Marah “Marah Presents Mountain Minstrelsy of Pennsylvania”
Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. It’s a funny little place. It’s got a commuter train station. It’s near a couple small, private colleges. And, oddly, it’s the home to the U.S. headquarters for IKEA. It has a couple old bars. A few spots to get hoagies and cheesesteaks. A solid, if shrinking, middle class. Housing, for the most part, is affordable. And, more recently, a bunch of newish buildings were developed in hopes of attracting startups. According to the latest U.S. census, less than ten thousand people call Conshohocken home — down from its mid-century peak but slightly up from the last report.
As far as suburbs go, Conshohocken barely is one. It’s twenty miles from central Philly. It’s not exactly picturesque — just one small park and more strip malls and parking lots than green spaces or cul de sacs. Objectively, it looks a bit like somebody cut an eighty year old neighborhood out of Baltimore and dropped it next to a bunch of nice Pennsylvania suburbs. Rocky Balboa’s first apartment might have been a shit hole but at least he could jog to the Museum of Art. Conshohocken isn’t for joggers.
Though I’m sure locals might disagree, from the outside, it feels like the sort of town that you either commute into, are stuck in, or — most likely — are trying to escape from. In spite of its oddness, however, you can almost see why families would remain there, generation after generation. The name “Conshohocken” is Unami for “elegant place” or “elegant ground.” And though I would never describe the town as “elegant,” you can feel a strong sense of place when you are there — as though, underneath all of the concrete, the root systems run exceptionally deep.
If somebody told me that there was a good local Rock band from Conshohocken, consisting of Yeungling-drinking, hoagie-devouring brothers, I would not be shocked in any way. But, in 1998, I was gobsmacked to learn that the best new Rock band in America was from that sort of depressed, sort of curious little hamlet. Conshohocken is so uncool, that I suppose it might almost be cool. Except for the fact that it’s absolutely not cool.
And yet, Marah came from Conshohocken. In 1997, though I lived less than one hundred miles from Philly and though I was constantly searching for new music, I’d never heard of Dave and Serge Bielanko. Nobody I knew had heard of them or their band, either — until, a year later, when they were all anybody could talk about. Early reviews breathlessly compared them to Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen. Rootsy like the former and sweaty like the latter. And though I was curious, I was also suspicious. Come on. Steve? Bruce? First album by twenty-somethings from Conshohocken? I’ve never heard a word about them? Seriously? No way.
But, yes way. “Let’s Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later” was perhaps even better than advertised. Full of dulcimer and banjo and accordion and songs! songs! songs! it was rootsy and sweaty, but also sprawling and loose. More than “Copperhead Road” or “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” it actually reminded me of Whiskeytown’s “Strangers Almanac” or — dare I say ‘’ “Exile on Main Street.” Yes, I was smitten. And I was not alone. Nick Hornby put them on his desert island disc list — after The Boss and The Clash, but before Marvin Gaye. Stephen King wore their shirts and shouted their name from the rafters. The No Depression community lined up and, first in line, was Mr. Steve Earle himself. Earle signed the band to his own boutique label, and, in 2000, released “Kids from Philly.”
A small frenzy began. Those who saw them play live at the time (sadly, not me) described the experiences in religious terms — songs just pouring out of Dave. Onstage fights and inside jokes and reparations between the two Bielanko brothers. Instruments everywhere. It was like the second coming of The E Street Band. And it was also the birth of the second wave of “Dad Rock.”
The first wave of Dad Rock is canon — Dylan, The Band, Petty, The Boss. Occasionally, it veers into Indie or Alternative Rock (REM, The Replacements) or headier stuff (The Dead, Steely Dan). But, broadly speaking, it’s Roots Rock for educated men who are older than thirty but younger than sixty, who are likely to drink craft beers and who desperately want their children to understand the glory of “Jungleland.”
The second wave is still a work in progress. In the early Aughts, bands like The Hold Steady and Band of Horses and Arcade Fire began to make their cases. Some of the neo-Dad Rockers were cut from The Boss’ cloth (Gaslight Anthem, The Constantines) and some were closer to Dylan (Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens). But the ones who should have been kings — the ones who got it all started but then got lost in the plot — were Marah.
As their legend grew and the froth got frothier, Marah found themselves on a semi-major label (Artemis Records) making their third album with Owen Morris, the Welsh engineer and producer who made Oasis sound like the biggest band on the planet. That unlikely pairing — sweaty, drunk Philly boys who sounded huge in small rooms produced by an exacting Welshman who made grandiose Rock stars sound too big for the galaxy — proved to be a terrible match. Released in the summer of 2002, “Float Away With the Friday Night Gods” was a flop. Though it contains almost uniformly excellent songs and performances, the soul of the record was bled out in its mixing. At the same time, the Bielanko brothers were just barely holding things together. The drinking got drunker. The fights got more combative. And their window of opportunity, open and sunny just a couple years earlier, was closing quickly.
