Monday, January 14, 2008

Together, we are Marah.

I woke up this morning with the intention of sitting in a St. Paul coffee shop and writing all day long, purging my year in review piece that has been swarming in my mind, taking up space along side the English cream long haired miniature dachshund that I will someday own and the boys I crush on from afar. It would be the perfect cap to a weekend of live music and photography. The piece was going to flow out easily as I had already decided the format: take every song I had put on my Jonesie 2007 Obsessions Mix and tell its story. Lame and overdone, maybe, but it was also my perfect categorizing method. Like Nick Hornby’s Songbook that had become my best friend as I traveled around Barcelona, like Rob Sheffield's Love Is A Mix Tape that had become my relationship model and source of gut wrenching inspiration last week, like so many of my friends and family, music has defined my memories. For the past two weeks, I found myself staring off while at work, telling my stories over and over again in my head.

And then I woke up today and found out that one of my very favorite bands in the whole wide fucking world is falling apart.

Marah

Yeah, this all seems really dramatic. Yeah, these all could be ridiculous rumors that are a product of forum fuck fests. But make fun of me about this and I’ll lose my shit on you. And by that I of course mean I’ll brush it off like it’s okay, say some half-assed yeah it sucks, and then sit in my car and cry because that’s the one place that seems to beat the honesty out of me as I blare my music way too loud.

I’ve never been someone that can conceal how I feel. It instantaneously splatters across my face: disgust, ecstasy, boredom, love, etc. Maybe I’ll realize what’s happening and hide it because it’s even too inappropriate for me but it’s always there for at least a millisecond. I’m sitting in the coffee shop right now choking up next to some hippie dad bouncing his baby on his knee. All I can think about is what I could potentially lose by Marah breaking up. Now I don't need to simply write about the year that was 2007; it’s what I have become in the past five years since I discovered Marah.

I know I’m not the first person to experience this heartbreak, as bands have broken up since the dawn of time when Neanderthal Yoko first undid her bearskin skirt for Neanderthal John. Marah has undergone many line-up changes in its dozen odd years as a band. Some say that Marah is simply the Bielanko brothers. Others say that Marah is Dave B, Serge, Kirk, Adam, Dave P. I can't help but identify more with the second school because that’s all I’ve ever known. Just like my E Street is Max and not Mad Dog, this is my Marah.

Adam and Kirk were two people who welcomed me into the community first, hung around to really talk to me, the meek girl from Minnesota who would soon enough open her mouth to let out her rock'n'roll banshee scream. Kirk, Adam & Dave are hardcore rumored to be leaving the band. All at the same time. This doesn’t bode well. Trust me when I say that I wanna believe that this will be okay, that whatever changes happen, they’ll still be my rock’n’roll band. But Marah was never about just the two brothers who share the mic and sing the songs. It’s always been about this community of rock’n’roll rats. I will of course listen and watch whatever the next Marah could be but I have every right and every reason to be scared and skeptical for the future of this band. I'm not going to place blame on why half of the band members could potentially be gone. I’m not going to slander the band, slander the brothers because I love them and that would be slandering every single damn precious memory I have of this band, this community of people, and I can't do that. I'm just worried. But, you know, the internet is a big place full of lots of break-up or change-it-up rumors and they are just overwhelming me now. Maybe tomorrow the jokes on us and the full tour, including Adam & Dave's Bloodline, is still on. And I'll be all like hahaha sorry for that verbal avalanche yesterday guys and then continue on my merry way, surrounded by my miniature long-haired english cream dachshunds and crushes from afar, telling perverse jokes and laughing like a donkey cause today never really happened. Maybe.

Let me just say this once. I'm not naive. I'm not silly. I know I could be fretting about a lot worse. But this is my band, my original music family potentially ending and I have every right to own these emotions.

So it is, I still sit in this coffee shop seven hours after I first got here, five hours after my brunch dates left, still obsessively checking the Marah forum for some answers. A lot of the people in my life brush it off as just some funny news about this band I've traveled out east for many times, and I certainly don’t begrudge them that. They don’t really understand what it is for me, how much it means. Most of them haven't seen me with this family. And that's everything. So that's why I checked my phone and computer constantly today. I need the connection to people that are a part of that world.

