01.
Transmogrify (John Morton) 1:38
02. No Means No (Tom Warnick) 2:38
03. Fly Away (Tom Warnick) 2:30
04. Mr. Handsome (Tom Warnick) 2:29
05. Imposter (Tom Warnick) 3:41
06. When I Was Young* (Briggs, Burdon, Jenkins, McCulloch, Weider) 4:51
07. One More (Tom Warnick) 3:44
08. City Of Women (Tom Warnick) 1:51
09. Agitated** (McMahon, Morton, Marotta) 2:01
10. I Am Scared (Tom Warnick) 2:43
11. I Wish I Was High All The Time (Jamie Klimek) 3:42
12. Big Room (Tom Warnick) 4:26
Paul Marotta: vocals, guitar, piano
U.K. Rattay: guitar
Al Margolis: bass, vocals
John Keith: drums, vocals
All Songs published by Jilmar Music and Rattay Music, except:
* Carbert Music Inc, Little A Music, Unichappell Music Inc
** Jilmar Music, Imitation of Life Music
Produced by Paul Marotta and U.K. Rattay
Mixed in August and September, 2006 by George Evageliou at G E
Studio, NYC
and by Jürgen Müller at Pink Noise Studio, Aachen
Recorded by Jimmy Goodman at Leopard Studio, Stone Ridge, NY
Mastered by Michael Schwabe at Monoposto, Düsseldorf
Cover design by Harald Bernhard
Paul Marotta is an early riser - 5:30 isn’t unusual. The man
couldn’t be further away from the cliché of a wild rock
and roll animal. But that’s completely in character as the
new album from Marotta’s band, The Styrenes, is anything but
a cliché. Hard, rough, mean, unwashed, and slightly verminous;
with bad breath and nicotine teeth, City of Women is the kind of
rock record we haven’t heard in a long time.
The buzzsaw guitar snips away at the body of a song, nagging and
spitting, and the next minute it’s a tiny little melody that’s
neat as a pin. Bass and drums swoop and rumble, the vocals are broken,
like they’ve got screws in their jaws. The Eric Burdon & The
Animals’ classic When I Was Young is hardly recognizable, engaging
and expressive, while dispensing with the romantic veneer of the
original. Agitated is a malicious bark. I Wish I Was High is pure
fed up with life, and Mr. Handsome is that really unpleasant guy – a
fatal attraction – the one we all have to encounter sooner
or later.
Bright lights and long shadows, pills and booze, love, alienation,
and pure desperation, and (heavens, no) maybe even something about
your personal life. These Styrenes can be cunning. Most of the songs
were written by the New York based singer-songwriter Tom Warnick.
Marotta recalls, “We shared a bill once with Tom’s band,
and I found myself humming his tunes all the way home. So we recorded
a bunch of our favorites. And then added a few tunes that we’d
been playing live for years but hadn’t gotten around to recording”.
The Styrenes’ knack for turning most anything into pure and
straight energy keeps this cozy little trip from going straight to
hell. These guys aren’t youngsters and there’s enough
experience between them to create what might seem like an impossible
blend of urban rocksong, art-wave/art-punk, maybe even some glam,
in a consistent, consciously artistic manner. The concept is simple,
sophisticated music with punk energy. No beer-filled sports fans
chanting, no pseudo-provocative nostalgia, no post-punk jigs. But
something complex and truthful, something both thought provoking
and visceral. And then, just when you think you’ve got it,
the album takes another left turn.
This City of Women may not be an affable place, but it sure is alive.
ROLF JÄGER
Styrenes – a brief history
Paul Marotta formed The Styrenes in 1975 in Cleveland. Marotta, had
been a member of Mirrors, working as their interim bass player at
first and then on keyboards and violin while playing guitar in The
Electric Eels.
Strange names that never really got around – except that of another Cleveland
band, Pere Ubu, Mirrors, The Electric Eels and The Styrenes, plus a few others,
are reckoned as germ cells of the Cleveland scene and proto punk, a post-industrial
music from years before industrial music and other things that changed the perception
of pop music were “discovered”. For listeners who walk those musical
territories on a regular basis, these groups are certified legends. Their broken-down,
powerful, sometimes hostile, and emotionally shattering music that completely
defied technical evaluation has no equivalent in the history of time. A case
in point that substance, innovation and authenticity do not necessarily lead
to popularity. Especially when the name of the band is steadily in flux.
