Kristin Hersh
Encyclopedia
Kristin Hersh is an American
singer/songwriter who performs solo acoustic concerts; she also continues to perform as lead singer and guitarist for alternative rock
group Throwing Muses
and the hardcore punk
-influenced power trio
50 Foot Wave
. She has written a memoir, titled Rat Girl
, which was published in the USA by Penguin Books
on August 31, 2010 and is co-founder of the non-profit, open-source software project for recording artists, CASH Music
.
. She learned guitar at age nine from her father, and started writing songs soon after. As a teenager, she formed Throwing Muses in the early 1980s with stepsister Tanya Donelly
and other high school friends.
Hersh has listed among her early musical influences The Raincoats
, Talking Heads
, Violent Femmes
, Meat Puppets
, Dead Kennedys
, Hüsker Dü
, Velvet Underground, R.E.M.
, and X. She has said her parents' albums by Patti Smith
, the Carter Family
, Stevie Wonder
, Robert Johnson, Talking Heads
, The Clash
, Steve Miller
, The Beatles
, Philip Glass
, and traditional music
influenced her when she was growing up.
while both were students at Salve Regina University
. Hutton attended several Throwing Muses concerts.
The group was signed by the British 4AD Records label in 1986 and, after one album, signed a U.S. deal with Sire
/Reprise Records
in 1987. They began touring around the U.S. and Europe
while recording critically acclaimed rock albums, with Hersh writing most of the songs.
Throwing Muses became a trio when Donelly left the group after 1991's The Real Ramona
. In 1994, Hersh began an additional career on Sire
/Reprise
and 4AD as an acoustic solo performer, beginning with Hips and Makers
, an album sparely arranged around her vocals, guitar, and a cellist, in contrast to the volatile, electric sound of her band work. Michael Stipe
of R.E.M.
made an appearance on this first solo album.
Hersh's solo songwriting style focuses some of the relationship subject matter on her family. While Hersh's work reflects her personal experience, she has said that she writes from a point of view outside of her personality. Stating that "songwriting is about shutting up instead of talking", Hersh has said that songs that appeal to her are those that "say things that I don't know yet and tell stories I may not have lived yet".
The New York Times
pointed to Hersh's explorations of "rage, aggression and mental chaos" as evidence that there were at least a few female rock music artists by the early 1990s pushing against gender role
boundaries to express "more than simply vulnerability or defiance" in their work.
Hersh, whose early publicity at times portrayed her as a tortured artist "channeling" her songs from her psyche
, has mentioned that the "angry young woman" fascination of some writers in reviewing the work of female performers has at times led to cartoonish stereotype
s, rather than three-dimensional portraits respecting their intelligence. By the mid-1990s, journalists acknowledged that the breadth of her "fierce, quirky, and imaginative" lyrical style included explorations of "emotional and physical love" combined with "elliptical puzzlement".
After receiving some airplay and major media coverage for Throwing Muses album University in 1995, Hersh moved to Rykodisc
for her 1996 Throwing Muses album, Limbo, and her 1998 solo album, Strange Angels
. In order to better control her career and the distribution of her recorded material she created the ThrowingMusic label with husband/manager Billy O'Connell in 1996. This enabled her to co-release certain Hersh-related projects, including an ongoing download subscription service called Works in Progress (WIP) for releases available only through the label's ThrowingMusic website.
In 1999, Hersh also participated in Throwing Muses drummer David Narcizo
's Lakuna
solo project album release, Castle of Crime.
In 2001, she released the Sunny Border Blue
solo album, on which she again played nearly all instruments. She has described this album as having even more intensity than her previous works, as she continued her pursuit of songwriting as being in part a way to transform "ugly feelings" into art.
Hersh's recorded and live performances in recent years have occasionally included appearances with like-minded alternative artists like Vic Chesnutt
, Willard Grant Conspiracy
, Grant Lee Phillips, and John Doe
.
In 2003, she released The Grotto
, an acoustic solo album of song sketches with personal lyrics set in Providence, Rhode Island
, with Andrew Bird
on violin and Howe Gelb
on piano. On the same date a self-titled album by her Throwing Muses group was also released, the first since Limbo. Both were recorded at Steve Rizzo's studio in Rhode Island.
