Caspar Giles McCloud
Marbles
The Wind
The FoxxThe Foxx flex their music muscle, latching on to just about anything that seems to work, from country ballads to glam, doo-wop covers to hard rock. Their music lies somewhere between these influences, in a pop and rock conglomerate (a new genre - "pock"?? perhaps not). If the early ABBA had decided to produce 50's rock covers backed by the young Redd Kross, The Foxx would no doubt want to open for them. If Tommy James and the boys from Mud got together with Connie Francis, the girls of Heart, and Billy Childish, and they all dressed up accordingly, it might be a little something like this. The Foxx credits many influences; among them the aforementioned.
Describing the Foxx is like describing the Great Pyramids (they must be seen to be beheld), but herein lies a brief but encompassing description of those musical artists which have inspired this group to sally forth, rock, and ham it up; those before us who have given the Foxx its feet - or paws, as it were: The Spiders from Mars and what's-his-name, The Shocking Blue, Mud, The Sweet, Billy Childish and his manifestations, Ike and Tina Turner, The Archies, The Nazz, Brian Eno, The Zombies, Wizzard, Tommy James and the Shondells, T. Rex, The Pandoras, Dusty Springfield, The Paul Collins Beat, bubblegum music, country and western music, rhythm and blues music, and the motown beat.
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Caspar Giles McCloud
Marbles(taken from an article at Perfect Sound Forever - http://www.perfectsoundforever.com)
The Marbles were the closest (or 'nearest'?) contemporaries to that first blush of Max's-and-CB's-circuit crawlers (their "Red Lights" 45 came out in 1976). Brothers David and Howard Bowler, Jim Clifford and Eric Li sported identical, post-Fab Four pudding bowl haircuts and confirmation couture, which was, at a juncture of rock's timeline that almost demanded jeans and beardy-weirdness of its practitioners, a most radical look.
Their musical forte was equally radical, yet - similar to the way the Ramones reconstructed Sixties pop with the newly acquired roar of Marshall technology - traditional. All four Marbles played; moreover, all four sang, at times in an orgasmic blend of harmony rarely heard since the heyday of the Beach Boys or pre-cynical Flo and Eddie. To add to the mix, Eric Li's delicate keyboard filigrees acted as twinkling fairy lights, strewn across and within the virtual Christmas tree he and his companions created over each three-minute burst of pure, uncut Powerpop.
They were well liked among their peers of the time, even showing up in an early issue of John Holmstrom's Punk Magazine, clowning around in wigs with the future rock diva then known only as "Debbie Blondie". Which somehow made sense - both bands exhibited nothing of the artistic antagonism of the likes of Patti Smith and Television, their eyes and ears fixed on a vision of Top-10 triumph on a worldwide scale. Eventually, the Marbles were taken under the wing of Alan Betrock, editor of Punk's local rival, New York Rocker, and thrown into a studio or two. You can snag one side of their debut, "Red Lights", on the essential ROIR compilation The Great New York Singles Scene. It is a stunning intro to what woulda-coulda-shoulda been a hit-bound future for the Marbles: ebullient, bright, catchy as all hell, with a characteristic and gorgeous four-part harmony bridge. The single even got them noticed by their punk brethren in London, eliciting a thumbs-up in one British magazine from that most commercially-minded member of the Clash, Mick Jones. The second and remaining Marbles release, "Forgive and Forget"/"Computer Cards", ups the Powerpop ante, both songs being as tuneful as the debut, yet more sophisticatedly arranged, thus more challenging "Computer Cards" in particular, is a vocal tour-de-force, all four Marbles taking the listener from robotic unison to wondrous, enveloping rushes of Bowery-barbershop bliss.
There were even more Marbles tunes - now relegated to the occasional, hard-to-find bootleg tape - that ideally would have propelled them into the charts and hearts of American music fans, songs like the Left Banke - stately "She's In Movies", and the near-flawless melodic splendor of "Closing Me Down" (the band's contribution to A. Poe and I. Kral's flawed but definitive cinematic document of the period, The Blank Generation).
Needless to say, though, it didn't turn out that way, though they did manage to tour as far South as Washington D.C., playing at the turbulently ruled Atlantis (now 930) Club. In fact, therein lies a killer anecdote: the band was sightseeing earlier on their day in the Nation's Capitol, at one point finding themselves waiting on line for the tour of the Washington Monument. A fellow tourist clocked them, all Beatle hair and pre-Knack skinny ties, and asked who they were. When told that they were an honest-to-God rock band, they were then asked in so many words to prove it. The four Marbles then proceeded to present to all and sundry in proximity a spot-on, four-part accapella version of "Computer Cards". The reaction of the tourists is yet to be documented.
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