It’s been a decade since The Chronicles of Marnia capped Stern’s initial six-year run as a god of high-caliber NYC shreddage. After that era of overcrowded DIY shows and abundant MP3 blogs—when Stern signed to punk-feminist institution Kill Rock Stars and The New York Times dubbed her 2007 debut “the year’s most exciting rock’n’roll album”—she never stopped playing, though her context shifted considerably.
For eight years, Stern held down a nine-to-five job riffing for a million nightly viewers in the Late Night with Seth Meyers house band. She also got married and gave birth to two sons, in 2016 and 2018, which she calls “everything I could have hoped for.”
She describes the experience of two pregnancies with morning sickness while performing on national television (a puke bucket always fixed behind an amplifier) as “hardcore.”
Now 47, Stern is, in many respects, still the buoyant noise-rocker who exploded into indie consciousness in the late 2000s with a confetti-bomb style of virtuoso guitar tapping and radiant positivity. (Read the full article on Pitchfork)