A lot of truly incredible things happened over the next ten years — wonderful music was made but overlooked, epic concerts were played in venues too small for the band, hopes were dashed and then ignited and then dashed again. The video for Tom Petty’s “Into the Great Wide Open” (starring Johnny Depp) might be a succinct recounting of Marah’s run towards and fall from the top. Except, unlike the star in Petty’s song, Marah never actually made it. More than any band I can think of, Marah’s story can be told almost exclusively through the titles of their albums:
1998: “Let's Cut The Crap & Hook Up Later on Tonight” (fearless)
2000: “Kids in Philly” (hungry)
2002: Float Away With the Friday Night Gods (arrogant)
2004: 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (humble)
2005: If You Didn't Laugh, You'd Cry (beaten)
2008: Angels of Destruction! (terrified)
2010: Life is a Problem (doomed)
Gradually, Marah faded. Dave Bielanko moved out of Philly and into Brooklyn and, in time, it became harder — and then impossible — to hold the band together. In early 2008, Dave Peterson, Adam Garbinski and Kirk Henderson left the band. Soon thereafter, Serge Bielanko, tired of the fighting and the drinking and the being broke and the not being with his wife and young kids, left as well. It seemed like an almost certain death knell and the ultimate irony — one of our great Dad Rock bands, undone by the realities of fatherhood.
Amazingly, though, Dave Bielanko persevered — writing songs, making records and keeping the flicker of Marah alive. He got sober. And he just. kept. going. In spite of the downward trajectory of his band’s career prospects, Dave never lost his muse. “Life Is a Problem,” from 2010, might not be as bold and ecstatic as “Kids from Philly.” It may have been self-released and sold next to nothing. He may have traded his brother for a guitarist named “Johnny Pizza Sauce” (seriously). But it’s a heck of a record, full of songs that would stand proudly next to anything Phosphorescent or Okkervil River or any third wave Dad Rock band was making at the time.
Bielanko was able to stay upright, in the midst of a mid-life crisis, for the same (cliched) reason so many men survive those valleys — because a strong woman was nearby. In this case, Christine Smith, from Queens, NY, who’d been playing with Marah since 2007, became Dave’s de facto partner during a time when his band had disintegrated but in which his muse had not. Smith went from singing and playing some keyboards on “Angels of Destruction!” to playing piano, organ, synths, drums, accordion, fiddle and vibraphone on “Life is a Problem.” Furthermore, she joined Dave when he moved out to Millheim, PA — a tiny town, smack dab in the middle of the state, a hundred miles from nowhere.
In addition to playing a dozen or so instruments, Christine Smith inherited the job that Serge Bielanko had left behind: “Director of Keeping Dave Bielanko on the Tracks.” But, even then, when Marah was only barely “Marah,” Dave could write a hell of a song. Buckets of them, in fact. His prospects were gone. His bandmates had walked out. But his muse had not left him. Which is why it is hard to explain what Marah did next: While holed up in Millheim, closer to Amish country than to Philly, Bielanko recorded a semi-Appalachian Folk album in an old church, using a single vocal mic and an eight track tape recorder.
“Marah Presents Mountain Minstrelsy of Pennsylvania” was based on lyrics that Bielanko discovered in an obscure book about Pennsylvania Folk music, compiled by Henry W. Shoemaker in 1931. It was not the first time a modern album had been made as a result of the discovery of old, lost Folk song lyrics. Years earlier, Billy Bragg and Wilco got their hands on Woody Guthrie’s ancient notebooks and turned the chicken-scratch into “Mermaid Avenue.”
In 1998, the year Marah released their debut album, “Mermaid Avenue” was a surprise hit — enchanting critics everywhere and even getting nominated for a Grammy award. In 2014, Dave Bielanko’s career bore no resemblance to those of Billy Bragg or Jeff Tweedy. And Henry W. Shoemaker — barely known folklorist — was no Woody Guthrie. “Mermaid Avenue” had the benefits of every modern recording technique and a generous budget. “Marah Presents Mountain Minstrelsy of Pennsylvania” was recorded for nothing, using analog equipment and mastered directly to a lathe. And, unlike Bragg and Wilco, Bielanko’s band consisted of Smith, three local dudes and an eight year old fiddler named Gus Tritsch.
“Marah Presents Mountain Minstrelsy of Pennsylvania” is not really a Marah record. It was credited to the band, presumably, in order to help with marketing and promotion. But, if you search for it on Spotify, it appears on its own, separate and apart from the rest of the band’s discography. And though it’s just nitpicking, that seems right to me. “Marah Presents” is much more of a Dave Bielanko and Christine Smith “project” than it is the eighth studio album (excluding the Christmas one) from Marah. Whereas the kids from Philly made sweaty Rock and Roll, this group from Millheim makes backwoods and front porch Bluegrass. Whereas Marah was electric, Bielanko and Smith’s latest is unplugged. Whereas Marah had heavy “dad dude energy,” “Marah Presents” sounds like a family — dad, mom, their kiddo, a couple uncles and maybe the neighbor who plays upright bass.
And yet, it seems beyond obvious that the goal of “Marah Presents Mountain Minstrelsy of Pennsylvania” was more than to simply “make the next Marah record.” If Bielanko’s aim was to conjure the spirit of Shoemaker’s book — to breathe new life in old ideas — he most surely succeeded. Alternately thrilling, haunting, fast and tight, and then, slow and loose, “Marah Presents” is from a different time and place. It’s a long way from “Mermaid Avenue,” which sounds pristine in comparison. It’s nowhere near Palace Brothers “Days in the Wake,” which is a more threadbare, and pretentious take on Appalachian Folk music. If anything, it’s closest equivalent might be Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In The Aeroplane Over the Sea,” stripped of surrealism and set back another fifty of one hundred years.
The best songs on “Marah Presents” are, unsurprisingly, the songs — those tracks with verses and choruses and rhythms. On a record that — by design — is a hootenanny and a front porch hang and a post-mass church singalong, Bielanko still manages to sneak in a few fully realized compositions. Among them, “Sing!, Oh Muse of the Mountain” is the album’s centerpiece and, also, an outlier. The guitars are plugged in and turned up and there’s a sneaky Country Blues swagger in the rhythm. Because of its novel recording equipment and setting, it sounds like almost nothing else. Except, I suppose, Marah.
“Luliana” is a mostly acoustic, heavy-hearted waltz that might be a fisherman’s lament — like Cat Stevens making a go at late 60s Fairport Convention. “Melody of Rain” is more traditionally folky and unapologetically pretty. It’s too loose to qualify as Alternative Country but too delicate to sound like a jug band. The cynic in me wants to call it “precious,” but, in truth, it’s just a lovely Folk song. As far as no doubt about it songs go, however, that’s about it — a relatively short list.
The entire premise of “Marah Presents” risks a certain “schtickiness.” “Ten Cents at the Gate,” with its barbershop quartet and tubas and xylophones, works — albeit barely — because it's so much fun. By the time the second tuba solo (you read that right) rolls around you imagine yourself juggling among elephants in some early twentieth century carnival. I don’t know exactly what “steampunk” music sounds like, but I fear it might sound like this. Worse — I think I might like it.
Ultimately, though, the charm of the premise isn’t enough to carry an entire album. The lack of a “mix” and the spontaneous nature of the performances come at the expense of Bielanko’s greatest gift — songwriting. Marah’s founder and last standing member is overmatched by the din of instruments, the lack of a rhythm section and the strings and vocals of that eight year old fiddle prodigy. While I have zero doubts about young Gus’ talent, his fiddle overwhelms the banjo, dulcimer and guitars — instruments better suited for Marah songs. Similarly, though it's adorable to hear the kid sing lead on two tracks, I literally cannot understand a single word coming out of his mouth. And, call me old fashioned, but I like to understand the words to songs.
There are many variations of the saying “you have to get lost to get found.” And it’s hard not to think about “Marah Presents” — made far from Philly, mostly by a bunch of characters who were new to the story, employing styles and techniques that were foreign and outdated — as Dave Bielanko getting lost, so that he could get found.
There is a good deal of video footage out there, capturing the making of “Marah Presents.” Having now seen most of it and having listened to the album a handful of times, I’m convinced that the recording would have made a better documentary than it did an album. That being said, it achieved some greater purposes. For one thing, it kept the idea of Marah alive and moving forward. Moreover, it was the end of the road for Dave Bielanko, before he ultimately turned around and headed back to his band and his past.
The last seven or eight years have been a minor homecoming for Marah. There have been loving vinyl reissues of “Let’s Cut the Crap” and “Kids from Philly.” There have been long, retrospective think pieces (like this one) revisiting the band’s oeuvre, its importance and the many “what ifs.” I’ve even read a few sympathetic reconsiderations of “Float Away With the Friday Night Gods.” But, most importantly — and most graciously — there have been a steady series of full on, reunion shows. Every year, it seems that the old gang from Conshohocken gets back together to for a bunch of gigs. Even Serge — especially Serge — who never stopped loving his brother, takes time away from his family (and his excellent writing about fatherhood) and gets up on stage with the fellas. I’ve managed to see them live a couple of times in recent years. And they are still quite something. Middle-aged guys from Conshohocken, PA. Playing. Sweating. Thinkin’ ‘bout the old times. And when they feel like crying, they start laughing. Thinking ‘bout. Glory days.