In September, Tab, Kat, Tommy, Jesse & I were piled on top of each other in Tommy's truck, screaming and laughing on our way to the concert, winding through downtown Philly, a city I've visited several times because of Marah shows and have come to cherish in all its grimy drunken glory. Jesse played Josh Ritter on the stereo and in my one beer buzz I said a little too loudly, "God this is great." Yeah, I was talking about Josh Ritter, who I knew nothing about at that time, but it really applied to that one car ride. It seemed like such an insignificant time in comparison to the rest of the week which involved choking up on Chinatown buses, puking in alleyways, dancing drunkenly in pubs to our band, overflowing toilets and late night Ike Reilly pillow talk. No not all of that was me. But I was a part of it all. Well...we sat on each other, crammed into the truck, bubbling over with Marah excitement. These people, who range in age from mid 20s to late 40s, are all part of a family to me. We've basically seen the very best and the almost worst of each other. And, for me, all this connection is crammed into a couple weekends a year. Josh was our soundtrack for that exact moment.

I can’t listen to Marah's music right now. I can’t do it, not one damn song or kickass youtube video. Instead I listen to Josh Ritter because his song on my 2007 Jonesie Obsession Mix was the impetus for my what would have been the year in reflection piece. Like all the hand holding high fives and screaming sobs of recognition that was the November Bruce Springsteen concert at Xcel, this memory in the truck somehow floated above practically everything else from this year as one of my most treasured moments. Josh Ritter is the easiest music for me to listen to right now, consoling me, connecting me to the memories I have of that family, that truck ride in downtown Philly when we had the entire night, the entire record, the entire tour and future ahead of us. It's that bond that runs rampant amongst us Marah fans.

Thus you see it’s not just a band, it’s my east coast rock’n’roll family and we are texting and calling each other like mad right now. They get it. I called Tab, my doppleganger, this morning. I texted with several other east coasters this afternoon. I stood outside this evening, without my coat (cause it was saving my coffee shop table), to talk to Texas Kat about what we thought would have been a rad rock’n’roll party on January 26th. As my teeth chattered incessantly, we talked about the future of Marah.

Some may listen to Marah and say what’s the big fucking deal; I don't get it; they are too this or not enough that. I still believe they aren’t really a studio band; that's not their strength at all. They’re a live force. I recognize all their flaws but I love them FOR those flaws, not in spite of them. When I made my first trip out east for the Philly Holiday show of 2005, at one point I literally grabbed my gut and had the thought “This is perfect. This is exactly what my life is about.” People that I had just met were giving me air high fives from across the crowded venue, buying me drinks, cheering with me. To all of them out there, I’m Lexy. I never corrected them and told them that I actually never have gone by Lexy, that it was just a stupid screen name I had used online since I had been in middle school. It wouldn’t be right if they called me Alexa. It’s Lexy. Out there, I love it so much. I feel like a different person, someone who really is pretty and brave and full of confidence.

And that dual personality is something I am trying almost everyday to reconcile. This year in particular, because of the arts I have explored and the people I have become close to in my own city, I have felt closer to owning it than ever before. I guess in short that’s what Marah has given me: a real glimpse into the person I know I can be. All the joy and madness and honesty and love and flirt I am capable of has come out time and again at those shows. All of that is beginning to spill over into my everyday life here and wherever else I end up.

In 2007, I sold and gave or threw away most everything I owned and left my apartment of three years. I’m sleeping on a couch in a living room right now because of the money that I’ve spent on rock’n’roll. It’s not a difficult sacrifice cause my roommate is like a sister to me but it’s a sacrifice nonetheless, one that will lead to real options for my future. I could have boatloads of camera equipment, nice clothes, nice furniture, a nice room all to myself, but I don’t. I have boatloads of rock’n’roll memories all over this nation instead. I have a Bruce Springsteen obsession that has birthed this drive in me to seek out connection.

Over and over again, I have said or referred to my fellow Marah devotees as my East Coast concert family. My sporatically overwhelming sense of sadness is based on this very real fear that this family is falling apart. I don't want to be pessimistic and I'm usually not. It's just that when all else seemed to be over or failing in my life, these people and these future adventures were there for me. If Marah ends, when will I see my Doppleganger again, or Kat, Tommy, Jesse, Chris, Matt, Larry, Bridgid, Andrea, Leonora, Cline, Richelle, Liz, Billie Jo, Starsky, Ktristi, Adam, Kirk, Dave or anyone else I didn't list who I have connected with so strongly at those shows? When I met my Minnesota music family and hung out with most of them that first night at the CC Club, talking about music and life and pouring my heart out about Bruce Springsteen until 2am, the first thing I told some friends was “Something happened tonight. I felt in Minneapolis what I feel on the east coast with my Marah family over and over and over again.”

