October 31, 2007

by Lisa Iannucci

What happens when life doesn't turn out quite the way you'd planned? Do you give up and go home? If you're Serge and Dave Bielanko of Marah, you do what you have to do to keep your dream alive, and sometimes it's not pretty. Like most touring bands, they've seen their share of struggle and hardship, broken down vans and run-ins with the law. But unlike a lot of their contemporaries, they're in it for the long haul. For the Bielankos, quitting isn't an option.

The brothers hail from Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, an old mill town nestled in the suburbs of Philadelphia on the banks of the Schuylkill River. It's a hardscrabble community, not the sort of place you stick around for very long if you're an ambitious kid with talent and determination. And so, not long after finishing high school, they moved to Philly and started Marah. Twelve years, several lineup changes, and five albums later they're still out there plugging away, achieving minimal airplay or record sales but garnering the staunch support of critics and a small but intensely loyal fan base that treat each show as if it were a family reunion.

Indeed, going to your first Marah show is strangely akin to meeting your fiancé's family for the first time—you're not quite sure if this tight-knit bunch will like you no matter how much you may love the band. But Marah fans, like the band itself, are an unpretentious sort, and they accept you as one of their own whether you've seen the band once or 50 times, whether you are a longtime fan or neophyte. These people don't care if you know this obscure b-side or that unreleased studio outtake. They love this music and these musicians so much that they are thrilled to find someone who cares about them as much as they do. And in times like these, when live music competes with video games and iPhones for our attention, that's no small thing.

This particular Marah lineup is quite a talented bunch. Drummer Dave Petersen has a voice like John Lennon and plays a pretty mean guitar—he and guitarist Adam Garbinski have an album of their own out this year. Keyboardist Christine Smith (who released a solo record last year) also plays guitar and accordion, while bassist Kirk Henderson plays a fine trumpet. And fronting it all are Dave and Serge on guitar and vocals (and occasionally banjo). The Bielankos are the band's principal songwriters too, and they've probably read more Dickens between them than your average high school English teacher. Their lyrics are dense with imagery, populated with colorful characters and filled with narrative detail usually reserved for the printed page. It's no wonder, then, that they count among their supporters respected novelists like Stephen King and Nick Hornby. But they don't shrink from turning up the volume, either; onstage, you're just as likely to hear them cover the Ramones as Nina Simone. This is a band that Steve Earle once described as a "literate AC/DC," and make no mistake, they know how to rock hard.

Marah will release their first new material in two years this Halloween—an EP titled Can't Take it With You—with the full-length Angels of Destruction! out in January and a major tour to follow. And they're pretty excited about it. Let's face it, in today's fractious music scene, they're just happy to still be out there playing music at all.

"A lot of bands came and went in the duration of our band's lifespan who got more press and yet we're still around," says Serge. "We had no idea what we were doing sometimes, but we did what we had to do to survive."

"This is the first [record we've made] where we felt like we were gonna go in and just be recording with the band that we were going to be touring with… and musically it's incredible," says Dave. "There's a lot of people that would tell us that we're really incredibly lucky to be in the position that we're in. We've suffered for it in years past, but yeah, we're in a situation now that we could really do anything."

Marah has existed without much label support throughout the band's career, and with the collapse of the existing music business structure, it seems like they've been the "smart" ones all along. "It's no longer like when will the CD be done or when will those 10 songs come out or whatever," Dave adds. "It could all change so drastically, and it's anybody's game [now]."

These guys have definitely dealt with some issues over the years—from miniscule tour budgets to stolen masters to being stranded in the middle of the Arizona desert in midsummer—but the Marah folks are a self-reliant bunch because they've pretty much had no choice. As a result, they've had a lot of freedom, both musically and career-wise. Self-producing all but one of their records, headlining most of their own tours, playing frequent acoustic shows—whether through financial necessity or artistic choice, this is a band that's always been able to play the game while maintaining artistic integrity. And at a time when many bands have had to rethink their entire promotional strategy, it would be very easy for Serge and Dave to feel some sense of vindication about it all. But that's not their style. What's important to them is the same thing that it's always been—making great music and getting it out to the fans.

"We have some really hardcore fans that are very loyal and intelligent," says Serge. "Some of them have thousands of CDs [in their collections] and the fact that ours sit among them is pretty cool. And I think they understand that we've never pulled the wool over their eyes about who we are. We believe in what we do, and I think the fans are keyed into our honesty. We're not 'rock stars,' we're regular people, and I think they see themselves in us."

Much of this loyalty, no doubt, comes from the consistently strong quality of their material. Marah's first release, Let's Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later Tonight—recorded on a broken seven-track in a studio above an auto body shop in South Philadelphia—is still regarded as some of their finest work despite its lo-fi sound. Both that CD and its follow-up, Kids in Philly, are considered lost classics by many critics. In fact, Kids was recorded in Steve Earle's Nashville studio after he hailed their debut as one of his favorite releases of 1998. Both the stark realism of their lyrics and their densely layered sound are a captivating mixture of urban grit and hill country twang—on a Marah record, you're just as likely to find tales of transvestites and underworld bosses as rural decay, to hear church bells and handclaps or layers of screaming Gibson guitar as harmonica or banjo.

After all, Philadelphia is a city steeped in musical tradition, but it's long been off the radar screens of the industry itself. And because of this, it's a place where bands like Marah can take the time to develop and build a following. Neither Northeastern nor Southern, it's a jumble of influences—a rough town with a warm heart, a bustling metropolis that's not too far from the small towns that dominate the state. It's a complex city of lively neighborhoods where people decorate their houses with holiday lights and sports iconography; where street hustlers sell everything from pretzels to radios. But not far from Central Philadelphia, you can still stand on the banks of the Schuylkill and catch catfish.

Make no mistake, though—the bells and banjos on a Marah record are not about bluegrass. They're the sound of the streets of Philadelphia on New Year's Day, when the annual Mummers Parade winds itself up the wide expanse of Broad Street. Though most of the Marah folks have since relocated to Brooklyn, the rich traditions and soulful sounds of their hometown are an indelible part of their music; equal parts Phil Spector and Philadelphia, it resonates with something deep inside you that is uniquely and profoundly American.

Serge and Dave don't really listen to much new music. In a way, it's as though they've always been tapped into an older, weirder America that they still find endlessly fascinating. "I really love to be turned on to [new] things that are cool, and there's a lot of great music being made out there and stuff, and occasionally you find it; but it always felt truer to remain oblivious to it," says Dave.

Which is not to say that they wouldn't work with an outside producer again (their 2002 release, Float Away With the Friday Night Gods, was produced by veteran Owen Morris). "I think it's a cycle," Dave muses. "I think that at some point you say let's bring someone in and maybe get that [raw] kind of record, maybe go the other way, [and] make some sort of mythical, carnival-type record. I think they're both great and they're both in my head, and I want to get them out eventually, so… it's not about being against [it]. I would love the help."

Next year, Serge and Dave plan to tour long and hard with Angels of Destruction!, and they will spend a good bit of that time in Europe. "Well, we've found that we're making a lot of money to play there, which is nice," says Dave. "You're earning a whole new audience really quickly." Like many American bands, Marah has found that the European fascination with our pop culture can be quite lucrative. But the broad expanse and big dreams of America beckon, and as far as they're concerned, that's the territory the Bielankos would really like to conquer. Because despite all the frustration and disappointment they've been handed here in the States, it's still their home. So look for them out there next year and catch a show if you can. If you believe in rock 'n' roll made the old-fashioned way—real people playing real instruments—there's really nothing else to do.