Cat Power gets sober

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/arts/music/20cat.html

(the best part is how much Ben Ratliff reads into being drunk)

September 20, 2006
9 Lives and Counting: Cat Power Sobers Up
By WINTER MILLER

Another day, another fifth of Scotch.

And that wasn’t all. Chan Marshall said her mornings began with a minibar’s worth of Jack Daniel’s, Glenlivet and Crown Royal. Mini bottles depleted, this indie singer-songwriter, known as Cat Power, would nurse a bottle of Scotch over the course of the day. On nights she performed, she took the antianxiety drug Xanax.

By the time she would weave onstage, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, Ms. Marshall, 34, was wasted. And it showed. It would seem that every fan has a Cat Power concert story: the time she mooned the audience, cursed out techies, talked to a squirrel (outdoors), played three chords and changed her mind (song after song) or played fragments of a few songs and then told everyone to get out, even encouraging fans to sue her.

That was the old Chan Marshall.

The new Chan Marshall is, by most accounts, significantly improved, as critics have widely noted this year. Reviewing one of Cat Power’s performances at Town Hall in June, Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote, “To see her so comfortable onstage was no small surprise to her longtime fans,” and Time Out New York called the shows “triumphant, in the classic show-biz sense.”

Of the New York audiences, Ms. Marshall said: “I never noticed they really liked me before. Man, these people stuck with me.”

Performing at Irving Plaza last week, she playfully plucked and strutted with a sly grin, as if to say, “I see you seeing me, and I like what we see.” Sure, audiences saw trademark kooky behavior, some awkward fidgeting, but she made it through her set, words and music intact.

Afterward Ms. Marshall (whose first name is pronounced shawn) spoke at length for the first time about her hospitalization and recovery. In jeans and a black tank top, wearing large, round copper earrings, she smoked Parliaments and sipped green tea in her room at the Mercer Hotel in SoHo. She said she was sober and happy. She qualified the term sober: she owned up to having had seven drinks in seven months.

Seven months out of the hospital, and with 47 gigs under her belt in that time, Ms. Marshall said that she took Seroquel to calm her enough to sleep, and the antidepressant Effexor, and that she made a concerted effort to eat healthfully. As a result, she said, she is feeling better.

Her drinking began when she was young, she said. Very young. As Ms. Marshall tells it, her mother gave her beer in a baby bottle and she grew up spending time in bars. As a teenager she drank and got stoned, which led to other drugs. She pinpointed her nonstop touring in 1998 as the catalyst for her descent into life-altering, chronic substance abuse.

By 2003 the downward spiral had accelerated. “Even playing all my shows I was always intoxicated, always kind of not there, which led to the depression,” Ms. Marshall said. “It was more about the uncomfortableness with just being in my own skin, and that’s why the alcohol was always with me.”

With bizarre stage antics and aborted concerts, her erratic reputation was firmly established. Reviewing a show in The Times in 1999, the critic Ben Ratliff described her set as “staggering for its inversion of standard rock performance ethics,” adding, “Gone was the idea of exultation, or of showing what one can do; in its place was outrageously passive-aggressive behavior and nonmusicianship.”

Still, fans flocked, some more than once, to see the singer with the long bangs obscuring her face — and to see a train wreck. Yet despite her condition, and with the help of veteran Memphis soul musicians backing her up, she managed in three days in August 2005 to record her now critically lauded seventh album, “The Greatest.”

About two weeks before its release in January, Ms. Marshall said, she lost her mind: “I was looking at death. I wanted to die.” Holed up in her Miami apartment for seven days, she turned off the phone, played Miles Davis on repeat, stopped eating and sleeping. She drank to oblivion and prayed to die.

Susanna Vapnek, a painter, came over to check on her friend. Ms. Marshall was acting bizarrely, obsessively chasing “bad spirits” around her apartment with a lighter and sage. Ms. Vapnek bathed her and stayed by her side. Eight hours later she took Ms. Marshall to Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, where she was admitted.

