Helium: Above the Crowd
Author: Joyce Jones
Date: Nov 21, 1997
ON ITS FIRST album, “The Dirt of Luck,” Helium came up with what seemed like a trademark sound. Mary Timony’s distorted guitar both obscured and heightened the feminine clarity of her voice, producing tunes that were abrasive and heavy, yet nimble and melodic."
On its new release, “The Magic City” (Matador), the group alters that sound with keyboards, strings and even horns. The fuller arrangements can’t help but evoke the past.“There is a little bit of rock ‘n’ roll referencing going on, but it’s not the major point of the record at all,” Timony says by phone from Boston. “There’s this Joni Mitchell record, “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”, that I really like. I wanted one of our songs to sound like the band on that record. Which is totally L.A. ’70s, cheese-o, y’know.”“The songwriting on our albums is pretty much the same. It’s just that they’re recorded differently,” says Timony, who’ll return to her hometown Wednesday for a show at the Black Cat. “This one was recorded better than the last one. And a major difference is that we didn’t use distortion as much on this record. Pretty much every track on the last record was distorted. We moved away from that and tried to use real sounding instruments.”
Some of the vintage instruments that helped create the album’s textures belong to producer Mitch Easter. In addition to his skills in the studio, Easter’s become a sort of curator to his own rock archive of videos and records. During six weeks of recording, Timony, bassist Ash Bowie and drummer Shawn King Devlin were willing historians: “We got into phases of being fascinated with different videos he had. There was a glam rock phase, and we really got into this band the Sweet. They did ‘Fox on the Run.’ ”“Magic City’s” mythic, folk-inflected rock is a substantial shift from the corroded sweetness of “The Dirt of Luck,” and some Helium fans may be surprised. But one constant of both records is Timony’s take on gender relations, which has led to pseudo analysis from some critics, which Timony can do without.“I get really tired of it. Because I talked about it in interviews for the last record we did, and I feel like a lot of male writers totally misunderstood me, and the articles came out really weird. I figured I might as well not talk about it anymore because it was totally backfiring . . . . {What} makes me the saddest is that somewhere along the line women’s growth or ego has been stunted. In some way our ego becomes this mutated being. . . . I just feel like everyone should be treated equally for people to be equally happy in the world.”
And in response to predictions that Helium is primed for mainstream success, Timony is circumspect. “I don’t really have a reaction because it’s so far removed from reality and me and the band and everybody else. It’s interesting to hear that . . . but it’s just someone’s opinion.”
Clearly, Timony’s idea of success isn’t entirely Top 40. “On a creative level I’d like to be making things that I’m proud of and allow everyone in the band to sort of realize their potential. . . . There’s so much pressure to write songs really fast, and then to not write songs for awhile because you have to tour and all this other stuff gets in the way of us having an artistic life. So it would be great if we could do the best we can with what we have. But then, on another level, I would like to be able to make a living off of this and be successful because that would allow us to be able to do it longer.”
Timony grew up in Northwest D.C. until going to college at Boston University, where she graduated with a degree in English literature in 1992. In high school at Duke Ellington School for the Arts, she studied guitar. “I just wrote silly folk songs and played classical in school,” she says.“I went to see shows and stuff when I was in high school. I went to the Wilson center and to d.c. space. And I guess that’s probably a big reason I thought rock music was a good thing to do. . . . All the music going on was really amazing. All these kids making music and a huge scene.”
Prior to Helium, Timony was best known as a member of the D.C. band Autoclave — with Christina Billotte (of Slant 6), Melissa Berkoff and Nikki Chapman. The band was short-lived, releasing a 7-inch and a six-song EP on Dischord.“I was in Boston already and I had been playing music with Christina on and off when we were younger, and she had approached me at some show at the Wilson center and said ‘Do you still play guitar? We should play sometime.’ . . . It was a really exciting time. When I came home from school {in the summer} there was so much music going on in D.C. {Autoclave} didn’t last that long, but it was really fun while it lasted.”
Helium finished a month-long European tour with Sleater-Kinney in mid-October and will end the first leg of its U.S. tour at the Black Cat. Expect Timony’s family to attend.“My parents still live in Washington and they’re supportive. Which is nice. They get excited every time we come back.”
Not only do her parents attend her shows, but they’re enthusiasts who appraise the scene. Timony recalls a show at the 9:30 club with the Richmond-based space-rockers Labradford. “Labradford played first. And I like Labradford a lot. But my dad thought they sounded like John Tesh. I had to kind of agree a little bit, though I think they’re better.”