Also in 2003, she formed a power rock trio called 50 Foot Wave
, when Narcizo was unable to tour on a full-time basis due to other commitments. Her touring appearances and recording efforts in 2004 and 2005 centered around both 50 Foot Wave and her solo career.
In 2005, Hersh recorded a cover version of the Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation" for American Laundromat Records
80's film tribute.
In January 2007, Hersh released her first solo album in four years, entitled Learn to Sing Like a Star
.
On November 26, 2007, Hersh announced the opening of CASH Music
. The subscriber-based, direct-to-consumer model had its first year-long project in the form of what was supposed to be an album called Speedbath, which was released one song per month for free at Kristin's CASH website. 50 Foot Wave also released an EP titled Power+Light through the CASH organization. January 2009 began another series of one track per month for free on the website, and the tracks wound up cohering without the song "Speedbath" at all; the new record, Crooked, was released in 2010. It was available to buy as a hardback book which included essays on the songs and a link to download the album and related tracks.
Hersh has written and illustrated a children's book called Toby Snax.
In 2008, Hersh recorded a cover of Neil Young
's "Like a Hurricane" for the American Laundromat Records
charity CD "Cinnamon Girl - Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity".
A second collection of Appalachian folk songs, The Shady Circle, is expected to be released. Live recordings of the songs have been available since late 2008.
In 2010, Hersh released her memoir, Rat Girl
, which covers events from early 1985 through early 1986, when she was in her late teens. The UK version of the book, released in early 2011, is entitled Paradoxical Undressing. The book covers topics such as the meaning behind many of her songs and the early stages of the Throwing Muses.
lyrics about everyday feelings and varying mental states. A few of her songwriting subjects have included childbirth
("Hysterical Bending"), love ("Tar Kissers", "Lavender"), surreal
vignettes ("Delicate Cutters", "Fish"), death ("Limbo"), emotional anguish ("The Letter"), loss of custody of her first son ("Candyland"), and the shedding of a relationship's anxiety ("Snake Oil").
Hersh has used images such as apples, water, diamonds, eyes, the sea, snow, ice, rain, fire, the sun, parking lots, sand, and cowboys. On occasion she has used historical figures like anorexic
suicide
Ellen West
as metaphor
s in depicting a state of mind. Eccentric characters encountered in her family's travels have made occasional appearances in songs such as "Ruthie's Knocking"; a 2005 live solo set list included a then-untitled song ("Under The Gun") about a "parrot lady" character she met while visiting Lake Michigan
.
Some interviews have described Hersh's early drive to perform as due to hearing sounds in her mind so that her songs began to "write themselves", becoming at times their own separate presences in her life, inner voices haunting her. She has stated that hearing these "pieces of songs" clanging together in her mind compelled her to take the pieces apart and craft songs from them. "If I don't turn ideas into songs, they can get stuck in me and make me sick," she said in a 1995 interview with AOL
's Critics' Choice electronic music magazine. "That's the way a song hits you right here, right here [she motions to the heart and gut] instead of in your brain because the words themselves are all real sweaty, color, action words, so they just go bangbangbang. They're not supposed to make you think and try to figure out some puzzle. People think that I'm trying to trick them, that I have some thing I could write down and I haven't done it and I've just given them a bunch of poetry instead. I find it to be the clearest way to talk. It's like the way little kids talk because they have no filler words and no overriding thoughts to color your impression of what's happening in a song."
heritage influenced her to record a solo album of Appalachian gothic
folk songs in 1998 – Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight. Performing traditional songs was a rare covers excursion for the prolific songwriter, although she was no stranger to these tunes, having heard some of them played by her father when she was a child. In fact, Hersh has cowritten two songs with her father, "Uncle June and Aunt Kiyoti" and "Houdini Blues", which appeared on other solo releases; she also recorded a third, "Sinkhole", that he wrote on his own.
Hersh and her family have moved every few years to live in a different locale. Her experiences in each location have sometimes influenced the emotional landscape of her songs. Living for a period near Joshua Tree, California
, affected some of the atmosphere and lyrical imagery of Sky Motel
, a 1999 solo album on which she played most of the instruments. Time spent in the New Orleans area while recording Limbo in 1996 at Daniel Lanois
' Kingsway Studio had similarly influenced songs like "Ruthie's Knocking", inspired by Ruthie the Duck Girl, an offbeat character well known to locals for her antics in the French Quarter
.
