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Mary Timony Is an Indie-Rock Hero. Her Other Gig? Mentor.
The songwriter and guitarist has long been a staple of the Washington, D.C., scene. Teaching guitar to young students helped her realize she has even more to offer.
Reporting from Washington, D.C.
In the dining room of her cozy home in Washington, D.C., Mary Timony retrieved her lute from an instrument case that, she joked, “looks like a cat coffin.” Timony, 53, has been on a learning kick recently. “Literally all I’m working on is this,” she said, demonstrating how the so-called thumb-under fingerpicking method strays from traditional guitar technique.
Timony is well known as a guitarist and frontwoman: In the 1990s she headed up the bands Autoclave and Helium, then released solo records before joining Wild Flag, an indie-rock supergroup. Ex Hex, her classic rock and power-pop trio known for catchy songs and rafter-reaching guitar solos, has released two albums since 2014; her latest solo LP, “Untame the Tiger,” written and recorded in the midst of a breakup as she cared for her dying parents, arrived earlier this year.
But to many young people of D.C., Timony is highly regarded as something else: a mentor to the next generations of women pursuing their passion for indie rock.
For more than two decades, Timony has instructed students how to play licks from classic rock songs (among other things) in the guitar- and amp-filled basement of her 1920s home on a tree-lined street, where a framed portrait of a young Joe Walsh watches on. Early pupils remember the experience fondly.
“She was super supportive and made me feel excited about playing guitar,” Anna Wilson, 24, said. “She put me in my first band when I was 10.” She now plays guitar and pedal steel in Timony’s touring band.
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