NYC’s Marnie Stern is quickly becoming a hot commodity for her technical and finger-tapping (à la Eddie Van Halen) guitar skills.
She released her critically acclaimed debut LP, In Advance of the Broken Arm, in early 2007 which the New York Times called "the year's most exciting rock 'n' roll album.” In 2008, Marnie was named one of Venus Magazine's "greatest female guitarists of all time," which to me seems kind of sexist, because I think she is one of the greatest guitarists of all time- male or female.
Marnie’s second album, This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That, released October 2008 and was named to Pitchfork’s "Best New Music" list and ended up on their list of "the 50 Best Albums of 2008."
She find influence in Deerhoof, Television, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, and Talking Heads among others.
Marnie released her third self-titled LP on October 05, 2010. According to her label, “Marnie Stern the Album mirrors Marnie Stern, the woman. Birthed during a challenging period in her life, the self-titled Marnie Stern is a compendium of life stories both bitter and sweet.” The label goes on to mention that the “album that will further cement Marnie as a rising star in today’s progressive music landscape.”
Click here for a telephone interview and some songs. Visit Marnie's website here and Myspace page here.
Check here to see if Marnie has any gigs scheduled near you.
As always, whenever possible, please buy your music from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like Wal-Mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-Tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand). Incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the United States. That my friend, bites.
Marnie Stern is way complex.
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This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2010.