What to Wear, What to Wear...

After I wore a black and white jacket to my first gig a co-worker fussed at me for wearing the same thing to the office earlier that day.

It was true: I had no “rock” wardrobe. I’m not rich enough to buy new duds. I am no longer svelte, I can’t wear low-cut pants (“muffin tops”), my feet hurt in stilettos and jewelry just gets in the way.

And the look that guys use is out, too. I just don’t look fetching in grungy T-shirts and Keds. And skulls and crossbones are the stuff of angry young men, or at least young men who want to appear dangerously cool while they’re playing guitar. Guys even wear their guitars differently -- low-slung crotch covers designed to look like what they’re really playing is something they’re not supposed to play with in public. For me, I need my guitar up where I can reach it, with my hair out of my eyes and my glasses on my face.

And please, don’t ask me to do the emaciated heroin look -- the best I can do is a frappucino twitch.

So. Without a fat budget, and desperately needing to look like I didn’t just come from the office, my bandmates urged me to hit the local thrift stores. Lead singer Mary Hestand is especially good at finding the perfect stage clothes -- she knows every inch of the Salvation Army store over on Inwood Road. Mary Hestand, she of the plastic forks and spoons in her hair -- I bow to the master.

Today I’m the proud owner of a tacky maroon velvet shirt, a pair of bubblegum pink shoes, a Sgt.-Pepper-inspired black three-quarters’ length jacket with gold brocade, and a bitchin’ pair of blue suede spike-heel boots that I wear only when I can sit down. My stage wardrobe teeters between “clown” and “classic,” but mostly I have a collection of stage clothes that are comfortable -- and not to be worn at the office.

NEXT GIG: Saturday, Aug. 30, at the Tipperary Inn, with our friends Heimlich & the Maneuvers. Great food, drink, and fabulously dressed-out music.

www.merryandthemoodswings.com
Copyright 2008 Mary Guthrie