Hersh has also said in an interview that she writes many of her songs which feel to her as though "they come from New Orleans or Providence, Rhode Island". She and her family additionally spent time in New Orleans when recording Throwing Muses' 1994 Bright Yellow Gun EPs, Throwing Muses' 1995 University album, and the Sky Motel solo album. University, Limbo, and Sky Motel were recorded by Grammy-winning engineer Trina Shoemaker, the latter album co-recorded by engineer Ethan Allen; Allen later worked on band tracks with Hersh in the 2000s. Hersh spent part of the 1990s in Portsmouth, Rhode Island
, recording several solo albums and a few band tracks at Stable Sound studio with engineer Steve Rizzo.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
singer/songwriter who performs solo acoustic concerts; she also continues to perform as lead singer and guitarist for alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
group Throwing Muses
Throwing Muses
Throwing Muses is an alternative rock band formed in 1981 in Newport, Rhode Island, that toured and recorded extensively until 1997, when its members began concentrating more on other projects. The group was originally fronted by two lead singers, Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly, who both wrote the...
and the hardcore punk
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
-influenced power trio
Power trio
A power trio is a rock and roll band format where the traditional power trio has a lineup of guitar, bass and drums, leaving out the rhythm guitar or keyboard that are used in other rock music to fill out the sound with chords...
50 Foot Wave
50 Foot Wave
50 Foot Wave is an American alternative rock band, formed in 2003. The band is fronted by Kristin Hersh, who writes the group's songs with collaborative efforts from the other group members in composing and arranging the music. The group's name is a reference to both an illustration and the term...
. She has written a memoir, titled Rat Girl
Rat Girl
Rat Girl is a memoir published in 2010 by Penguin Books and written by Kristin Hersh, a guitarist, songwriter, and singer who has performed as a solo artist, and as guitarist/lead singer of the alternative rock band Throwing Muses...
, which was published in the USA by Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
on August 31, 2010 and is co-founder of the non-profit, open-source software project for recording artists, CASH Music
CASH Music
CASH Music is an organization founded by Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses and Donita Sparks of L7. Other participating artists include Xiu Xiu, Adam Gnade, Portugal The Man, 50FOOTWAVE, Colourmusic, Learning Music and Alex Moulton...
.
Early life
Born in Atlanta as Martha Kristin Hersh, she was raised in Newport, Rhode IslandNewport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
. She learned guitar at age nine from her father, and started writing songs soon after. As a teenager, she formed Throwing Muses in the early 1980s with stepsister Tanya Donelly
Tanya Donelly
Tanya Donelly is an American Grammy-nominated singer songwriter and guitarist based in New England who co-founded Throwing Muses with her stepsister Kristin Hersh. She then went on to work in The Breeders and Belly in the 1990s...
and other high school friends.
Hersh has listed among her early musical influences The Raincoats
The Raincoats
The Raincoats are a British post-punk band. Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art, London, England.-Career:...
, Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
, Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes were an American alternative rock band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, initially active between 1980 and 1987 and again from 1988 to 2009...
, Meat Puppets
Meat Puppets
The Meat Puppets are an American rock band formed in January 1980, in Phoenix, Arizona. The group's original lineup was Curt Kirkwood , his brother Cris Kirkwood , and Derrick Bostrom . The Kirkwood brothers met Bostrom while attending Brophy Prep High School in Phoenix...
, Dead Kennedys
Dead Kennedys
Dead Kennedys are an American punk rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1978. The band became part of the American hardcore punk movement of the early 1980s. They gained a large underground fanbase in the international punk music scene....
, Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü was an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton, and drummer Grant Hart....
, Velvet Underground, R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
, and X. She has said her parents' albums by Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
, the Carter Family
Carter Family
The Carter Family was a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s. They were the first vocal group to become country...
, Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
, Robert Johnson, Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
, The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
, Steve Miller
Steve Miller (musician)
Steven H. "Steve" Miller is an American guitarist and singer-songwriter who began his career in blues and blues rock and evolved to a more popular-oriented sound which, from the mid 1970s through the early 1980s, resulted in a series of successful singles and albums.-Early years:Born in Milwaukee,...
, The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, and traditional music
Traditional music
Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...
influenced her when she was growing up.