Confined for psychiatric treatment, Ms. Marshall recalled refusing to bathe, hiding from her reflection and wanting to be drunk. “I asked God, I said, I’m tired, I can’t do this,” she said. “I was asking him to just take me.” She was terrified by the other patients who screamed at night and were comatose during the day.

After seven days in the hospital she was allowed to leave. “It was like I was in glue,” she said of the heavy doses of lithium given her.

Even though “The Greatest” was getting good reviews, a tour in support of the record had to be postponed because of her problems. Her label, Matador, estimated that it lost more than $100,000 on marketing and promotion, paying her supporting band (including a onetime member of Al Green’s band) and canceled shows.

Once the tour got under way in April, Matador bought insurance to be on the safe side. But now that the tour is a success, and the album has sold more than 100,000 copies, Matador is rereleasing the record, with new album cover art and a new promotional push.

The onstage anxiety is still there, Ms. Marshall admitted. But she said her self-hatred had abated, and in its place stood a woman ready to engage her fans.

On the heels of 11 shows in September, she plans to take October off to relax and then resume touring in Europe in November. Her next album, “Sun,” is already written, and she talks of a second covers album; top of the list are James Brown and Billie Holiday songs.

Like Will Oldham, another indie-folk rocker who is currently starring in the film “Old Joy,” Ms. Marshall is considering a foray into acting. She said that the cult director Wong Kar-wai invited her to play Jude Law’s ex-lover in the movie he is now shooting. Mr. Wong, she said, told her he was in the habit of playing “The Greatest” for his actors before each scene.

Ms. Marshall spoke of auditioning to join the cast of “Saturday Night Live” next summer. Then again, maybe her future involves domesticity. She said she was ready for a relationship and wanted to have children.

“My favorite things in the world are cookin’, kids and animals and falling in love,” Ms. Marshall said, “but you don’t get to do that all the time.”

― shookout (shookout), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 21:08 (nineteen years ago)

her mother gave her beer in a baby bottle

wow

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 21:12 (nineteen years ago)

Ms. Marshall spoke of auditioning to join the cast of “Saturday Night Live” next summer.

wow

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 21:28 (nineteen years ago)

played Miles Davis on repeat

I could see this saving somebody's life.

Very cool article, thanks for posting.

― sleeve version 2.0 (sleeve testing), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 22:14 (nineteen years ago)

Video of the interview:

http://video.on.nytimes.com/ifr_main.jsp?nsid=b-46d49b36:10dcd7e52ce:-5c1c&st=1158794434173&mp=FLV&cpf=false&fr=092006_070717_w46d49b36x10dcd470f9fx763f&rdm=558915.3918079524

― shookout (shookout), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 22:21 (nineteen years ago)

I find it pretty hard to believe that any baby would drink beer, even if in a bottle. I'm calling bullshit on that one.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 22:52 (nineteen years ago)

You would.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

i've seen a baby have a sip of beer from a can. and judging from his reaction, he LOVED it. (note: not my kid and no, i wasn't the one that gave him the beer.)

― spastic heritage (spastic heritage), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:05 (nineteen years ago)

my dad used to let me sip his beer as a youngin'. (but not as a baby, and no, not more than a sip).

― latebloomer scrabbly dabbly doo (skawreeng) (latebloomer), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:09 (nineteen years ago)

Babies love beer. Who is everyone kidding?

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:09 (nineteen years ago)

"love"

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:10 (nineteen years ago)

the article doesn't say explicitly that she was a baby at the time

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:12 (nineteen years ago)

Babies Love Beer = best band name idea ever

― latebloomer, lead singer of Babies Love Beer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:12 (nineteen years ago)

The idea of Chan Marshall in Andy Samberg-created digital shorts is fucking awesome.

― grady (grady), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:14 (nineteen years ago)

This article needed an accompanying chart showing how many drinks you need to make each Cat Power album sound good.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:18 (nineteen years ago)

So wrong.

― sleeve version 2.0 (sleeve testing), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:23 (nineteen years ago)

http://narkz.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/pwned_cat1.jpg.w300h275.jpg

― gear (gear), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:24 (nineteen years ago)

the article doesn't say explicitly that she was a baby at the time
So she got her beer in a baby bottle as tween?

