By Jimmy Draper

WHEN IT COMES to friends in low places, Garth Brooks has nothing on Carolyn Mark. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find any country artist of late who can capture the travails of a hard-knock life quite like Mark: since the late '90s, the former Vinaigrettes member has been turning her and her pals' desperate, down-and-out days into tunes that make her sound like a randier, rowdier Patsy Cline. What distinguishes Mark from the overly serious crowd is that she packs self-deprecating humor and wit unmatched in today's country music.

"The thing is, if it was just me in front of a brick wall with a glass of water, like in a standard comedy setting, I wouldn't be funny," Mark insists, speaking over the phone from her home in Victoria, British Columbia. "The funny part about my show is that I'm holding a guitar and I'm supposed to be playing it [instead of making people laugh]. That's what makes it funny!"

Mark's humor, at least in her songs, however, is less ha-ha funny than it is of the melancholic, laugh-to-keep-from-crying variety. Her albums are full of big-hearted losers (herself included) who overindulge their vices – booze – to escape the depressing, dead-end aspects of their lives. "Half-aspirations and a deep love of wine keep me down," she sings on 2002's Terrible Hostess. "I'll be loungin' and scroungin' 'til the day that I die." But Mark doesn't romanticize or mock the unfortunate souls in her stories; instead, she uses humor to make the best of their bad situations. Listen to "Chumpville" and "Dirty Little Secret," both rollicking, tongue-in-cheek odes to years-long losing streaks, and it's clear she's enjoying herself far too much to wallow in her misery – an enthusiasm that comes across best in her live shows, which find Mark serving up sidesplitting, between-song stories.

"I'd wanna see someone having a good time if I went to see 'em perform," Mark continues, then laughs dryly. "Of course, there's also the thing that if you look like you're having any fun at all, then people think that you shouldn't be paid. Like that Cat Power girl, she probably gets paid 'cause she doesn't look like she's having fun – it's an interesting trick I'll have to learn. For now, I pretty much get paid in laughs."

Mark's comedic joie de vivre, it turns out, isn't only part of a stage persona. Throughout our interview, she tosses off sarcastic one-liners worthy of Sophia Petrillo, laughs heartily at her own self-effacing jokes, and transforms the Q&A into a gut-busting gabfest. By the end of our oft off-topic chat, we've discussed everything from Los Angeles call girls and smoking pot on the job to the perils of dating guys who drink white wine and her poorly attended Ladyfest Olympia performance in 2000 – where, looking like a C&W Olive Oyl, she wandered over to me and asked straight-faced, "Do the young gays like the new country music?" Bluntness, it also turns out, becomes her.

So does multitasking. Not only has Mark kept an incessant tour schedule in support of her own albums, but she also teams up with Neko Case in the Corn Sisters, singing originals, traditionals, and cover songs. Occasionally the Sisters expand the lineup to include Kelly Hogan, as they did at this year's Noise Pop festival. And Marks has a weekly solo gig at an outdoor Sunday beer bust back home. "The sun plus beer equals acid!" she cackles. "Holy moly, people get rowdy!"

There's more: Mark has also put out a recipe book, MCed folk festivals across Canada, and lent her vocals to records by the Buttless Chaps and Frog Eyes, and she's currently finishing an album of duets with such north-of-the-border pals as Dave Lang, Corb Lund, and the Silver Hearts. "I don't think anyone [outside of Canada] will have heard of them," she says of her collaborators. "I should probably get someone famous and American to sing so it can sell."

That's undoubtedly the lesson she learned from 2002's A Tribute to Robert Altman's Nashville, her highest-profile project to date. On that homage – which, remarkably, was also staged for a one-time-only performance – Mark enlisted such established American talents as Case and Hogan, along with Canadians the Sadies and New Pornographer Carl Newman, among others, to cover songs from the soundtrack to Altman's 1975 classic film. The resulting album was an uproarious good time that, while never prompting a response from Altman, became a cult fave and gave Mark some much deserved recognition – and sales – in the States.

"I actually got more response from San Francisco [about the tribute] than from anywhere else," she says. "There were many concerned letters, like, 'What are your intentions? Is it coming from a place of love, or are you making fun of Nashville?' But, you know, it'd be pretty funny to spend a year doing something that you're making fun of – you'd have to be pretty sick."

Mark's third solo release, The Pros and Cons of Collaboration (Mint Records), should only further her success. As in the past, Mark primarily indulges her favorite theme, escapist drinking – titles include "2 Days Smug and Sober," "The Wine Song," and the inevitable "Hangover" ("Oh, the horror and pain!" she laments) – but now her clever, self-effacing songwriting allows more room for poignancy and emotional heft. Amid the yuks, people face identity crises, take contemplative drives alone in the countryside, and get blotto in their lovers' times of need. The implications of the album's title, then, are as personal and romantic in nature as they are artistic. "I was having a vision quest, if you will," Mark explains. "I was trying to determine if the horror of being alone outweighed the discomfort of being around other people."

Mark may claim she never came up with an adequate answer, but Collaboration makes a strong case – at least artistically – for teamwork. After all, with nearly 20 musicians contributing everything from ukulele and drums to bird noises, the chaotic recording session yielded Mark's finest work to date. "It was like a reality TV show," she says of the three weeks in the crowded studio. "I wish we could've filmed it – there were some funny, funny moments – but the camera would've wrecked everything."

Accurate documentation has long been a thorn in Mark's side – "Do you know how hard it is to make something sound like the way it sounds [live]? It's fuckin' retarded!" – but Collaboration marks the first time she's fully captured the quirky, off-the-cuff charm of her live show. It's also the first time she's translated her hilarious onstage storytelling into song format: the endearing "Yanksgiving" details a rainy, real-life Thanksgiving in Washington state, complete with rounds of Yahtzee and bitching about Toby Keith's scary patriotism. "Chantal and Leroy" finds Mark and her friends stumbling around the East Bay, pissing under overpasses and passing out during sex.

If they sound too mundane and matter-of-fact at first, these winsome, slice-of-life songs ultimately capture Mark's spirit best. Unlike so many country singers who romanticize the hard-knock life as some kind of greater, more authentic existence, Mark is simply writing what she knows. And if there's one thing she's learned from years of living on the cheap, it's that you find pleasure and meaning in the simple things, be they holiday dinners or just wandering around with your closest, drunkest friends.

"Well, someone's gotta be the documenter when everybody's drunk!" Mark says, laughing, when asked about the narratives. "Besides, if I didn't write these songs, I'd wake up and think, 'So I went out and was a drunk maniac last night; what do I have to show for myself now?' "

Carolyn Mark performs Fri/11, 9:30 p.m., Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck, Berk. $8. (510) 841-2082. Also Sat/12, noon, Parkside, 1600 17th St., S.F. Call for price. (415) 503-0393; Sun/13, 8:30 p.m., Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., S.F. $6. (415) 647-2888.