Aimee Mann to Play the Landmark on Main This Summer

Grammy winner Aimee Mann returns to the Jeanne Rimsky Theater at Landmark on Tuesday, June 20 at 8 PM.

You may remember her as the former front woman of the band Til Tuesday, but Aimee Mann's solo career has put her in the forefront of contemporary songwriters. Her clever lyrics and onstage wit makes each of her concerts unique and memorable.

Mental Illness, her first album in five years, was released on March 31 via her own SuperEgo Records. The record follows 2012's Charmer, which Rolling Stone proclaimed "shows off the more pop-oriented side to her usual acoustic tendencies." With this follow-up, she returns to a more musically soft-spoken but still lyrically barbed approach.

Mann remains a student of human behavior, drawing not just on her own experiences to form the characters in the new songs but tales told by friends. "I assume the brief on me is that people think that I write these really depressing songs," Mann says. "I don't know-people may have a different viewpoint-but that's my own interpretation of the cliché about me. So if they thought that my songs were very down-tempo, very depressing, very sad, and very acoustic, I thought I'd just give myself permission to write the saddest, slowest, most acoustic, if-they're-all-waltzes-so-be-it record I could...I mean, calling it Mental Illness makes me laugh, because it is true, but it's so blunt that it's funny."

After several albums with Til Tuesday, Mann began her solo career in 1993 with the album Whatever and made a name for herself through her independent success and the founding of her record label, SuperEgo Records. In addition to her solo albums, she has appeared on many film soundtracks, most notably the song score for Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, with "Save Me" landing her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Original Song.

In 2014, Mann joined up with Ted Leo for a more rock-oriented duo project, releasing a self-titled album under the name The Both. Other extracurricular activities since Charmer ranged from playing herself on the hit TV series Portlandia to performing for President Obama and the First Lady at the White House. Named one of The Huffington Post's "13 Funny Musicians You Should Be Following On Twitter," Mann has gained a diehard social media following for her quick wit and stinging observation.

Special guest Jonathan Coulton, a prolific and witty songwriter and performer in his own right, joins Aimee Mann on Mental Illness on acoustic guitar and backing vocals. In 2004, Jonathan Coulton had a job coding software, but for fun, he'd written some quirky pop songs-and in a bit of skipping-stone serendipity, he got invited to play them at a tech conference. When he sang the rhapsodic bridge of "Mandelbrot Set"-a gorgeously articulated math equation-the audience jumped to their feet, clapping and screaming. In 2005 he quit his "day job" and launched the Thing-A-Week Project, releasing a new song every week for free on the internet. Along the way, he won a reputation as "the internet music-business guy," an artist who communicated directly with his audience, having circumvented the old-school music industry. These days, Coulton is also well-known to fans of NPR as the in-house musician for Ask Me Another.

Tickets are on sale to Friends of Landmark starting Tuesday, April 4, 9 AM. General public sales start Friday, April 7, 9 AM. Tickets for Aimee Mann are available through Landmark's Box Office, 516-767-6444 and online at www.landmarkonmainstreet.org. Premium $69 (Friends $64), Select $59 (Friends $54), Standard $49 (Friends $44) *

Landmark on Main Street is a not-for-profit community center and theater that enhances the spirit and enriches the communities of Port Washington and surrounding regions. Now in its 21st year, it is a unique confluence of local history, culture, recreation, arts and community services. The Jeanne Rimsky Theater is vibrant with concerts, lectures, shows, comedy, and performances. Find Landmark on the web at www.landmarkonmainstreet.org.

*All ticket prices include a $2 facilities fee for capital improvements.

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