Whatever happened to mary margaret o'hara ?

Cohen also had a hand in arranging the collaboration that recently brought O’Hara to Montreal’s Hotel2Tango studio to work with Constellation Records’ Thierry Amar, Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto (members of Vic Chesnutt’s band) and Australian drummer Jim White of Dirty Three.

http://www.nowtoronto.com/music/story.cfm?content=188372

there are some sisterly themed alice munro stories where i totally picture the sisters as the O'Hara sisters.

interesting, i don't really know his story. i noticed in the credits patti smith exec produced museum hours. xp

that movie looks like something I would enjoy.

I read her Wikipedia entry thanks to this revive and found this very amusing:

In 1983, O'Hara left Go Deo and was signed by Virgin Records. Andy Partridge of XTC was scheduled as her producer but was fired after his first day [3] due to his reported difficulties with O'Hara's musical approach.

ha!

Andy Partridge of XTC was scheduled as her producer but was fired after his first day [3] due to his reported difficulties with O'Hara's musical approach.

Partridge has also intimated that devout Catholic O'Hara wasn't thrilled to find out her producer was an atheist and engineer John Leckie was under the spell of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. So suddenly they had a few weeks vacation on their hands, and Partridge mentions this idea he had to record a psychedelic album.

So we can thank Mary Margaret O'Hara for the Dukes of Stratosphear.

Scott, you have to see this. it's wonderful. really beautiful.

i was bored a couple of times -- where the camera lingers on urban scenes where i don't see the point of lingering

zvook, i'm kinda surprised at this since the film was completely about looking and seeing everything with equal weight and importance but choosing your own centre within the seeing and it's set up fairly early on. where the narrator describes the egg shells, bones, cigarette butts, old newspapers, spent beer cans and cuts from the Breugel to the scenes in Vienna. It's about slowness and lingering as well so i can understand the boredom but it's part of it and it pays off very gently at the end.

Then the Lecture on Breugel where the tour guide talks about finding the centre (for you) within the painting which analogues to as much time being spent looking at the people looking at the paintings as the paintings themselves in wide or in detail and the same techniques being used in the shots of the city referencing back to earlier in the film where Johann talks about seeing Anne and somehow "finding" her within the plethora of museum visitors and being interested in her, wanting to know her and not knowing why. it's not sexual - he's gay - it's really about making connections or finding a connection.

i was bowled over by this. i've not seen anything like it. really wonderful.

yes that's true but it's still boring a couple of times (i didn't mean every time, btw, far from it). it's true of his short work too, which i'd seen before i saw this, and is made up of just this sort of looking. there are always a few scenes which strike me as almost without value as if pulled at random from a day's cheap digital shooting.

what did u think of mmo'h in it?

I saw Museum Hours. I liked it quite a bit. It's true what zvookster says, about Jem Cohen's work being very much about this "looking." I don't know that he pulls his images at random, he's just someone who shoots a lot on his own, constantly, and creates a kind of personal archive of footage from which to pull shots from. I do think that stuff stands out in films like this or Chain, where he also uses actors, but it's his style and I like that he finds ways to expand what is obviously a very limited way of working. FWIW I think all the exterior/street stuff was shot on film, so maybe "cheap digital shooting" isn't really fair...

movie is fine, many of Jem Cohen's past films also worthwhile (Benjamin Smoke, Chain; never saw the Fugazi doc) xp

MMO'H never seems to be acting, A-

zvook, i didn't mean to describe the film to you. i knew you got it perfectly well, i was just thinking it through for myself. there were 5-10 minutes or so when i thought it was too much and, yes, a little boring but he pulled it back since, of course, that's a major point of the film. I'm interested to see his other stuff.

i though MMO'H was astounding.

It hasn't aged too well, but "Lost Book Found" is on Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/63141083

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9rZyMRdwwg

Wonder if anyone's heard anything other than this from that Go Deo Chorus demo tape that got them/her signed...

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/apr/19/cult-heroes-mary-margaret-ohara-miss-america

I don't consider those tributes to Weill and Cohen, nor The Black Rider productions, to be "relative trifles." And if she thinks she said it all on one album, so be it, right or wrong. Wonder how many people keep cranking it out when they secretly feel that way, or should?

WOW I had no idea the album was recorded in 83 and 84!

Author should have mentioned her track on Gary Lucas Gods and Monsters, v memorable

For some reason I heard this for the first time tonight - loved it. Lots of bits hanging at the edges throughout - whether that's a guitar, violin and the voice but there is so much to her voice I wouldn't reduce to that.

My t-TAAAALE is TALLLLLL

i never contributed to this thread. why? mmoh is one of my favourite singers, miss america one of my favourite albums. i wrote something about it some time ago in my old blog.

how i love those simple, to the point lyrics:

"But if our love is all for not
I'm still happy with what I've got
Not having you,
But keeping you in mind"

For some reason I heard this for the first time tonight

― xyzzzz__, Monday, June 13, 2016 9:23 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm gobsmacked at this!

https://vimeo.com/147145241

i just found a copy of Miss America on LP for a couple bucks stashed in the celtic music section at amoeba. incredible album.

I was just thinking about MMOH last night because we finished watching The OA and I got some of the same feelings from it that I get from this album.

my TAAAAALE is TAAAAAALLLLLL

I'd forgotten about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPtuYmYg8OU

I didn't know this happened!

wow...this first improv is something else

Very very stoked. Just bought two tix to see her in June!

ohhhh!!!!

It's the "Beautiful Tool" combo who performed a handful of shows three years ago and I don't think anything since.

??Where is this happening??

Canada. At the Vancouver Jazz Festival. Tix were $28. A bargain imo.

Here's a baffled review from (I think) the last show in 2015.

Haha I just noticed she did "The Snake" - that thing that Trump performs from time to time.

Man so jealous

Show was good. A few reservations but I enjoyed it a lot. It didn't blow minds or anything. It was unrehearsed and the band could've used more direction. The starts and ends of the songs were all ramshackle, much of it was improvised and they overplayed on most songs imo. There was one bit near the end when they did a great key change and I thought "fucksake-an arrangement!"

She herself forgot the words on dozens of occasions and barely two lines in a row were ever sung straight. It was like Liza Minnelli slipping back and forth between Ella-style focused scatting and Yoko Ono making whatever noises she's feeling in the moment. Followed by some whistling or whatever. Pretty amazing.

If I'd wandered in not knowing what it was I might have been racking my brains for what Shimmy Disc act might have reformed - the only previous time I saw a balloon used as a musical instrument was at a Eugene Chadbourne gig.

She's on Bandcamp:

https://peggylee1.bandcamp.com/album/beautiful-tool

Oh wow thanks!

New one-minute ditty

This inimitable bit of O'Haratude popped up unexpectedly in my Release Radar today

https://rising.melbourne/wormhole/singles-club-jim-white-and-mary-margaret-ohara