Friends of Bob January '06 enewsletter
Thursday, February 16 / 7:30
A must-see show!!!!
Marah
+ special guests
Adam & Dave's Bloodline
Lafayette Brewing Co. /doors 7:00 showtime 8:00
$10 (advance) $12 (day of show)
from Lafayette Brewing Co. , Von's Records, JL CDs, and McGuire Music. [Advance by mail $11; checks to
FoB, Box 59, Battle Ground, IN 47920; please give name, address, phone, and email.]
"In the reckless hands of Marah, rock & roll is alive and well." Rolling Stone
"These guys could give Bruce Springsteen and James Brown a run for their money when it comes to
energy."
Todd Leopold's list of 2005's top albums on CNN.com
"Probably the best rock band in America that nobody knows."
Stephen King, naming the Marah's new album "If You Didn't Laugh, You'd Cry" the best album of 2005 in
Entertainment Weekly
"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."
Nick Hornby New York Times
"One of the finest rock'n'roll bands never to hit the big time."
www.friends-of-bob.org
www.marah-usa.com
The London Times
Marah (rhymes with 'hurrah') is one of the most exciting rock and roll bands you
will ever see. They give it all they've got. That's a big part of what they are about.
Including Marah's most recent album If You Didn't Laugh You'd Cry in his Best
Albums of 2005 list at CNN.com, Todd Leopold made the statement: "These
guys could give Bruce Springsteen and James Brown a run for their money
when it comes to energy." (In fact Springsteen contributed vocals to Marah's
Float Away With The Friday Night Gods album, and he had them open his Giants
Stadium concert last year.) Similarly, when Stephen King named If You Didn't
Laugh You'd Cry as THE BEST album of 2005 in Entertainment Weekly, he
referred to the band as the American U2. Other bands they are often compared
to are the Rolling Stones, Guided By Voices, and The Replacements. Have
no doubt that this will be an exciting, memorable show.
But it isn't just excitement and rock-and-roll attitude that makes Marah a
great band: superb songwriting, great vocals (you know how particularly powerful
2 brothers singing together can be-well Dave and Serge Bielanko definitely have
that going on), and terrific chops. This is a major band. To quote from the
Entertainment Weekly piece again, "(Marah is) probably the best rock band in
America that nobody knows."
We need your help! Marah's current album made it to lots of national '05 best-of listsand they are coming to a bar in Lafayette!!! If you have friends you think might enjoy this show,
please encourage them to be there. Let's get this band the crowd it deserves (and not lose our
shirt).
Richard Fudge's endorsement as encouraged by Randy Ross: When I expressed to Randy
my disappointment that our crowd for Chuck Prophet last September hadn't been bigger, I
mentioned that if I had to list my top 5 current performers, Prophet would make the list.
Disappointed to have missed the show he pointed out: "Well that's the sort of thing you need to
be telling us! Not what the New York Times thinks." So, I'll say it…Marah would also be in my top
5. They are one of the best bands around at the moment and certainly put on an incredible show.
R.F.
Please help us publicize this show by downloading a poster from our website:
www.friends-of-bob.org
&
At our February 6 FoB meeting we will discuss-among other things-the changes to our
Articles of Incorporation & By-laws that were described in our last newsletter. We meet at 7:30,
downstairs at the back of the Lafayette Brewing Company. Everyone is welcome and encouraged
to attend. The most significant changes are as follows:
 3 directors will be elected for a 2-year term at the Annual Meeting in May; 3 more will be elected the
following year;
 to vote at the Annual Meeting a member must have paid dues by March 1st;
 if you wish to proxy your vote to someone else you must have done so in writing to FoB, Box 59, Battle
Ground, IN 47920 by March 1st.
Do the Dues!!! Membership dues are by the calendar year-2006 dues
are now due!
&
Dues pay for this newsletter and provide a safety net for when admission charges don't cover
expenses. Please help us keep the music coming. Become a Friend of Bob! Dues are $10 per
person. If you can make a donation above the $10 we would greatly appreciate it, and since we
are a 501[c][3] not-for-profit organization, donations above the dues are tax-deductible. If you
have an asterisk by your name on the label of this newsletter, you have already paid your 2006
dues. The following people have already sent in their 2006 dues. Thanks from us all!
Jean Andres
Dan Annarino
Peter C. Bjarkman
Donna Bourne
Liz Brooks
Peter Bunder
Kenn Clark
Tom Cole
Jim & Terri Cravens
Marge Deveral
Michael & Marilyn Hines
Herry Hunley
Stewart Frescas
Richard Fudge
Vince & Sherri Guido
Ted Harris
Dave Hewitt
Sharon & Rick Howard
David Kemmerer
Jane Kinkus
Bill Knapp
LuAnn Lamie
Bruce Lehman
Stephen Liebbe
Anne & Jim Martin
Ken McCammon
Jim & Brenda McDowell
John & Georene McKnight
Sharon Dressen McKnight
Robert F. Mertz
Steve & Lisa Nail
Shruti Poulsen
Alan Rainey
Scott Randolph
Meredith Richmond
Cynthy Scruggs
Lee & Rona Schwarz
Beverly Shaw
Rita & Larry Smeyak
Kent Stembel
Kevin Strunk
Linda Swihart
Dan & Margie Towery
Rick Westerman
Ronnie B. Wilbur
David & Tam Wilensky
Like to join?
