A Muse alone

Kristin Hersh redefines happiness on Sky Motel

by Bob Gulla

Like Kristin Hersh says, "It's rare to hear music that isn't dumb, simple, or easy." The antedote -- multi-faceted tunes that challenge emotions, trick expectations, and escape pop convention -- is pretty much what Kristin Hersh has been doing since her teenage days with the much loved Throwing Muses. It's an approach that has steered her clear of commercial radio, but one that's safely ensconced her in the loyal arms of a very sizable, worldwide cult following.

Hersh's latest disc, the most excellent Sky Motel, due out next Tuesday, isn't likely to change the part about radio, but it will go a long way in earning Hersh the props she deserves -- for persevering, for breaking new ground disc after disc, and for overcoming the kind of obstacles most of us couldn't begin to confront.

Hersh, at home in Providence after a dalliance in the Cali desert berg of Joshua Tree, is billing Sky Motel as "a new beginning." It's the first official band recording she's made without her longstanding Throwing Muses behind her -- they've now officially dissolved. That bitter fact hit Hersh hard. "I was depressed -- not weepy or moany -- just knowing that this was the end of the story." To make matters worse, Hersh had not only lost her Muses, she'd temporarily lost her muse. Where formerly Hersh would be "visited" by songs through some ethereal inspiration, the melodic demons failed to present themselves for months. "I hadn't written a song since the band split, and I started thinking, `Well, the band is dead and I should be, too.' But when you have kids you gotta wake up, pour the milk on the cereal, and look ahead.

"A lot of times, people start thinking it's time to go when really it's just a momentary death. But you need another story to bring things back to life again." Her new story? Hersh set the stage for her resurrection by sitting down to write songs for the first time in her life. Incredibly, fourteen years down the line, one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the modern pop generation had to dig deep and actually write. Ever wonder why Hersh chose to release, "Murder, Misery and the Goodnight," an interim album of Appalachian lullabies and psycho-ballads? She couldn't figure out how her songs would be written. Didn't they just write themselves? "I always felt like the songs were using me," she explains, "chewing me up and spitting me out. Sometimes they gave me the impression that I was crazy."

Hersh and co-producer Trina Shoemaker, a friend who won two Grammys for her work with Sheryl Crow, took Kristin's new songs and traipsed them down to Kingsway Studio in New Orleans, site of the Muses last two records, to make the record. The band? Kristin Hersh on guitar, Kristin Hersh on bass, Kristin Hersh on (most of the) drums, and Kristin Hersh on keyboards.

"I was so excited to be back at Kingsway," she says. "My best friends in the world are there. I walked in with a suitcase and a baby on my hip, stood in front of the console and burst into tears. It was a very Mary Tyler Moore moment. The ghosts of all the songs we did flashed in front of me."

Hersh, distraught by the Muses' dissolution and daunted by the task that lay ahead of her, focused and plowed forward, as strong and forthright as always. "I knew the cast of characters in these songs, and we knew the production-style ahead of time, so the only challenge was to stay true to the songs." The atmosphere in the studio, dry and rather serious, helped. Hersh and Shoemaker finished the record in two and a half weeks, and mixed it manually in the week and a half they had left over.

The album, the artist's first "new" outing as Kristin Hersh, is chilling in scope and pulsating with accomplishment. Never before has Hersh written with such emotional authenticity and stylistic diversity, with songs like "White Trash Moon" and "Costa Rica" bridging the chasm between her customary paranoid poignance and the Muses' chunky, chord-changing beauty. "After finishing the record, I started feeling like the future wasn't just randomly happening to me, and I began feeling lucky and happy -- obnoxiously so, at times."

Happiness? Ms. Hersh happy?

"I have a lot of respect for happiness," she admits. "There are different ways to express it in a song. You don't have to be all rosy and nice. You can be screechy and shrieky, you can be spastic and jumpy, and a whole lot of other ways in between." Leave it to Hersh to find alternate routes to happiness. "People like to write while being sad and depressed; if you're not stupid then you must be sad and depressed, right? I think the natural human condition is happiness. Why not go for it?"

WANDERING EYE. Many folks seem to be complaining about the lack of high quality shows around town, and, I have to admit, they have every right to gripe. The local scene's on the fritz right now, and you've got to look under a few rocks to find some worthwhile gigs. I mean, is Rhode Island becoming the Tribute Band capitol of the Northern Hemisphere or what? Seems that whenever a scene sags, tribute bands rise up like mushrooms to fill the bare spots . . . That said, after peering under a few said rocks, there is entertainment to be had, besides, that is, watching Simpsons reruns with one of those mist-fans in your face. Tonight (the 8th), for example, catch some new V Majestic tunes at the Met setting the stage for Cranston's resident teen guitar hero Ricky Valente. On Friday, you're in for a real treat if you get to the Dave Howard show at the Call a little early. Red-hot Christine Ohlman smokes . . . Howard better watch his back! The Soulfly/ Neurosis bill on Monday night at Lupo's should be thunderous, even though Max Cavalera's Soulfly doesn't quite measure up to his old outfit, Sepultura, and Neurosis' new album has strayed a bit from its sinewy sound. Hatebreed and Will Haven open.

RIP. He turned the way we listen to rock on its ear with his two-string bass and smouldering-coals voice. Morphine's Mark Sandman was a massively unique stylist whose audacious vision and boundless soul will never again be duplicated or even approached. We're sure he's now found the ultimate cure for pain.