Throwing Muses and early solo work
Hersh began singing and writing most of Throwing Muses' songs in changing tempos, with Donelly also singing and writing some of the songs. Early in the band's career, Hersh became friends with Betty HuttonBetty Hutton
Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...
while both were students at Salve Regina University
Salve Regina University
Salve Regina University is a university in Newport, Rhode Island. Founded by the Sisters of Mercy, the university is a Catholic, co-educational, private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of Rhode Island in 1934. In 1947 the university acquired Ochre Court and welcomed its first class...
. Hutton attended several Throwing Muses concerts.
The group was signed by the British 4AD Records label in 1986 and, after one album, signed a U.S. deal with Sire
Sire Records
Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a...
/Reprise Records
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
in 1987. They began touring around the U.S. and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
while recording critically acclaimed rock albums, with Hersh writing most of the songs.
Throwing Muses became a trio when Donelly left the group after 1991's The Real Ramona
The Real Ramona
The Real Ramona is an album by Throwing Muses. Released in 1991, it was the last album recorded by the band before the departure of founding member Tanya Donelly....
. In 1994, Hersh began an additional career on Sire
Sire Records
Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a...
/Reprise
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
and 4AD as an acoustic solo performer, beginning with Hips and Makers
Hips and Makers
Hips and Makers is the debut solo album by Kristin Hersh, best known as the primary singer and songwriter of the band Throwing Muses. In contrast to Hersh's rock-oriented work with Throwing Muses, the album is primarily acoustic, with Hersh usually playing unaccompanied...
, an album sparely arranged around her vocals, guitar, and a cellist, in contrast to the volatile, electric sound of her band work. Michael Stipe
Michael Stipe
John Michael Stipe is an American singer and lyricist. He was the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band R.E.M.Stipe is noted and occasionally parodied for the "mumbling" style of his early career as well as his social and political activism. He was in charge of R.E.M.'s visual image; often...
of R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
made an appearance on this first solo album.
Hersh's solo songwriting style focuses some of the relationship subject matter on her family. While Hersh's work reflects her personal experience, she has said that she writes from a point of view outside of her personality. Stating that "songwriting is about shutting up instead of talking", Hersh has said that songs that appeal to her are those that "say things that I don't know yet and tell stories I may not have lived yet".
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
pointed to Hersh's explorations of "rage, aggression and mental chaos" as evidence that there were at least a few female rock music artists by the early 1990s pushing against gender role
Gender role
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...
boundaries to express "more than simply vulnerability or defiance" in their work.
Hersh, whose early publicity at times portrayed her as a tortured artist "channeling" her songs from her psyche
Psyche (psychology)
The word psyche has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older...
, has mentioned that the "angry young woman" fascination of some writers in reviewing the work of female performers has at times led to cartoonish stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
s, rather than three-dimensional portraits respecting their intelligence. By the mid-1990s, journalists acknowledged that the breadth of her "fierce, quirky, and imaginative" lyrical style included explorations of "emotional and physical love" combined with "elliptical puzzlement".
After receiving some airplay and major media coverage for Throwing Muses album University in 1995, Hersh moved to Rykodisc
Rykodisc
Rykodisc Records is an American record label. It is owned by Warner Music Group, operates as a unit of WMG's Independent Label Group and is distributed through Alternative Distribution Alliance.-Company history:...
for her 1996 Throwing Muses album, Limbo, and her 1998 solo album, Strange Angels
Strange Angels (Kristin Hersh album)
Strange Angels is Kristin Hersh's second studio album, produced by Kristin Hersh and co-produced by Joe Henry .-Track listing:#"Home"#"Like You"#"Aching For You"#"Cold Water Coming"...
. In order to better control her career and the distribution of her recorded material she created the ThrowingMusic label with husband/manager Billy O'Connell in 1996. This enabled her to co-release certain Hersh-related projects, including an ongoing download subscription service called Works in Progress (WIP) for releases available only through the label's ThrowingMusic website.
Later career
David Narcizo
David Narcizo, born May 6, 1966, in Newport, Rhode Island, United States, is primarily known for his work as the longtime drummer for Throwing Muses....
's Lakuna
Lakuna
Lakuna was an electronic instrumental project begun by drummer David Narcizo after Throwing Muses first split up following their 1996 Limbo album. Lakuna first released a 12-inch called So Happy and then a 1999 full-length album called Castle of Crime. Narcizo provided drums, drum programming, and...
solo project album release, Castle of Crime.
