I have so many fun things to tell you all about, and I’m not even sure where to start. There isn’t really so much a beginning to jump in at, so I’ll just have to list off some stuff as it come to mind.

1. I had a great time on the “two-day, one-city” Lo-Fi Is Sci-Fi tour a few weeks ago. One show was at a really nice club called Taste that you should check out anytime you get the chance, and it went really well for a group that hadn’t rehearsed in weeks. Thank god I’m becoming more confident as a drummer, because when Chris started knocking over my drums during “Jimmy Prefers To Freelance”, I’m still not sure how we managed to continue without missing a beat. We’re a solid rock band, me thinks.

2. Normal Bias has now been out for a few weeks, and so far I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback on the album. You might have noticed that I didn’t spend a lot of time going really in-depth with talking about the themes explored in the album as I am normally wont to do. I’m considering getting into a song-by-song dissection in my next journal entry, but for now… I think it’s best – and also more fun – to let people come to their own conclusions about the songs behind the songs, you know? Also, I’ve often said that my favorite Marc With a C album overall has been 2004’s Bubblegum Romance, but you know… Normal Bias has been pretty much completed since May of this year, and I think it’s standing up as my favorite album I’ve done now. More on that in the next blog, I assure you, but you may ask yourself “Marc, why on earth has Bubblegum Romance been your favorite album you’ve done? The answer is quite simple… Chris Zabriskie, which brings us to…

3. Well, even though the act is named Marc With a C, Chris Zabriskie is absolutely as important to the live shows, recorded output and general ethos behind the show. He’s more than just a drummer, webmaster and best friend. He also serves as an editor for my unbridled songwriting output. We have many late-night phone conversations discussing our next musical steps, and he often hears me coming up with ideas by simply talking them out until I eventually hit on a good idea. But with Bubblegum Romance, he was not only the producer, but also the guy that decided that we needed to strip things down to the basics of guitar, drums, vocals and limiting external instrumentation to only what was absolutely necessary to the song itself. He was not only more concerned with catching the feel of the sessions rather than getting the perfect performance… but he also came up with the tracklisting for the most part. He’s an amazing collaborator, he makes the stage shows way more fun than they would have ever been without him, and all of this needed to be said because….

4. As of this writing, it’s looking as if Chris and I will be splitting songwriting duties on the next Marc With a C album. Now, I usually don’t start recording anything until the weather starts cooling off, so that’s always subject to change, but right now the sixth album is provisionally titled Pop Calculator, and some songs being tossed around for inclusion include the following: “All My Drug Use Is Accidental”, “Pop Calculator”, “I Hope They Call Me On A Mission”, “Friends With Benefits”, “Born Vintage”, “You’ve Got This Curse” and “You & Me Should Go Away”. Some of these songs were slated for the next Lo-Fi Is Sci-Fi album, but they’re starting to feel more like Marc With a C tunes, and we figured we oughta put the song where they’re going to work best. This is a very big deal for me, as I’ve always been 1000% opposed to using a songwriting partner, but so much time has passed with us working now that often we’re writing the same types of songs about the same subjects…so we might as well stop fighting it. Now, this also means that some of the more dreary, shoegazish tunes I write but shelve is up for grabs in the Lo-Fi Is Sci-Fi canon. This way it’s not just the same group with revolving frontmen, it’s actually two totally different types of band altogether. Make sense? I hope it will. And I should emphasize that I couldn’t be more excited about this announcement, as Chris has written some amazing pop songs that I’m honored to sing. And this step technically makes Marc With a C an honest-to-god band, which is a new thing altogether. There will still be occasional solo sets, but between the bevy of drum-intensive songs from Normal Bias that we’re concentrating on at the shows lately and the new stuff… wow. Soon there may not even be room for solo sections at the shows!

5. On August 16th at Stardust in Orlando, FL, we did a show that was over two hours in length where I played quite possibly every song ever written by anyone anywhere. We recorded the show, promising to do something with the tapes in the future. And the show was great, don’t get me wrong, but something went awry while recording the vocals… they came out incredibly distorted and muffled. Basically, unless you have a pretty good handle on what the lyrics already are, it may not be too easy for you to pick out what I’m singing. This inspired me to do something I’d been considering for quite awhile now… I’m going to start an “Official Bootleg Series” on www.marcwithac.com. What that entails is that I’ll put up a zip/rar file of the show in a few chunks for easy downloading purposes. It’ll stay up for a limited time, and every few months I’ll pick another show out of the archives to make an official bootleg out of. Now, we have boxes and boxes of tapes ranging back to 2000, so we’re open to all sorts of suggestions and requests for what we put up as sanctioned bootlegs. I’ve already got a pretty fun show picked out for volume two, but I’m always open to hearing what the fans want to have in their collections. Heck, one day we might even make a compilation of studio rarities for one volume…

6. Now, this shouldn’t be all the way down here at #6, because it’s quite important. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty fucking huge news, really. Next month, work begins on a Marc With a C documentary that will be available on DVD in 2008. Right now, we know the following: I’m giving director Jen Vargas access to years worth of archival video footage, as well as numerous outtakes that have never seen the light of day. Most people that have been involved with Marc With a C have agreed to be interviewed for the film, and we’re even booking a few shows specifically slated to be filmed for usage in the “rockumentary”. Jen and I have been on the same page from the get-go with the story that we’d like to see told, and we both agree not to put out something that won’t make everyone happy. It’ll also be no-holds-barred stuff, so I may come out looking like an asshole dictator for all I know, but at least it’ll be honest. Oh! At some of those shows, she may be looking to get a couple of minutes worth of fan interviews, so if you’d like to take part, please either let us know, or ask the girl with the camera setup. But preferably not while we’re filming, because then I’ll just have to make you pay for the wasted tape. We’re very excited to see this project come to life, and we hope it’ll be something you folks will be interested in as well! If you’d like to see a bit of her work, you can go to www.youtube.com/jenvargas. She’s currently piecing together a documentary on the demise of Back To The Future: The Ride, and we share an insatiable obsession with all things related to The Monkees. Sounds like a recipe for success, eh?

7. This reminds me…: if you have any archival footage at all, be it stuff you shot on your digital camera, a show you filmed a bit of that I didn’t get a copy of, basically ANYTHING on ANY format, please get in touch with me ASAP. I’ll make it worth your while for copies and even more worth your while for originals. This extends to fliers, setlists, photographs, filmed shows… anything at all, folks..

8. On a personal note, my fiancée and I have been the proud owners of a Chihuahua named Meatwad for almost two years now, and today we’ve welcomed a new addition to the family: a bunny named Donna Lynn. If you aren’t familiar with her namesake, I highly recommend you go here and download some songs, as it’s pretty amazing stuff: Donna Lynn. Also, there are eectures of our adorable little bunny on my MySpace profile, so feel free to check them out at your leisure.

9. Finally, it wouldn’t be a Marc With a C blog if I didn’t recommend some records and artists that I’ve been listening to tons of recently. You should check out these following artists post-haste:
Jellybean! (adorable twee pop from Goleta, CA)
Imperial Teen (longtime popsters that just released the best album of their career)
Susan Christie (her album was recorded in 1970 and remained unreleased until 2006… one of the greatest unheard artists of all time, bar none)

And I think that’s gonna just about do it for this blog entry, folks. In the next journal, I’ll go a bit more in-depth about the stories behind Normal Bias as well as charting the docu-progess. Please don’t forget about our plea for any archival pictures, film or recordings you may have lying around. We could really use it!

Anyways, I hope you are all well, and I thank you so much for reading. Have a great day, and I hope to see you at an upcoming show!

Love on ya,
Marc