subway I knew one song. I learned another and another until I had a repertoire of about 11 songs. That was after about a year in England. When I came back to Boston, I think I was looking for a job. I passed by the subway and thought that maybe I'd give it a try. I basically just never stopped. I kept progressing. I didn't feel myself progressing, but when you do something a lot you get better at it. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 18:30:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Senorita Raquelita Subject: [MLL] Cups Interview, part 3 CUPS: How did you expand your song arsenal beyond 11? MLL I heard some Shawn Colvin immediately when I got back from England. That was 1988 and I fell in love with her music and she didn't have a record deal yet. I sort of deemed it my mission in life to turn people on to her music. So, my entire repertoire at that point was all Shawn Colvin songs. I still wasn't very good. Technically I wasn't terrible, but the songs I was playing were so good that no matter how badly I delivered them they still retained their greatness. CUPS: When did you decide to try writing songs? MLL: I first tried writing in 1991. I had been playing for about three years, but it hadn't occurred to me to try it because I was not good. It was all I could do to learn a song let alone write one. My ears have always been really good. I knew the difference between a good song and a shit song. But it takes a while for the talent of playing and the talent of writing to match up with how good your ears are. CUPS: Does it bother you that there's so much great stuff out there that isn't being heard? MLL: Yeah, because it makes it hard for me or anyone to find out about it. Back when I started I was working in a record store as well as playing in the subway. I had lots of friends that were tape trading type people and disc jockeys. It was a lot easier to find stuff because I was in the middle of it. Now that I've got more of a hectic life it's hard for me to keep a radio glued to the side of my head. People are not all musicians and most people just don't have the friggin time. They depend on others to somehow hear what is going on out there and what is under the surface of what you hear on major Top 40 radio stations. CUPS: Have you considered going into Artists & Repertoire because so many of the artists whose songs you play have gone on to be successful? MLL: Yeah, but it must be a real heartbreak. You sign these little bands up and then you might leave or have to cut them. It's just too emotional. Plus, I'm not really into bands. I'm more into songs. I think eventually I might want to get into some kind of publishing situation. When I asked a friend what a publisher was he told me that it was a person that finds the best homes for your songs. Joni Mitchell always goes on about how songs are like children. These songs that I play, maybe I didn't write them, but I've been a good foster parent. I want ot have an orphanage for lost songs. I find people like Elliot Smith and I want to tell people to give him money so he doesn't have to drive a taxi. I don't want to have to keep putting other people's songs on my records just so people will listen to them. Hopefully if my album does well enough than Mr. Big Man behind the desk will trust me. CUPS: SO after all that how did you end up with only one cover on your album? MLL: Actually my A&R man asked me to put the song [Freedy Johnston's "The Lucky One"] on the album. Freedy didn't need any of my help, but my A&R guy didn't ask for much so I let have his way a little bit. Plus, it's a great song. CUPS: Do you see yourself doing whole albums of other people's material? MLL: No. I would never do that. Shawn Colvin did that with Cover Girl, which I thought was amazing and Bob Dylan did it with all those great folk songs. I don't think it's something I want to do. CUPS: Do you feel like your way has been made easier by the recent success of so many female artists? MLL: That's always good because radio likes clones. That's really disgusting and gross because when I turn on the radio everything really sounds like everything else. I can't tell the different between some of these bands, but that could actually work for me. If now they want a girl because girls are the thing, I could be part of the cloning thing. I'll have to call Shawn Colvin and thank her for that. the end ------------------------------ End of jinglejangle-digest V1 #69 *********************************