Sky Cries Mary - Small Town (2007)

US outfit SKY CRIES MARY can trace it's history back to 1986, when Roderick Wolgamott Romero first came in contact with performance artist Anisa (later Anisa Romero), sowing the seeds of a musical and personal relationship. Some European complications occured before this relationship bloomed creatively though, and the 1989 debut album Until the Grinders Cease was made with Roderick, John Auer and Ken Stringfellow. Matters were still somewhat complicated in 1990, and for the EP Don't Eat the Dirt Scott Mercado (drums), Alfred Butler (bass), Stephan Byron-Salit (guitars), Mark Ultra (tape AFX), Kevin McCoy (bass, guitar) and Jeff Guess (tape AFX) supplemented the original trio.

Fast forward one more year, and the release of a the EP Exit at the Axis is the first effort of Sky Cries Mary as more of a regular, US-based outfit. Sporting main man Roderick and aforementioned Anisa, with DJ Fallout (scratches, samples), Joseph E. Howard (bass), Bennett James (drums, percussions), Ivan Kral (guitars) and Gordon Raphael (keyboards) making up the rest of the line-up at this point in time.

By 1992 Kral was gone, replaced by Marc Olsen, and this slightly revamped line-up issued the first full length album by Sky Cries Mary as a band unit in 1993: A Return to the Inner Experience. Some more line-up changes was in store for the band though, as a result of the promotion and touring that followed the album release.

When This Timeless Turning was issued in 1994 Olsen and Howard were out of the band, replaced by Juano (bass) and Michael Cozzi (guitars). Tours in the Americas and Japan followed, they appeared on the Conan O'Brian show and had the honour of holding the first ever internet concert to boot. And as the band writes in their biography: 15.000 miles of truckstops. 1996: Even more truckstops.

Moonbathing on Sleeping Leaves follows in 1997, and is their first album for Warner Bros. This was followed by Fresh Fruits for the Liberation in 1998. Cozzi leaves the band the same year, and is replaced by William Bernhard for the 1999 EP Seeds. Shortly after the band decides to go on hiatus, as the individual band members have other projects they want to follow up at this point.

In 2004 they decide to get back together again, and after a legal dispute with their former label they are given back the rights to the band name, and in 2005 they release their first ever live album, the double CD Here and Now. In 2007 their first studio effort for almost 10 years follows in the shape of Small Town, and the latest venture from this US band is the compilation album Space Between the Drops from 2009.