[Text by Luke Z. Fenchel; from the Ithaca Times]
Though Rock and Roll’s hagiography skews heavily towards the individual genius toiling in solitude, its hallowed pages occasionally make room for relationships. These tend to gather in the form of three typologies: the band, the romance and the male buddies (one well-known example provides a typical paradigm: The Stones, Mick and Marianne, Mick and Keith). Far less common in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine and on “Behind the Music” are working and artistic relationships between female artists.
But here in Ithaca — a city that is anything but common — we are fortunate to find not only a group of working female singers, but women who work together. They contribute to each other’s albums, perform together at shows, and over the last 15 years, they have formed a social bond that has lasted through more than fifteen albums, a few marriages and separations, six children, and a whole lot of gigs. The community they’ve formed is both a profound testament to their friendship and their faith in each other as artists. One would be wise sometime this holiday season to check out the music of these uncommon women, and make a New Year’s resolution to see them perform.
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Kathy and Mary and Jennie and Kim
Taken individually, these four Ithaca artists represent models of women north of 30-years-old living the dream of the rock star. Taken together, they represent something truly special about the nature of their community in Ithaca. I had a chance to speak with them separately, and then together over the course of a week.
Kathy Ziegler, who grew up near Rochester before attending Cornell, has been playing music since she was very young. Her hair is fine and wispy, and when she plays piano, her primary instrument, strands of her hair fall to obscure her visage. The intensity of Ziegler’s features are thereby softened by her voice, which has a breathy, smoky quality to it. On record, Ziegler whispers furtive secrets, or imparts greater truths.
On “Small,” for instance, from 2005’s Don’t Worry, The Danger, she reassures, “Don’t worry, the danger that comes after you fall, is just small.”
Because of this apparition of confidentiality, Ziegler’s songs sound like confessionals. But upon repeated listening, her lyrics reveal abstract and metaphorical depth. She explained, “I have a new song on the new record called ‘On the Verge of Another War.’ And in a larger sense it is about war, but when I was writing it I had specific people in mind who were at war.”
The personal plays a role in Ziegler’s songwriting, as it does with any artist, but her observations and insights into her friends’ lives come into play as well. Ziegler has a young son, Mink, with Jairo van Lunteren, of The Splendors, and has found happiness in family life. But she isn’t oblivious to tumult, which can manifest itself next door or in other avenues of her life. “I had a friend who asked me, ‘Now that you’re so happy, is it hard to write songs?’ and I said, ‘Oh don’t worry — my friends have plenty going on!’ There’s enough chaos. It’s always personal, you can’t help it; every writer can’t help that.”
Ziegler is currently recording a new solo album called Bring it Back, as well as a project with Mary Lorson and Billy Coté called Piano Creeps. Though initially conceived as an avenue for Coté (Lorson’s husband and longtime musical collaborator) to focus on his songwriting, the collaboration has brought together two fine vocalists.
Lorson, who was still recording with Madder Rose when she initially moved to Ithaca, formed a band named Saint Low and began working primarily with that group. With Piano Creeps and Saint Low, Lorson’s voice, which is more delicate than Ziegler’s (or Stearns’, or Sherwood-Caso’s), is pushed to the front of the mix; the result is a vulnerability that pairs wonderfully with Lorson’s assured songwriting.
Working from within a jazz-pop idiom, Lorson pushes the universality of the second person. Though most of her songs address “you,” the subject is consistently shifting. On “Spider,” which was produced by Ziegler, Lorson slyly turns the Bart Howard-standard from a joyous declaration of love to a meditation on self-confidence. Lorson sings, “Fly me to the moon, I worry all the way back down, do I do enough for you? Am I all that you deserve? Fly me to the earth.” Elsewhere on her most recent album, Realistic, Lorson presents a real-world lullaby: “Play me, like the cheap guitar I am, and then stray me, leave me on some foreign branch, and then replace me, you see we’re really all the same with different faces, I guess some dignity remains…”
Lorson also explained the personal nature of her songwriting: “Well it’s the nature of the medium. The idea of a song is that it’s one person’s view on things, so you can pretend. You can use the ‘I’ and mean it, or you can hide behind the ‘I.’ It’s just a way of filtering experience.” For Lorson, Jennie Stearns was a huge influence on her, as was Kim Sherwood-Caso. “When we first moved here, I didn’t know how it was possible. There weren’t really any role models for that in New York City, hanging out in the rock scene. But I was lucky to get here and meet them. To see Kim running a business, having amazing kids — my first thought was, ‘Wow! These women are amazing!’”
