Fun Facts

Helium and Mary Pop Up in these Songs

• Recording artist Kim Fox has a tribute song to Mary called "All the Flowers Have O's". From the album Moon Hut on Dreamworks Records. ©1997 Riticulous Songs/BMG Songs, Inc.

• The band Death Cab for a Cutie mentions Mary is one of their songs with the line "Mary Timony is smaller than a superball" or something like that.

• Stevie Malkmus once jammed with Dylan or a Dylan tribute or something and in one of his songs there were lyrics that went something like"...standing with her hands in back pockets, Mary Timony style". But I read this a long time ago, so my memory could be a bit off.

• Franklin Bruno sings a song on the Simple Machines Working Holiday Live! CD [SMR 26, Disc2] called "Sleeping through the Jane Pratt Show". In it he mentions Mary: "You're flippin' from Bravo to Trinity/About face you spy Mary Timony".

• Of course there is the famous song by Mary Lou Lord, "His Indie World", which name checks every respected indie band. Here's the verse Helium is in: "cause I don't fit into this indie scene/Huggy Bear and Helium and Half Japanese/Sebadoh and Sentridoh/and Superchunk/and I don't know/Doug and Lou and Calvin too/and Kim and Kim and Kim and Kim."

• Band friends Sleater-Kinney sometimes change the lyrics to the song "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" when performing live. At a show in Cambridge, MA they changed the "Joey Ramone" part to "Mary Timony" and incorporated "Ash Bowie" was well, but it's hard to make out what they switched for his part.

Random Fun Facts

• Nicholas Cage is said to be a fan of the band. He reportedly wined and dined them when Helium opened up for Sonic Youth in Los Angeles in May 1998.

• Mary often replaces the "fucking" in "Trixie's Star" with "trucking" at live shows.

• Ash used to deliver pizza for Pizza Hut when he was in school at UNC Chapel Hill.

• Ash also used to fill in on Portastatic live sets.

• Dave from Polvo was a DJ at WYXC at UNC Chapel Hill.

• Dave is now a member of Idyll Swords, along with Ash's friend Chuck Johnson from Spatula (who were a *way* excellent band, rip)

• The Polvo song "Colonial Arms" is also the name of an apartment complex in Chapel Hill,NC.

• The Polvo song "Old Lystra" is also the name of a road outside Chapel Hill.

• "Flower of the Apocalypse" and parts of "the Bell" are latin; parts of Catholic prayers(?)/services.

• At one show opening for Quasi in DC in October 1999, Mary relayed to the audience that she left in pedal for her Fender Rhodes in Boston so her dad MADE her a pedal.