Khaela Maricich showcases distinct sound

I first heard Khaela Maricich, alias The Blow, in a Brooklyn American Apparel store on the Fourth of July. I asked my twin sister if she knew the singer, and she met my query with an incredulous, smug "You don't know?" kind of look, before admitting she'd been introduced to Maricich's music by a friend from Turkey.

Maricich, from Portland, was tickled to learn she had a fan in Turkey.

"I heard I'm being played in (clothing store) Forever 21," she said with a laugh. "I hear random reports, like, 'Well, I can't tell you who told me, because they didn't want to admit shopping there, but …'"

The Blow started as a solo project for Maricich, but the last two albums released under the moniker also featured Jona Bechtolt.

"We had this idea to make radio-sounding pop music," she said. "It was something fun to do with him, because he really knows it. He actually listens to the radio all the time.

"We made two records, and then it was like, well, we did that, and for both of us it was time to go do different things separately."

The singer is keeping mum about what's next, however.

"It's a secret," she said. "Can't say! But I'm working on it."

On the surface, the Blow's music is exactly what Maricich set out to create - radio-sounding, indie pop. It's quirky, infectious and, for the most part, light-hearted. Her clear alto voice floats over the electronica backing as she sings about boys, girls and crying in deli aisles. The melodies are simple and the lyrics are straightforward, but she has that indefinable quality that grabs a listener and draws him or her in bit-by-bit, like pulling the stitching tight in a pair of ripped Converse sneakers.

Despite her musical talents, however, Maricich first established herself as an artist. She just moved into a new studio and said among the boxes of older projects and art supplies are a painting of a 12-foot baby from a fashion show and a mascot-style walrus mask.

"I just never really thought of myself as someone who would make music of any kind," she said, adding that she and her friends used to draw together after school.

It's not that she has anything against music, but rather she said "art was sort of in my atmosphere all the time, so I thought that was what I could do."

Maricich said she hung out with the theater geeks in high school and tried out for a musical because it was the thing to do. She ended up really enjoying the experience and realized she had a voice for "weird, alto pop."

"People assume they can't sing because they can't sing like Beyonce," she explained, "I wasn't a soprano, so I thought I couldn't sing. But really, I can just sing weird, other notes."

A move to nearby Olympia, Wash., also sparked her musical interests.

"That's pretty much why I started making music," Maricich said. "It's the main cultural expression, indie music. I was in Olympia at a time when there had been this movement, six or seven years before I got there, of women that had been ferocious, really, really powerful.

"Bikini Kill, the riot grrrls ... I mean, I don't think I've ever listened to Bikini Kill once, but there was this culture of women who were really powerful. Women ran the town. ... I definitely reaped the benefits of that. This kind of violent forefront of 'girl power!'"

Because of this supportive culture for women in music, where a concert bill always included at least one female-centered band, Maricich said she felt respected as a woman musician from the start.

"I think my experience (with discrimination) would be more minimal than most people," she said thoughtfully. "But I've definitely experienced it. There are definitely ways that hipster dudes are pretending to be feminist but are still really Boys Club-y. I think it's a lifelong process for everyone of learning how to stand up for yourself and say what you mean, and learning how to respect yourself.

"It's a funny thing," she continued. "I recognize that I'm in a world that caters to men and where men have the dominant power. I see that, and it's not like I didn't grow up feeling that. But at the same time, my mom is a really powerful person. ... She grew up in a really tiny working-class town in the Midwest, then joined the Marines to get out of it during the Vietnam War in the mid-'60s."

And men are also suppressed by society, she said, albeit in different ways. They're expected to be emotionally disconnected, to be ready to use violence, and so they pour oppression on girls because they're jealous of the female freedom to feel.

"Go to whatever distance you have to to really be yourself, even if it's scary," she said seriously. "It will be scary. It will definitely be scary. But if you have that, then nobody can hurt you. If you're not afraid of being yourself, then nobody can do anything to you, because you already put it out there.

"That's what I would want to be able to give every 11-year-old girl. Or boy. Everyone."

Maricich recommends: Missy Elliott, Bjork, Patti Smith, Blondie Sample lyrics: "I was out of your league/And you were 20,000 underneath the sea/Waiving affections/You were out of my league/At a distance that I didn't wanna see/Wanted you nearer/Your depths made a pressure that punctured my works/And all your fluids couldn't tolerate the force of my thirst/I love the place where we shared our tiny grace/But just because it's real don't mean it's gonna work." - "True Affection"

hilarystohskrause@dailynebraskan.com