#ex her

[trivialmiscellanea]

[americansongwriter]

Writer of The Week: Mary Timony of Ex Her

Ex Hex guitarist and DC native Mary Timony grew up in the right place at the right time. She learned about the music industry – and formed her ideas of what it means to be in a band – from going to punk shows in DC in the late ’80s. Timony made a name for herself fronting ’90s alternative band Helium and later went on to form Autoclave, Wild Flag and current lineup Ex Hex. We chatted with Timony about Fugazi, the pros and cons of being a female musician and the effects of being raised in the DC punk scene.

How much do you think growing up in the DC punk scene affected your songwriting? Not really necessarily the songwriting, but the energy of people seeing bands and the DIY method of doing things, like putting out records with your friends and touring behind them on your own in vans and stuff rather than moving to LA and trying to make it big – that was a big influence I guess. That’s all I saw as a teenager. I didn’t know that anything else existed, you know? There aren’t a lot of musicians in D.C. so I didn’t really see anybody doing anything else. That’s the way I saw music existing in the world.

How do you think that scene is doing now? Do you still go to any local punk shows? Yeah! There are still a lot of kids in D.C. putting on shows at local community centers and stuff. I try to follow what’s going on with bands for sure.

You grew up knowing Ian Mackeye. How much influence did he and Fugazi have on you? I went to every Fugazi show I could when I was in high school because it was really amazing. I’d never seen anything like that and I don’t think I ever will again. It was just this crazy phenomenon. Those shows were so intense. D.C. was its own universe in the ’80s with the scene of kids that were making music in these bands and putting music out on Dischord. Things were so localized then. It was obviously before the internet and stuff so scenes were local anyway and all revolved around labels and towns and stuff. I think the musicians in that scene were all pretty focused on what was going on in our town. There was a certain way things were done and rules people followed and I’m sure all of those things were pretty influential on me.

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[bidgeee-blog]

NaPoWriMo 27/4

The are times during the early hours of the night that I felt more alone with her than when I was actually alone she would just sit there at her end of our red couch and everything about her everything I thought I loved wasn't on the couch with us whatever we had that thing we called love gone and to be lonely again like actually lonely seems to be my deepest desire -- The Urban Fisherman