Missing Miss Modular

I thought of this song today by Stereolab, must have something to do with last night's blog entry... mp3 [4.1mb]

THE INCREDIBLE HE-WOMAN
Month one Mary grows a mustache
In the second she grows a beard
In the third month her breasts fall off
The fourth month testicles appear
The fifth her penis shows its face
In the sixth month grows a foreskin
It took nine months made evident
Experience, she gave it hands
In the seventh month, Christ's sandals grow on her
In the eighth month, her chest becomes transparent
In the ninth wounds appear as Christ is apparent
And then she was Christ
And Mary disappeared

But their own Mary did disappear. Mary Hansen from the band past away December 10th of last year. I know she's not Kurt Cobain or Janis Joplin [drug overdosed? Ugh, never liked their music anyway!], she was just... Mary, the Miss Modular from Stereolab. Last year I found the following writing on the web by Joanne Huffa from Chart Attack.com... It made me sad, we were the same age.

Ten Reasons Why Mary Hansen Was Cool
It is with great sadness that we report the death of Stereolab’s Mary Hansen. Ms. Hansen, who joined the band as a singer in its early years and, along with Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier, became a core member, was in a cycling accident on Monday, Dec. 10th.

When I interviewed Hansen in 1996, during the tour for Emperor Tomato Ketchup, she was about as funny and generous as an interview subject could be. As much as it was part of her job, she gave the impression that she’d just as soon sit down and have a chat with a stranger than anything else she could possibly do. Plus she was wearing great orange sneakers with brown cords.

And so, in the spirit of orange sneakers, we bring you 10 reasons why Mary Hansen should be remembered fondly.

1. She provided all those excellent counter-points to Laetitia’s lead vocals on songs like "Ping-Pong," "Cybele’s Reverie" and "Pinball".

2. She joined Stereolab as a backing singer, occasionally playing keyboards and tambourine, but it wasn’t long before her guitar was adding to the layers of sound on ‘lab recordings.

3. She had a lovely Australian/English accent cuz she was from Brisbane, but lived in London.

4. When she died, she was riding a bike, not making noise pollution with a motorcycle or taking up too much space with an S.U.V.

5. She added her confident vocals to recordings by Brokeback, The High Llamas, Moonshake and Mouse On Mars. Plus, she engineered Brokeback’s Field Recordings from Cook County.

6. She was 36-years old and made her living making challenging and beautiful music that never pandered to popular taste.

7. "John Cage Bubblegum": Hansen’s first appearance in the ‘lab and a record that made hundreds of indie rock fans look up experimental composer Cage and re-consider their opinions of pop music.

8. Many Stereolab singles and other releases on their label, Duophonic, are huge collectors items and their shows always sell out, in spite never being heard on North American commercial radio.

9. She had red hair and freckles.

10. Nobody sang "ba ba bap ba" quite the same way she did. And no one ever will.

Posted by robert at February 26, 2003 06:55 PM