liner notes

The Best Band You’ve Never Heard

Bruce Springsteen has recorded with them, writer Nick Hornby occasionally joins them on stage to read one of his essays before they perform, and Stephen King called them “the best rock band in America that nobody knows.”

They are Marah, led by singer/songwriter Dave Bielanko, who formed the band in 1993. Originating out of Philadelphia, Marah has produced six rambunctious rock ’n’ roll albums that feature lick-happy guitars, folksy banjos, wailing harmonicas and anything Bielanko and his band mates can think of to liven up the proceedings.

Marah’s seventh CD, Angels of Destruction, lands January 8th. And while many bands hit a creative rut after 15 years of making music, Bielanko feels his group is just beginning to gel.

“Seven records into our career and we feel like we are getting a lot better at what we do, and I can’t think of many bands that could say that, usually they start to fall apart by then,” says a tired-sounding Bielanko over his cellphone from the band’s tour bus. (Marah played a gig in Glasgow, Scotland, the night before and are on the road south to Newcastle.)

“We were sort of feeling born again, and that whole good and evil concept started to fight its way through on this record.

As a writer, when you get into more of the religious themes it builds up a whole new way to look at whatever petty sh-t is happening in your life, but in a much more lofty way.”

Bielanko enjoys the fact Marah attracts a certain celebrity following, but it’s the group’s hardcore fans that keep him pumped about his job.

“We’ve been a really weird band. People of great f--cking stature and caliber have said ‘Holy f--k, you guys are really doing something,’ and then there’s snotty indie music critics that say we are pedestrian.

“The people who get [our music] are absolutely over-the-top, freak-out fans, and other people, it goes right by them. Our fans, for the most part, are supermusic snobs, they’re not like casual music fans, music means everything to them and for us to have that affect on them is something.”

Shaw Steps Up

While 15-year-old Miley Cyrus — a.k.a. Hannah Montana — plays sold-out stadiums and sells a gazillion plastic guitars, 17-year-old Amanda Shaw quietly goes about making far superior music.

The New Orleans-based teen started playing the fiddle at age four, performed with an orchestra at seven and has starred in two Disney TV movies. But she turned her back on an acting career to concentrate on music, which has paid off with the release of her second CD, Pretty Runs Out (available January 15).

Channeling Shania Twain’s sass and Emmylou Harris’s earnestness, Shaw demonstrates a deft writing touch on the album’s title track, a self-esteem anthem.

Out this month

Radiohead

In Rainbows >> January 1
If you chose not to download Radiohead’s seventh album a few months back here’s your chance to pick it up via one of those old-fashioned CD thingies.

Teenage Bottlerocket

Warning Device >> January 8
Imagine a slightly more poppy version of the Ramones and you’ve got Teenage Bottlerocket, four guys from Laramie, Wyoming, who know how to play a few chords really, really well.

Cat Power

Jukebox >> January 22

In 2000, the velvet-voiced Power released The Covers Record and now she’s back with her second covers CD, this time focusing on signature tunes from notables such as Frank Sinatra (“New York”)

and Hank Williams (“Ramblin’ (Wo)man”)