mary timony was a gifted child. a musical genius. she went to the duke ellington school for the performing arts on a full ride to study jazz guitar.
but timony wanted to be a punk. she’d listen to ‘damaged’ on her walkman under the covers at night. she taught herself all of d boon’s licks from ‘what makes a man start fires?’, quietly, on her old acoustic guitar. that stuff was her dylan; her beatles.
after she graduated, she went downtown. to find the punks. to start a band. the punk she found was christina bilotte, who was decidedly not a gifted child or a musical genius, but still managed to give timony a run for her money. their band, autoclave, was stormy and fraught with tensions and arguments. they were annointed as ‘the next big thing’ by the kingmakers of the scene, but no one went to their shows. they released one album — a quirky, introspective effort — and broke up.
timony moved to boston.
in boston, mary lou lord was famous for two things: being friends with kurt cobain and being folk music’s great hope. she’d been struggling to put together a band (there was an unwritten promise that anything they released would get a sub pop signing, which at the time was basically the winning ticket), but the diva vibe was real. there will be no electric guitars, only acoustic, she declared, her foot down firmly. that’s how you break up a band before it even has its first gig.
and then timony arrives. why do you put up with that? she asks. she’s been through the wringer of band politics, but nothing like this! kick lord out and let me join, she says, and we will play music that is wonderous and weird and moody and introspective. plug in your guitars. be screechy and fuzzy. turn the reverb up, or off. whatever. we can be pirates or prudes or both.
they called the band helium.
helium ‘the dirt of luck’
helium ‘pirate prude’
autoclave untitled rerelease