― milo z (mlp), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:31 (nineteen years ago)

as a tween

― milo z (mlp), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:31 (nineteen years ago)

Harrowing, shit. Nice to think someone can come back from that kind of abyss, if only partway. Weird that no one every mentioned that she was drunk at those trainwreck shows before. Or did they?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:42 (nineteen years ago)

hey The Lamplighter!! that bar in the video is my neighborhood watering hole :D

― Will (will), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:44 (nineteen years ago)

i wish her well.

― any cop (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:48 (nineteen years ago)

She said she was ready for a relationship and wanted to have children.

Chan. Chan. Chan. Chan. Seriously.

― Eppy (Eppy), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:49 (nineteen years ago)

Who would remember what the hell was in their bottle as an infant? Maybe she meant sippy cup?

This is very important to parse!!!

Anyway, a friend who saw her play in Chicago last week said she was a total mess. Anyone else there?

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:53 (nineteen years ago)

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 23:55 (nineteen years ago)

i wish her the best, though i can't think of anyone who's come out and talked (with the media) about how great sobriety is and then stayed sober.

she looks great in that video. serious cheekbones!

― dan (dan), Thursday, 21 September 2006 00:00 (nineteen years ago)

i wish her the best, though i can't think of anyone who's come out and talked (with the media) about how great sobriety is and then stayed sober.

you don't ever STOP being an alcoholic, you just stop drinking. just being sober by itself doesn't cure the disease.

― any cop (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 21 September 2006 00:06 (nineteen years ago)

i wish her the best, though i can't think of anyone who's come out and talked (with the media) about how great sobriety is and then stayed sober.

this must be true, and, is depressing to think.
i like cat power, and i wish the best for chan.
everyone stop making fun.

― blood bitch (blood bitch), Thursday, 21 September 2006 00:11 (nineteen years ago)

the people i've known who've stuck with sobriety have had to make serious lifestyle changes to do it -- they've really had to isolate themselves from the circumstances that were contributing to their binge drinking in the first place. this isn't always easy, logistically or psychologically, but it has to be done.

― any cop (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 21 September 2006 00:12 (nineteen years ago)

she seemed so innocent when i first heard her (c. Moon Pix) and part of me can't help being cynical about this interview. still it's good that she's feeling better, maybe she'll make an album with more than one amazing song on it.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 21 September 2006 00:31 (nineteen years ago)

So she was still a drunk during the The Greatest sessions? Thought maybe we could blame that one on newfound sobriety.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 21 September 2006 00:35 (nineteen years ago)

Let's blame her lack of sobriety to this one.

http://www.richardavedon.com/images/editorial2004/newyorker/catpower_full.jpg

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 21 September 2006 01:04 (nineteen years ago)

Uh, XYZ, Chan.

― cws (cws), Thursday, 21 September 2006 01:05 (nineteen years ago)

i always thought she was on the smack. Be well, o feline one.

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 21 September 2006 01:09 (nineteen years ago)

this should give all her creepy fans sufficient fuel for another few years of motherly concern every time she plays a shitty show.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Thursday, 21 September 2006 01:17 (nineteen years ago)

I kind of feel band about reposting that Avedon picture in every Cat Power thread.

But she's pretty hot, so it's her own damn fault.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 21 September 2006 01:22 (nineteen years ago)

That's the first picture I've ever seen of her that makes her look semi-cute.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Thursday, 21 September 2006 03:14 (nineteen years ago)

Although she looks way older than she is. I'll buy the alcoholic thing on that basis alone.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Thursday, 21 September 2006 03:15 (nineteen years ago)

I must assume you're joking.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Thursday, 21 September 2006 03:16 (nineteen years ago)

she probably doesn't want to be fancied by someone wearing a little police uniform with acorns embroidered on it.

― estela (estela), Thursday, 21 September 2006 03:23 (nineteen years ago)

she looks fucking gorgeous in the NYT pics and video

― Shlomo Shemesh (Shlomo Shemesh), Thursday, 21 September 2006 03:27 (nineteen years ago)

What is it about Cat Power that makes so many people act like jerks?