In 2001, she released the Sunny Border Blue
Sunny Border Blue
Sunny Border Blue is Kristin Hersh's fifth studio album and was released in 2001.-Track listings:All tracks composed by Kristin Hersh; except where indicated#"Your Dirty Answer"#"Spain"#"37 Hours"#"Silica"#"William's Cut"#"Summer Salt"...
solo album, on which she again played nearly all instruments. She has described this album as having even more intensity than her previous works, as she continued her pursuit of songwriting as being in part a way to transform "ugly feelings" into art.
Hersh's recorded and live performances in recent years have occasionally included appearances with like-minded alternative artists like Vic Chesnutt
Vic Chesnutt
James Victor "Vic" Chesnutt was an American singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia. His first album, Little, was released in 1990, but his breakthrough to commercial success didn't come until 1996 with the release of Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation, a tribute album of mainstream artists...
, Willard Grant Conspiracy
Willard Grant Conspiracy
Willard Grant Conspiracy is an alt-country band currently based near Palmdale, California, USA.Originally formed by Robert Fisher and Paul Austin in 1995 in Boston, Massachusetts, the band operates as a collective, with vocalist Fisher the only permanent member. Up to thirty other musicians...
, Grant Lee Phillips, and John Doe
John Doe (musician)
John Doe is an American singer, songwriter, actor, poet and bass player. Doe founded the much-praised L.A. punk band X, of which he is still an active member. His musical performances and compositions span the rock, country and folk music genres...
.
In 2003, she released The Grotto
The Grotto (album)
The Grotto is the sixth solo album released by Kristin Hersh. It was released on the 17 March 2003 on 4AD records, simultaneously with the Throwing Muses record. It features Howe Gelb on piano and Andrew Bird on violin...
, an acoustic solo album of song sketches with personal lyrics set in Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, with Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.- Early life and the Bowl of Fire :...
on violin and Howe Gelb
Howe Gelb
Howe Gelb is an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer based in Tucson, Arizona.-Projects:Gelb's approach to music is collaborative and he has recorded with a number of side projects...
on piano. On the same date a self-titled album by her Throwing Muses group was also released, the first since Limbo. Both were recorded at Steve Rizzo's studio in Rhode Island.
Also in 2003, she formed a power rock trio called 50 Foot Wave
50 Foot Wave
50 Foot Wave is an American alternative rock band, formed in 2003. The band is fronted by Kristin Hersh, who writes the group's songs with collaborative efforts from the other group members in composing and arranging the music. The group's name is a reference to both an illustration and the term...
, when Narcizo was unable to tour on a full-time basis due to other commitments. Her touring appearances and recording efforts in 2004 and 2005 centered around both 50 Foot Wave and her solo career.
In 2005, Hersh recorded a cover version of the Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation" for American Laundromat Records
American Laundromat Records
American Laundromat Records is an indie label based in Mystic, CT.The label has produced several tribute albums, including Dig For Fire - a tribute to PIXIES, Cinnamon Girl - Women Artists Cover Neil Young, and High School Reunion - A Tribute to Those Great 80's Films...
80's film tribute.
In January 2007, Hersh released her first solo album in four years, entitled Learn to Sing Like a Star
Learn to Sing Like a Star
Learn to Sing Like a Star is Kristin Hersh's seventh solo album and was released in the US on Yep Roc Records on the 23 January 2007 and on 4AD for the rest of the world on the 29 January. The album was produced by Kristin herself and mixed in Nashville by two time Grammy winner Trina Shoemaker...
.
On November 26, 2007, Hersh announced the opening of CASH Music
CASH Music
CASH Music is an organization founded by Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses and Donita Sparks of L7. Other participating artists include Xiu Xiu, Adam Gnade, Portugal The Man, 50FOOTWAVE, Colourmusic, Learning Music and Alex Moulton...
. The subscriber-based, direct-to-consumer model had its first year-long project in the form of what was supposed to be an album called Speedbath, which was released one song per month for free at Kristin's CASH website. 50 Foot Wave also released an EP titled Power+Light through the CASH organization. January 2009 began another series of one track per month for free on the website, and the tracks wound up cohering without the song "Speedbath" at all; the new record, Crooked, was released in 2010. It was available to buy as a hardback book which included essays on the songs and a link to download the album and related tracks.
Hersh has written and illustrated a children's book called Toby Snax.
