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Melissa Auf Der Maur
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| Melissa Auf der Maur | |
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 Auf der Maur in 2005.
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| Background information | |
| Born | March 17, 1972 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Genre(s) | Alternative rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, Photographer |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Keyboards |
| Label(s) | Capitol |
| Associated acts | The Smashing Pumpkins Hole Hand of Doom The Chelsea Auf Der Maur |
| Website | Official Site |
Melissa Auf der Maur (born March 17, 1972) is a Canadian rock musician of Franco-Swiss ancestry from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her career has included 5 years as bassist with the band Hole and she later toured with The Smashing Pumpkins for their 2000 tour. She is also a published photographer.
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Early life
Auf der Maur (whose surname literally means "on the wall," with "Maur", pronounced to rhyme with "power", derived from the German word for "wall", Mauer) was born to journalist and politician Nick Auf der Maur and literary translator Linda Gaboriau. Because Nick Auf der Maur was Canadian and Linda Gaboriau was born in the U.S., Melissa holds dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship.
Her native language is English, though she also speaks French. She spent some of her early childhood in Kenya with her mother, but after several bouts with malaria returned to Montreal, where she attended F.A.C.E. School, a performing arts high school, and then Concordia University as a photography major.
Musical career
Hole
Auf der Maur became friends with Billy Corgan after apologizing for a friend who had thrown a beer bottle at the band during one of The Smashing Pumpkins' first Canadian concert dates at Montreal nightclub Foufounes Électriques.citation needed Her band, Tinker, opened for The Smashing Pumpkins in Montreal in 1993. In 1994, when Hole was in need of a new bassist following the death of Kristen Pfaff, Corgan recommended Auf der Maur to Courtney Love. Auf der Maur initially turned the job down, but later reconsidered. She joined Hole two weeks before the Reading Festival, and recorded the album Celebrity Skin with the band, ultimately leaving on October 20, 1999, after her 5-year contract with the band had come to an end.
The Smashing Pumpkins
Not long after, she joined The Smashing Pumpkins, just after the band had finished the recording of Machina/The Machines of God, and the departure of original bassist D'Arcy Wretzky. She played with the band on their farewell tour, which was in support of the Machina album.
Other collaborations
Auf der Maur briefly toured with former Cars-frontman Ric Ocasek in 1997, after contributing bass and background vocals to his 1997 solo album Troublizing. More notably, Auf der Maur collaborated with French group Indochine on their song "Le Grand Secret," singing a duet in French with Nicola Sirkis, to great acclaim in France. Melissa joined the band on stage to perform the song on various occasions, and appeared in the music video for the song. She performed a rare, short, acoustic set of some of her solo songs during an Indochine show in Paris, February 22, 2002.1 She has contributed bass and backing vocals to childhood friend Rufus Wainwright's albums Scar and Poses, and appears in his 1998 video for "April Fools." In 2008, she collaborated with Canadian musician Daniel Victor, on his music collaboration project Neverending White Lights. They recorded the song The World is Darker, for which a video was released in March of 2008. Aside from this, she has contributed to albums by artists such as Ryan Adams, Ben Lee, Idaho, The Stills and Fountains of Wayne.2
Hand of Doom and The Chelsea
In 2002, Auf der Maur fronted a Black Sabbath cover band called Hand of Doom, in which she performed lead vocals3. They played a number of shows, and released a live album. In the same year, she and drummer Samantha Maloney (another Hole alumna and also formerly of Mötley Crüe, and Peaches), Paz Lenchantin (of A Perfect Circle, and Zwan), and Radio Sloan (of Peaches, The Need) got together to play a show in Los Angeles, California as The Chelsea, taking their name from the Chelsea Hotel in New York, where Auf der Maur lived for a number of years. They performed original songs and some covers. Courtney Love later adopted the band as her backing band while touring for her first solo album, America's Sweetheart. Only Samantha Maloney and Radio Sloan remained of the original line-up, and the band was later renamed to The Courtney Love Band.
Auf der Maur
In 2004, Melissa released her first solo effort Auf der Maur, garnering airplay on modern rock radio stations for the singles "Followed the Waves", "Real a Lie" and "Taste You".citation needed The same year, she appeared on the CBC television program The Greatest Canadian, as David Suzuki's celebrity advocate. Auf der Maur was part of the November 2004 'Love Metal tour' also featuring HIM and 2004's Curiosa. She was also the opening act for Matthew Good's Put Out Your Lights Tour in 2004, as well as for The Offspring's Splinter tour in 2004.