― dar1a g (daria g), Thursday, 21 September 2006 04:00 (nineteen years ago)

if they can't fuck her, at least they can try to make her feel shitty about herself

― gear (gear), Thursday, 21 September 2006 04:07 (nineteen years ago)

you people are way more fucked in the head than chan will ever be.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 21 September 2006 05:15 (nineteen years ago)

if they can't fuck her, at least they can try to make her feel shitty about herself

hahaha this is the most otm thing i've ever read about indie rock dudes.

― any cop (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 21 September 2006 05:26 (nineteen years ago)

or, as an addendum, basically gear and jody are the only sane ones here.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 21 September 2006 05:28 (nineteen years ago)

who was that troll guy who was here a few months ago and posted stuff like "if you don't sleep with me i have no respect for you; if you sleep with me i have even less respect for you"?

― any cop (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 21 September 2006 05:33 (nineteen years ago)

nude spock?

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 21 September 2006 05:38 (nineteen years ago)

probably

― any cop (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 21 September 2006 05:39 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.nme.com/images/62_cat_power_131005_L.jpg

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 21 September 2006 10:26 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 22 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

What else have you heard? Seroquel is primarily an antipsychotic.
x-post

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Thursday, 21 September 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

i think we're forgetting one thing: she's pretty hot so it's her own damn fault

― gear (gear), Thursday, 21 September 2006 20:22 (nineteen years ago)

i hear you. i suffered from depression, manic and otherwise, for years as well as a host of other chemical problems/symptoms and booze definitely made me worse off.everyone knows this to be true. whatever her other problems are, she faced the fact that booze and pills were killing her and it's much easier to deal with the original problems without that stuff in your life. i just think that "original problems" or whatever it is that is making you numb the parts that hurt are so common that it's not really a big deal what she suffered from originally! does that make sense? really my original point about the article was that knowing she was wasted on booze and pills for her performances explains her erratic performances. it's as simple as that. meaning: yeah, she may have problems - don't we all - but the effects of booze+pills before going onstage is what people were seeing for the most part.

x-postssssss

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 21 September 2006 20:26 (nineteen years ago)

friend of mine has a roommate who is a psych ward nurse and i guess she gives it out all the time to get the patients to sleep. ive taken it a few times and friend has been on it all summer and its the only thing ive ever taken that helps with my insomnia. i guess if you break down insomnia there is plenty of anxiety kicking around there - while i am not psychotic myself i wonder about my friend, but with seroquel it helped me sleep through the whole night (on a crappy couch no less) not just induce sleep. the nurse told me it's being used more and more for sleep disorders, don't think its been fda approved for this use yet.

xpost

― kephm (kephm), Thursday, 21 September 2006 20:27 (nineteen years ago)

Ms. Marshall (whose first name is pronounced shawn)

wow, was i the only who didn't know that?

― pinder (pinder), Thursday, 21 September 2006 20:29 (nineteen years ago)

it always reminds me of one of my fave album debuts from the 70's:

Chi (pronounced "shy") Coltrane

so perfect.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 21 September 2006 20:31 (nineteen years ago)

i would love to hear chan cover chi!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 21 September 2006 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

why does she have to play these hokey museum shows now
it all seems quite obvious. she is about to break and the people around her - her record company and managers - don't want a druggie as headliner. they need a story about her having sobered up. you can't sell an alcoholic as a big act. no matter if she really has sobered up (what i doubt according to the recent concert accounts) or not. i think she is lost for people like me who never go to huge, expensive shows. as they are always shite. bye-bye chan.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Thursday, 21 September 2006 20:46 (nineteen years ago)

chan live = the freak show.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Thursday, 21 September 2006 20:58 (nineteen years ago)

ok we get it

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Thursday, 21 September 2006 21:09 (nineteen years ago)

too bad she's a WOMAN because we could sell a MAN as an alcoholic, right? i hope she DIES and is HUMILIATED. p.s. will you go out with me chan?

