SOUNDTRACK: MARAH-Kids in Philly (2000).
After reading about Marah in Hornby’s post I decided to listen to their Kids in Philly CD.
I totally get why Hornby likes them and I can absolutely imagine what their live show would be like.
They’ve absolutely got the whole Springsteen vibe–good time rock and roll with close harmony backing vocals.
There’s a harmonica instead of a saxophone (I prefer the harmonica) on “Faraway You: and there’s even xylophones like on Springsteen’s Christmas song on “Point Breeze.” The horns (and the chanted “come ons”) do appear, this time on “Christian Street.”
“It’s Only Money Tyrone” slows things down with slinky groove and a sound that’s less bar-band. “My Heart is the Bums on the Street” feels like a quieter Springsteen song–classic rock with gentle vibes and a clap-along feel. Although I suppose like he sounds more like Craig Finn than Bruce Springsteen.
“The Catfisherman” is a stomping honky-tonking song with an Aerosmith vibe. “Round Eye Blues” slows things down with a simple melody (in the vein of U2s “With or Without You”). It also recycles all kinds of early rock n roll lyrics into its own melody, which is fun.
“From the Skyline” has a great guitar riff/solo running through it with a bit more distortion thrown on top. “Barstool Boys” sounds a bit like The Replacements’ “Here Comes A Regular” only with banjo. “The History of Where Someone Has Been Killed” adds some acoustic guitar while “This Town” keeps the mood with a quiet album ender.
I am genuinely surprised that this band wasn’t more popular. They would seem to push a lot of classic classic-rock buttons.
I only wish I had some idea why they chose that name.
[READ: June 15, 2019] “Rock of Ages”
After reading Hornby’s 2000 review of Marah I found this 2004 review of Marah. Since I had seen that they later did a tour together, I was curious what this lengthy review would be about. It’s about seeing Marah live and lamenting that a band this good should have to resort to “passing the hat” for tips.
He says
Philadelphia rock ‘n’ roll band Marah is halfway through a typically ferocious, chaotic and inspirational set. My friends and I have the best seats in the house, a couple of feet away from Marah’s frontmen, Serge and Dave Bielanko. The show ends triumphantly, as Marah shows tend to do, with Serge lying on the floor amid the feet of his public, wailing away on his harmonica.
What I love about them is that I can hear everything I ever loved about rock music in their recordings and in their live shows … because they are unafraid of showing where their music comes from, and unafraid of the comparisons that will ensue
This show was at a small pub in England. Which seems a shame since a few months earlier
Bruce Springsteen, a fan of the band, invited the Bielanko brothers to share the stage with him at Giants Stadium for an encore. And they shouldn’t be passing a hat around at the end of the gig, surely? How many people have passed around the hat in the same year that they appeared at Giants Stadium?
He says that “in a world with ears, ‘20,000 Streets Under the Sky would be one of 2004’s most-loved straight-ahead rock albums.”
But this essay isn’t just about Marah. It’s also about still enjoying rock shows when approaching fifty.
I just turned 47, and with each passing year it becomes harder not to wonder whether I should be listening to something that is still thought of as more age appropriate–jazz, folk, classical, opera, funeral marches, the usual suspects. You’ve heard the arguments a million times: most rock music is made by the young, for the young, about being young, and if you’re not young and you still listen to it, then you should be ashamed of yourself.
But when bands like Marah play shows that are exhilarating, it’s hard not to participate. Especially since many rock bands don’t seem to do that anymore.
When I say that I have found these feelings harder and harder to detect these last few years, I understand that I run the risk of being seen as yet another nostalgic old codger complaining about the state of contemporary music. And though it’s true that I’m an old codger, and that I’m complaining about the state of contemporary music, I hope that I can wriggle out of the hole I’m digging for myself by moaning that, to me, contemporary rock music no longer sounds young — or at least, not young in that kind of joyous, uninhibited way. In some ways, it became way too grown-up and full of itself. You can find plenty that’s angry, or weird, or perverse, or melancholy and world-weary; but that loud, sometimes dumb celebration of being alive has got lost somewhere along the way.
Part of the reason for this is because bands have to marketed so specifically these day. So much so that if you don;t find an existing niche,. you’re pretty much a cult object.
But part of the point of it is that its creators don’t want to engage with the mainstream, or no longer think that it’s possible to do so, and as a consequence cult status is preordained rather than accidental. In this sense, the squeaks and bleeps scattered all over the lovely songs on the last Wilco album sound less like experimentation, and more like a despairing audio suicide note.
Of course, some bands certain seek out the margins:
The Guardian recently reviewed a British band that reminded him — pleasantly, I should add — of ”the hammering drum machine and guitar of controversial 80’s trio Big Black and the murky noise of early Throbbing Gristle.” [I had to look them up, they are called Selfish Cunt].
Besides, there’s an image to maintain, right?
In other words, who wants to make art that is committed and authentic and intelligent, but that sets out to include, rather than exclude? To do so would run the risk of seeming not only sincere and uncool — a stranger to all notions of postmodernism — but arrogant and vaultingly ambitious as well.
In truth, I don’t care whether the music sounds new or old: I just want it to have ambition and exuberance, a lack of self-consciousness, a recognition of the redemptive power of noise, an acknowledgment that emotional intelligence is sometimes best articulated through a great chord change, rather than a furrowed brow.
I’m an old codger and I’ve seen more concerts in the last year than most people half my age. I don’t need authenticity. Mostly I just need a band having fun. I had no interest in going to the Marah farewell show, but I’ll bet it was a good one.
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