2006–2007
On February 2, 2006, MTV.com reported that Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin had signed a new management deal with Front Line Management, with a spokesperson confirming they had signed under the name "Smashing Pumpkins."4 In response, Auf der Maur said in a separate interview, "As long as Billy has Jimmy, he can make the essential Pumpkins record, I'm sure." When asked of her involvement, she said she was not participating in any reunion plans, but was quoted as saying, "My services are always there to play my favorite songs. If D'arcy is not available, I'm always happy to be second in line."5 Despite her public interest, on April 23, 2007, The Globe and Mail reported that Auf Der Maur would not be rejoining the Smashing Pumpkins.6
In 2006, Auf der Maur was included in Blender magazine's hottest women of rock alongside Joan Jett, Liz Phair, and Courtney Love.7
In 2007, she appeared on the Fountains of Wayne album Traffic and Weather singing backing on the track Someone to Love. Former Pumpkins band-mate James Iha also appears on that album.
Second album
In a 2007 interview,8 Auf der Maur announced that she had finished her second solo album which would go hand in hand with a graphic novel and a concept film, the release dates of which are unclear. The album will be released under the name of MAdM, whereas the comic and film will go by Out of Our Minds, or OOOM for short. A website containing teasers of the projects, as well as a movie trailer, was launched in August, 2007 and can be found at xMAdMx.com. On November 11, an EP9 for the song "This Would Be Paradise" was released on on the official website and iTunes.10 It includes the songs "The Key" and "Willing Enabler".
Photography
Auf der Maur is also an experienced photographer. She was a photography major specializing in self-portraiture at Concordia University when she was invited to join Hole in 1994. Her photos have been published in Nylon, Bust, Mastermind, and American Photo, among other magazines. Her photos were also in the exhibition The Kids are Alright at Sotheby's in New York City along with photos by Yelena Yemchuk. She put together a solo exhibition in 2001, under the name of Channels. It mostly featured shots of Auf der Maur's life on the road, with a recurring TV theme and shots of hotel TV screens, hence the name Channels. The exhibition opened September 9, 2001, at Brooklyn's Secret Gallery, but was shut down after the mayhem of the September 11 attacks.11 A book bearing the same name was set to appear, but never did.
Discography
| Year | Album | Chart positions | Additional information | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. | UK | |||
| 1997 | Troublizing | - | - | with Ric Ocasek |
| 1998 | Celebrity Skin | 8 | 11 | with Hole |
| 2000 | Judas Ø | - | 134 | with The Smashing Pumpkins, bass on track 12 only |
| 2001 | Poses | 117 | 132 | with Rufus Wainwright, bass and backing vocals on track 11 only |
| 2002 | Paradize | - | - | with Indochine, vocals on track 8 ("Le Grand Secret") only |
| 2004 | Auf der Maur | 187 | 31 | Solo debut |
| 2007 | Traffic and Weather | 97 | - | with Fountains of Wayne, backing vocals on track 1, "Someone to Love", only |
| 2007 | Act 2: The Blood and the Life Eternal | - | - | with Neverending White Lights, vocals on track 4, "The World Is Darker", only |
| 2009 | Out of Our Minds | TBC | TBC | Second solo album |
Singles
| Year | Album | Chart positions | Additional Information | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modern Rock Tracks | Mainstream Rock Tracks | UK | Hot 100 | |||
| 1996 | Gold Dust Woman | 31 | - | - | - | with Hole |
| 1998 | Celebrity Skin | 1 | 4 | 19 | 85 | |
| 1998 | Malibu | 3 | 16 | 22 | 81 | |
| 1999 | Awful | 13 | - | 42 | - | |
| 2004 | Followed the Waves | 32 | - | 35 | 531 | solo |
| 2004 | Real a Lie | - | - | 33 | - | |
| 2004 | Taste You | - | - | 51 | - | |
| 2007 | Someone to Love | - | - | - | - | with Fountains of Wayne |
| 2008 | This Would Be Paradise | - | - | - | - | solo |
- 1 indicates the song charted on the Hot 100 Sales Chart.
Notes
- ^ Short review of an Indochine show
- ^ Melissa Auf der Maur discography
- ^ Auf Der Maur MTV Biography
- ^ Smashing Pumpkins Reunion Is Under Way, According To Sources
- ^ Corgan, Chamberlin Revive Smashing Pumpkins
- ^ The Globe and Mail
- ^ Hottest Women of... Rock!
- ^ Film, Comic To Augment Auf Der Maur Album
- ^ http://xmadmx.com/news
- ^ http://app.topspin.net/artist/241254/home?account_id=241254
- ^ Montreal Mirror Artsweek
- Errico, Mike (December 2006). "Hottest Women of. . .Rock", Blender Magazine Online. Retrieved on 9 February 2007.1
- Jones, Rob (April 2004). "Auf der Maur, Mean Fiddler, 13 April 2004", opentomusic.com.2
See also
- List of Quebec musicians
- Music of Quebec
- Culture of Quebec
- List of bands from Canada
- List of Canadian musicians
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Melissa Auf der Maur |
- Official Site
- Official Melissa Auf der Maur Archive
- Melissa Auf Der Maur MySpace page
- Melissa Auf der Maur's personal blog
- Melissa Auf der Maur's advocation for David Suzuki as CBC's "Greatest Canadian"
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Maur, Melissa Auf der |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1972-03-17 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |