Nick Hornby and Marah
Editor’s note: Yeah, we know…Nick Hornby, the acclaimed author of High Fidelity and About A Boy, is not a musician…so why is he quoted here on Rocktorch.com? Well, we’re making an exception, dammit, because there’s a new Marah record coming out on June 22 that you can order now and the band is currently on tour, so let’s celebrate the band by looking back at one one of the most passionate endorsements of a band that you’ll ever read:
“…what I love about {Marah} is that I can hear everything I ever loved about rock music in their recordings and in their live shows. Indeed, in the shows you can often hear their love for the rock canon uninflected — they play covers of the Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait,” or the Jam’s “In the City,” and they usually end with a riffed-up version of the O’Jays’ “Love Train.” They play an original called “The Catfisherman” with a great big Bo Diddley beat, and they quote the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” and the Who’s “Magic Bus.” And they do this not because they’re a bar band and people expect cover versions, but because they are unafraid of showing where their music comes from, and unafraid of the comparisons that will ensue…”
–Nick Hornby for the New York Times (2004), full article here
MP3: Valley Farm Song by Marah from their new album, Life Is A Problem