In 2008, Hersh recorded a cover of Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
's "Like a Hurricane" for the American Laundromat Records
American Laundromat Records
American Laundromat Records is an indie label based in Mystic, CT.The label has produced several tribute albums, including Dig For Fire - a tribute to PIXIES, Cinnamon Girl - Women Artists Cover Neil Young, and High School Reunion - A Tribute to Those Great 80's Films...
charity CD "Cinnamon Girl - Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity".
A second collection of Appalachian folk songs, The Shady Circle, is expected to be released. Live recordings of the songs have been available since late 2008.
In 2010, Hersh released her memoir, Rat Girl
Rat Girl
Rat Girl is a memoir published in 2010 by Penguin Books and written by Kristin Hersh, a guitarist, songwriter, and singer who has performed as a solo artist, and as guitarist/lead singer of the alternative rock band Throwing Muses...
, which covers events from early 1985 through early 1986, when she was in her late teens. The UK version of the book, released in early 2011, is entitled Paradoxical Undressing. The book covers topics such as the meaning behind many of her songs and the early stages of the Throwing Muses.
Musical style
Hersh's music is known for its chords, sonic treatments, and a vocal style ranging from softly melodic singing to impassioned screaming. Some of her signature contributions to popular music include addressing the complexities of life through impressionistic, sometimes hallucinatoryHallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
lyrics about everyday feelings and varying mental states. A few of her songwriting subjects have included childbirth
Childbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
("Hysterical Bending"), love ("Tar Kissers", "Lavender"), surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
vignettes ("Delicate Cutters", "Fish"), death ("Limbo"), emotional anguish ("The Letter"), loss of custody of her first son ("Candyland"), and the shedding of a relationship's anxiety ("Snake Oil").
Hersh has used images such as apples, water, diamonds, eyes, the sea, snow, ice, rain, fire, the sun, parking lots, sand, and cowboys. On occasion she has used historical figures like anorexic
Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...
suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
Ellen West
Ellen West
Ellen West was an anorexia nervosa patient who became one of the most famous examples of existential analysis. Her troubled life ended in suicide by a lethal dose of poison at age 33....
as metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s in depicting a state of mind. Eccentric characters encountered in her family's travels have made occasional appearances in songs such as "Ruthie's Knocking"; a 2005 live solo set list included a then-untitled song ("Under The Gun") about a "parrot lady" character she met while visiting Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
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Some interviews have described Hersh's early drive to perform as due to hearing sounds in her mind so that her songs began to "write themselves", becoming at times their own separate presences in her life, inner voices haunting her. She has stated that hearing these "pieces of songs" clanging together in her mind compelled her to take the pieces apart and craft songs from them. "If I don't turn ideas into songs, they can get stuck in me and make me sick," she said in a 1995 interview with AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
's Critics' Choice electronic music magazine. "That's the way a song hits you right here, right here [she motions to the heart and gut] instead of in your brain because the words themselves are all real sweaty, color, action words, so they just go bangbangbang. They're not supposed to make you think and try to figure out some puzzle. People think that I'm trying to trick them, that I have some thing I could write down and I haven't done it and I've just given them a bunch of poetry instead. I find it to be the clearest way to talk. It's like the way little kids talk because they have no filler words and no overriding thoughts to color your impression of what's happening in a song."
Studio albums
- Hips and MakersHips and MakersHips and Makers is the debut solo album by Kristin Hersh, best known as the primary singer and songwriter of the band Throwing Muses. In contrast to Hersh's rock-oriented work with Throwing Muses, the album is primarily acoustic, with Hersh usually playing unaccompanied...
– 1994 - Strange AngelsStrange Angels (Kristin Hersh album)Strange Angels is Kristin Hersh's second studio album, produced by Kristin Hersh and co-produced by Joe Henry .-Track listing:#"Home"#"Like You"#"Aching For You"#"Cold Water Coming"...
– 1998 - Murder, Misery and Then GoodnightMurder, Misery and Then GoodnightMurder, Misery and Then Goodnight is Kristin Hersh's third solo album and quite a departure from her other solo recordings, in that it contains solely Appalachian folk songs about murder and death arranged by Kristin Hersh, rather than songs written by Kristin herself...
– 1998 - Sky MotelSky MotelSky Motel is Kristin Hersh's fourth studio album. Vocals and most of the music are performed by Kristin Hersh. Drums on tracks 1, 5 & 7 are played by Carlo Nuccio who also provides a drum loop for track 8...
