JULIE RITTER Songs of Love and Empire 1999

 

Discogs 

 

Vocalist from Mary's Danish

 

Tracklist 

1	Bed	2:36
2	As You Please	3:19
3	Cry Baby Cry	3:07
4	Gone	4:15
5	Silver Screen Star	4:27
6	Drag Me Down	4:22
7	Play My Favorite Song	4:27
8	Seeing Stars	2:52
9	I'm An Angel	4:52
10	Aeroplane	3:58
11	Jesus Of New York	4:03
12	And What Were Roses	5:39

 

THERMADORE Monkey on Rico 1996

by request 

 

Discogs

 

 

Artist Biography by AllMusic

Assessing his own songs as ‘the dark side of the American highway’, Robbie Allen, singer and songwriter with Los Angeles, California’s Thermadore, has propelled his band to the edges of the US mainstream within a few short years of formation. Guitarist David King and bass player Chris Wagner had recorded two albums together with Mary’s Danish before that group broke up in 1993. They subsequently teamed up with Allen, an employee on the psychiatric ward of the Norwalk State Hospital, California. He had left that post to work as a roadie, T-shirt salesman and guitar technician for the Red Hot Chili Peppers - the group who had befriended Mary’s Danish in the late 80s. The trio put Thermadore on a permanent footing in 1995, and immediately set about recording Monkey On Rico. This featured a star guest cast - in addition to Mary’s Danish singer Julie Ritter, Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam, Chad Smith of the Chili Peppers and Josh Freese of Slider also contributed. Actress Rain Phoenix also collaborated with Allen on the band’s version of ‘Everything’s Alright’ - included on the soundtrack to a new version of Jesus Christ Superstar. The album was well received in the mainstream press - early converts to the band’s cause including Rolling Stone.

 

Tracklist

1. Three Days   2. Amerasian   3. Missing   4. Go   5. Spinning   6. Candywrapper   7. Pushing   8. Punk Rock Beating   9. Santa Rosa 10. Anton 11. Everything's Alright

MARY'S DANISH

There Goes The Wondertruck 
1989

American Standard
 1992

Discogs

Artist Biography by Stewart Mason

A fine band that never quite delivered on its immense promise, Mary's Danish blended power pop, punk, country, and funk into a sometimes scattershot but always unique sound that at times was among the most exciting sounds in what was then still called alternative music and sometimes sounded like the group was constitutionally incapable of picking a style and sticking with it for longer than a song at a time.
The seeds of the group were planted when college friends Gretchen Seager and Julie Ritter decided to form their own band in the middle of an X concert in their hometown of Los Angeles in late 1985. Seager preferred the band's punk edge, Ritter their country leanings, and both admired the vocal interplay of John Doe and Exene Cervenka, all of which would appear in their own band, which they named Mary's Danish after a line in an early songwriting attempt. Ritter's guitarist boyfriend David King and his bassist friend Chris "Wag" Wagner were drafted into the group at an early stage, but the group wouldn't settle into its permanent lineup until drummer James Bradley Jr., who had previously played with Anita Baker, and second guitarist Louis Gutierrez, formerly of Los Angeles paisley underground legends the Three O'Clock, joined in 1988.
The newly cemented group signed with Chameleon Records in 1989 and released their debut, There Goes the Wondertruck, later that year. Powered by the alternative radio and 120 Minutes favorite "Don't Crash the Car Tonight," the debut and a live follow-up EP, Experience, sold well enough to attract the attention of both superstar manager Peter Asher and Morgan Creek Records, a newly formed label headed by producer David Kershenbaum and spun off from a successful film production company. Eager to score an "alternative" band when that genre was becoming the next big thing, Morgan Creek threw quite a bit of money at Mary's Danish to record and release their second album, Circa, in 1991. Unfortunately, the neophyte label dropped the ball on promotion, and although the singles "Julie's Blanket" and "Foxey Lady" (a winningly sarcastic treatment of the Jimi Hendrix classic) got a lot of MTV airplay, the well-reviewed album didn't sell as well as There Goes the Wondertruck. The label prematurely rushed the group back into the studio to record 1992's American Standard, and the lackluster results showed it. Top management at Morgan Creek apparently had no idea of how to run a record label, and their poor track record caught up to them; after haphazardly burying American Standard through incompetent promotion and distribution, the label self-destructed, leaving Mary's Danish in legal limbo. Fed up, the group called it quits in 1993, with King leaving to form a new band, Rob Rule. Ritter embarked on an alt-country solo career, while Seager and Gutierrez, who had married and were expecting a child, formed the punkier Battery Acid. 

There Goes the Wondertruck

Tracklist

1	Don't Crash The Car Tonight	3:20
2	Can I Have A Smoke, Dude?	1:59
3	Ashes	3:09
4	What To Do	3:01
5	Blue Stockings	2:39
6	Well Well (Home Is Where The Heartbreak Is)	2:18
7	DVB	1:42
8	Shanty Pig	2:59
9	Hey There Man	3:14
10	It'll Probably Make Me Cry	3:24
11	Mary Had A Bar	2:26
12	Dodge City	3:42

American Standard 
 
Tracklist 

1	Killjoy	3:00
2	God Said	4:11
3	Underwater	4:15
4	O Lonely Soul, It's A Hard Road	3:37
5	Weeping Tree	4:43
6	Porcupine	2:32
7	Leave It Alone	4:02
8	The Living End	3:59
9	Ode To A Life	4:04
10	My Dear Heretic	3:56
11	Shotgun	2:57
12	Gotcha Covered	3:12
13	Sister Shade	8:00