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Jennifer Marks
Definitely Not Red
by Francine Rubin |
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Thursday, December 14, approx. 9:45 pm: young woman with increasingly
well-known poof of red hair set off by fluffy black boa, edges gilded
red, harriedly mounted The Bitter End's stage. "Tape? Anyone have
tape?" She ran from one side of the stage to the other, managing
the inputs and sounds and stands and instruments and other mysterious
stuff of music, into which I can't offer much insight.
As a better guitar-vocal balance was being sounded out, a big smile
spread across the singer's face and her eyes shone. A few trial
notes buzzed from the guitar and then, "sorry I'm late, and for
making you wait. I'm glad you stuck around."
From that moment on, Jennifer Marks commanded The Bitter End,
the funky Bleeker St. club where many musicians get their start.
With wit, a super energy and a great sound, Jennifer had the place
rocking with her after her impromptu apology opening number.
Jennifer met me for coffee at Zabars, (80th and Broadway) at 8:30
am, about six hours after touching down at Newark Airport. "This
year has been exhausting," she says of her affinity for getting
around. Charting through Cali, Oregon, Seattle, Vegas, Asia, and
marriage, to name a few milestones, her humor, charm, and patience
remain intact.
"I'd like to just sit in a chair for a month! It wouldn't even have
to be a nice chair or in a nice place. It could be a cold chair
even!"
In just the few years since graduating from NYU with a degree in
music business, Jennifer has two albums, a record label, and a growing
following under her belt, and also some bits of wisdom to speak
of.
Bit of wisdom number one to aspiring rockers: "Go to college! All
the time I'm getting e-mails from girls, asking me if they should
go to college, and I'm like, y-e-s-exclamation point - exclamation
point. It's so important!" "I think college is kind of wasted on
kids, you know? I appreciated my last year at NYU way more than
all my other years of education, and even now I still think about
all the stuff that was available for me to do, and that I just didn't
take advantage of - why, I don't know. Maybe kids are just like
that."
Maybe because she had so much on her plate, especially for a kid.
While taking courses and working towards a degree, she met "amazing,
wonderful people" in the music business and focused on her own band,
too.
"I got to work with Peter Zizzo, Glen Burtnik, Michael Ochs, Peter
Bliss, Tina Shafer - song-writers who write for Celine Dion, for
Whitney Houston - all the big names. I was so lucky!"
Jennifer's run-in with the major label industry is also a story
to take note of: "I was asleep in bed, it was like 8 in the morning,
and I get this phone call. It was - actually, maybe he should remain
nameless - it was this guy from a major label, which at the time
was under the guise of Columbia, and he said, "we've listened to
your demo Pizza, and we want to sign you." At first I thought
it was my brother, and I told him to shut the fuck up," she laughs.
"But he was for real, and I felt like I'd won the lottery! And then,
after talking for a bit, he asked me, 'do you look like you eat
a lot of pizza?'"
She responded with silence. And then, "if you're looking for a model,
I'm not interested. If you're interested in someone who is talented
and who can carry a show, we can talk."
She ultimately produced and released Pizza herself, finding
the major-label industry to be not really conducive to her artistic
needs. "It's terribly emotionally draining - to play your soul out
for all these big label producers and have them be like, `well,
that's not the image we were exactly going for. How about you try
this, or this or this.'"
So she went solo, and a year and a half ago started her own record
label, called Red Kurl Records, on which her second album, My
Name's Not Red, came out last January.
After just a few years in the music industry, Jennifer has a lot
to say. "I'm learning. I'm learning how to balance music and business.
I'm realizing, for example, that it's not worth my time to fly out
to Ohio to do a gig and not get paid for it. Not that I wouldn't
do a free show. But this is how I make money, you know? It's my
job, and I'm learning how to get more out of it from the business-end."
On the internet: "I love it. I do about 60% of my business
through the internet. It's more connected, it's world-wide, it's
great for promotion. It's really a great thing for small businesses.
Also, it's fun to read about my music on other people's Web sites.
One time I was surfing and found `Liz Phair and Jennifer Marks'
under someone's favorite artists. I was like, `cool!'"
