By Alan Cho
Everyone has fallen in love with Marta Jaciubek. With short coils curling off her head like the dark smoke from a lipstick-stained cigarette and eyes of caramel soaked bed sheets, the lead singer for Girl Nobody is an exotic vision of bedroom beauty with an angelic voice that drip off carmine lips. For most people in the Canadian press, the four other musicians in the band fades into the band’s frontwoman’s graceful shadow.
“I get a little pissed off at this whole ‘Oh my God, this girl can sing and play, she has to be in the spotlight.’ We haven’t been able to get our asses in gear to do photo shoots with all of us. Once we do, the other members will get their faces all over the press and become the darlings that need to deal with that shit,” Marta sighs between the California rolls and spinach in the comfort of their band headquarters in Vancouver.
Jimmy Northey, who does everything from play the moog and guitar to back-up vocals, counters, “It doesn’t piss us off at all. It alleviates all the bullshit from the rest of us. We tried wearing short shorts and stuff, but people weren’t buying it so we just left it to Marta.”
Though the band find themselves caught up in the media push, Girl Nobody, first and foremost, is a band. And as a cross-Canada tour creeps upon them, they eat their last meal (“We’re having a naked sushi party,” informs Jimmy). They’re not going to have much time for posh Japanese cuisine any time soon, with their new album The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be receiving glowing reviews from such publications as the Globe and Mail and the National Post and a double CD to be released in Europe, they’re ready to explode into the cortex of the global pop consciousness. Though critics attempts to staple the band with the label of electro-pop, it’s easily shrugged off as evident in the band’s voracious appetite for all genres of music. Throughout the album, snatches of Latin, Calypso, hip hop infuse the SARS-level hooks and ethereally poetic lyrics.
“We just want to make pop songs that are a little more meaningful. We all read and get inspired by certain images,” agrees Marta. “All of it has to do with a book, actually, Girl Nobody. It’s written by a Polish guy, Pomek Tryzna. A lot of that stuff still sticks in my head. I’ll be sitting there and an image from the book will come up and I’ll write a song about it.”
Marta’s lyrics are propelled by her own instrumentation, and the rest of the band; Joey Turco, Jimmy Northey, Brett Drury and Jeremiah Schneider. The sound they create evokes the most quirky yet elegant images injected into your brain through harmonic frequencies. Check out their song “Aliens.”
As Jimmy explains, “There was a controversial goal that year during the world cup in ’66 in England.”
Marta elaborates, “We all love soccer. I grew up in my hometown [in Poland] which was right by this park that had soccer games every night. So I’d fall asleep to drunk men cheering and whistling, and I just loved it. Anything to do with soccer I think is great, so we kind of said we should write something about that. ‘Aliens’ is about a guy snapping and blaming it on UFOs.”
Harkening to the spirit of the P-Funk, the tour kicks off in Calgary at the Broken City, a new venue dedicated to live music. Jimmy boasts, “It’s the best fucking show ever, it’s so high energy. Picture Edith Piaf fronting The Who live in London.”
After the Flames stand victorious over the limp Tampa Bay, Girl Nobody will step up to perform a show that promises to be electric. Jimmy promises fans, “love and kisses to your pink parts.”
Marta jumps in with a final incentive to their public, “Come and kiss our pink parts.”
They’re prepared to be loved beyond the ever encapsulating media circus, and stand as a united band and not the statuesque icon of sexiness the media craves.