Music Appreciation

Speaking of “Voices Carry,” the band Til Tuesday has really been keeping it down now for the last 35 years… as in, they haven’t done a show since breaking up as the ’80s gave way to the ’90s. Was the prospect of a reunion a hell-freezes-over situation for singer-songwriter Aimee Mann? Apparently not: whatever obstacles there may have been before, the original group will be performing together for the first time in three and a half decades this weekend, at the behest of Goldenvoice, for the promoter’s annual Cruel World festival in Pasadena.

Mann tells Variety she is personally pleased to reconvene with bandmates Robert Holmes (guitar), Joey Pesce (keyboards) and Michael Hausman (drums). (The latter is someone she has stayed in constant contact with: Hausman gave up performing to become her longtime manager.) In a phone conversation before the band did its most serious rehearsals for this possibly one-time-only gig, she discussed what she was finding most unnerving about reviving the group’s 1980s catalog, which was spread across just three albums (1985’s “Voices Carry,” 1986’s “Welcome Home” and 1988’s “Everything’s Different Now”). As she revisits her own vocals from the group’s earliest material, she says, “I do not understand how that person did it. It’s kind of like you’re trying to sing karaoke and going, ‘Oh, how does this work?'”

There’s a possibility there could be further Til Tuesday shows if this one comes off and the demand is there, she allows. But the band hardly represents her greatest glory, as she went on to a solo career that has seen her blossom into one of the most cherished and accomplished singer-songwriters in the rock world. She’ll be revisiting a somewhat more recent part of her catalogue, the 2002 solo album “Lost in Space,” with a commemorative tour next month. In the meantime, here’s our conversation with her about Saturday’s gig.