So, if this really is the end, thank you endlessly to Marah and every single person that involves...


7 comments:

Liz said...

Wow, that Maxwell's show was something else...

I think somehow, somewhere we'll be singing along together again.

Anonymous said...

Alexa, Love you. Now please remove every picture of me. :-)

Yours truly,
Tabatha

ps....call you latr

Anonymous said...

Ok, for real... You expressed way more beautifully what I could never. And that truck ride...I don't remember the music, though I remember you guys discussing it. Do you remember how TT was so frustrated with us? That we all wanted to drive in his beloved truck and seriously, he didn't think 5 people could possibly fit? :-) There were laws and all. I remember trying to hold back my giggling unsuccessfully as I sat between TT and Jesse with you two backseat drivers. It was SO much fun. TT was all serious. I remember Kat dropped her cigs and everyone made me climb out and get them.

I remember our late night talks...you, me and Kat and the blood-sister oath she made us take so we wouldn't spill those dirty secrets of which we spoke ;)

The show.....I remember the shows. Blood, sweat and tears. They are Marah, they are our band.

I cherish those memories...every single one. The rocking parts and the friendship parts. There will be more. Trust me....I'm a nurse.

xoxox

richellea said...

Here's the thing Lexy....

I LOVE THIS BAND!!!!

Like nothing else. I love this band.

Your post brought tears to my eyes...tears that I fought back the very first time I read Jesse's post that started this entire string of obsessive board checks for me over the last 48hours or so. What you expressed is for me, what the band is about. There is nothing that makes me happier than getting off that plane from Vancouver and landing at JFK. The minute I leave a show I am planning how I am going to go further into debt to see the next one.

I have been listening to a ton of Josh Ritter and Ryan Adams as, like you, I can't listen to Marah either - I tried today and it just made my heart ache.

People think I am crazy but I know the Marah family on the East Coast gets it and we are all in limbo together.

Lovin you and your gorgeous face! We will see each other again, some how some way....here we go it's just around the corner.

Love Richelle

Anonymous said...

An extremely well written and eloquent description of what it is about THIS band that makes them so different, and so special, when compared to all the other bands out there....

Hopefully one day you'll make it to a European tour to see whatever incarnation of Marah are around then, and we can laugh and joke about how sad we've all been these last few days, little knowing just how much better things might become as a result of this break-up....

Well, a guy can dream, right?...

Spawny

Alexa said...

My god these stories and memories make me so happy! I need them. Thank you. It won't end with this. It can't The Marah family understands and that bond runs thick. We ain't going away!!!

Anonymous said...

First time I really ever met any of you guys was at the Xmas show back in 2005. A time I will never forget hanging out at Manny Brown's beforehand, the TLA and then The Taproom.

The first time I ever saw Marah was with one of Kirk's dearest friends and old bandmate here in Richmond up in Arlington. I didn't think much of Marah. It was more of a night of catching up and getting drunk.

However I saw them again, knowing more about what Kirk saw in this band.

Kirk gave up quite a lot to make a go with Marah. Something I've had to live with the past 6 years with liking some of it and not liking some it.

Tabatha is the only one I've ever confided in about my anxiety and even happiness over Marah.

I've known about the going on's for a little while. While a part of me wanted it to happen a big part didn't want it to happen because I knew how much Kirk loved being a part of Marah.

Where am I going with this comment? Well I hate what happened. But it happened. If it wasn't for Kirk I would never know Marah. I would never have met any of you wonderful people. Unfortunately, because Kirk is one of my best friends and also the father of a bright and beautiful daughter that we have. I have to stand by him because that's what friends do.

It hurts to know that I may not see any of you again. It hurts to know that Sofia won't be catching her Daddy doing what he loves to do the most. Hurts to know that so much was given up and taken away for his venture to have it end like this.

Many people have messaged me and have told me how much Kirk brought to the band, how he seemed to be the glue that kept some of the sanity, things together. It was true.

I will never forget any of you.

I lived vicarously through all of you when reading the reviews of shows you have been too. Wishing I was able to go to just as many as you all did.

I respect the band Marah and their music. Marah certainly have fans that are like no other. Marah fans are truly family and I am so happy to have been a part of that. There has never been any other band out there that I can think of that has fans such as you guys.

Thanks for the fun, the ride, the laughters and the tears.

Sorry to use your comments page to write this Alexa, however to respect the message forum and others, I thought I could share a little bit of my time with Marah and you all. Thanks!

Fiabug aka Lori