Singer-songwriter Marian Call finds her niche

HONOLULU—There are few musicians in the United States who can boast having played in every state during the span of their careers. Singer-songwriter Marian Call of Anchorage, Alaska plays Anna’s in Moiliili on Saturday. So far, she’s played all of the states in just the past six months, as well as most of Canada’s provinces.

Sitting poolside at a Waikiki hotel, Call discusses the unique niche she has created as a touring professional. “I play weird places,” says the fair, ginger beauty. “It works for me.”

Marian Call eschews conventional venues like bars and clubs, opting instead to perform at smaller venues like coffee shops, museums, and comic book stores. Her bread and butter, so to speak, is playing at private parties at the residences of the fans she has collected through prodigious networking efforts that see her working, typically, 80 hours per week.

This play-and-stay approach sees her arrive at the homes of her fans, play her music, then settle down for the night with the kind hospitality of the people who have come to love her music. The word “intrepid” springs to mind as she discusses traveling the U.S. and playing and staying with people who are, essentially, complete strangers.

This performance model comes with intrinsic and unexpected occurrences to which the performer must adapt. Call takes the wobbles in stride. “I’m always a fan of Plan B,” she shrugs. “Or Plan C or Plan D.”

Her approach to her music, however, is far more exacting. For example, her song “Hard to Hold” was created by using dozens of words and phrases received via Twitter feed from fans around the world in about two hours. She had been bored on Los Angeles, and asked fans to send her lyric suggestions. It might seem impossible to work the words “root beer,” “construction,” and “Tamagotchi” into a coherent narrative, but Call did it with skill, humor, and with intelligent social commentary.

“It was an exercise,” she explains. “It was left-brain composing.” Having studied music at Stanford University, Call knows well the amount of work it takes to create relevant music. “I’ll listen to music I don’t even like,” she says. “Just to kind of get inside it.”

That studiousness has found her like-minded fans all over North America. “It’s fun to be a nerd,” she smiles, discussing what she calls her “geek demographic.” Call attended ComicCon, counts the hosts of The Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters among her friends, and she loves SciFi’s Battle Star Galactica (which, not surprisingly, licenses her music).

Conversation drifts to life in Alaska with the abundance of talented singer-songwriters there, then to the abundance of Alaska-based reality shows. When Sarah Palin’s doomed show is brought up, Call says wryly, “Who?”

Call has been to Hawaii before, as part of Stanford’s Choral Group, which performed at Bishop Museum. She sees similar warmth in people here as in her home state.

“I think the isolation brings people together,” Call says. “I’m a huge culture nerd. Hawaii fascinates me.”

Call discusses the relatively high number of Pacific Islanders, Hawaiians included, throughout Alaska, and remembers fondly playing for a Samoan-Alaskan native family in Barrow, the northernmost community in the United States.

“He did a full-on barbeque with caribou in a sarong and flip-flops!” Call beams.

Such enriching encounters on the road are the result of diligent hard work. Call works regionally with several guitarists, recruiting them through Craigslist, as well as providing music charts and recordings of her work. Her father in Austin, Texas, also a musician, often helps audition and familiarize recruits to her music. This trip to Hawaii is the final leg of her 50-state odyssey, a journey that she began planning three months before hitting the road. When she is not performing or driving, she is likely working on her social-professional network, blogging, tweeting, or transmitting otherwise.

So it is easy to assume, as Marian Call works her iPhone, that she is doing just that. Actually, she is summoning her accompanist Jordan Shindle and his guitar for an impromptu poolside concert. Heads turn and smiles light up on the swimmers and sunbathers as her voice, clear, bright, and silky, echoes.

“Vera Flew the Coop” is the story of a murderous woman who dies by the gun. Call plays Texas often and says, “If you want to be a singer-songwriter in Texas, you have to have a murder ballad.”

Following Marian Call’s performance at Anna’s on Saturday, she will be a guest on KIPO’s Blues Hang at midnight.

Marian Call
Saturday, December 18 from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Anna O’Brien’s
2440 S. Beretania
(808) 946-5190

Find Marian Call’s music at:
www.mariancall.com
www.twitter.com/mariancall
www.facebook.com/mariancallmusic
www.youtube.com/mariancall
www.itunes.com/mariancall