Melissa Auf der Maur, once the bassist for Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins, will play her first solo shows in 15 years. She takes the stage at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto on Jan. 15 and at Le Gesù in Montreal on Jan. 17, Consequence reports. The Toronto performance comes free with general admission to the gallery.
Alex Crow and Betsy Wright will back her up in January. Jessica Moss joins in Montreal as a guest. Behind the band, screens will show projections pulled from Auf der Maur’s own video and photo archives.
A vinyl release is coming, too. Bass Womb Room: My ’90s 4-Track Demos x Field Recordings arrives on Dec. 4 through Envision Records, after a September run on digital and cassette.
Seven of the tracks are demos she wrote and recorded on a Tascam 4-track in her living room back in the 1990s, per Consequence. Eight new “interludes” sit alongside them, made for her museum exhibition and co-produced with Alex Crow. The demos got only one touch: mastering.
“I wrote these songs in the context of rising pressure from the major label-driven music industry on myself and my peers to make glossy hit songs to dominate radio airwaves,” Auf der Maur said, according to Consequence. “These songs are the sound of my internal experimentation and a way of keeping the Montreal art girl alive inside.”
Auf der Maur was born in Montreal in 1972 and now lives in Hudson, New York. Her band Tinker had opened for The Smashing Pumpkins when Billy Corgan suggested her to Courtney Love as Hole’s new bassist, according to Consequence. She played on Hole’s GRAMMY-nominated album Celebrity Skin. Then she joined The Smashing Pumpkins for their farewell tour from 1999 to 2000.
Her second solo album, Out Of Our Minds, came out in 2010. After that, she stepped away from music. She became a mother and helped start the art center Basilica Hudson. Her teenage daughter pushed her to come back, Happy Mag reports.
This year brought two books. One is the memoir Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A ’90s Rock Memoir. The other is a 240-page photobook, My ’90s Rock Photographs. An exhibition with the same name stays at the Art Gallery of Ontario through June 6, 2027, according to Consequence.
Auf der Maur is on a book tour in Europe. Her remaining dates include a Friday, Nov. 13 book-signing appearance at Yvon Lambert in Paris, France, followed by a Saturday, Nov. 14 appearance at Gaîté Lyrique Auditorium, also in Paris, where she will be in conversation with Sophie Hackett. She will head to Berlin, Germany, for appearances at Fotografiska Berlin on Tuesday, Nov. 17, and Prachtwerk on Thursday, Nov. 19.
Her live performances resume in January with a Jan. 15 show at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Ontario, followed by a Jan. 17 performance at Le Gesù in Montreal, Quebec. Find tour dates on her website.
