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Mary Prankster doesn't really squeeze into the traditional punk rock cubbyhole, but she fits there better than she does anywhere else. One of the most-talented lyric writers not on a major label (in fact, she started her own), her songs practically overflow with wit and cutting sarcasm. Stylistically, her songs flow from punk to hard rock to Irish Jigs to Bosa Nova. Even her punk anthem, "Punk Rock Heaven", sounds more like a swing number. Her goal with this creative stew? "It rocks, but it's smart," Prankster said.
Smart it definitely is. Lines like "When the flame-retardent books came out, they had to burn the readers" or "I wanna take a trip/To your cerebral petting zoo" barely begin to scratch the surface of her self-designed style and penetrating insights. Each song can evoke laughter, knowing nods, and dancing. Plenty of dancing.
Rock it definitely did. Prankster describes her latest album, Tell Your Friends, as being a mix of "rock anthems and sad cowboy songs," but the rock wins out. The crowd at the EARL had no problem finding its dancing groove, and songs like "Mercy Fuck" got most of the audience kicking up their sneakers and combat boots. Her recordings seem to focus more on the humor, but the EARL show also proved just how much power she and her band can pack.
Both recordings and performances are also definitely sexy. As her drummer, Terry Klawth, said, "Pierced and tattooed chicks are God's gift to man." There is a definite beauty to women who lift up their shirts in the middle of the EARL to show off their tattoos, and few do it as unselfconsciously as did Prankster. Her music is at least as sexy. Neither men nor women had any hesitation about enjoying songs with lines like "You don't know if there's breakfast comin'/'Til you've spent the night" or "Nice girls aren't supposed to write songs like this." The last came from "Arm's Length," which Prankster called "a song about platonic relationships and how much they suck."
When she puts down her electric guitar and picks up her acoustic, Prankster likes to joke about the stereotypes of feminist rock. But her music fits no stereotypes. If anything, it fits the old punk adage of slagging everybody equally. Men and women suffer the same stinging barbs from her songs, and many of them apply to their victims no matter the gender. "When martinis pass my lips/All my quips get razor tips" applies to all her targets.
Her songs are not all venom, however. More than a few of her songs are about embracing the few good moments life hands out, and her current career follows this same pattern. She threw herself into life on the road to the extent of giving up her old home. "I've got a cot and a van. The van is rented," she said.
She formed her own label, Palace Coup Records, handles her own sales, and gleefully embraces punk's classic DIY (Do It Yourself) attitude. She even tracked down Mitch Easter, one of her own musical heroes, by contacting every Mitch Easter she found on an Internet search, and he agreed to produce her latest album.
The alliance grew since then, and Easter (former producer for REM and front man for the classic 80's band Let's Active) joined her for the show at the EARL with his new band, Crackpot. "It takes up where Let's Active left off," Prankster said during an interview where she pushed Easter's new band as much as she talked about her own. The similarities showed during Crackpot's opening set, though the sound proved to be even more raw than did Let's Active's.
Metroscene, a strong Atlanta-based alternative rock band, followed Crackpot. They've earned the airtime they currently receive from stations like WRAS, but their live show sounds less like a Brit pop act than do their recordings. I'm only sorry that they ran out of demo CDs right when I went to get one to review.
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