Stereolab : very sad news

JoB - yes, e.g. on "Seeperbold" and "Long Life Love", and co-lead on "Nothing To Do With Me".

:(

i'd moved away from stereolab post-etk, but they'd been a huge part of my growing up. this is really shocking news. i had seen them so many times, it felt like...i dont know

Soooo sad.

http://www.nme.co.uk/news/103736.htm

very sad.

:( :(

Sleep peacefully x

this is unfortunate (from nme.com):
STEREOLAB MEMBER KILLED IN ROAD ACCIDENT
Click here to search eBay for Stereolab
Click here to search for Stereolab ringtones

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2566949.stm

I'm playing Sound Dust now ....

(another part of my adolescence is gone)

at the show chris mentions above, just before prolapse went on i gave mary a flat tire (dislodged the heel of her shoe by a clumsy step) right by the bar as i was walking behind her. i apologized profusely and she was very kind about it.

i was reminded how much i enjoyed their music this past march when i saw them.

i feel very sad for mary's friends, family, and bandmates.

my friends and i got to spend some time with stereolab following one of the concerts on the emperor tomato ketchup tour. this was the peak of my stereolab fanboydom, so this was nearly too exciting for me. tim & laetitia were pleasant enough, but mary was especially nice to us: friendly, chatty, and warm.

a few minutes into this i asked mary if she'd had a chance to see the kids in the hall movie (brain candy), which featured "how to play your internal organs overnight". she said they'd released permission for the song to be used, but didn't know any more than that.

i wanted to explain that the vocal hook (the "lalala's") shows up again and again in the movie as a sort of love theme, fading in every time the guy in the dress and the other guy lock eyes. but i've got a bad habit (from years of teaching) of over-explaining, so instead of just saying "the vocal hook" or "the lalala's" or whatever, i started SINGING to her.

yes, i sang (in my unpretty falsetto) mary hansen's part in "how to play your internal organs overnight" back to her and then asked her if she knew the part i meant (!!). it was a solid hour later before i realized how dumb i'd been.

mary somehow managed not to laugh in my face, and kept chatting with us long past the point when she could have politely excused herself. she was lovely.

what sad news.

you know, this sucks.

It sure does, I still haven't gotten over it. I also think the relative mediocrity of their recent albums and subsequent "hiatus" are directly tied to this sad event.

7 years, god.

relative mediocrity of their recent albums

I'll take Stereolab mediocrity over a lot of other stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxilFO2DiL4

As much as I really really enjoy Chemical Chords and Margerine Eclipse (as well as most of Fab Four Sutre) this still sort of haunts me. Mary was the perfect foil to Laetitia and without her there still seems like there is an essential piece missing to the Stereolab puzzle.

It was only on their last couple of tours that they seemed to find a way to play without her, as opposed to playing where her absence was completely inescapable and tangible. I remember years ago reading about how the first few New Order shows were like that, a palpable gap (accentuated by their initially continuing as a trio), and it was echoed in what happened here.

favorite mary lead vocal song / one of my favorite stereolab songs period = 'long life love'

here's a PSA she did for my radio station, interesting (& sad) to hear her speaking voice:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/rcuvps

Not trying to diss their more recent albums, I'll buy anything they put out, but it just isn't the same for me without Mary. I think it might have been better if they tried to find a replacement singer, but maybe that would've been just too weird for them to handle.

favorite mary lead vocal song / one of my favorite stereolab songs period = 'long life love'

― Milton Parker, Sunday, November 8, 2009 8:25 PM

Yes! That song is amazing! The fact that it was one of the last things she did with them makes it that much more difficult to take. I feel like she was just starting to come into her own as a lead singer. I wish there were a lot more songs that featured her in a lead role.

Like a lot of people I was shocked when I heard of Marys death, I couldn't imagine anyone least likely to die early. But I remember that particular Monday morning it was dark, windy and rainy, not a great day to be cycling through the city, it sounded like a freak accident. At first I thought the band should break up but then after a while I remember how Mary took over from Gina on vocals so perhaps that's the way Mary would have wanted it to go. The first time I saw Stereolab after Marys death reinforced my view that they should get another femail singer, there was a big gap stage right and the songs didn't work right to my ears. Ironically I think Mary would have left the band by now anyway to do other things. She had a unique style to her singing and I recall a wonderful bashful smile when playing the guitar, and not forgetting her wistful sense of humour. She hasn't left us, she's just gone on ahead, we'll be catching up with her eventually.

i just put the BBC version of Les Yper Sound on a mix. It's so jammin.