MARNIE STERN:
THE LADY WHO SHREDS
It’s less than a minute into Marnie Stern’s show at The Garage in London and she’s already flashed her knickers to the audience. When I spoke with Marnie before her sound check she told me her sense of humour doesn’t tend to go down well over here, she’d been booed in London before, so she wouldn’t be talking as much as usual tonight. By the time the show comes around she’s clearly changed her mind about keeping schtum, and the crowd loves it.
“It takes so long to become comfortable in your own skin up there and be yourself”, Marnie told me sitting on a park bench in the sunshine across the road from The Garage. She remembers how cripplingly nervous she was the first time she performed live on stage, maybe 18 years ago. She’s 37 now, touring with her fourth album, Chronicles of Marnia, and making fart jokes in-between singing songs. Where her sense of humour might have whoopee cushion crashed at her London shows in the past, tonight it’s soaring high on the wings of her squealing baby doll accent that, even Marnie admits, is kind of ridiculous. The bleached blonde hair, the New York accent, the Malibu flower print dress; these all help break in the crowd but what undoubtedly holds our attention is the speed her fingers are shredding at her guitar.
Marnie Stern’s name has appeared on more than a few ‘Best Guitarists in the World’ lists; lists that include the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Neil Young. When I bring this up Marnie rolls her eyes. “It shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be,” she repeats humbly, “I really just think it’s laziness. People just hear about somebody that plays guitar and they just put you on lists. I know a hundred people who can play the guitar as well as I can.” What separates Marnie from these supposed hundreds, however, is her no-bars creativity which she owes largely to the fact that she is self taught. “I mean maybe if they had a list of creative guitar players I could be on that,” she admits.
These lists, however shallow, however abundant, are also very male dominated, suggesting an altogether lack of great female guitarists in the world. But this is not the case. A bit like this generation’s emerging breed of good female comedians, it is more likely that great female guitarists have been around as long as male ones, but have only come into light in recent years. Last month Courtney Love put an ad on craigslist for a female bassist and only got one response. When I mention this to Marnie it seems I’ve just opened a big can of Love-hating worms. “I don’t like her, she’s a user I don’t like her,” Marnie says defiantly. “I’m a little bit older and a lot of my friends who are maybe 10 years younger than me love her, love her, love her, think she’s the greatest and…She’s the devil!” Marnie announces to the park, “She’s terrible. She doesn’t have an original bone in her body. She uses people, copies people, wants fame, doesn’t write good music.”
Photograph taken by Tom Eagar
Courtney Love stands for everything Marnie Stern refuses to. While Love is advertising for a bassist for her next band; Marnie is posting guitar lessons on her Facebook page. While Love is trying to make a new band that might reclaim her former Hole fame; Marnie admits she hated opening for such large crowds when she was on tour with The Flaming Lips last year. Behind Marnie’s childlike demeanour, behind that accent, behind a cloud of fart jokes, is a woman who is very wise to the industry and what she expects from it. Marnie’s is the kind of wisdom that, unlike Love, could only come from decidedly not chasing some unending promise of celebrity.
Marnie is very honest about the fact that she doesn’t make a living off her music, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to stop doing what she loves.
“Here’s the difference” she says, “I think in my 20s I used to think, ‘Oh I have no money so, you know, I wont spend an extra £2 on the sandwich.’ Then in my 30s I was like ‘Oh I’m going to be poor for the rest of my life, I’m just going to spend the extra £2 on the sandwich!’”
Stern is in many ways her own breadwinner and she even helps sell the merch at the end of her shows, signing records and planting kisses on fans’ cheeks. She’s not shy about the fact that she wants to have children one day either. When I tell her she doesn’t look her age she retorts, “my ovaries look 37!”
If you saw Marnie Stern sitting on a park bench on a summer’s day you would not for one minute think that this is a woman who’s going to be dancing around barefoot on stage, head banging and flashing her knickers that very same evening. Marnie applauds the sillier things in life. When a little girl dressed head to toe in a pink velour tracksuit glides past us on a pink scooter, Marnie points in her direction and says to me: “now that is amazing.”