– 1999 - Sunny Border BlueSunny Border BlueSunny Border Blue is Kristin Hersh's fifth studio album and was released in 2001.-Track listings:All tracks composed by Kristin Hersh; except where indicated#"Your Dirty Answer"#"Spain"#"37 Hours"#"Silica"#"William's Cut"#"Summer Salt"...
– 2001 - The Grotto – 2003
- Learn to Sing Like a StarLearn to Sing Like a StarLearn to Sing Like a Star is Kristin Hersh's seventh solo album and was released in the US on Yep Roc Records on the 23 January 2007 and on 4AD for the rest of the world on the 29 January. The album was produced by Kristin herself and mixed in Nashville by two time Grammy winner Trina Shoemaker...
– 2007 - Speedbath – 2008 under Creative Commons LicenseCreative Commons LicenseCreative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...
- Crooked – 2010
With 50 Foot Wave
Her parents' Lookout MountainLookout Mountain, Tennessee
Lookout Mountain is a town in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 1,832 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Chattanooga, TN–GA Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Lookout Mountain is located at...
heritage influenced her to record a solo album of Appalachian gothic
Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction unique to American literature that takes place exclusively in the American South. It resembles its parent genre in that it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot...
folk songs in 1998 – Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight. Performing traditional songs was a rare covers excursion for the prolific songwriter, although she was no stranger to these tunes, having heard some of them played by her father when she was a child. In fact, Hersh has cowritten two songs with her father, "Uncle June and Aunt Kiyoti" and "Houdini Blues", which appeared on other solo releases; she also recorded a third, "Sinkhole", that he wrote on his own.
Hersh and her family have moved every few years to live in a different locale. Her experiences in each location have sometimes influenced the emotional landscape of her songs. Living for a period near Joshua Tree, California
Joshua Tree, California
Joshua Tree is a census-designated place in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 7,414 at the 2010 census, up from 4,207 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Joshua Tree is located in the Mojave Desert at ....
, affected some of the atmosphere and lyrical imagery of Sky Motel
Sky Motel
Sky Motel is Kristin Hersh's fourth studio album. Vocals and most of the music are performed by Kristin Hersh. Drums on tracks 1, 5 & 7 are played by Carlo Nuccio who also provides a drum loop for track 8...
, a 1999 solo album on which she played most of the instruments. Time spent in the New Orleans area while recording Limbo in 1996 at Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
' Kingsway Studio had similarly influenced songs like "Ruthie's Knocking", inspired by Ruthie the Duck Girl, an offbeat character well known to locals for her antics in the French Quarter
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré as it was known then...
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Hersh has also said in an interview that she writes many of her songs which feel to her as though "they come from New Orleans or Providence, Rhode Island". She and her family additionally spent time in New Orleans when recording Throwing Muses' 1994 Bright Yellow Gun EPs, Throwing Muses' 1995 University album, and the Sky Motel solo album. University, Limbo, and Sky Motel were recorded by Grammy-winning engineer Trina Shoemaker, the latter album co-recorded by engineer Ethan Allen; Allen later worked on band tracks with Hersh in the 2000s. Hersh spent part of the 1990s in Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Portsmouth is a town in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 17,389 at the 2010 U.S. Census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water. Most of its land area lies on Aquidneck...
, recording several solo albums and a few band tracks at Stable Sound studio with engineer Steve Rizzo.
Song samples
- ThrowingMusic label downloads
- 4AD audio downloads
- Kristin Hersh: Loose Timing Splendid; article includes links to audio samples from Sunny Border Blue.
- CASH Music downloads
- Kirstin Hersh's page on ccMixterCcMixterccMixter.org is a community music site that promotes remix culture and makes samples, remixes, and a cappella tracks licensed under Creative Commons available for download and re-use in creative works. Visitors are able to listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in a variety of ways...
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External links
- Official Kristin Hersh site
- Official ThrowingMusic label site and artist blog
- 4AD biography on Kristin Hersh
- Kristin Hersh artist page at Beggars Group label
- Guest host of Bowed Radio - Episode 011
- Interview at RockBookShow.com about "Rat Girl"
- Kristin Hersh collection at the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
's live music archive - October, 2010 Interview with Kristin Hersh