By the time of the Styrenes’ debut single “Drano In Your Veins” in
1975, the band was operating under the name Poli Styrene Jass Band. Then came
The George Money Band, The Styrene-Money Band, the Styrene Band, and finally
The Styrenes. The first band consisted of Marotta, guitarist Jamie Klimek who
was also leader of Mirrors, bass player Jim Jones (to become Ubu’s guitar
player during the Eighties), drummer Anton Fier (subsequently in the Feelies
and Golden Palominos mastermind later on) and Michael Antle (later Michael Gene
of Buzz and the Flyers). The combo played the Cleveland clubs and released self-produced
idiosyncratic punk/new wave. „We were a pretty anti-social band“,
Marotta says, „only the Electric Eels were worse. If someone from the audience
would jump onto the stage during a show it was more likely for the guitarist
to kick him back down again than just let him dance and have a good time. A typical
artiste thing.“
In 1980 Marotta and Klimek moved to New York where they set up a new Styrenes
line-up working exclusively at their own expense. Not by choice, as Marotta recalls: „Many
of the other Cleveland bands had secured recording contracts when the recording
industry had found out about the area – but that passed us by. So we recorded
our stuff when we happened to have some money to book a studio. We would record
two or three things, a few weeks or months later the next two or three and so
on, with constantly changing personnel.”
Recordings were released sporadically. Girl Crazy, the debut album, came out
in 1982, a now-out-of-print 3-track 7”-EP in 1983, and Marotta’s
solo LP Agit-Prop Piano in 1984. The follow-up Styrenes LP came seven years after
the first. A Monster And A Devil (re-released in 1998 with additional tracks
as All The Wrong People Are Dying), lyrically a downright shattering experience,
was a spoken-word-in-rock-record with Mike Hudson, ex-vocalist of the Pagans,
another Cleveland legend. 1991 saw the release of It’s Artastic (re-released
in 2002 with bonus tracks as It’s Still Artastic), 1994 a new Mirrors album
named Another Nail In The Coffin. And again The Styrenes disappeared into obscurity.
When they re-emerged in 1998, they started exactly from where they had stopped.
The new record We Care So You Don’t Have To presented a rattling, rough
and tumble rock band with punk in it’s veins and art in it’s brains
that obviously didn’t have anything in common with today’s cleanly
corporate punk. Guitarist Klimek, psychically burnt out, had thrown in the towel
and was replaced by UK Rattay.
The next Styrenes record only took 4 years to appear but was so completely different
from anything they had done before, that their small but loyal fan base hardly
recognized their beloved combo. As a rock band – guitar, bass, drums, piano
- The Styrenes had recorded In C, one of the main orchestral works of the twentieth
century written by minimalist composer Terry Riley in 1964. The critics were
surprised but delighted and the name of the band made the rounds in a very different
circle of listeners.
For the new album, City Of Women, released on Rattay’s Rent-a-Dog label,
Marotta moved from piano to rhythm guitar - „I like both instruments equally“,
he says laconically and offers only “logistic reasons” for
touring as a guitarist. They may look like a squad of old rocker sods but the
Styrenes’ world-weary, greasy sound seems uninfected by age. Maybe this
will infect the ear lobes of the willing listener. Enjoy.
ROLF JÄGER
Discographie:
- The Styrenes/ City Of Women
- rent a dog CD bone 3010-2
- The Styrenes/ It’s Still Artastic
- The Styrenes/ Terry Riley’s In C
- The Styrenes/ And Every Year, Christmas
- The Styrenes/ All The Wrong People Are Dying
- Overground Trading (UK) CD Over74
- The Styrenes/ We Care So You Don’t Have To
- Scat Records Scat 63 LP & CD
- The Styrenes/ One Fanzine Reader Writes b/w All The
Wrong People Are Dying
- Mirrors-Electric Eels-Styrenes/ Those Were Different
- Times Scat Records CD and 3-10\"vinyl Box Set
Out of Print:
- 01/89 Hudson-Styrene/ A Monster And The Devil
-
08/82 Poli Styrene Jass Band/ Drano In Your Veins
- Cassette/Trouser Press Guide to American Underground ROIR 124
- 07/82 The Styrenes/ Jaguar Ride on \"Cleveland Confidential-The LP\"
-
04/82 The Styrenes/ Jennifer Gymshorts; Exasperation b/w No Deposit No Return
- 02/81 Charlotte Pressler w/The Styrenes/ True Confessions b/w
True Confessions instrumental
- 07/80 The Styrenes/ Girl Crazy
- 10/77 Styrene Money Band/ Jaguar Ride; Everything Near Me b/w I Saw You
- 02/77 Styrene Money Band/ Just Walking b/w Radial Arm Saws
- 11/75 Poli Styrene Jass Band/ Drano in Your Veins b/w Circus Highlights
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