Blog A "Sister Mary Katherine" crazier than Molly Shannon

Since we recently took a look at the left-field sonic universe of cassette releases, it seems appropriate to mention another tape that's getting its release this weekend. Madison's The Midwest Beat and Indiana's Eric And The Happy Thoughts celebrate a new split cassette with a Saturday show at the Crystal Corner Bar, which also features the return of local power-pop band The Motorz and a "45 freakout" DJ'd by Madison musician/writer Bob Koch. The release boasts just one song per band: Eric's almost-innocent jangle-pop number "Sweet Dirty Love" and the Beat's "Sister Mary Katherine." While the latter is a typically reckless and catchy garage-soul-pop ramble back in time, I mostly just got distracted with the title. Had someone finally produced a decent piece of art inspired by Molly Shannon's armpit-sniffing Catholic schoolgirl character from Saturday Night Live? Actually, the band claims it didn't know about the aspiring, uh, superstar.

Guitarist-singer Matt Joyce explains: "It's about a lady we met in Memphis who introduced herself as 'Mary Katherine.' I was pretty drunk and started calling her "Sister Mary Katherine," because it sounded like a nun's name. She was into metallurgic art, and, at first, I thought she said 'heavy metal,' so I started letting my mind go down strange corridors and creating a backstory about a nun who had left the church and was currently involved in the Occult." Hence, a hop-up-and-down jumble of handclaps, vocal harmonies, and acoustic guitars that's vaguely about the dark arts, or something. Come to think of it, that beats sniffing your pits and knocking shit over. And now a duet!