Crazy Mary at Otto's Shrunken Head

Emma Zakarevicius & Charles Kibel

Guitarist Charles Kibel played New York's rock club circuit with Stumblebead in 1988-90 and with the Dead Heroines from 1996-98 before forming Crazy Mary in 1998 with drummer Nick Raisz, a coworker at the Bronx Zoo. In 2002, Crazy Mary recruited the assistance of violinist Walter Steding, a pioneer of the 1970s no wave movement. High energy vocalist Emma Zakarevicius joined in 2007, and became the band's new focal point. Bassist Armand "The Wizard" Milletari joined in 2013. Crazy Mary's seventh and most recent studio album is 2016's Ripples of Chaos.

Crazy Mary is a recurring attraction at Frank Wood's Wind-Down Sundays series at Otto's Shrunken Head, and tonight performed as part of the Five Nights of Wood celebrating promoter Frank Wood's birthday. Crazy Mary is a curious band, in that the quintet played rock and roll but did not play it straight. Kibel's guitar chords sometimes took an unorthodox scale, or Steding's fretless violin changed abruptly from sweet to atonal. Meanwhile, Zakarevicius jumped, twirled and swirled non-stop to the band's primal/tribal rhythms, reminding the audience that even with these flourishes of heady experimentation, Crazy Mary is a party band that inspires some rock and roll dancing.