Flak Magazine: Review of Mary Lou Lord's Live City Sounds, 02-11-02

The re-release of Mary Lou Lord's 2001 self-issue Live City Sounds arrives among a spate of recent cover albums. In the late '90s, Lord caused a mild sensation in the underground with "His Indie World," which managed the rare feat of investing a real emotional undertow into what was, on the surface, a novelty song.

But Lord is far from prolific as a songwriter herself, spending much of her career providing the girlish voice to complement Bevis Frond main man Nick Salomon's poppier compositions. Therefore, a record made up of cover songs is a pretty natural fit. Her initial calling was as Boston's most famous busker, and this return to her roots was recorded live, voice and acoustic guitar, on the subways and sidewalks of that city.

As might be expected from someone who has lovingly displayed a picture of Lester Bangs on the cover of one of her records, Lord's choice of songs is excellent, cherry-picking the classic and the obscure. The disc drags a tad in the last half before coming back into focus with a sweet rendition of Bob Dylan's "Lonesome When You Go," but the slowdown mostly seems a result of front-loading.

On the first half of the record she excels on the Magnetic Fields' typically droll and melodic "I Don't Want to Get Over You," the Bevis Frond's "She Had You" and Heatmiser's passive-aggressive drug damage narrative "Not Half Right." The inclusion of "Vincent 52," a ballad about an outlaw, his girl and his vintage chopper by Richard Thompson, cleverly serves as a callback and a contrast to Lord's previously released, featured-in-a- Target-commercial take on Daniel Johnston's naive "Speeding Motorcycle," which has been tacked onto the end of this incarnation of Live City Sounds.

Big Star's "Thirteen" is arguably the most perfect pop song not to bear the Beatles' credit. Chilton and Bell's original will always stand as the definitive version, despite a multitude of covers by artists as various as techno-poppers Garbage and country-rockers Wilco. There can be different angles, but never improvement, on such a great song. Thus the nagging "Why bother?"

Lord's answer is an epigraph in the album insert that uses the case of traditional music to argue that the cover version reveals the singer as she really is. So "Thirteen" is fragile, imperfect, beautiful — her voice can't quite handle some of the tougher melodic dips but displays charm at the breaking point.

This kind of combination of warmth, beauty and rough edges gives this record the feel of a homemade gift from a friend. The guitar sound is occasionally marred by fret buzz, but the playing is adroit. Lord's high and thin vocals, in the mold of Juliana Hatfield, remain amiable even when they're not spot on. Actual live city sounds — a train pulling away, applause from an assembled crowd, the singer taking a request — appear in just the right places to set the atmosphere. The celebration of songs and the joy inherent in the performances of even the saddest sentiments on Live City Sounds is infectious.

— Wayne Lewis (capsighs@pacbell.net)