Kristin Hersh

ICE QUEEN: Kristin Hersh
BAND: Throwing Muses, 50 Foot Wave, Solo artist
ORIGIN: Atlanta, Georgia (USA)
ACCOMPLICES: TM: Tanya Donnelly (vocals, guitar), Georges Bernard (bass), David Narcizo (drums); 50FW: Georges Bernard (bass), Rob Ahlers (drums)
DISCOGRAPHY: TM: "Untitled" (1986), "House Tornado" (1988), "Hunkpapa" (1989), "The Real Ramona" (1991), "Red Heaven" (1992), "University" (1995), "Limbo" (1996), "In A Doghouse" (1998), "Throwing Muses" (2003); 50FW: "50 Foot Wave" (2004), "Golden Ocean" (2005); Solo: "Hips and Makers" (1994), "Strange Angels" (1998), "Murder, Misery And Then Goodnight" (1998), "Sky Motel" (1999), "Sunny Border Blue" (2001), "The Grotto" (2003), "Learning To Sing Like a Star" (2007).
INFLUENCES: The Raincoats, Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, Meat Puppets, Dead Kennedys, Hüsker Dü, Velvet Underground, R.E.M., Patti Smith, the Carter Family, Stevie Wonder, Robert Johnson, Talking Heads, The Clash, Steve Miller, Mary Margaret O'Hara, The Beatles, Philip Glass, and traditional music

IMHO: "Bright Yellow Gun" is one of the best songs I've ever heard! They used to play it at Panam's, a club we used to go in Barcelona circa 1995, and every time it came up the whole dance floor would go crazy... Such a powerful song... Of all the projects this hard-working lady has been involved in, Throwing Muses is my favorite. I love the fight of her voice against the electric guitar in their last albums. I love the confrontation, the energy, the power, the spark... hard and rough, yet beautiful melodies. I don't really like acoustic music, so I had a harder time getting used to her solo stuff.

FAVORITE SONG: "Bright Yellow Gun", "Tar Kissers", "Freeloader", "Shark", "Cowbirds", "Not Too Soon"
FAVORITE ALBUM: "Limbo", "University", "The Real Ramona"

SEEN THEM LIVE:
Kristin: May 4th, 2002. The Knitting Factory, NY. Again, not a fan of the acoustic thing, but I had to see Kristin live, so I went. I admire this woman and her impressive creative output.

Throwing Muses: April 26th, 2003. Irving Plaza, NY. I was so looking forward to this show. It was the Muses' big comeback with a special appearance by Tanya Donnelly... But I never got into the show. I was disappointed. Maybe it was me.


WHAT OTHERS SAY: "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", she has said, "they can get stuck in me and make me sick". from wikipedia.

"Throwing Muses are known for performing music with shifting tempos, creative chord progressions, unorthodox song structures, and surreal lyrics. The group was set apart from other contemporary acts by Hersh's stark, candid writing style; Donelly's pop stylings and vocal harmonies; and David Narcizo's unusual drumming techniques eschewing use of cymbals. Hallucinatory, febrile songs by Hersh occasionally touched on the subject of mental illness, more often drawing portraits of characters from daily life or addressing relationships. Throwing Muses' angular, anguished, mercurial sound had much to do with Hersh's mental illness (she suffered from a form of bipolarity that caused her to hallucinate)." also from wikipedia