MARR // The Comet // September 19th, 2017
It’s a Tuesday night, which means the Too Urban Tuesdays Residency at The Comet is in effect — a dozen or so Cincinnati artists will be featured tonight in one way or another, whether that looks like a scheduled performance or just hopping on the mic during an impromptu cypher. The first act is MARR, a four piece group — haunting vocal melodies wail over a bed of dull guitar noise, met by smart and poignant comments by a vigilant bassist playing a 5-string, tied together by a thoroughly post-punk rapid-fire drummer. MARR’s bandcamp hosts a handful of carefully selected singles and demos — what it doesn’t capture is their live performance’s tasteful use of ambient, experimental transitions from song to song made up of emotional noodling and a healthy amount of FX pedals.
On the drive over to the show, I decide to start this blog. I’m a little nervous because I’ve never conducted an interview like this before — as subtly as possible, I approach Maggie Cleary while she’s putting in her burrito order to The Comet’s kitchen staff:
“Hi! I really liked your set, I thought it was good!”
“Thanks! What’s your name?”
I liked that she asked my name instead of immediately talking about herself.
“Andrew, what’s yours?”
“Maggie.”
“Hey, Maggie, I was wondering if I could interview you, you and your group.”
“Sure, let me get the others.”
Once the full group is present, we head outside to find a suitable place for conversation.
Who are you and where are you from?
Maggie: “Ok, so we’re Marr. M-A-R-R. And it’s not because of Johnny Marr.”
Tony: “Some people do think that, and, I don’t really correct people if they do think that. Me and Maggie came up with the name because we were the first ones to meet, but I was living with Tim at the time, and Tim was watching me and Maggie make music — he was working on his thesis at the time. This was like, a year or two years ago?”
Tim: “They were doing solo recording projects, and that’s all I wanted to do during that period, but I had to finish school, and when that was over I got to, like, help out.”
Tony: “And then we had kind of a whole summer just the three of us recording songs.”
Maggie: “Not really related to what we do right now.”
Tim: “Scrambling for a bassist!”
Maggie: “Oh yeah, so great story — we were going to play this show at Wave Pool, I used to have a studio space there, so they were like ‘Hey you do music, wanna play at it?’ and it was the first fundraiser. It was fun, it was outdoors, but we were like, ‘We need a bassist’. So this guy… unnamed, whatever. We were like, ‘Oh cool, you’ll play for us’, he was like, ‘sure.’ So he comes to practice…”
Tim: “To practice for our first show ever, mind you.”
Even as a trio, y’all didn’t play together?
Maggie: “No, no.”
Tony: “We would occasionally jam in our apartment, but never in front of anyone but our own roommates. We’ve never been in a band before! At least, me and Maggie never had.”
Maggie: “So we’re in practice, and we’re getting ready for the show or whatever, and it’s working, y’know, it’s going well and then Tim leaves the room — it’s just me and Tony and this guy, and he’s just like ‘Dude! So yeah like, funny story, on the 14th I’ll be in Africa! In fact that whole month I’ll be in Africa! I’ll be in Africa, it’s cool though, it’s still good though, right?’ And we’re like, ‘NO! We needed you for the show!’
Tim: “He was stoned and it slipped his mind, I guess.”
Tony: “So we thought we had a bassist locked down, turns out he was going to be in Africa, told us the day he tried out for us, and uh, thought it was chill.”
Mike: “So he sent me a message saying, uh, my band’s looking for someone to play bass for this show.”
Tony: “He was really stoked about it, he’s not a bad guy.”
Maggie: “It’s just like, don’t go to Africa when you say you can play a show!”
Tony: “I really do love the guy, and I never want to speak bad of him, I just truly think he like, just forgot he was going to Africa, and thought he could do a show with us.”
Maggie: “Anyways, it worked out though because Mike joined!”
Tony: “Mike just showed up and knew all our songs immediately, and in fact, made a lot of the songs better just by being there, by playing it in a way that we hadn’t heard before.”
Tim: “Yeah, Mike shreds.”
Tony: “Mike sort of changed our band a lot, by forcing us to rethink our silly pop songs that we were writing.”
Tim: “Mike rips.”
Tony: “I kinda think that Mike is the most instrumentally talented.”
Maggie: “Oh hey now! The voice is an instrument, man.”
*laughs*
Maggie: “I think what’s important to say is that we’re all musically really different.”
Tony: “That is actually pretty crucial, yeah.”
I asked the band to describe their shoes, and to describe themselves in a genre.
Tony wears “just black leather ALDO shoes.”
“Just straight up techno and electronic music.”
Mike wears “brown Doc Martins.”
“Metal’s mostly what I played before Marr.”
Maggie wears “thigh high black boots with high heels.”
“Folky, kinda? Hm, yeah.”
Tim wears “black Nike skate shoes, I guess.”
“Punk and, shoegaze.”
What is your favorite Cincinnati venue to play?
Tony: “I know it sounds really silly, but I love playing at The Comet. Mostly just because I’m really into the vibe here, people are really chill. And it’s really like, maybe the most communal part of the Cincy scene, at least, the part of the scene that we’re a part of — in Cincinnati, I think this is the hub of it, maybe. Or least, it’s like where all our friends go to hang out. It’s not the best sounding venue.”
Maggie: “But it can sound really good if you work really hard for it. I really like MOTR.”
Tony: “True. We only played there once but I really liked it a lot.”
Maggie: “They did a really good job with sound.”
How important is a good mix to you?
Tony: “Very.”
Maggie: “Very.”
Tim: “Very, and we never get it.”
*laughs*
Tony: “Urban Artifact usually does a good job.”
Mike: “Devon at Urban Artifact is Jesus Christ. He’s the best sound guy. I would probably marry him.”
Tony: “Devon’s a sweetheart who really cared about us.”
Maggie: “He, like, hugged us after our set.”
At his point in the interview, MARR’s friend Max drives by in a white van and proceeds to vigorous praise the members of the band.
What kind of relationship do you have to the term “shoegaze”?
Tony: “Honestly, that’s a great question, because it’s pretty complex.”
Maggie: “Here’s my thought on that. I think because Tim is the main guitarist, a lot of the sound behind it…I think it’s hard to not sound like your guitarist sounds. I think that’s such a big part of the sound. We sound a lot like shoegaze because Tim plays a lot like shoegaze.”
Tony: “I think one of the things that separates us is that the vocals aren’t buried in the mix, unlike a lot of other shoegaze bands. We want the vocals to be nice and present, and very up front because Maggie’s lyrics and her melodies and shit is like, usually like the focal point of the song whenever it’s happening, and we don’t want to bury that. We don’t want to be like, My Bloody Valentine where the vocals are just *emotes a crushing sound*.
Mike: “As it turns out Maggie is extremely good at singing, so she actually sounds better not buried under effects.”
Tim: “She kills karaoke.”
Mike: “It’s true.”
MARR played first on September 19, 2017.
MARR plays The Comet with Strawberry Runners and The Lovers on October 26th.
