Originally posted by xneverwherex:
Originally posted by The Artist Formerly Known As grotty:
So I started pulling out some tickets I have for upcoming shows and just realized I've got this 10 day endurance event coming up:
Wednesday 6/8 Marah
where is marah playing? im guessing somewhere in PA? would love to catch them sometime.
The best small venue in Pittsburgh - 120 capacity Club Cafe on the SouthSide. If you are ever in town - check it out for shows.
Tho Marah's last 2 records have been less than stellar, they are still an incredible live act.
This is what Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) had to say about Marah in a monthly column he writes about books:
marah Nick Hornby | 2004-03-30
â?¦This month the cultural highlight was a rock and roll showâ??two shows, actually, one of which took place in a pub called the Fiddlerâ??s Elbow in Kentish Town, North London. The Fiddlerâ??s Elbow is not somewhere you would normally expect to find your most memorable drink of the month, let alone your most memorable spiritual moment, but there you go: God really is everywhere. Anyway, against all the odds, and even though they were fighting above their weight, these shows punched the books to the floor. And, they were good books, too. Five or six years ago, a friend in Philly introduced me to a local band called Marah. Their first album had just come out, on an indie label, and it sounded great to me, like the Pogues reimagined by the E Street Band, full of fire and tunes, and soul and banjos. There was a buzz about it, and they got picked up by Steve Earleâ??s label E-Squared; their next album got noticed by Greil Marcus and Stephen King (who proudly wore a Marah T-shirt in a photo shoot) and Springsteen himself, and it looked like they were off and away. Writing this down, I can suddenly see the reason why it didnâ??t happen for them, or at least, why it hasnâ??t happened yet. Steve Earle, Stephen King, Greil Marcus, Bruce, meâ?¦none of us is under a hundred years old. The band is young, but their referents, the music they love, is getting on a bit, and in an attempt to address this problem, they attempted their ancient fans with a noisy modern rock album. They succeeded in the alienation, but not in finding a new audience, so they have been forced to retreat and retrench and rethink. At the end of the Fiddlerâ??s Elbow show they passed a hat around, which gives you some indication of the level of retrenchment going on. Theyâ??ll be OK. Their next album will be spectacular, and theyâ??ll sell out Madison Square Garden, and youâ??ll all be boasting that you read a column by a guy who saw them in the Fiddlerâ??s Elbow. Anyway,
the two shows I saw that week were spectacular, as good as anything, Iâ??ve seen with the possible exception of the Clash in â??79, Prince in â??85 and Springsteen on the River tour. Dave and Serge, the two brothers who are to Marah what the Gallaghers are to Oasis, played the Fiddlerâ??s Elbow as if it were Giants Stadium, and even though it was acoustic, they just about blew the place up. They were standing on chairs and lying on the floor, they were funny, they charmed everyone in the pub apart from an old drunk sitting next to the drum kit (a drummer turned up halfway through the evening with his own set, having played a gig elsewhere first), who put his fingers firmly in his ears during Sergeâ??s extended harmonica solo. (His mate, meanwhile, rose unsteadily to his feet and started clapping along). It was utterly bizarre and very moving: most musicians wouldnâ??t have bothered turning up, let alone almost killing themselves. And I was reminded-and this happened the last time I saw them play, too â?? how rarely one feels included in a live show. Usually you watch, and listen, and drift off, and the band plays well or doesnâ??t and it doesnâ??t matter much either way. It can actually be a very lonely experience. But I felt a part of the music, and a part of the people Iâ??d gone with, and, to cut this short before the encores, I didnâ??t want to read for about a fortnight afterwards. I wanted to write, but I couldnâ??t because of the holidays, and I wanted to listen to Marah, but I didnâ??t want to read no book. I was too itchy, too energized, and if young people feel like that every night of the week, then, yes, literatureâ??s dead as a dodo. (In an attempt to get myself back on course, I bought Bill Ehrhardtâ??s book Vietnam-Perkasie, because he comes Marah-endorsed, and provided the inspiration for â??Round Eye Bluesâ?, one of their very best songs. I didnâ??t read a thing, though. And their next album is tentatively entitled 20,000 Streets under the Sky, after a Patrick Hamilton novel- Iâ??m going to order that and not read it, too).