Sky Cries Mary

Biography

Sky Cries Mary is a trance rock musical group from Seattle, Washington that formed in the late 1980s. The husband and wife team of Roderick Wolgamott Romero and Anisa Romero sing dual lead vocals. They tend to harmonise in thirds, evoking a mystical feel. Anisa is also an oil painter. Mike Cozzi (formerly of Shriekback) plays guitar. Gordon Raphael (producer for The Strokes) played keyboards until 1999. Ben Ireland plays drums. The first album, from 1989, featured Roderick Wolgamott Romero pla...

Sky Cries Mary is a trance rock musical group from Seattle, Washington that formed in the late 1980s.

The husband and wife team of Roderick Wolgamott Romero and Anisa Romero sing dual lead vocals. They tend to harmonise in thirds, evoking a mystical feel. Anisa is also an oil painter. Mike Cozzi (formerly of Shriekback) plays guitar. Gordon Raphael (producer for The Strokes) played keyboards until 1999. Ben Ireland plays drums.

The first album, from 1989, featured Roderick Wolgamott Romero playing with Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow from The Posies. The second album, released in 1990, featured the same trio, joined by Scott Mercado, Alfred Butler, Stephen Brian-Salit, Mark Ultra, Kevin McCoy and Jeff Guess. The band, after that album, reinvented itself as a septet with the addition of permanent musicians: Roderick Wolgamott and Anisa Romero, DJ Fallout aka Todd Robbins, Joseph E. Howard (aka Joe Skyward), Bennett James, Marc Olsen and Gordon Raphael. Mike Cozzi replaced Marc Olsen on the fifth through seventh albums.

Sky Cries Mary had broken up in 1999, shortly after the release of Seeds, partly due to Gordon Raphael's leaving the band, partly because the members of the band wanted to pursue other callings; but in 2004, the band regrouped with the addition of keyboardist Jill Wangsgard, who also teaches music at the Bush School. They released the album Here and Now, a collection of live recordings from the reformed band's concerts. The band continues to perform every now and then in Seattle, where Ben Ireland and Jill Wangsgard live; unfortunately, Roderick and Anisa live on the East Coast so it's fairly difficult to get the whole band together.

Their song "The Elephant Song" was featured on the soundtrack for the movie The Harvest. Their song "Shipwrecked" was featured on the soundtrack for the movie Tank Girl. Their song "Cornerman" was featured in the movie Higher Learning playing from a jukebox. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.