Lorson described the transition from recording with Madder Rose to working on her solo career: “1997 was a dark year for Madder Rose, and I was working at the Rongo, and a mutual friend Diane Cohen passed me on Jennie’s demo, and I was blown away. The songs were so beautiful, and so different from those on the indie rock circuit. I was looking forward to a time in my life as a singer-songwriter. And Jennie sort of provided a model.”
Born in Carlisle, Mass, Jennie Stearns got her start locally as a founding member of Donna the Buffalo, but was writing and performing songs before she moved to Ithaca. Even before Ziegler or Lorson were performing as singers and songwriters, Stearns had left Donna the Buffalo to form Tin Roof Mystery, and then the Jennie Stearns Band. Stearns recalled that she was able to begin recording due in part to her then-partner Richie (Stearns has since remarried to Lee Conlon, but has kept her surname professionally):
“My first recording was a gift that Richie and a few other people gave to me. And it wasn’t so much a demo as a project that was made into a cassette. I had no intention to shop it; it was made to sell at home and on the road.” The year was 1993, and the result is the haunting Tin Roof Mystery.
The songs from that tape are on an album that combined her early material with a 2000 recording of the Jennie Stearns Band. Though sadly out of print, the record will be re-released early next year. On Mystery, Stearns pairs the phrasing of Lucinda Williams with a voice that is far more, well, mysterious. Stearns’ songwriting matured rapidly; on Sing Desire, Stearns tells stories that are as subtle and as captivating as anything that can be found out there. “Country Road” tells the story of a relationship that then breaks apart, providing glimpses of bliss, and then of abandonment. “She took the girl left the cradle, coffee spilled on the kitchen table, the only missing was a satin dress, and a postcard from Louisiana.” The song is anchored by a wordless chorus and a pitch-perfect harmony provided by Lorson.
Stearns remembered her first encounter with Lorson at the Rongo. “Kathy and I had been really close. We had known each other for years and had worked together in a band. When Kathy left for Austin, Mary in a way helped to fill that space as a friend. Though I knew Billy and Mary were on Atlantic Records, I remember the first time I actually recognized Mary — I was doing a sound check one night, and I wondered aloud who that woman was who was holding one of my kids, Cole. I saw this bartender and asked Richie, and he said, ‘That’s Mary! You have to get to know her.’” Ziegler later joked, “I remember, you kept calling Mary, ‘You’re my Kathy.’ And two years later finally you called Mary just Mary.”
That is something of an overstatement. Lorson has appeared on all of Stearns’ albums but one, last year’s Birds Fall, which was recorded in Austin. Before Stearns was playing with Lorson, Ziegler and Sherwood-Caso contributed to her work. Sherwood-Caso, who is the only Ithaca native of the foursome, has known Ziegler the longest, but has been friends with all three. She joked that she had not yet recorded with Mary, though they cross paths as far away as Norway: “We were on the same stage; the same bill even, and were surprised to see each other.”
Though she doesn’t feel the need to write, unlike Stearns, Ziegler and Lorson, Sherwood-Caso did feel the desire to sing. “I guess I just decided, because I knew that I could sing, I wanted to, and needed to, before I had kids.” She had been around bands all of her life; she had been asked to manage a band, and lived with other musicians. Local celebrity Johnny Dowd invited Sherwood-Caso to come to a rehearsal for Neon Baptist (Dowd’s band at the time) — and she was a member from then on. “I don’t think I was ever asked officially, it just became natural.”
Sherwood-Caso mentioned that she doesn’t feel the need to write like the others: “All the women that I know, they have a real need for alone time, whether [they] strive to be singer-songwriters, or a need to get it out. I don’t feel that way, I really enjoy music, and I love the camaraderie of getting together. But when I am in my own space, it’s not something I want to do.”
If Sherwood-Caso doesn’t feel the need to write her own songs, Dowd is lucky to have her as a vocalist. Her singing style could be confused for distant if it were not so seductive: equal parts Nico and soft hum of A.M. radio. She can be heard on The Johnny Dowd Band’s forthcoming A Drunkard’s Masterpiece, which will be released in the spring. She recalled how Stearns also invited her to perform. “I’ve always admired Jennie, from her playing with Donna to her performance as Saw Tin Roof with Kathy. We would talk from time to time about how much I liked her music, I think she just asked me to play.”
Ithaca’s Rock and Roll Lifestyle
In addition to being inspired by and inspirations for each other musically, Lorson, Sherwood-Caso, Stearns and Ziegler have had a deep and lasting effect on each other’s personal lives. Though all four have collaborated musically, they are first and foremost friends. All have faced challenges as musicians and as women, and they have supported each other during those times.
