Marah’s songs are peopled with the down-and-outers, could-have-beens and never-will-bes most of us studiously ignore as we drive through our decaying city centers, doors locked and eyes averted.
On the highly acclaimed Kids In Philly, the Brothers Bielanko (Dave and Serge) took us on a bus ride through the urban bouillabaisse of their hometown digs. They put a human face on transients, dope-slingers and doomed transvestites in 20,000 Streets Under the Sky, and stumbled home drunk, lonely but ultimately redeemed on last year’s well-received If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry.
Marah’s music is sonically as diverse as the streets they chronicle: Brill Building soul and doo-wop nestling comfortably with Mummer’s March twang and Replacements rock. Dave Bielanko’s lyrics are a potent mix of rapid-fire, street-corner patois and unflinching Luc Sante-meets-the Beats depictions like this (from “Poor People” on If You Didn’t Laugh): “The sink is chokin’ on onion skins/While flies give birth in our bread bins/Box fans exhaling humidity’s winds … The TV cheers as daytime soaps become our careers/A lifetime fuckin’ with the rabbit ears/And we’re tuning into nothing.” The songs don’t patronize or romanticize; mostly they feel lived in. Marah may be a moderately successful rock band, but cautionary tales like “The Demon of White Sadness” suggest the group knows first-hand that street life is just a bad decision or two away.
The Bielankos made one of those when they turned their backs on a small-but-rabid following and went to Britain to record 2002’s Float Away With the Friday Night Gods. The record was produced by Owen Morris (Oasis, the Verve), who managed to bury the very sonic accents and lyrics that were Marah’s strengths. Since that misstep, Marah has steadily stripped its sound back down to rock & roll basics, more in keeping with its celebratory live shows. At the band’s Visulite gig last year, Marah broke out a rousing version of the Replacement’s “Can’t Hardly Wait.” Sonic differences aside, it was a reminder that, like the ‘Mats, Marah takes Oscar Wilde’s aphorism to heart, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Marah plays the Visulite Theatre on Tuesday, June 13 at 9pm with Adam & Dave’s Bloodline; tickets are $10 in advance, $12 day of show.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2006.
