Homesick

Got to love Marah -- warts and all

by Sean Glennon

It's too easy to idolize. Too easy to put the people and the things you love on a pedestal, to squint hard, and to tell yourself -- and anyone who'll listen -- they're perfect.

But the better, the purer expression of affection is, of course, the one that acknowledges flaws. It's not enough to adore a woman skinny legs and all or to find your lover beautiful even though her eyes are nothing like the sun. You have to understand, to live with, and to embrace the fact love is nonetheless absolute. You have to find a place in your heart that cherishes your lover's faults, because that's the only thing that renders love complete and makes it real.

Dave and Serge Bielanko understand these things. Indeed, the brothers are masters of celebrating the imperfect. And it's because of this, their band, Marah (who appear Friday at the Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield), have released a new record that's both unavoidably engaging and unrelentingly real.

That Kids in Philly (E-Squared/Artemis) is a stunning artistic achievement is largely a result of the Bielanko brothers' sincere and unflinching embrace of imperfection. The record is an extended ode to a city that, like any other, has warts to spare, an often cold and sometimes ugly city the Bielankos regard with devotion and warmth. Because it's home.

"My heart is the ghetto at midnight, teeming with beats that reverberate fear," Dave Bielanko rasps on "My Heart Is the Bums on the Street," a song that is as much a paean to Philadelphia as it is a vivid depiction of the engulfing, hollow totality of lost love. "My heart is the rush of the traffic, the tug of the music, the scene of the crime."

A blue-eyed soul tune worthy of the comparisons it's drawn to Van Morrison (hell, it's worthy of comparison to Joe Tex for that matter), "My Heart Is the Bums" finds Marah performing at the height of their potential. The band can borrow from whatever influences they wish, and they do, without ever losing sight of themselves or their roots. And it's the Bielanko brothers' striking ability to remain well-grounded musically as well as philosophically that leads critics to compare their songwriting to Jagger/Richards's, Morrison's, and to Bruce Springsteen's.

It's also apt, though, to compare them to Shane MacGowan, both for their love of sad beauty and for the way they allow a rootsy edge to color all their music. The countryish strains that prompted critics to call their 1998 debut Let's Cut the Crap and Hook up Later on Tonight an American roots-rock equivalent of Exile on Main Street maintain a steady, if sometimes subtle, presence throughout Kids in Philly. And you can easily line the Bielankos up next to Chris and Rich Robinson, because, like the Black Crowes, Marah are mostly about making sincere rock music with a strong sense of what came before it.

Dave Bielanko recognizes the comparison to the Crowes as a compliment.

"If you like rock-and-roll music, that's your band, America," he says, speaking by phone from Philly. "There aren't many bands that make authentic records; but they do."

Bielanko says keeping your rock authentic isn't difficult if you maintain your perspective.

"At some point you realize these people who were doing this before you are just way better than you'll ever be," he says. "Otis Redding is better than you. And he will always be better than you and all those other bands."

And that, he says, doesn't have to be discouraging.

"It's a source of inspiration," he says. "You need to make authentic music like the Rolling Stones did and the Faces did. So you need to listen to the people they listened to."

Though you may think "derivative," Bielanko says so what. Its fine with him if listeners hear his band's influences.

"If they're gonna say Springsteen and the Faces and the Replacements, man, that's the best shit in the world," he says. "It's high flattery. But we work hard and I think that comes through. We don't try to rip anybody off, but we wear our influences on our sleeves; and I think that's cool."

But Bielanko knows there's much more to making a good record. He must, because, even as they pay tribute to their predecessors, Marah manage to make music that is fresh and alive, energetic, real.

That's an outgrowth of the strong grasp of the contradictory complexity of love and beauty that colors both Dave and Serge Bielanko's lyricism and their understanding of themselves.

"My Heart is the Bums on the Street" is not the only painfully beautiful song on Kids in Philly. Indeed, the record is replete with portraits of imperfect joy. The Bielankos explore the reaffirming nature of heartbreak on "Faraway You." They invoke the wonders of being trapped by a neighborhood on "Christian Street." They play tour guides to the ugly side of their beloved home on "The History of Where Someone Has Been Killed" and "This Town." And on "The Catfisherman," they explain how to keep simple pleasures alive in an awful world. "I got my fat sweet mama drop me off by the river," Dave sings. "I got a joint, three Millers, and 12 chicken livers. I got a spot 'neath the bridge by the expressway, where the freaks shoot dope and peddle their asses, baby." And every line of every song resonates with honesty.

"If the record we just made is anything, it's sincere," Bielanko says. "It's a real record. It isn't perfect or anything. But what you hope when you make a record like that is that someone hears it and gets it. If that happens, then you got it right."

Marah got it right.

Marah perform May 5 in the Converse Theater at the Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield. Tickets are $12.50 in advance, $18 at the door. Call (413) 536-1105 or order on line at http://www.wrnx.com.