Music Thursdays: Marian Call Music

By Nathan Young on June 27, 2013

In the geek and nerd world, there is one singer who is very popular! Marian Call is an American singer-songwriter based in Juneau, Alaska. She is known for her songs containing themes of geek culture, as well as her rise to popularity through the use of the Internet and social networking. Marian Call has so far released three albums and has some very popular songs. The most popular in the geek/nerd world has to be “Nerd Anthem.”

Her career got off to an interesting start. Call graduated from Stanford University in 2004 with a Bachelor’s Degree in composition and vocal performance. She relocated to Alaska, where she spent two years waiting tables and learning the craft of songwriting. Inspired by the commentary track for the Firefly episode “Objects in Space”, she wrote the song “Dark Dark Eyes” and shortly after booked three days in a studio to record what would become her first album, Vanilla, initially a side-project for family, friends, and small Alaskan audiences. However, when fans discovered some of her early tracks on her MySpace page, she realized she was accumulating a fan base.

One of the events that led to Call’s accumulating fan-base came after she entered and won the Sing a Song of Saffron contest. The contest was held by a fan blog for the television series Firefly, and Call won with her song “It Was Good for You, Too”. One of the judges of the contest was Christina Hendricks, who portrayed the character of Saffron, and had this to say about her winning entry, “She sounded just like me! It was fantastic, I really thought it was a good song even if you don’t know the character.”

Marian Call has been on several tours across the U.S. and in Europe. While primarily a vocalist, she occasionally uses a typewriter for percussion as well as the remains of her cat Zippy which are stored in a small tin. She also performs at concerts using a rainstick, which she had autographed by Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, most notably known for their roles in the television series Firefly.

Marian Call writes music from her own self-reflection. Marian is an entertainer at heart and she knows how her music is influencing the music world. Knowing and seeing that warmth in a person changes the perception of the music, and it makes it that much better. Her music has been described by fans as “funky acoustic joy jazz,” she plays eclectic, humorous and heartfelt songs that reaches across all ages and demographics. Her quirky songs are loved by all types — computer geeks, church ladies, teenage groupies, NPR listeners, and urban hipsters worldwide. I enjoy listening to the music from Marian Call and I hope Geek Alabama can do an interview with her one day when she tours the southeastern U.S. (or online)

Marian Call performed “Good Morning Moon” on the TWiT show NSFW. Here’s the video!