|
|
THE FREE LANCE-STAR
eVEN AFTER four albums, Mary Prank- ster still does- n't know how to describe what she does.
"When I first started out, people kept asking me, 'What kind of music do you play?' and I was at as much of a loss then as I am now," the Baltimore native said in a phone interview on her way to Greensboro, N.C.
She once called her music "cow-punk," until she realized the description is actually a sub-genre of punk, and actual cow-punk followers began to protest.
"Attaching the suffix 'punk' to anything is a lightning rod for controversy from the punker-than-thou," Prankster said. "It was a nice, zippy tag for a while."
Get a chance to classify Mary Prankster yourself at Jammin' Java in Vienna, where she will play May 1. She will also play shows at Michael's Bistro in Charlottesville on May 2 and at Nanci Raygun in Richmond May 5.
Prankster is touring to promote "Lemonade Live," a live recording of an uncharacteristic acoustic "swang" set she performed during a show at the 9:30 Club in Washington last May while promoting her third album, "Tell Your Friends."
"By this point the long-term fans kind of know to expect the unexpected," Prankster said.
In a departure from Prankster's bitter, expletive-filled punk rock, the album offers up a countrified serving of songs from her three previous albums--"Friends," "Roulette Girl" and "Blue Skies Over Dundalk"--as well as three new songs.
Prankster encountered several significant obstacles on the way to making this album.
After her original bandmates ditched her before the "Tell Your Friends" tour, Prankster had to rustle up a band.
A series of serendipitous events put her in contact with bassist Andy Mabe and percussionist Terry Klawth, for whom Prankster has nothing but praise.
"The musicians I toured with for the 'Tell Your Friends' album had a tremendous amount of musical prowess," Prankster said. "They've done everything from punk to country to jazz, and they were just incredibly versatile."
Though she has been Interested in recording a live album for a while, Prankster had two false starts in North Carolina before deciding to try again at the 9:30 Club.
"I knew it would just be a slam dunk and that would be the night if ever there was a night to record a show," Prankster said.
She was right.
Her self-deprecating, clever humor is evident on "Lemonade," as is the gusto in her voice. And audience response is boisterous.
Does this shift from hellion to hillbilly signify a kinder, gentler Mary Prankster?
"Maybe it's just I'm getting older and I'm laming out," she said. "I wouldn't rule that out.
"I think if you start out as a take-no-prisoners rock 'n' roll hellcat, it's OK to mellow by the time you're 30," she said with a laugh.
Prankster may be mellowing out, but she's not getting lazy.
In addition to writing, recording and touring, the tireless and mega-organized Prankster is busy running her record label, Palace Coup Records.
Her duties range from planning the mixing and manufacturing of CDs to sending out press packets to picking up a box of T-shirts that was left in Philadelphia.
"It's just time management, and it's a lot of fun," Prankster said. "None of this is more difficult than stuff I did at secretarial jobs. It's working for yourself on something you care about and believe in."
The work is worth it for Mary Prankster.
It has been through her musical pursuits that she has fulfilled her dreams of having an interesting life story, having adventures, traveling and meeting new people.
Appreciative of her success thus far, Prankster heads into each tour with the same philosophy: "If this is the last tour that I ever have, it will still have been worth it, and if there is more on the other side, than it's all icing," she said. Making a living from one's art is "one of the rarest types of good fortune there is."
To reach EMILY GILMORE: 540/374-5426 egilmore@freelancestar.com