"Highlights were Mary Timony bunny-hopping around the stage, eyes rolling into the back of her head and effortlessly delivering guitar solos (some of which she tapped) over her head, on the floor, or by scraping the neck of the guitar on one of the monitors."

"

I never ever get tired of watching Mary Timony play guitar. Never.

She even manages to work out the kinks after a prolonged burst of Eddie Van Halenesque fingertapping runs by shaking her hands in time to the music. Charm for miles.

"

fuckyeahwildflag:

Wild Flag & Hospitality played Metro (pics, video)

photos & video by John Yingling

Wild Flag @ Metro on 4/05/2012

"Timony is more difficult to place. Blessed with a sort of off-putting, slow-motion, pixie quality (the music-exploration website Epitonic had to invent an entire genre for her previous band: fairytale pop), the singer seems alternately there and not there at the same time as part of Wild Flag, a sort of Schroedinger’s Cat problem set to music."

Just when it seemed as if rotating headliners Helium and Sleater-Kinney had taken rock and roll about as far as it could go in one night, Helium’s Mary Timony had an idea for an encore. “We’re gonna do a song with Sleater-Kinney,” Timony said from behind her keyboards as she beckoned Olympia, Wash.’s punk darlings back on stage to ecstatic cheers from the sold-out crowd.

With guitars duly strapped on, plugged in and tuned up, the crew plunged headfirst into the crushed-out bliss of “The Revolution of Hearts Parts I and II,” a swirling, ethereal epic from Helium’s magnificent ‘97 LP The Magic City. The song, stretched well beyond its eight-minute studio version, amply demonstrated what Timony’s art-damaged outfit has been up to since the release three years ago of their debut, The Dirt of Luck.

Although no one would ever accuse Helium of becoming subdued, they have (for the moment at least) smoothed the splintered Sonic Youth-via-Pavement rhythms of their earlier work, embracing instead the elegant menace of underground rock godparents the Velvet Underground. With Timony trading vocals with Sleater-Kinney lead singer Corin Tucker and S-K guitarist Carrie Brownstein pinwheeling her strumming arm like Pete Townshend’s upstart kid sister, the moment ultimately proved to be the evening’s highlight.

Elsewhere during Helium’s enthralling, enigmatic sixty-minute set, Timony didn’t let her hometown audience down, distilling jagged slices of glittery guitar on numbers like “Ocean of Wine” and “Devil’s Tear.” Again and again, Helium carefully constructed distortion-saturated pop melodies, tastefully toeing the line between coherence and indie-cred dissonance.

Minutes before, Sleater-Kinney had offered a compelling reminder of how simple, direct and effective rock and roll (or punk, or whatever else you want to call it this year) can be. Though a little of Tucker’s fluttery yet piercing warble went a long way, the band’s urgent, minimalist (no bass) assault made for a fiercely honest statement that seemed to instantly erase the boundaries between artist and audience. In Sleater-Kinney’s hands, raw, startling blasts of expression like “Heart Factory” and “One More Hour” became more than just songs. They became imperatives. A revolution of the heart indeed.

(Source: Rolling Stone)

While we wait for Wild Flag’s new record, let’s look back at Mary Timony’s finest moment: Helium’s excellently dark ‘The Dirt of Luck’

(via fitter-stoke)