Mary Lou Lord has finally completed assembling material for her

major label debut. Early next month the semi-famous street busker will enter an

L.A. studio with the Bevis Frond's Nick Saloman to record the songs, some of

which were written or co- written by Saloman. Tentatively slated to assist on

drums and bass are the Foo Fighters' William Goldsmith and Team Dresch's Donna

Dresch, respectively. Lord hopes to release the album in the fall. In the

meantime, she's keeping eager fans at bay with her third release for the Kill

Rock Stars label, the newly issued five-song Martian Saints EP.

Two

years ago Lord was the subject of public courting from several major labels.

She eventually signed with the Work Group (part of the Sony-owned group of

labels) in April 1996. Deciding which label to join, however, was only one of

the factors that postponed her start on the upcoming album. The disc could have

been recorded last fall but producers Rob Shnaff and Tom Rothrock couldn't git

it into their schedules.

But the most important element delaying the record

was Lord's own sense of timing. "I understand this business a little bit," Lord

said by phone from her home in Boston. "I needed the timing to be right in my

head for what I was foreseeing.

"I understand about trends and things

like that, but I do also understand about timing," continued Lord. " I didn't

want to be stuck in the middle of a wave I was going to swept up in. And if you

want to call it the 'girl sound,' or the 'girl signing frenzy' thing, then I

don't care, I just didn't want to be part of that.

The new Martian Saints EP, on the other hand,

contains just one Lord original ("Salem '76") in addition to four songs by

other people. The title track was written by Saloman specifically for this EP;

other cuts include songs originally by Pete Droge ("Sunspot Stopwatch") and the

late Pere Ubu founder Peter Laughner ("Cinderella Backstreet"). The EP's

remaining number ("I Figured You Out") is by Lord's Kill Rock Star compadre

Elliott Smith (ex-Heatmiser), whom she calls "the best songwriter in the

country right now.

Martian Saints' four-to-one ratio of covers to

originals is keeping in line with the track record set by Lord's other

releases. Five of the eight songs on her 1995 EP were covers, for example. Lord

makes no apologies to the detractors who bemoan her penchant for recording

others' work instead of her own.

"I get so much shit, but I don't care.

Some people are born with [natural songwriting ability]. If they are passionate

about this business, everyone should recognize their position, and if their

stronger points are in a different area, go with them. I think my stronger

points are my ears, and what I can lend and give back to a song, once I do

rediscover it. It's sort of like an archivist. It takes a long time to dig

through record libraries. You can't run around all day with a radio stuck to

your head, and hope that the DJ guy will play stuff that you may be interested

in. It's expensive, you have to spend a lot of money on it if you're not a DJ,

or if you don't work for a magazine, and it's time consuming.

For those

who have now heard Lord's name bandied about in the music press for several

years, it may seem incredible that she has yet to release a full-length album.

"I think a lot of people are kind amazed at how much I've been able to stretch

myself over such a tiny catalog. I'm not very prolific, you know? I think it's

because I've done a lot of footwork. I haven't had a lot of radio airplay, but

I've made my own airplay by being in the air, and throwing my music in the air

in real time, either standing on the corner after [the] Bumbershoot [festival],

following a band around, or playing in the subway, or just being out there

playing--that's what I do. Knowing that I don't have a huge catalog, that's

basically what I try to do is make myself available to be to be

heard.

Lord assures her doubters that the wait for the new record will be

worthwhile. "Just because I don't sign right away, or that I don't come out

with a record right away doesn't mean that it's not gonna be a good record when

I finally do. It doesn't mean that I've missed my chance--it means that I give

a flying shit. It means that I care, that once this record does finally come

out it will be good. It won't be just like, 'I can't miss my time because I got

all this press right now, so I have to get it out right now.' That's

bullshit.

"If I'm gonna put out a record, it's gonna be a good record," she

insisted. "And if it takes me seven years to do it, it's still gonna be a good

record.