― gear (gear), Thursday, 21 September 2006 21:22 (nineteen years ago)

I met her once, before I really had any idea who she was, when she was performing in a support slot at the Garage in north London. This would be about 9 years ago. That night I was charged with the job of taking photos of another band on the bill (their debut), so got backstage.

She had one of those constantly-collapsing solo-shows for which she now appears to be most famous, which I found completely, heartstoppingly glorious (I was in a minority - "painful" and "embarrassing" were my friends' comments). Afterwards she gave me a copy of What Would The Community Think? and apologised profusely for her performance - "I'm not really a musician. I don't know why I even try." (I didn't much like the record, to be honest.) But Chan was charming.

It surprises me that she's this...cause celebre, this big thing, maybe even something of a mainstream star within the next couple of years, if that article is anything to go by. That night I thought I'd seen something awkwardly wonderful that only connected with about four other people in the room and Chan, so utterly unsuited to live performance and so easily discouraged, would likely disappear without trace.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Thursday, 21 September 2006 21:24 (nineteen years ago)

it all seems quite obvious. she is about to break and the people around her - her record company and managers - don't want a druggie as headliner. they need a story about her having sobered up. you can't sell an alcoholic as a big act. no matter if she really has sobered up (what i doubt according to the recent concert accounts) or not. i think she is lost for people like me who never go to huge, expensive shows. as they are always shite. bye-bye chan.

-- alex in mainhattan (alex6...), September 21st, 2006 5:46 PM. (alex63) (later)

you couldn't be more cynical, and more wrong, esp. regarding the record company's intentions. and chan doesn't have a manager. not to mention the "huge, expensive" shows she's been playing (which are "huge, expensive" because she has a "huge, expensive" band - what you think teenie hodges shouldn't get paid?) have been fantastic, definitely the best shows i've ever seen her play, going back to when i first saw her in 1995 or whatever.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 21 September 2006 21:29 (nineteen years ago)

After seeing him on Conan the other night, I really want Will Oldham to audition for SNL, too.

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Thursday, 21 September 2006 21:31 (nineteen years ago)

all the accounts of her recent shows from people I know have been great, I'm bummed I've missed them. I'm really glad if she's sobered up and hope she stays with it. It's a lot more than just not drinking.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 21 September 2006 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

Then again, there are reports that her shows are still as unpredictable as ever. Or maybe Chan just wouldn't sleep with this writer after the show. He reports, you decide.

"On her upright piano soon after, she would stop in mid-song, throw her arms up to rest at the top of the piano, hang her head down and, after a second of silence, shout "I can't stop thinking about the sound." The audience was silent, until someone broke it with a "you sound great from here!" And it went on, again and again, with Chan seeming to self-destruct on stage, songs getting slower, more repetitive, and more sullen. The audience started thinning, with some people able to sit cross-legged on the Persian rugs again.

I don't know how Chan ended her show. I didn't want to stay for it. Feeling a bit played and exhausted from her performance, I went to the back of the venue and watched for a moment before leaving. The crowd was at about a third of what it was, with those still there standing respectfully watching this lone girl on the piano with no spotlight, who sang and played so beautifully yet complained about how badly she sounded.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 21 September 2006 23:51 (nineteen years ago)

Chan poxyfules my soul in the best way

― Roque Strew (RoqueStrew), Friday, 22 September 2006 01:13 (nineteen years ago)

so how does shit get done? i'm not trying to be a prick--being a recording, touring artist must be a logistical nightmare beyond my imagination. if she doesn't have a manager and has been, in the past at least, somewhat inconsistent, how do things come together to tour, record, wrangle backing bands, etc? srsly.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Friday, 22 September 2006 03:38 (nineteen years ago)

this should give all creepy assholes sufficient fuel for spewing more mindless hatred

― nicky lo-fi (nicky lo-fi), Friday, 22 September 2006 03:59 (nineteen years ago)

the shows I heard good things about, she apparently didn't play any guitar, the band handled all the music and she just sang

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 22 September 2006 04:31 (nineteen years ago)

i would love to hear chan cover chi!
-- scott seward (skotro...), September 21st, 2006.

