Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, Marshall dropped out of high school and became estranged from her mother, having no further contact with her until she was 24. Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns. Career 1992–1995: Beginnings Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant. Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of