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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

The Curious Musical History of Adam Marsland

It’s a Friday night in Marina del Rey and Adam Marsland and His Chaos Band take the stage for a CD release show at which no copies of the disc are for sale. The merchandise table at Irish pub Brennan’s presents Marsland’s back catalogue and albums from his guitarist Evie Sands. Bass player Teresa Cowles baked cupcakes free for the taking. But what about the album he is promoting, “Daylight Kissing Night,” his greatest hits collection? “You can’t buy a copy but you can look at a copy,” Marsland tells the crowd of about 40 people. Songs from the new album figure prominently during the nearly 90-minute set. Marsland switches from guitar to keyboards and back to guitar; lets Sands take the vocals on one song; and introduces new material. His between-song patter draws laughter from the audience and yet takes on a serious tone when it comes to the purpose at hand. It had been an incredible week, Marsland says, and relates that Amazon sold out its shares of the album. “I had faith good things would happen if I priced it to make no money for myself,” Marsland says. * * * * On the day of release for “Daylight Kissing Night” March 18 Adam Marsland unwinds with a two-hour hike and some yoga. He’s done what he can to get people to buy the record, especially through pre-sales at online retailer Amazon. The previous day the disc ranked at No. 19 at Amazon for rock records based on those pre-orders. Marsland and his distributor were taken by surprise by how well the disc sold; so well that Amazon ran out of their stock and then depleted the copies at the one-stops, the middlemen for all the retailers. In Los Angeles, only independent record store Amoeba Music had copies. “It would have been nice to have more CDs in the pipeline,” Marsland says in an interview at the Starbucks near his home in Reseda the day after the release. “It was 20 times what they expected.” The suggested retail price of $5.99 works out to just less than 30 cents for each of the 20 songs on the album Marsland compiled at the suggestion of friend Ben Zimmerman to reintroduce himself to the record-buying public. Taken in its entirety, the album gives a sense of his career since moving west from upstate New York as frontman for the band Cockeyed Ghost on four albums to solo performer, highlighting literate songwriting in a range of styles. There is the punk phase, the pop phase, the roots rock phase, and the soul phase. Marsland and Co. re-recorded or made additions to a handful of songs because the original sounded sloppy or too much like a young band in a hurry to get somewhere. Marsland refers to the collection as a curious history. <!– –> Equally curious is making the album available only through retailers in an industry where digital downloads of individual songs and albums erodes the sales of physical discs; and in which major record chains like Tower and Musicland folded due to bankruptcy, and others like Virgin are closing stores. Counter intuitive? Yes, Marsland agrees, but in his 15-year career he’s done a lot that is counter intuitive. The business plan for getting “Daylight” to an audience was to go in incremental steps. First, get the record into retail locations, then arrange radio interviews and revamp the band’s websites ( www.adammarsland.com and www.myspace.com/adammarsland ). More live shows will follow; possibly even short tours to fill in the gaps. Making “Daylight” available for download through iTunes was never one of those steps. Pricing the album at $5.99 bypasses digital distribution because it’s cheaper than downloading. The inexpensive price also makes for a simple and easy way to get the audience involved by picking up extra copies to pass along to others. “I wanted to build this phase organically and not ask too much of people,” Marsland says. Like any small business owner, Marsland recognizes he relies on the goodwill of the customer and if he can’t deliver a good value, music buyers go elsewhere. “I wish more people in the music industry would see that,” Marsland says. Like many who came before him, Marsland learned the hard way about the business side of the industry. His label, Big Deal, tanked just as Cockeyed Ghost was poised for a breakthrough with its third album. In another of those counterintuitive moves, Marsland responded by recording and self-releasing a fourth album with the band and then promoting it with 2 & #733;-years of near-incessant touring on his own, building up a cadre of listeners and living the part of a musician off the industry grid. The tour resulted in the live 2002 album “232 Days on the Road” while “Burning Me Out (of the Record Store)” distilled the situation with Big Deal into 4 minutes and 32 seconds of smarmy bitterness and frustration. “This is supposed to be music,” Marsland sings, “but it feels like war. And I’m not sure I wanna do this anymore.” The doubts about continuing in music return in “I Can’t Do This Anymore” but emanate from a different place. Marsland wrote the song (included on the new compilation) during his solo tour playing small clubs and coffeehouses to at-times unappreciative audiences. Less about the business of music like “Burning Me Out,” the song “I Can’t ” looks at the relationship between performer and audience and the performer and himself. Marsland had spent two years on the road being the best version of himself he could be and “I Can’t Do This Anymore” was written with the realization that he could end the touring. “If they wanted to take the ride that was cool,” Marsland says of the audiences on that tour. “If not, then it wasn’t my role to pander to them.” If there are lingering doubts about a career in music, Marsland hides them well as he enthusiastically promotes the new album. At the Starbucks he flirtatiously asks a female barrista if she’s bought the album, and later gives a promo flier to Gerry Porter, a drummer in a band Marsland once saw at a club in Highland Park. Shows are booked months in advance at Brennan’s, Taix in Echo Park, and The Buccaneer in Sierra Madre. Missing from the gig schedule are shows in the San Fernando Valley. He and the band would be happy to play the Valley but there are no clubs catering to their style of music, Marsland says. If there were a place like the Buccaneer, a neighborhood bar where they could play all night for “regular folks” then he and the Chaos Band are there. “Those are our favorite gigs,” Marsland says. “That’s what rock and roll is all about.” It’s nearing midnight at Brennan’s in Marina del Rey and Adam Marsland looks out at the faces resulting from the leap of faith he took with his career. For the fans fortunate enough to have a copy of “Daylight Kissing Night,” their receipt makes them eligible to win prizes in a raffle featuring albums; t-shirts; two massages from Cowles who is a certified massage therapist when not plucking bass strings; and the grand prize: a personal song written and recorded by Marsland and the band. Then it’s back to the music, two last songs, rock numbers, the finale a cover of “Rock and Roll All Night” by Kiss punctuated by Marsland leaping in the air on the final note. Then, fists in the air in a classic rock and roll pose, he shouts, “Let’s eat cupcakes and get drunk!” Staff Reporter Mark Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or by e-mail at [email protected] . His favorite Adam Marsland song is “Ludlow 6:18.”

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