Longtime Xmastime bff Dave Bielanko of the awesome MARAH wrote a nice piece on their beautiful So What If We're Outta Tune (with The Rest of The World) a few years back and it's mostly about my old loft building, 100 Metro...way too many incredible memories of this Golden Era for 100 Metro, where a fantastic dinner party was always in danger of breaking out at any moment. Enjoy! 🤗 🥲 🎸 ❤️
THE SONG: "So What If We're Outta Tune (with The Rest of The World)"
This song is a great example of chasing a title around. "So What If We'Re Outta Tune...." Jesus, I thought...what if The Ronnettes had a song called that? A lost track, a failed single, maybe something too ambitious and smaltzy and overreaching to really connect w young America back in 1963 all gaudy high strings and murky, buried horn buzz, tinker bells at the tippy top....how bad would I wanna hear a song like that? Find that obscure 45 at a rummage sale.<
A 1st generation loser love song.
So I chased it around...the title anyway.
100 Metropolitan avenue in Brooklyn was Marah's HQ during the "IYDLYC" era (2005/2006)
The building itself was (is) a daunting monster, a big drab industrial city block that went up about 5 or six stories in a perfect square giving it all the architectural elegance of a cardboard shoe box.
Off brand Medical shoes from the 1940's. Crazy people shoes.
Bellview Hospital. Tenants of 100Metro jokingly called it "The Gray Lady".
It used to be a hat factory back when everybody on the east coast needed to look like WC Fields during the Great Depression. I'll save you all the obvious "mad as a hatter" bullshit...I'm sure it fucked us all up in a bunch of ways.
100 Metro had an archaic rusty chain driven elevator and access to the flimsy black tar roof with a stunning view of Lower Manhattan (beyond a mess of Williamsburg's famous ancient, wooden water towers)
If you needed a venue to film part 7 of the SAW horror movie series you could do a lot worse.
Larry Andersen loved our band and opened his loft up to us without a second thought; we could stay there whenever things got too fucked up elsewhere in our "real" lives; we could certainly stash our guitars and amps there, come and go as we pleased and occasionally throw big spaghetti and meatball dinners.
We watched many Super Bowls there, World Series', even spent a few Christmas Eves. The place was covered in vintage Joan Jett and Cramps posters, Patti Smith.... the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with dusty vinyl, a fully autographed 1st Ramones. Holy Shit Larry!! How?
Always, during this era, Marah did any necessary album overdubs there; a"pro-sumer" grade computer rig, a nice borrowed V62 preamp and a black SM7 on a ducked taped microphone stand that I drug up 95N from Franks Auto in South Philly once upon a time. A MARAH Last Rock N Roll Band sticker all faded and tattered on the heavy lead base.
Anyway, this place was our jawn. I was proud to hold a key.
In the bathroom we set up a flimsy 1970's colonial kitchen chair and the vocal mic and we started recording before i really finished writing the words. I knew that if we didn't start, we'd never finish (simple as that), and the song would vanish like a cool dream that you try desperately to remember as you are making AM coffee. But those kinda dreams always slip away, like so many other songs had vanished before and since. So I was still changing the words around as we pushed "record", maybe I'd get lucky?
You got to try.
In the end I was never really satisfied with it: on the album I play it a little bit too fast, I sing it a tiny bit too sharp, I'm nervous and self concious. Crossing shit out, writing in the margins with a broken red colored pencil, couldn't find a fucking pen. I know me and this was pretty much a straight up "love song".
So i was freaking out.
I fumble around on the thumb driven acoustic guitar figure. I was trying my best to be sure, but i certainly didn't "know" the song well enough to be cutting it entirely live as a singular, solo performance. B it was time...and if i was gonna land this song at all??...I was gonna land it the hard way.
This next part is super blurry....a girl from a famous high end Kentucky "bourbon family" was there, in 100 Metro and right out side the makeshift bathroom studio wall that didn't fully extend up to the ceiling.
So she was listening. I'm not sure why she was there? Visiting NYC? I'm trying to remember her name?? She was cool, we all liked her; she was a Marah fan and came to a bunch of shows way back then. Certainly any of Marah's Lexington/Louisville appearances. She'd also bring us multiple bottles of $$$bourbon any time she'd turn up. Stuff that was waaaay out of our league , (for that reason alone I'm very confident this gal is singularly responsible for blowing a bunch of Marah gigs that could have been potentially great). But don't hate her, bless her, not her fault. She meant well.
Anyway, she wasn't shy that day. When I finished stumbling thru an early take of "So What If We're Outta Tune..." she chimed right the fuck in saying that our record wouldn't be half as good if we didn't include "Outta Tune". She insisted that we include it. Needed it.
She said we'd be pussies to leave it off.
She said she'd quit liking us or bringing us bottles of expensive hootch if we kept it off.
She was serious about it. Convincing. She said other stuff too...but it's gone.
I wonder if she'd even remember any of this??
It weighed on me.
Later, after she was gone, I got through an entire take. It was the best I could do on that particular day.
We made a rough mix CD and I set off out onto the streets to walk around NewYork and ponder it.
I still couldn't decide.
So in the end, I guess she did.
This girl....who's name has gotten away.
We never re-cut it.
Serge added a banjo on the second verse. We all thumped big low, parade drums on the chorus; Kirk lead us all in an old fashioned la la la background gang vocal.
Serge sang the turnaround lines into an old dryer.
"with the rest of the world, with the rest of the world"
Finally he played a crystal wine glass, it made an eerie, unsettling drone.
A failed masterpiece.
Best we could do.
No comments:
Post a Comment