Scott, get a tape to her! I could hear that working.

My aunt had that album. I never knew it was pronounced "shy."

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 22 September 2006 07:52 (nineteen years ago)

"this lone girl on the piano with no spotlight, who sang and played so beautifully yet complained about how badly she sounded."

Give or take complaints, couldn't this be Neil Young at a certain point in his career? And I'm not even a Cat Power fan. Also, does this line ever so slightly contradict the rest of what dude says? Finally, bad monitors can really confound performers. Who hasn't seen a brilliant show that the artist thought was shit because things were going wrong with either stage sound or general equipment problems?

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 22 September 2006 07:59 (nineteen years ago)

does this line ever so slightly contradict the rest of what dude says?

Maybe he's just inimating that ther problems aren't necessarily always tied to her chemical abuses. Hell, by all accounts she's a really shy person anyway.

a couple of people I talked to yesterday said her show in Atlanta this week was awesome.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 22 September 2006 09:48 (nineteen years ago)

I find it pretty hard to believe that any baby would drink beer, even if in a bottle. I'm calling bullshit on that one.

You can call it anything you want, but the reality is that in the past alcohol was given to babies to placate them. I don't agree with her linking this to her alcoholism though.

I find this whole freakshow - oh look, at how crazy she is - just so utterly sad, because she's actually a lot of fun to hang out with. I think a lot of it is/was also myth. Sure she didn't really act like a great performer - running off stage and so on - but people just sort of *tacked on* all these things that never happened. I hope she remains sober and that she's happy.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Friday, 22 September 2006 11:08 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not saying that babies never drink alcohol, I'm saying that the vast majority of babies wouldn't take beer from a bottle. They might sip it one time, but I seriously doubt that that a significant number of babies would tolerate the carbonation, let alone the taste of beer. Bottle drinking babies--let's assume that we're talking below the age of 18 months--are notoriously finicky, and the implication of that quote is that Marshall's affinity for booze was ignited by drinking it from the bottle as a baby. At best, she may have had a sip but I seriously doubt she drank any relevant quantity nor drank beer from the bottle on a regular basis. In the context of the article, the quote sounds like lore fashioned as an oblique excuse.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 22 September 2006 12:57 (nineteen years ago)

it is quite challenging, but there are plenty of people here at the label, and her booking agent, and various people who help, and hopefully we get it all done. she doesn't have a formal manager, per se, tho.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 22 September 2006 13:34 (nineteen years ago)

you can't sell an alcoholic as a big act

I know, remember how Guided By Voices went nowhere?

― PeopleFunnyBoy (PeopleFunnyBoy), Friday, 22 September 2006 13:34 (nineteen years ago)

don she doesn't even say she actually drank it. it is meant as an representative example of what her family life was like when she was a child. you are being an idiot.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 22 September 2006 13:36 (nineteen years ago)

I guess you're a better mind reader than me.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 22 September 2006 13:41 (nineteen years ago)

DAEREST INTERVIEWAR, PLS LURN HOW 2 PUT ON MICROPHONE TO HIDE CABLE, THX

― Jimmy Mod's Champion Erotic Fantasy Team 2006 (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Friday, 22 September 2006 13:50 (nineteen years ago)

I know, remember how Guided By Voices went nowhere?

bob pollard drinks all the time but I don't know that he's an alcoholic, there's a difference.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 22 September 2006 15:42 (nineteen years ago)

you can't sell an alcoholic as a big act
I know, remember how Guided By Voices went nowhere?

-- PeopleFunnyBoy (asanisimasa200...), September 22nd, 2006. (PeopleFunnyBoy)

fuck, when I went to Shane McGowen in concert I felt kinda dirty cuz I essentially felt like I was part of 1100 people who paid $15 to cheer a man on as he drinks himself to death. It was gross. Shane actually played pretty well...whatever part of his brain that remembers lyrics and how the songs go somehow has avoided damage....same with Pollard, how the fuck does he remember all those obscure songs?

