After playing on the streets in Boston and London in the early '90s, singer-songwriter-guitarist Mary Lou Lord launched a quirky career that included the single "About a Boy," which allegedly referred to Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, with whom Lord was said to have had an affair. The track was her first of several releases on the Kill Rock Stars label. Naturally, Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, publicly derided Lord for this disclosure, and the rock press had a minor field day with the spat.

Lord's major-label debut, Got No Shadow, came out in 1998 and included songs by Bevis Frond (a.k.a. Nick Saloman) and Freedy Johnston, among others. Curiously, while promising, the album did not feature her playing guitar but instead relied upon such guests as Roger McGuinn and Nels Cline to do the strumming.