Sherwood-Caso explained how her social life is intertwined with how she perceives herself as an artist: “What we do is part of being a community of friends. And our families are all intertwined; and so are our children and they understand that lifestyle.” Speaking of the decision to have children, Ziegler added, “seeing Richie and Jennie and Kim and Stahl with a lifestyle that included [music and a family], I realized that I could do it too.” Sherwood-Caso interjected, “I wouldn’t have been able to tour with Johnny unless Stahl [Caso, her former husband] stayed with our children; that was a decision that we made, and it was through his support that it was possible.”
Ziegler continued, “aside from admiring each other’s music, we admire each other as people as well. I was with Jennie when she was having her kids. And when Mary got sick, both Jennie and I were there for her. Whether it meant going to chemo, or bringing her a cup of tea or watching Roman [Lorson and Coté’s child].” Sherwood-Caso spoke at van Lunteren and Ziegler’s wedding. Stearns and Sherwood-Caso did a lot of caretaking of each other’s children.
When asked how their work as musicians affects and informs their family life, Lorson recalled a Tom Waits quote: “They are hard to separate once you realize that this is who you are and that you’re committed to. Someone asked [Waits] “Well, how do you do both: do music and have a family?’ And he said, ‘Well doing music and having a family is like having two dogs that hate each other and you have to walk both every day.’ And that’s really what it’s like because my kid hates it when I go out to gigs, and I think sometimes that I’m a terrible mother, but then I realize — no — that is what I do; and I get comfort knowing that all three of you have gone through that exact moment, more than once I’m sure; whereas my mother and my mother-in-law’s generation, they just don’t get it!”
Ziegler quickly interjected, “But they went to cocktail parties! Everyone does something.” Lorson continued, “At one point my mother-in-law said to me, ‘Well, you’re not going to do that now that you have a kid, right?’ And I thought, ‘Well, I’m not going to be a different person.’ I would just be bitter.”
Pop and rock music is an almost wholly unforgiving career for adult women. Stearns recalled a horrific story of a young woman of 21 who was told by her manager she should claim that she was 18-years-old. Further, in Ithaca specifically, you can occasionally count members of the audience by adding up the members of the bands and adding a handful. Ziegler commented, “In Ithaca, it can be hard to get an audience, because people stay home.”
“Maybe we gravitate towards each other because we’re all musical, but most of our interaction is social. And it’s very comforting to have peers who are the same age and having families at the same time — especially for women. It’s way less common for a woman to be able to balance both.” Lorson recalled a “Songwriters’ Salon” where the audience was comprised mostly of songwriters. “But as I said to Kathy, I have a friend and she loves to play golf. That’s just what she does in her free time. The four of us, we play music — it’s just what we do.”
As years have gone by, Lorson said, it has been increasingly difficult for the four of them to gather socially. “One day I realized, and I broke down in tears, that we really don’t see each other that often anymore.”
In June of next year, Ziegler will move to the Netherlands with her children (Ziegler is pregnant with her second child) and husband. When asked if that will change the dynamic of the group, all four dismissed the idea. That night, Sherwood-Caso would have Lorson, Stearns and Ziegler over for a lovely lamb dinner. Piano Creeps plans to tour around the same time as the Johnny Dowd Band in Europe, and there will be far more overlap in the future.
“I think we’re solidified enough that leaving won’t change anything,” Ziegler noted. “You know, this year we’ll miss Grassroots. But as I’ve said, it will be the one Grassroots we’ll miss; and we’ll be back next summer.”
Epilogue: Mothers and Sons
Last Friday night, Ziegler’s husband Jairo held a CD release party for his band The Splendors at the Lost Dog Lounge. Sherwood-Caso’s children, Tenner and Seven, performed with their friend Bram Baxter as Lazy Devil. Though Lazy Devil, which combines the best of prog and brutal rock, emerged as a spectacularly tight trio, one couldn’t help but notice the gentlest of coaching from family and friends. Brian Wilson, who drums with Sherwood-Caso, queried, “What’s the name of your band?” Stearns, seated on the couch happily with her husband, called out, “Introduce yourselves!” Ziegler acted briefly as soundman, turning down the feedback while juggling Mink.
As Ziegler joked later, “Thank god the moms were there!” And Stearns followed up by noting that this phase is as wonderful to witness as any point in the group’s nearly two decade-long friendship. “We have spent many years being with each other. And it gets harder now, as we get older. But we have always nurtured each other. We go to see each other, and each support each other’s kids.” Summing up her relationship with the other three, Stearns stressed, “It’s to hear them, of course; but it’s also to be here for them.”
