The lucky ones

Aimee Mann and Michael Penn bring indie pop vaudeville

Envisioning store racks filled only with albums written, recorded and marketed by people who truly love music is nearly impossible. Imagining a world in which the music industry is a little less dominated by corporate conglomerates isn’t. In fact, it’s something Aimee Mann has thought long and hard about since she spent the better part of the ’90s involved with highly publicized record company wranglings.

Whether it was Epic, Imago, Geffen or Interscope, Mann had some bad luck with labels. She was pushed, pulled, patronized - but never dropped. And never forgotten. It seems each time Mann finished an album, her label dissolved, merged or just plain screwed up. When her material was actually released, it consistently improved and inspired (critics salivated over 1996’s I’m With Stupid, especially), but quality and acclaim weren’t enough for her record company. For nearly a decade, Mann fought Goliath with small stones, sacrificing years of marketability to eventually buy back her freedom and release her music on her own label, SuperEgo Records.

Mann says if she’d given in to the hit-factory mentality of her former labels and pushy A&R types, she might’ve lost her musical vision. “Record companies’ choice of bands have a real fail-safe vibe,” she says. “With frat-boy heavy metal kinds of bands, A&R guys feel like they can’t lose. I don’t want to be in a community of bands like that. Our response to what’s happening in the mainstream is to remove ourselves from it.”

Recently, she and her husband and fellow singer/songwriter Michael Penn, along with her manager (and former ‘Til Tuesday bandmate) Michael Hausman, formed United Musicians, a collective that will provide marketing, promotion and publicity services for artists, while allowing them to keep ownership of their music. Her Bachelor No.2 (purchased from Interscope in 1999) has just been released on a wide scale, on the heels of an Oscar nomination for her sound track to the Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia.

Now she and Penn, who has plans to buy his fourth solo album MP4 back from Epic, are on the road together for the next few months, spreading the gospel of finely-crafted pop music and D.I.Y. record-making. On the phone from their home in Los Angeles, the two joke about sharing hotel bathrooms, carpooling in vans and playing theaters across America together.

Penn describes their summer jaunt as an old-fashioned (albeit with less burlesque) “acoustic vaudeville” show, complete with a stand-up comedian who serves as the show’s emcee. “The shows we’ve been doing are an outgrowth of shows we’d done at [the club] Largo in L.A. There was a circle of comedians we’d been friendly with. We both felt inept at the between-song entertainer/banter stuff, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we employ professionals in that role.’ It entertains us and guarantees entertainment for the audience. It’s like ginger or sorbet between meals or courses.”

If comedy at an Aimee Mann show seems a bit of a stretch for those who’ve got her pegged as just another bitter songwriter, they’re missing the subtlety of the clever cadences to be found on Bachelor No.2: “Nothing is good enough for people like you/Who have to have someone take the fall/And something to sabotage, determined to lose it all/Ladies and gentlemen, here’s Exhibit A/Didn’t I try again, and didn’t the effort pay?/Wouldn’t a smarter man simply walk away?” (“Nothing is Good Enough”).

The record is far removed, and intentionally so, from the bubblegum boy bands and rap/metal hybrids that clutter the airwaves these days. Along Mann’s continuum of musical growth, the album isn’t as much a landmark as it is a personal milestone. As with Stupid, Whatever and all three of her underrated ‘Til Tuesday albums, Mann again succeeds in her pursuit of literate, inherently tuneful anecdotes. She often sings about regret, but there’s real joy in the rhymes and melodies of “Ghost World” and “Red Vines.” On a certain level, her knack for poetic couplets even rivals Smokey Robinson’s consummate timing.

While Mann and Penn don’t want to be lumped together as a single unit musically, the similarities in their rhymes, lush-yet-organic production values, intelligent lyrics, intricate arrangements, classic instrumentation and melodies is obvious. And though the couple says their 1998 marriage hasn’t changed their songwriting habits, Mann admits to being a Penn fan since the days of his initial 1989 hit, “No Myth.” “Michael’s songwriting influenced me before I met him. I don’t know if I’ve influenced him,” she laughs.

“I’m a big fan of Aimee’s, too,” Penn laughs in response. “We’ve both been on a specific track, for a while,” he says. “It’s evident we have similar tastes.”

Penn, who claims his favorite Beatle is “the combination of Paul McCartney and [producer] George Martin,” filled MP4 with traditional power pop that has wry twists and turns, both lyrically and melodically. It’s the kind of record that goes unnoticed in the industry, perhaps because it’s a little too close to perfect. Penn disagrees, claiming the record was mixed in a “guerrilla-like” fashion due to budget constraints.

There seems to be healthy competition between Mann and Penn, though Mann’s profile has heightened since she performed her Oscar-nominated song “Save Me” at the Academy Awards show in March. The performance itself “wasn’t that nerve-racking for me,” Mann explains. “It’s run with military precision and there were many rehearsals beforehand. Everybody knew what to do.” Mann says she was backstage, just standing on the spot they told her to occupy and waiting for that awkward camera shot, when they announced the winner.

“Besides,” she says matter-of-factly as Penn laughs along with her, “I pretty much knew Phil Collins would win.”

It’s clear from the conversation that Aimee Mann and Michael Penn share more than a fierce independent streak and a taste for classic pop music. Sharing the road for a summer is about as close as two musicians can get.

“It’s helpful to just have a real friend along with you,” Mann says. “And,” Penn concurs, “someone to share your amazement at just how devoid of glamour it all really is.”

Acoustic Vaudeville with Aimee Mann and Michael Penn comes to the Variety Playhouse on Sat., June 17, at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $22.50 (free entry for a limited number of ChangeMusic badge holders). For more information, call 404-521-1786.