Mary Bue // The Wildness of Living & Dying Album Release Party with special guest Mae Simpson Duo
Photo by Ilia Stockert
Sunday, February 16, 2025
6 pm Doors // 7 pm Music
All Ages
$35 ($43.85 w. taxes/fees) VIP Seating (including premium seating + complimentary glass of bubbly)
$20 ($26.55 w. taxes/fees) Advance General Admission // $25 ($29 w. taxes/fees) At The Door
Ticket purchases are final and non-refundable
Facebook RSVP
Minnesota music at its best! Singer/songwriter Mary Bue celebrates the release of her highly anticipated, soaring new album, The Wildness of Living & Dying. Her ninth release, the album exquisitely showcases Mary’s remarkable ability to blend raw honesty and her warm, folk/pop sensibility.
Opening the night is award-winning folk, soul, and rock artist Mae Simpson, renowned for her powerful vocals and energetic live performances.
Photo by Ilia Stockert
Often roaming this beautiful world, Mary Bue is a songwriter, international retreat guide, and yoga teacher based in Minneapolis. Named Best Songwriter of 2020 by City Pages, her music touches upon archetypal themes of the human condition: love, loss, survival, dreams, and the natural world. A longtime student of yoga and psychology, Mary weaves sacred subject matter into her songs, seeking deeper levels of consciousness, and concern for the environment mixed into an oft-crass, real-world hue.
The collection of songs in her ninth album, The Wildness of Living & Dying, contemplate issues of trauma, uncertainty, compassion, and healing with music. They were composed in the years surrounding a traumatic carjacking experience in late 2020 and express strength in vulnerability, resilience of the human spirit, the growth experienced within a cycle of destruction, and, ultimately, transformation.
Prolific, lyrical, and gritty, Mary’s performances are warm and laced with quirky humor and stories of her adventures (and misadventures). A survivor and advocate, Mary is often invited to perform and speak about her healing process surrounding #MeToo, of which she shares in her song “Petty Misdemeanor” (The Majesty of Beasts, 2017).
Not one to bow to popular music trends, Mary has stayed true to her own sound, evolving and about to emerge, butterfly-like, with support from her band collaboration, The Monarchy (a nod to the Monarch butterflies species), featuring local musicians Steve Price, Jeremy Ylvisaker, Richard Medek, Shannon Frid-Rubin, and Julia Floberg.
“I don’t let myself be lifted by just anyone, but I can trust Mary. She means it.”—Alan Sparhawk (LOW)
“…veers between fiery ‘90s fuzz-rock, bittersweet melodic pop and intimate, Stevie Nicks-ish gypsy musing.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“…true representation of what our current world is going through and at the same time, how love is always a timeless message.”—Music in Minnesota
Photo by Ilia Stockert
2020’s The World is Your Lover – produced by The Suburbs’ Steve Price – is a synthesis of her releases of the past 20+ years, merging pianos and guitars, spiritual longing, and real-world sorrow. Her previous albums achingly express life in melancholy piano-poems, yet in 2015 Mary risked a genre switch to aggressive electric guitars, concise lyricism, and a nod to 90s grunge.
In January 2020, Mary traveled to Rishikesh, India at the base of the Himalaya (where the Beatles & Donovan studied with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) to further her yogic studies (certified instructor since 2009). She attended Nada Yoga School to study Nada Yoga – the Yoga of Sound. Sanskrit mantras, lessons in harmonium, voice, and sitar, yoga asana, pranayama, meditation, and purification techniques were practiced to invite a pure vessel for deeper experiencing & creation of sound.
An accomplished recording artist and touring musician, Mary’s studio albums manage to capture her electrifying stage presence. Mary’s last four albums were 100% fan-funded via Kickstarter. She has been awarded multiple Artist Residencies including The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico ~ Taos, NM; “Escape to Create” Artist in Residence at The Seaside Institute in Seaside, FL; and Big Cypress Nature Preserve Artist in Residence in Ochopee, FL. Over many years, 40+ states, hundreds of thousands of miles and countless venues from tiny coffee shops to large outdoor festivals, Mary has shared the stage with many talented musicians, including Shawn Colvin, Low, Cloud Cult, The Suburbs, Charlie Parr, Erin McKeown, Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde), Emm Gryner, Kathleen Edwards, Marissa Nadler, Rose Polenzani, Jess Klein, Sarah Borges, Mason Jennings, HALEY, Jack Johnson, Vetiver, Cory Chisel, Nicole Atkins, Jeremy Messersmith, Anaïs Mitchell, Audra Kubat, Vandaveer, Chris Bathgate, Chris Trapper, and more.
Mae Simpson leaves it all on the stage. Hailing originally from South Carolina, Mae has been passionate about singing and creating music for as long as she can remember. Her broad and soulful voice is the passage to a deep well of creative energy. As well as her rocking band Mae knows how to get back to her roots with a broken-down set with guitarist Jorgen Wadkins. The Dynamic Duo pulls together all pieces of who they are. Simpson has opened for acts including Dermot Kennedy, Grace Potter, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Robert Clay, Ike Reilly, and Langhorn Slim.