Lois Maffeo

For Net #17
by Mike Appelstein

More interviews with Lois:
Caught In Flux #3
Writer's Block #7

"Just the other day in the mail, I got this T-shirt this kid had made because I'd given him a ride to his car after a show I played with Heavenly" she recalls. "As we were making arrangements, the other kid walks up and said, 'She's taking you back to your car? That's real funny, because the last time we played, Lois gave me a jump!' So the kid made me a shirt that said 'Lois' Auto Repair'."'

So maybe it's a good idea for her not to ditch the car; I suggest, lest she get kicked out of the scene. "But I never have a car!" she says. "I always borrow them! That's how far I go for the kids!"

Lois has made three solo alburns and myriad singles that offer their own take on time-honored subjects such as love, betrayal and motivation. Following the wistfulness of 1992's Butterfly Kiss, and the tastefully electrified approach of Strumpet, Lois' new album, Bet The Sky, may be her most cohesive and confident work to date. She's never sounded so self-assured vocally, and songs like "Shy Town," "Unattached" and "Western" capture a soul in transition.  Indeed, the last line on the album is "You woke me up to say you're never coming back."

Not coincidentally, Lois wrote the songs for Bet The Sky during a period of upheaval last spring, around the time she'd left Washington, D.C., where she'd lived and worked for five years, to return to Olympia, WA.  "I think this album's a lot a lot about change in life', change in location," she says. "It's about a year of time that w'as not hard but different, full of change. In fact, I was thinking I was having a creative crisis. Not to sound new-agey or anyrhing, but things like that can be indicative of either your mental or physical health.  A writer's block can be a block in other parts of your life. Moving back to Olympia gave me a little bit of space and inspiration to write some of the songs.

"I think I had done everything in D.C. that I was going to do, she adds.  "I have kind of a wanderlust, I guess. Other than music, I never reallv got that much accomplished in D.C. I came back to Olympia this spring and immediately made a Halo Benders video, and started doing stuff at the Capitol Theater.   So I think it's just a good place for me to be to get things done."

As if to match the change of scenery, Bet The Sky features a new cast of supporting musicians.  Heather Dunn, formerly of Sacramento pop sweethearts Tiger Trap, takes over the drummer's seat; the two met while touring together in 1993. "When I got back from DC, I didii't have any plans about who I was going to play with. She called me and said, 'What are you doing?' and I said 'I'm not really sure, what are you doing?' So let's not be sure together." Brendan Canty fiom Fugazi also shows up on organ, harmonica and bass, displaying a subtle gentility not always apparent in his main project.

A native of Phoenix, AZ, Lois first moved to Olympia attend college at Evergreen State University -- much to the chagrin of her Catholic-school teachers, who warned her she'd be "wasting her life" by choosing that particular institution. She got involved with KAOS, the campus radio station that also spawned Op magazine and indirectly Sub Pop Records, and began hosting a radio program called "Your Dream Girl," dedicated to female musicians. It was this show, she says, that laid. the groundwork for her own musical aspirations.

"I started out doing a little talk show called "The Tea Party" during lunchtime," she recalls. "We'd play music and just chat. I guess I was a budding talk show host.  Then there was a woman getting a rock show started with predominantly women, just trying to push that to the forefront. I think she found, after a couple of shows, that she was running out of material. I was incredibly intrigued, so I asked if I could do one. And I immediately started in doing research, writing letters to labels. It inspired me to play eventually.  Just being in Olympia at the time, I was hearing all this music. I was seeing Beat Happening and a lot of people I went to college with who were not musicians, getting up and singing a song or playing bongos. And I thought, well, I could do that."

After trying it herself for the first time -- nervously singing a Hank Williams song a cappella at a party -- she kept at it. Thus followed a series of short-lived projects, including Lumihoops, who formed to play a work talent show, and the Cradle Robbers, which included Rebecca Gates of the Spinanes. "The Cradle Robbeis existed in our heads, mostly.  We praeticed once in Portland and once in Olympia, and played a show. What's funny is that the songs I wmte were really Loisy and the ones she wrote were really Spinanesy." Lois also wrote for Puncture magarnie during this period and appeared on a cassetre by the now-legendary Go Team, a K Records supergroup of sorts helmed by CaIvin Johnson.

But it was in the duo known as Courtney Love where Lois got her first real notoriety outside of Pacific Northwest circles. Between 1990 and 1991, she and YoYo Stuclios owner Pat Maley recoided three singles and did a couple of brief tours. Their last show was at the International Pop Underground convention in 1991 -- although they played a brief Courtney Love set at the YoYo-A-Go-Go festival in Olympia last summer.   "It was, in kind of a way, thanking Pat for his work, thanking the people who were there for their ongoing interest in that period of music. We decided that we'd see how it goes and do it if the mood is right. So he said, 'OK, I'll get my singles out ad see if I remember how to play 'em."

With Bet The Sky out (as well as a CD single of "Shy Town" and four songs recorded in Washington, DC by Ian MacKaye), Lois remains open-ended about her future. "I have never, ever had the feeling in my heart of hearts that I am a professional musician. Like when I have to fill out visa applicitions and stuff and they ask for my occupation, and I write down 'musician,' that doesn't seem right; I feel like I'm writing down that I'm a model. I keep having these periods; I was really into film, and now I'm really into acoustic guitars.  I want to write a novel now.  Next, who knows?  I may decide to become a firefighter."