Ex-Mrs Scratch

## The Ex-Mrs Scratch and the Red River Orchestra

* **Record Label:**Danger Zone Records
* **Genre:**Skavoovie/Goblin Rock fusion
* **Formed:**2071
* **Lineup:**Lilian Skarsgaard "Lily Skratch" (Lead Singer/Conductor), Rachel "Rash Mark" Markov (Keyboards/Soundboard), Arnold Betterman "The Better Man" (Tenor Sax), Wilhelm "Scream" Karim (trombone), Thomas "Tommy Tunes" Unneland (Trumpet), James Brennan Teigen "Jimmy Beats" (Drums), Kayleigh "The Moorhead Witch" Johanssen (various), and a rotating roster of two-to-six other local musicians.
* **Most Popular Song:***Hell's Little Red Acre*(winner of the PPU's "Best of the Best: Local Song" 2073)

Lillian Skarsgaard is a walking, singing, promenading example that not all Troll musicians need to be leather-wearing screamers with runic tattoos playing nothing but electric guitars and drums. Not every Troll in a band is Ascomanni Crystal Raider.

While you can say what The Ex-Mrs Scratch and the Red River Orchestra ISN'T, its a little hard to say what it IS. They do play some Goblin Rock, sort of, but Goblin Rock with horns that aren't just on the lead singer's head. Also some improvisational jazz, early 2040's *skavoovie*("4th Wave Ska") beats, a Retrobilly  twang, some WizPunk instrumentation, big, sweeping neo-Classical and some stuff that nobody can quite identify.

Lillian is the daughter of Hugh Skarsgaard, former front man of the Troll-rock band "Horns of Jerikko", which was big locally in the late '40's-early '50's, currently night-manager at Sideways and her mother is Carol (Larson) Skarsgaard, music teacher at Fargo North High School. She grew up with music of all sorts, her dad's band, her mom's classical training. Which led to a quirky, if highly-technical sound that got her invited into and then kicked out of bands all through high-school. So, once she went to college (MSUM) she responded in the only rational way.

By forming her own.

Originally an impromptu trio with her friends Kayleigh and Arnold, they embraced the local band cliche by performing, mostly unplanned, at a party at the Icehouse , fall semester 2070. But the real formative moment was the 4th of July local band contest at the Square Round , summer of '71, when 'Devil Girls (and Boy)', which is what the trio was then calling themselves, just blew everybody else away. Or rather, when "Lilith Spawn's" glass-shattering voice and magnetic stage presence brought "Bestman's" instrumental skill and "Oh, Kay's" technical design up to the next level. It wasn't a contest, it was a victory lap. After inviting the other bands up on the stage to jam for the victory song, a lot of members of other bands ('The JayWalking Dead', 'Top... NOT' and 'Too Drunk To Name a Band' provided all the current core members of XMSRRO), a lot of the other musicians tried out to become part of Lily's band. And, in a moment of peak midwestern nice they chose... ALL of them.

And the Red River Orchestra was born.

After a summer of jamming and practicing in each other's garages, by fall of '71, 'The Ex-Mrs Scratch and the Red River Orchestra' debuted at the Terrarium.  Being theater kids, they had worked up a whole routine, with Lily playing "Lily Skratch" the Devil's ex-wife and all the musical demons she got in the divorce, playing the wickedest, quirkiest music you ever heard and they've been rocking the club scene in Region 3 ever since.

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