Commercialization be damned…

Their art firmly rooted in the 60s, Crazy Mary has been around the NYC music scene for a dozen years. You will find their genre somewhere in the rock/ progressive rock/ Alternative/ Underground spectrum. What you won’t find is a band that produces sounds to get “discovered” by a major label. They write, perform and record music they’re passionate about.

Formed by veteran Lower East Side guitarist and songwriter Charles Kibel and drummer Nick Raisz, Crazy Mary has been conjuring its refreshingly oddball avant-garage rock since 1998. A bubbling cauldron of chiming and scraping guitars, creepy organ, spacey, experimental sounds, Dada-ish pranksterism, and absurdly danceable rhythms, the band distills it all into a surreal cocktail of post-punk/psychedelic weirdness. And now, with the recent additions of legendary underground violinist Walter Steding and expatriate Australian vocalist Em Z, things have gotten even weirder. In a good way, of course.

We sat down with Charles, Nick and Walter to talk tunes– and came away with a finer understanding of the music theory, intellect and artistic juices that fuel this impossible-to-button hole band.  NOTE: interview begins at the 6:00 min mark of the show.

Spotlighted are six tunes off their newest album, Water On The Moon.



* Eyes Above the Clouds

* Orgasmic Annie

* Gravity

* Way Too Freaky

* Another Dollar

* Black Candles