Go to How Can I Help? at
www.friends-of-bob.org
Please consider a tax-deductible gift to FoB.
Other dates for your calendar:
Sunday, March 19, 7:30; FoB presents from Ireland Dervish; tickets on sale February 17; see
www.friends-of-bob.org
Sunday, April 23, 7:30; Duncan Hall; FoB presents Crooked Still + Jawbone (with Tony
Trischka)
Lafayette Brewing Co.: 2/4 Michael Kelsey; 2/10 Oteil & the Peacemakers; 2/25 Cornmeal; 3/4
Buckwheat Zydeco
Indian Classical Music Society at Purdue: 2/25 Deepak Ram, flautist, Duncan Hall
Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society: 2/19, Duncan Hall, African-American Composer
FoB Organizational Meeting: Monday, February 6, 7:30 @ LBC
downstairs.
All welcome
In 1998, Marah released their debut album 'Let's Cut The Crap and Hook Up
Later On Tonight,' on tiny indie label, Black Dog Records. That record was the
calling card of a band taking small steps in pursuit of a big future. Rolling Stone's
David Fricke describes it as "what 'Exile on Main Street' would have sounded like
on a Folkways Records budget."
Given this kind of reception, it would be all too easy for Marah to keep mining the
same vein -- but they yearn for change. In the past, this yearning has led Dave
and brother Serge so far as to get rid of almost everything they owned, giving up
their apartments and even leaving their beloved Philadelphia to find inspiration.
"We became so closely associated with the city," Dave explains, "that we just hit
the wall creatively. The songs were there, but they just weren't coming together
as we were hearing them. Serge and I just looked at each other and said: Let's
get out of town, now!" But for fans fearful that new approaches mean the end of
Marah as they know and love it, the band says, "You can't take away what we
are - you can only bring something else to it. This band has been and always will
be a rock & roll band, no matter what, and I think all of our records reflect a broad
range of 'rock' influences. You can't be stagnant, you've got to make it
interesting, exciting rock & roll -- that is the goal with each of our records."
Marah released a couple of records on Steve Earle's Artemis label and just
released their 3rd album on Yep Roc If You Didn't Laugh, You'd Cry in 2005. It
received rave reviews, such as one by Tim Sendra at All-Music.com: "Marah will
never make the widespread cultural impact of (Dylan and Springsteen) and this
record won't make them rich or famous, but it is a monster rock & roll album that
you flat-out need to hear, their best yet. And that is really
saying something.
Meredith Ochs' Top 10 CDs of 2005 npr.com
Marah: If You Didn't Laugh You'd Cry
It's a summation of their career as a band: if you didn't laugh, you'd cry. It's a hoary
notion, the band that's too good for its own good. It's a rock cliche, two brothers whose
considerable talents simultaneously compete with and compliment one another,
sometimes ending in someone's ass getting kicked, but more often ending in songs that
kick yours. Dave and Sergre Bielanko of Marah did for South Philly what Springsteen
did for Asbury Park, channeling its streets and smells and characters into winsome,
unforgettable tales. On their latest, there's as much mid-career Stones influence as there is
the Boss, and it puts songs like "The Hustle" in the running for song of the year.
All-Music.com Review of Marah's Kids in Philly by Stanton Swihart
Kids in Philly is stunning in its diversity, and even more stunning in its ambition. The
album forges its own confident, note-perfect rock & roll sound, while practicing the type of
effortless stylistic hopping that hadn't been executed to such wonderful effect since the heyday of
the Fab Four. It is a relentlessly infectious and mature album that displays an uncommon artistic
authenticity. You would be hard-pressed to pinpoint Marah's direct precedents because their
music is an entirely singular innovation. There are moments that recall both Bob Dylan
(particularly the lyrical insight) and Bruce Springsteen, the roots rock and the white soul of early
solo Van Morrison, while "Round Eye Blues" has the same slinky beat that lurks in "Every Breath
You Take." Sonic touchstones pulled from the great eras of rock music's hallowed past -- bonecrunching acoustic guitar runs, punchy soul horns, block-party gospel background vocals, and
ever-present banjo -- are boldly injected into the songs without reservation, but the album exhibits
a vision that is quite personal and entirely unique from anything that came before it. David
Bielanko's smoke colored, wisp-and-whine voice alone is the type of hallmark that is impossible
to forget, but more impressive is Marah's musical invocation of Philadelphia, from the clever
lyrical references to Todd Rundgren in "Point Bronze" to the shaggy-eared Philly soul beat of "My
Heart Is the Bums on the Street." The city is not, however, just a colossal sonic influence on the
album. Marah is spiritually and psychologically connected to every nook and cranny of its
hometown, and Kids in Philly is literally a portrait of and homage to the city in the same way that
Hotel California encapsulated mid-'70s Los Angeles. When listening to the album, every street
and alley becomes crystal clear due to the band's mind-boggling lyrical gift. There is a real and
complex viewpoint and storytelling acuity running through the album, whether it be the bus ride
heartbreak of "Faraway You" or the staggering depth of "Round Eye Blues," on which a bitter
Vietnam veteran tells his tale, an astonishing piece if one stops to consider the observations
being spoken actually come from the mouths of twenty-somethings. The album contains one gem
after another, and it leaves you feeling like you have just listened to one of those landmark
musical achievements.
