The Spells

Members

Carrie Brownstein - Guitar, Vocals

Mary Timony - Guitar, Vocals

Are good friends Carrie Brownstein, also in Sleater-Kinney, and Mary. Both Carrie and Mary switch off on vocals and guitar, intertwining sounds not totally unlike Sleater-Kinney. They use a drum machine to augment this sound. Their EP, the Age of Backwards, contains three original songs and a cover of the Who's "Can't Explain". So far the Spells have only played one show and released one EP, but have tentative plans for more of both in the future. There were plans to play the Yo-Yo-A-Go-Go Festival in 1999, but unfortunately those plans were canceled.

A bit of background: Carrie used to be in a band called Excuse 17, which opened for Helium when they toured for the Dirt of Luck. Later on, Helium opened up shows for Sleater-Kinney when the two bands toured Europe together, further cementing Mary and Carrie's relationship. Mary has also opened for Sleater-Kinney solo (playing with Christina Files).

Fun factoid: the original name was "the Fountain".

Both Carrie and Mary appeared together in February 2000 in Priceline.com ads, with actor William Shatner being the main focus of these ads. Mary and Carrie can be seen in varying lengths of these seven commercials.**In 2008, they released a "new" EP via NPR called Bat vs Bird. Carrie was writing a column for NPR at the time called Monitor Mix, and interviews for Mary for the release. Here is the artwork in full for the release.