Apparently, every young actress in the business wishes she'd become a musician when she was making those all-important career decisions when she was thirteen. Some content themselves with a few weeks in the recording studio with top indie talent and the Tom Waits songbook, but Jena Malone has other ideas. The 23-year-old Malone, who made her acting debut at twelve in 1996's Bastard Out of Carolina and has since appeared in Donnie Darko, Into the Wild, and, most recently, The Ruins, has looking to make her mark in the mad-inventor-genius category, making her the Harry Partch of young indie starlets. Malone, who performs with a band called the Shoe, has built what she calls "a one woman instrument". (As opposed to what, exactly? Is she also working on a banjo that takes six women to strum it?) The instrument is also called the Shoe, indicating that Malone is either really devoted to that word or that she prefers to channel her inspiration into areas other then naming things. Pitchfork Media reports that the band the Shoe, which consists of Malone and pianist Lem Jay Ignacio, "recently embarked on a busking tour of sorts around Los Angeles, one which finds them 'only play[ing] on street corners and underpasses and on rooftops and living rooms,' according to Malone." They've also recorded a six-song EP that they've been selling at gigs.
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