"Gut Pageant"
Kristin Hersch
(690k)

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T A B L E__T A L K

What are the greatest B-sides of all time? Share your favorites in the Music area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

And the winner is ... SOY BOMB!
By Gavin McNett
The 1998 Grammy awards
(02/27/98)

Tommy Keene
Isolation Party
Matador
(02/26/98)

Joe Lovano and Gonzalo Rubalcaba
Flying Colors
Blue Note Records
(02/25/98)

Autour de Lucie
Immobile
Nettwerk
(02/24/98)

Star Rise
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook Remixed
Real World
(02/23/98)

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BROWSE THE
MUSIC ARCHIVES

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V O W E L L

Sound Salvation
By Sarah Vowell
Tattoo by Versace
Courtney Love shuts herself up for acceptance in the straight world of Vanity Fair
(02/20/98)

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F E A T U R E

Carl Wilson
1946 - 1998
By Mark Athitakis
A tribute to the Beach Boy who made the band rock
(02/13/98)

STRANGE ANGEL | PAGE 2 OF 2

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The Throwing Muses reformed a year later without Donelly, after drummer David Narcizo heard some demos Hersh had recorded and told her, "Let's just admit we don't give a shit and record them, and be that kind of a band for as long as we can."

So they did. But by '96, the dough went south. "We literally didn't have enough money to tour or make another record, which is pretty much what a band does," Hersh laments. "We had to admit that we were ending, at least for the time being."

They started a farewell tour, but Hersh was five months pregnant, and her midwife nixed the European leg of the tour. "I wasn't allowed to sing or play until Wyatt was born." Months after that she recorded "Strange Angels," both her second solo and second acoustic album. "I always had a brat attitude and thought acoustic music was wimpy -- which it often is. People don't have a lot of respect for the instrument. They think, 'If I can't play I'll just play in the background and no one will notice.' I demoed the first acoustic songs (her 1994 album 'Hips and Makers') hoping my husband would get off my back about them. The success of that record took me by surprise."

This first experience recording with acoustic guitar made Hersh fall (as in "head over heels") for the thing -- how it sounds, how it feels. "I adore the way an acoustic guitar relates to my body," she says, as if she is describing a lover. "It uses muscles and air to make sound, and I think that's very dynamically effective. When you play hard, everyone relates to it. The audience doesn't need you to look sweaty and intense and turn up the distortion or lean on the volume pedal. Instead, you can be delicate, and they can relate to that."

Although she loved the acoustic sound, she first betrayed the "Strange Angels" cuts with overdubs of bass and drums. But she realized they were all too top-heavy. "I had to erase all the overdubs because the songs really wanted to be left alone."

The songs retained their original askew purity. They may be a million miles away from the dreaded "ear candy," but they're not elitist. "I always thought I made pop music. I think people use the word 'pop' to mean 'stupid,' or an excuse to be stupid. That's unfortunate. We don't have much respect for music when it comes to popular culture."

Although Hersh has been exiled into the post-Nirvana ghetto known as "indie," our heroine has no ax to grind against corporate record companies: "I don't disagree with the way the music business is set up like a lot of musicians do. I think if a record company pays for a record to be made, they can own it. It's OK. If you care about your stuff, you want it to grow up and be given away. You're lucky if someone pays you to make a record."

She sure does hate that ear candy though -- she uses the term at least a dozen times in the span of one conversation, always in the negative. "You can trick people into buying almost anything," she says with disgust. "That was my argument with Warner Brothers. I'd say, 'Why do you sell crap?' And they'd say, 'Crap sells.' But it only sells because they sell crap. If you have so little respect for the listening public, why don't you trick them into buying something good?" She gives a tired sigh. "But they just said, 'The risk is too great. We know they just swallow sugar, so we'll pour it down their necks and we can pay the bills.'"

It's those necks again. Hersh may never wash hers, but "Pale" ends with the singer confessing, "When the music starts it goes straight to my hips." Ah, hips and makers ...

"I think I have a reputation of being wacky or difficult just because I care about the music," Hersh laughs. "But being this way works for me." She laughs again. Then once more. "If they knew how nice I was, they would probably feel freer to ask me to play the game harder."

Hersh's speculations on her reputation bear a double take. She's "wacky or difficult"? There are miles between those states, i.e. miles between "I love Lucy" (wacky) and Joni Mitchell (difficult). On "Pale," Hersh sings, "You'd better bring your fucking knife/Till we see eye-to-eye." Now that's a difficult woman singing. Picture Hersh hunching down -- blade in her fist -- ready to slash it out with some Warner Brothers suit. But then the song goes: "Cause I'd rather cut your buttons off than be caught in a lie."

Well, Hersh is no homicidal knifewoman -- she's just a hallucinating artist writing songs in her head. "Must've been on mushrooms when you wrote that pile of junk," she sings. "Got rock candy brains and that head of yours, full of holes."

Uh-oh. Heads again. Brains. All Hersh's mentions of heads/brains/ear candy make a listener know that surely her skull itself is filled with Godiva chocolates.

And at least one fucking knife ...
SALON | March 2, 1998