Marnie Stern - This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is... ((CD))

"A lot of people think everything has to do with luck and timing, and I just don't think that's true," says Marnie Stern, pounding a bar counter to punctuate the word don't. "There are actors that work for 20 years and fade in and out of fame. Keeping in there is the important part."Don't worry; Stern hasn't dropped her trusted Electra guitar or "bitchin'" double-neck Epiphone for a steady regiment of self-help seminars. The New York Times-endorsed, Pitchfork-approved (one reviewer called her "pure Technicolor in a glutted, black-and-white scene") vocalist/guitarist knows what she's talking about, though. After all, she dealt with nothing but blank faces in the early '00s, as the New York native struggled to get noticed among the Strokes/Yeah Yeah Yeahs explosion in the Lower East Side and Brooklyn."Developing my own style took years of taking risks," says Stern. "I know my voice is high, but singing like Yoko Ono was unbelievably embarrassing for me at first. I didn't even want my bes