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[Future Events]

LAST CALL FOR VAGINA: Eve Ensler will close out a three-year run of her gynecological blockbuster The Vagina Monologues by performing just two more engagements: the final run, in Washington, and the penultimate one, at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre, January 8 through 20. Tickets are $25 to $65, and they will fly, so get ’em now. The Wilbur’s at 246 Tremont Street; call (617) 931-2787.

MOONLIGHTING: Anyone who thought the harmonica-playing actor Bruce Willis had learned his lesson on the 1989 atrocity If It Don’t Kill You It Just Makes You Stronger — a title perhaps inspired by the reviews for his almost as atrocious 1987 disc The Return of Bruno — was sadly, sadly mistaken. Few endeavors are quite so cringe-worthy as those of enormously wealthy, impossibly funkless movie stars who try to sing the "blues"; but old habits, it would seem, die hard. Willis and a backing band he’s calling the Accelerators will be hitting Avalon on January 25; we hope opener Ivan Neville — Aaron’s oldest son, and a long-time sideman with the likes of Keith Richards’ X-Pensive Winos — is getting paid, laid, and paid some more for this gig. Avalon’s at 15 Lansdowne Street; call (617) 423-NEXT.

NEXT WEEKEND:

Mary Lou Lord

Mary Lou Lord first covered Daniel Johnston’s "Speeding Motorcycle" on record in 1995, on her debut Kill Rock Stars EP, and she’d been playing the song longer than that. But she’d never seen or met Johnston — a reclusive Texan with a history of mental illness who has rarely performed live — until a couple weeks ago, when the two shared a bill at T.T. the Bear’s Place. The timing was auspicious; earlier this year, Lord’s version of the song was selected for a national TV ad for Target department stores. Lord was puzzled by the choice; her first reaction was to inform the Target folks that the song had also been covered by a couple of her favorite artists.

"I asked them, ‘Why not Yo La Tengo, why not the Pastels?’ Y’know, anyone’s but mine," chuckles the eternally self-effacing singer, who plays Club Passim next weekend, over the phone from her home in Salem. "They said they wanted something very stark, they didn’t want anything with busyness, so I guess the other guys were a little too busy. I told them they were crazy. I said, ‘If you don’t use mine, are you still gonna use it?’ And they said, ‘Well, no.’ So I thought, well, if it’s me or nothing, then I’ll do it, and Daniel can get some money, and I can get a little money too!"

She continues, "Daniel essentially changed my life musically. His music set my musical path for me and opened up a lot of doors once I got on the path. So it was a real kick in the pants to finally play with him." But though the Target ad has been running for months, Johnston did not seem to be aware of it, or even of Lord’s version of his song. "He’d never seen the commercial. I said, ‘So they paid you?’ He said, ‘I don’t think so.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, no!’ And then he said, ‘Well, my dad handles most of that stuff for me.’ "

Nevertheless, the Target ad is perhaps the best example to date of Lord’s ongoing mission: to rescue the songs of obscure songsmiths and bring them into a new light and, ideally, to broader audiences. It’s a mission she accepted from the folk scene that was her first love, and she’s undertaken it for several generations of indie artists, from Johnston to the British psychedelic-pop cult star Nick Saloman, and from Elliott Smith to the Seattle group Green Pajamas. Although she has pursued this course on the indiest of the indies as well as on a major label — Sony’s WORK imprint issued her underrated 1998 disc Got No Shadow — she’s only just now, with the impending release of Live: City Sounds (Rubric), getting around to documenting what she’s best known for, and what she does best: playing her favorite songs, from Richard Thompson’s "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" to Magnetic Fields’ "I Don’t Want To Get Over You," alone with a guitar on a subway platform.

"It’s exactly what I do," she says of City Sounds. "And I figure if people have liked that all along, why not give them exactly what they saw? That way they’ll have nothing to bitch about." The album was recorded live to DAT during her busking stints last year; she’s also working on a studio album to be released next year. She admits it’s harder to find the time these days to play the subway: her daughter Annabelle will turn three on New Year’s Eve and has just entered pre-school. "I’m getting up in seven in the morning, so at the end of the day, I’m usually just too tired. I used to do it mainly in the evening, I’d get to Park Street at 6 and play until midnight. I love to do it, but it’s so difficult. You have to get there at the crack of ass and then flip a coin and decide with four other people who’s gonna play when."

Mary Lou Lord plays Club Passim, 47 Palmer Street in Harvard Square, next Saturday, December 22. Call (617) 492-7679.

BY CARLY CARIOLI

 

Issue Date: December 13 - 20, 2001

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