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 22 September 2006 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

odb too

― gear (gear), Friday, 22 September 2006 16:22 (nineteen years ago)

A friend of mine has a roommate who is a psych ward nurse and i guess she gives it out all the time to get the patients to sleep. ive taken it a few times and friend has been on it all summer and its the only thing ive ever taken that helps with my insomnia.

That's true. My doctor prescribed it for insomnia, because stuff like Ambien wasn't strong enough and I was still waking up in the middle of the night. I have no idea why it's classified as an "anti-psychotic" - it had no effect on my brain functioning or waking life whatsoever, it just knocked me out so that little noises wouldn't wake me.

― Slumming it on ilx (section241), Friday, 22 September 2006 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

When I read the "beer in the bottle" thing I assumed her mother mixed beer with the formula/milk, which a baby probably would drink.

I saw her a year or so ago at Arthurfest and she did stop a couple of songs and was frustrated about noise bleeding through from another stage (quite justifiably) but no breakdown. She had a cup of beer at each end of her piano but didn't seem drunk to me. There was one guy talking just loud enough to disturb her without seeming like that was his intent, but I suspect he did want to be present at a "Chan Marshall breakdown" and was doing it on purpose. He got Shushhhed a few times by her fans.

― nickn (nickn), Friday, 22 September 2006 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

I guess you're a better mind reader than me.

-- don weiner (dandydonweine...), Today 10:41 AM. (don weiner) (later)

sorry? you're the one assuming something not even in the article

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 22 September 2006 19:14 (nineteen years ago)

I know, remember how Guided By Voices went nowhere?

I know, remember how they are males? Give me an example of a drunk female musician that was extremely popular (partially due to her drinking and not in a haha-look-at-her! kinda way).

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Friday, 22 September 2006 20:50 (nineteen years ago)

janis joplin

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 22 September 2006 20:54 (nineteen years ago)

Fiona Apple

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 22 September 2006 20:55 (nineteen years ago)

Karen O

― Dr. Alicia D. Titsovich (sexyDancer), Friday, 22 September 2006 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

Lita Ford

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 22 September 2006 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

I thought it was pretty lame that she had to start writing songs about it to fill out her albums...and wasn't there a single about bars also, that they showed in the clip? Is that all she has to say?

― def zep (calstars), Friday, 22 September 2006 20:59 (nineteen years ago)

Weren't the Replacements drunk a lot?

― Slumming it on ilx (section241), Friday, 22 September 2006 22:17 (nineteen years ago)

Give me an example of a drunk female musician that was extremely popular (partially due to her drinking and not in a haha-look-at-her! kinda way).

I was about to drag Courtney Love on stage, but I guess that's partly haha-look-at-her!

― nickn (nickn), Friday, 22 September 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

Mama Cass (but for food)

― mr. brojangles (sanskrit), Friday, 22 September 2006 23:57 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

sober up, get rewarded with bling:

Rock singer Cat Power has been tapped as the new face of Chanel's jewelry collections. "This, this and this, is Chanel," she said, pointing to her chunky gold necklace, ring and matching bracelet at a raucous party Friday night at the VIP Room for Karl Lagerfeld's new mix CD. The songstress related how Lagerfeld "discovered" her in front of New York's Mercer hotel. "I was outside waiting, sitting on a pile of Louis Vuitton luggage, drinking water, with an apple and a cigarette in my hand, my cell phone, oh, and two guitars, and out comes Karl," she said. "He walks up, looks at me and says, ‘Only a woman can look glamorous when smoking.' And I lowered my glasses and pointed to [the shadows under my] eyes and said, ‘With these?'" Clearly, Lagerfeld appreciated her sense of candor.

― bijoux (bijoux), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

what's on karl lagerfeld's mix? how much to book him?!

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 17:31 (nineteen years ago)

i heard he doesn't eat, he just drinks Pepsi One

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

so that he can fit into a heidi slimane suit, naturally.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 17:33 (nineteen years ago)

I clicked on that link and got "Pork Sauteed in Red Wine." WHich seems particularly un-apropos.

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Wednesday, 11 October 2006 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

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