Mark Mallman Mr. Serious CD

Mark Mallman refuses to let anyone in on the joke. As one of the most compelling and unique songwriters and performers to emerge from Minneapolis in years, Mark Mallman's reputation is exploding out of his home base into the world at large. His Midwestern fan base has been building strongly for years, as he has opened for a wide range of acts from Guided by Voices to Ozomatli, Beth Orton to Everlast, and Cat Power to The Barenaked Ladies - weird. Mallman mesmerizes audiences, blending the hard hitting showmanship of bands like Scissor Sisters and the Darkness with the classic songwriting styles of early Warren Zevon and Joe Jackson. He continues his reputation for incendiary live performances in support of his new album Mr. Serious. More than just documenting a great songwriter and performer, this album synthesizes the manic energy and reflective song craft like a displaced text book of rock.From September 4th - 6th Mark Mallman performed "Marathon 2: The Longest Rock Song Ever Written", a mammoth 600+ page history of his own life - complete with a chorus and rhyming lyrics. The event doubled the record he set in 1999 of 26.2 hours. "Marathon 2" was performed with the assistance of nearly 70 backing musicians in what has become the an ongoing series of a conscious blurring of rock music and pop art, Mark released his suicide-tinged, The Tourist in 1999 and it wasn't long before he became known as the Twin Cities' premier keyboard wild man. And the fans gathered with jaws dropped at him kicking and smashing vintage keyboards, dislocating a shoulder and breaking fingers, all the while screaming "I am not a comedian, I am a serious rock songwriter!" In a track from his second release How I Lost My Life and Lived to Tell About It, Mallman recalls the marathon song in a simple, bitter lyric; "I can't sing anymore like I used to". By 2001 ...