Max and the Marginalized Start Summer Tour
Playing Two Dates in the Philadelphia Area
Tour Started July 15 at Modified Arts in Arizona. Twenty-Two Dates thru August with stops
at the Trocadero and The Reef, Wilmington, DE. Start making your plans to see this band.
Max and the Marginalized are a political band from Los Angeles and are the new act of 2008 to see while they tour and build up a following. Max and the Marginalized will be one of those bands that will one day just be everywhere filling large rooms, in the national media and tickets to see them from a nose bleed away will be unaffordable.
The reason for all the hype? you might ask... Well that's because Max and the Marginalized sound like no one else right now and they are writing songs at a rapid rate, 41 complete in 41 weeks. Not just slapped together, thin demo versions, but well developed tunes that matured with touring will be relevant and fresh years from now.
Taken From the Max Marginal Blog:
"Someone asked me how long the band was going to write and record a song a week. I said 'why would we stop?' Operating as a kind of op-ed piece in the form of a rock band, Los Angeles based Max and the Marginalized have been writing and recording a song a week and releasing them immediately on left-wing blog hub The Huffington Post and on their MySpace page.
In an age where the news cycle has sped up and the album cycle has slowed down, Max felt it was the only way to make relevant political music. "How can I write a song about the spinelessness of the current Congress for an album that will be out in three years?" Indeed, this is the problem with making political music - anytime a band comes forward with a lyric more specific than "F--k the system" they run the risk of being dated by the time the CD's are pressed. Bands write a song they like and hold onto it forever, trying to give it commercial momentum which can sometimes take months or years. Problem is, if you have something to say, there's no time for that.
The result is a staggering body of work that grows weekly, landing somewhere between Bad Religion, Ted Leo, The New York Times Opinion Page and The Daily Show. There's a firm base of satire in many of the songs ("Weeknights At Six", a scathing indictment of CNN anti-immigration host Lou Dobbs and "Dana, Dana", a guilty crush song for White House spokesperson and sexpot Dana Perino with lines like "The camera loves you more than the microphone" are perfect examples of this). Others touch on the real tragedy and injustice of the current war without resorting to vague and bleeding sentiment. Songs like "No Kisses No Cameras" is a chilling and thoughtful dirge about the Pentagon's policy of not allowing photographs of coffins of fallen soldiers. "Lectures For The Dying" explores the backwardness of abstinence-only education both here and in AIDS-ravaged Africa. The idea of making a real political impact is not far-fetched for Bernstein (his father, Carl Bernstein, is one half of the journalistic duo that exposed Watergate and brought down President Nixon.) While Max doesn't expect to have anything like that kind of impact, he does not believe there's anything naive about thinking that this music can make a difference. "People emailed me saying that they weren't against the death penalty until hearing 'Standing in the Driveway Holding Cardboard in the Rain'. That's reason enough to do this."
One might expect such heady fare to be long on rhetoric and short on fire - thankfully this is not the case. Musically, Max and the Marginalized channel the great high-energy acts of yore like The Replacements and The Jam, with a spontaneity that is sorely missing from the current crop of hyper-polished, meticulously crafted rock that dominates the basements and bars of America.
By the time you read this, there will have been more songs, and new ones every Thursday. 2008 will be a hell of a year in politics - it will now have a hell of a soundtrack.
Max and the Marginalized are: Max Bernstein - guitar + vocals. Dave Watrous - Bass. Jon Ryggy - Drums. Our friend Max Waker is a recording engineer and makes cartoons.
Urock Radio was the first anywhere to spin tracks from Max and the Marginalized. We discovered Max Bernstein's new band the week he began it, his first and our favorite was "Standing In the Driveway, Holding Cardboard in the Rain" Since then Urock Radio have played, Free Evenings and Weekends, Consider the Source, Even When It Ends It Won't Be Over, The Only Way Out Is The Exit to mention a few in rotation.
To see the action live catch Max and the Marginalized are: at one of their two Philadelphia area stops. August, 1 2008 08:00 PM at the Trocadero with Leftover Crack, Mischief Brew and Witch Hunt. Check the R5 page for show info.
Their second appearance will be at the first ever Urock Radio Event August 4th at The Reef in Wilmington. Complete show details will be available shortly on the urockradio.net homepage.
Summer Tour Schedule
July, 17 2008 08:00 PM - Prophet Bar
Dallas, Texas
July, 18 2008 09:00 PM - Room 710
710 Red River, Austin, Texas
July, 21 2008 08:00 PM - Raziel’s
Vermillion, South Dakota
July, 22 2008 08:00 PM - Box Awesome (Basement)
Lincoln, Nebraska
July, 23 2008 08:00 PM - Beat Kitchen
Chicago, Illinois
July, 24 2008 08:00 PM - Skull Alley
Louisville, Kentucky
July, 25 2008 07:00 PM - I Was Totally Hammering The Fingers House
University NE and Lowry NE, Minneapolis, Minnesota
w/All the Way Rider and Men Who Control the Weather
August, 9 2008 09:00 PM - Blue Dome Diner
222. E. 1st St., Tulsa, Oklahoma 74120 - $10
All ages, full bar for 21+. My Solstice’s record release show, 10 bucks gets you entry and their CD.
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If you would like to have your press releases, announcements, touring news, or album releases published on The Urock Network, then send them to editor@uroc.net
The full R5 newsletter for remaining
shows in July and a preview of August (as well as a Sneak Peak for fall)
can be found at our R5 page Here
Speaking of the fall we have a VERY special engagement
coming up for the election. Former Black Flag vocalist and punk icon / tv show
man / Ian Mackaye childhood buddy - HENRY ROLLINS will be sharing his thoughts on
the last 8 years during the Bush administration at The First Unitarian Church.
From his own mouth : To celebrate the end of the Bush era, I am hitting the
road with a brand new election time talking tour” . It’s all going down on
Sunday November 2nd in the seated Sanctuary portion of the church
He has been selling tickets through his own fan club, which
can be purchased here at the following link :
Already he has sold 1/3 of the tickets and the show has not
even been announced yet. Tonight at midnight you will be able to purchase
tickets from our site (scroll down to the upcoming future events section) . We
expect this one to sell out pretty quickly. We'll also have tickets available
(with no surcharge) starting on Tuesday July 22nd at Deep Sleep.
Urock Merchandise Available at Cafepress.com Hit This Banner Below.
Ticket News
U2 will be touring the first announced show is in UT.
Hit the link to check for up-to-date info.
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R5 Announces Info