Marah Stick to Their Roots GREG HELLER Rolling Stone
It's almost inconceivable that something like Philadelphia's Marah could exist and grow in our
current musical climate, soulless and vapid as it often is. In stark contrast to the fleeting, shrinkwrapped, mousse monkeys currently spinning on your local alternative radio station, here's a
quintet of organically grown, skilled, tight players with a deep foundation in history, devotion to
tradition and unrestrained zeal for the splendor and salvation of ramshackle rock. Fronted by the
brothers Bielanko -- Dave (twenty-six), and Serge (twenty-eight) -- Marah (Old Testament speak
for "bitter") have crafted a remarkable sophomore effort in Kids in Philly.
With a young Springsteen's gift for stream-of-thought urban poetry, the Replacements '
indomitable spirit of drink-up and conquer, Booker T's bottomless soul and the Band's firm grasp
on staying loose, the guys have drawn some hefty helpers to their corner. Hard-core troubadour
Steve Earle signed them onto his E-Squared label and asked him to open his recent U.S. stint, a
slot they similarly filled on the Black Crowes sweep with Jimmy Page. The man who discovered
and later managed the Replacements, Peter Jesperson, is fond of saying they'll "save rock &
roll," as is author Stephen King, who, besides turning up in a Marah tee in the New York Times
Magazine, was not long ago overheard arguing with High Fidelity author Nick Hornby over who is
a bigger fan of the band.
"Once you walk into the door of the music industry, you pretty much go straight to the
room you're supposed to be in," says Dave Bielanko, as he takes in a pre-soundcheck smoke at
L.A.'s perennially cool Spaceland, a venue they'll pack and rock later that night. His scruffy looks
recall Goo Goo Doll Johnny Rzeznik when he was still just some schmo from Buffalo (premakeover, that is), and his gruff voice suggests Christian Slater with emphysema. "You find these
people almost immediately. All we did was make a record. We never went looking for anything."
Though their 1998 debut, Let's Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later On Tonight, impressed
countless folks, including Blue Mountain's Cary Hudson, who picked the album up for his Black
Dog Records, and Earle, Marah initially chose to avoid the circus. Holing up in their homemade
studio with an unknown producer named Paul Smith, they set about making Philly, a kitchen-sink
block party where twangy banjos, clunking pianos and swingin' horns find a home in perfectly
painted songs about passing time in Pennsylvania and trying to find an outlet on a dead-end
street.
"We did this album without anybody's help, without anybody's money," Dave says
proudly. "We literally almost had to tape over our first record to make this one; we couldn't afford
more tape. Steve [Earle] did loan us a couple of microphones, but that's about it."
"When we were done," he continues, "it was like, 'OK, of all of these labels, who wants
this music the most and whose gonna care for it best?' We met with A&R guys, from major labels,
who had never heard of the record Exile on Main Street! We brought it up and they were like,
'What's that?' That's scary and weird, and that's the business. So Steve Earle got the gig."
A sense of history, rock & roll and otherwise, is an essential element of what makes Kids
in Philly click. "Christian St." opens with a lightening speed intro from legendary Pennsylvania DJ
Hy Litt (longtime Phillies' mic man Harry Kalas guested on Let's Cut the Crap). "Round Eye
Blues" translates author Bill Ehrhart's "Vietnam-Perkasie" into a war memoir shuffle so moving
you forget these chaps were barely born during that particular conflict. There are references to
Jackie Wilson and Otis Redding and Todd Rundgren and Mr. Coffee.
Marah -- the Bielankos, bassist Joe Hooven, drummer Mick Bader and lap steel/utility guy
Mike Brenner -- have been on tour since March, hitting every club their schedule's allowed for
between stage warmings for Earle and the Crowes/Page thing. Sharing Motel 6 rooms and
subsisting more on character than catering, they're a throwback to the days when bands worked
not because they necessarily wanted something in return, but because they couldn't imagine
what else they'd be doing.
"If we got dropped tomorrow, we would keep doing what we're doing and I think people
would keep connecting with us," Dave says. "People will always connect with something they see
as sincere. The industry is incidental to the band. Fucking FM radio in the United States is so piss
poor today, to fight that battle, you've gotta have a sense of humor and look at that stuff as
peripheral. The music that's being churned out is so temporary, no one will care about it in a year.
Even Eminem, singing about Britney Spears and Tom Green in a song? It's like Weird Al. People
don't realize it now. They think, 'How great, music for the moment!' But listen to that in three years
and it will be Weird Al.
"There's something a little more timeless about what we're doing," he continues. "For
every record we sell, we're making a fan, possibly a fan for life."
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