MS MR at Wrongbar (1279 Queen West), Wednesday (May 22), 8 pm. $12.50. LN, RT, SS. See listing.
If Lizzy Plapinger is stressed, you wouldn’t know it. Her band, MS MR, is already inside pop music’s buzz tornado: they’ve been No. 1 on Hype Machine, and the video for their single, Hurricane, has 1.6 million YouTube hits.
But today is extra-special: it’s the eve of her debut album’s release.
“All the work has been done for ages,” she says of Secondhand Rapture, which she recorded with bandmate and producer Max Hershenow. “We got this record down a month ago, so we’ve had a lot of time to build out the rest of the campaign.”
Today that campaign is full-on. Over the phone from Manhattan at 10 am, she reels off her to-do list with a charming huskiness, the quality that makes her singing voice so distinct.
“I’m going from this to a radio session, to a radio interview, to re-recording a chorus for a single, to a fitting for our first TV performance on Thursday, to getting my hair cut,” she says, at once nonchalant and obviously pumped. Then she’s off to meetings for her record company, Neon Gold, which she’s been running since 2008, before MS MR was a thing.
They’re very much a thing now, signed by Columbia, and their TV network debut coming up on America’s premier late-night talk show: “It’s David Letterman, which is bonkers.”
To celebrate, they’ll probably hit their go-to Chinatown bar, 161. “It serves 40-ounce beers and macaroni and cheese and dumplings they make in the microwave.”
Your classic New York dive bar, says Plapinger, but it’ll do.
“Max and I need to find a time where we can sit down, get out of the madness for a second to recognize what we’ve done. It’s not every day that you release your first album.”
Interview Clips
Lizzy Plapinger on making her first album:
Lizzy Plapinger on keeping her band identity secret:
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