On being an independent artist: "It's hard. I'd just love
for a 9-5 person to follow me around for a day and see what I do,
you know? Like today, for example. Got in at 2:30 am. 8:30am - interview.
When I get home I've got some tax stuff to figure out. I don't get
to write songs when I feel like it or when I'm inspired or when
I'm bored, although I wish I could. I don't have time to play video
games. There's always something to be done. I stamp and label every
post-card for all of my shows, and I've got a mailing list of about
750. I up-keep my Web site. I schedule rehearsal times for my band,
which means finding a place and a time where we can all meet, and
then booking the place. There's promotion. There's so much mundane
bull-shit!"
On touring: "Touring is hard. I've gotta book the accommodations,
the venue, the travel stuff. Actually, I'm looking for a booking
agent now. I'd love to get some help. Of course, it's great, too.
The traveling. I've had only good experiences."
Of the name of her record label and her second album, for which
she apparently gets lots of questions: [Groaning] "it's a joke
it's a joke it's a joke! It's my own fault. That's the bottom line.
Now I'd call the record label ... I don't know - Zabars!"
Jennifer was a born singer, though she was the last to know it.
"When I was little, I was a little obsessed with `Grease.' I'd belt
out 'Hopelessly Devoted to You' all the time, until one day,
when my mom told me, 'you have to stop! You're giving me a headache!'
I thought I wasn't any good. Then, one day - I was about eleven
- my chorus teacher caught me talking in class, while she was auditioning
people for a concert, and she made me audition. And then she gave
me the part. I remember coming home and telling my mom, and I could
see her thinking, `my God is that woman deaf!?' I must have driven
my mother nuts, all those `Hopelessly Devoteds.'"
Jennifer's a born song-writer, too: "I thought I wrote `We Will
Rock You' when I was little. My mind's always processing things
I hear, and then re-processing them, re-processing them. I'm realizing,
as I give more interviews and talk more about my background, that
I've probably always been composing songs without realizing it.
I've got this innate musical thing, but at first I really needed
help getting what was natural out, and into finished songs - with
a chorus and verses and all that. Working with Peter, with Tina,
with Glen was great for that."
Jennifer of today is strong and super-talented, though, doubtless,
still full of unexplored potential. She began writing music at sixteen
and has been exploring the depths of her musical soul ever since.
In the meantime, her music continues to climb radio station request-lists,
often hitting #1 at college radio.
Her latest album, My Name's Not Red, is fun and upbeat while
at the same time painfully self-aware. It searches, with "Dreamill"
and "High School Reunion" (So many people / I don't remember
names / It doesn't really matter / Then and NOW's the same / But
here I am at my High School Reunion), while berating itself
at the same time with quirky orchestrations and quick one-liners
(If you wanted to prove you still had hair / I'm sorry I don't
care) - reminding itself that it's important to have fun too
- to not take itself too seriously.
"Dreamill" talks about being alone. "To finish that song, I walked
around the city with a tape-recorder and spoke into it - about things
that I was struck by, things that bothered me, stuff like that.
Part of the song was in response to someone who said to me one day,
`oh you have so many friends.'"
The title track is a provocative, dead-pan ballad that's a little
Mama Cass-ish in vocal quality. "Thick" deserves mention too - an
upbeat song that is so easy to listen to again and again, it won
Jennifer first place for rock in the USA Songwriting Competition.
Actually, every song on "Red" is of interest - each one is a jewel
of irony, wryness and - in spite of what Jennifer calls her "tongue-in-cheekiness"
- sweet earnestness. Underlying each song, there's a real, palpable
desire to probe and find some ground of truth.
Jennifer is currently working on a third album, title as yet unrevealed.
She's enjoying her success, and juggling business and music, but
she'd love more than anything to really focus right now on her music:
"with all that's been happening business-wise this past year, I
haven't been able to devote myself to my music as I'd like to. I'm
working on re-prioritizing - on making music come first."
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_________________________________
 To
hear songs from Pizza and My Name's Not Red, and to
check out Jennifer's concert dates, visit http://www.jennifermarks.com. |
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_________________________________
Francine Rubin is a freelance writer living in New York. |
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