We just heard that Kim Gordon is starting her own fashion line, mirror/dash. But what about clothes inspired by rock stars? Stephin Merritt—he of the golf caps and racist controversies—has been honored with his very own line of shoes courtesy of French shoemaker Bluedy. You can see the cute little numbers here. Read More
Stephin Merritt wears brown on the outside because brown is how he feels on the inside. Or something like that. The beloved Magnetic Fields front man explains his penchant for the color that dominates his wardrobe in an interview with New York magazine this week. For one thing, he says, he wears brown Read More
What a double-edged sword 69 Love Songs has become for the Magnetic Fields. Perhaps the apotheosis of Stephin Merritt’s clever talents, it is a sublime piece of novelty that manages to transcend its gimmickry. Yet since that flurry of content, the band has only managed two albums in eight years, 2004’s i and Distortion to Read More
There are two people’s voices I can impersonate well: that of Magnetic Fields frontman Stephin Merritt and Project Runway frontman Tim Gunn. It seems Merritt is forever impersonating as well, or perhaps just exploring the many forms of his beloved pop and rock songcraft. (Alas, Mr. Gunn specializes in another kind of craft, one that Read More
Stephin Merritt wrote and recorded a little ditty called "A Man of a Million Faces" for NPR’s Project Song… um, project.
So for the first installment of a new multimedia experiment called Project Song, All Songs Considered set up a bar for Merritt in NPR’s Studio 4A, an Read More
Tonight, Stephin Merritt peforms with Lemony Snicket in the Union Square Barnes and Noble. Earlier this week, Max Abelson sat down for some chit-chat with the most infamously white man in downtown indie music.
“All the articles begin, ‘Stephin isn’t such an asshole after all!’” said Stephin Merritt on Monday, the night before the release Read More
Stephin Merritt, in a Magnetic Fields publicity shot
Runt, the party for short men and the men who enjoy them, is observed on Wednesday nights in a low-ceilinged half-basement on East Fourteenth Street, between First and Second Avenues, not far from the firehouse and the bike shop. It is a project of the pop Read More
Stephin Merritt, the East Village songwriter who ravished critics last year with 69 Love Songs , is back with something he put together before he finished those three CD’s. Released under the tongue-punishing “group” name the Sixths and called Hyacinths and Thistles (Merge), it too is a tour de force, for Mr. Merritt has convinced Read More
No matter how self-absorbed you are, now and then you have to yield to the blaze of genius, and I had such a moment a few weeks back when I was listening to NPR’s “Fresh Air” and a tortured bass like a cross between Johnny Cash and Morrissey came on singing a bizarre love song. Read More
The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs (Merge).
Stephin Merritt, a 30-ish Yonkers-born resident of the East Village, pals around with a close-knit group of followers and collaborators, always carrying with him, these days, a Chihuahua named Irving, as in Berlin. Right now, his work inspires sane pop insiders to make enormous claims for him as Read More
