Article: The story of Marcy, the least nu metal band on Flip Records
One of the more annoying trends in writing, to me at least, is unnecessary detail about an author’s journey to write an article. As a reader, I usually don’t start reading to hear about how you couldn’t quite write about (insert high profile celebrity’s name here) the way you wanted to. I just wanted to learn about something new.
So, I’ll save you all of that and sum it up this way: I’ve been wanting to write this article for 2 years and haven’t been able to figure it out. I’m going to try my best. Marcy is a band you should know.
It starts out with Atlanta teenager Lisa Fletcher tinkering with a 4-track in the late ‘80s that her parents’ bought her. She showed the recordings to her brother Brian. He played drums in some local bands (such as A Few Kids with Bicycles) and, in the early 90s, suggested they go record the demos in a studio.
Daniel Owens, Marcy’s original bassist, said the band was originally named Thumper. For reasons not entirely known, they upended it for something from the Peanuts universe.
“To me, and I could be wrong, there was subliminal reference behind the name,” Owens said via email. “It could be construed as a direct tribute to the [Charles] Schulz cartoon, where the character Marcie was a tomboy and best friend (?). To that point and in retrospect, the name was a good fit. The fact that in the early to mid 90’s women in indie rock were becoming such a driving force and finding their own individual selves through it, that was us."
Owens, who played bass on Marcy’s demo and first 7,” met Fletcher through her brother Brian.
“I knew of Lisa, the little sister, during this time,” Owens said. “She was super cool and aloof, wore a shit ton of black everything. Brian would tell me about how talented she was, writing these bits and pieces of songs. Even though we never really knew each other, I was always intrigued where she would end up.”
Owens remembers being back in the area during college and jamming with Lisa.
“We jammed a few times in her parents’ basement with a couple of friends trying to not to sound like Throwing Muses, but still hoping to at the same time,” he said.
Brian helped the song “Arthur,” one of Lisa’s demos, get some airtime on the University of Georgia's radio station. This helped generate some buzz.
“I think we recorded 3 songs with no plans beyond that,” Lisa said via Instagram messenger. “The songs got passed around town and got a lot of interest, so we decided to start playing out and shortly after signed a deal with a local indie label.”
“Since I guess I had time spent with the both of them, they asked me to go into the studio to start fleshing out Lisa’s 4-track ideas at Furies [a studio in Marietta, GA] with Ed Burdell,” said Owens. “A band was born from that studio session.”
From there, the band put out the Pilot/Charlotte 7” in 1994 on Henry Records. The single is abrasive yet sweet noise pop. It’s catchy but not cloying. It’s clear from the start what would make Marcy stand out in the crowded field of alternative rock in the ’90s.
This all takes a weird turn when Marcy signs to a larger label.
Ichiban International, a distributor that also ran Ichiban Records, had a partnership with Flip Records. If Flip sounds vaguely familiar, it should. It released some of the most popular nu metal albums during the genre’s heyday including Limp Bizkit, Cold, Dope and Staind. This was the label that signed Marcy (through Ichiban).
Early on, Flip hadn’t found its niche and tried out a few different sounds. This ranged from art pop to hard rock to George Hamilton’s son’s band. For more about the other releases, go here.
Marcy gets signed to a label that has a sizable distribution. To add to the excitement, they got Mercury Rev bassist and Flaming Lips’ go-to producer Dave Fridmann.
“We were all huge Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips fans, so when it came time to find a producer for our record Dave was the obvious choice,” Lisa said. “I remember when we got the news that he had agreed to do it we all just lost it...it was so surreal and exciting and, at least for me, kinda terrifying...because, you know, it was Dave Fridmann.”
Marcy guitarist Calvin Florian helped set things in motion.
“I took a Polaroid of myself waving, wrote a letter and sent a demo cassette (King Mattress) to Dave and mailed it to him,” Florian said via email. “Basically, said we were looking for a producer and liked his work and would he be Interested...then, as you know, I think he called me and we chatted about him coming down and that’s when he came down and hung out at our practice space. Months after he said they still kept the Polaroid on their fridge at home.”
When listening to the two songs from the Henry Records 7” against the versions that ended up on the Fridmann produced album, it’s clear there weren’t big compromises. The vocals are a bit clearer and there are some other minor touches (this is not my field of expertise, please don’t try to make me elaborate more). Otherwise, the band’s vision stays intact while bringing things into sharper focus.
The album cover is honestly why I bought this CD and why I’m writing this in the first place. A very ’90s stripe composed of blue, silver and orange lines runs across the middle. A confused (sad?) looking polar bear is above the strip. Below the strip simply reads Marcy. Between that and the Flip logo, who wouldn’t take a chance on it? The cover was done by John Otto.
My first thought might be yours too. This is a John Otto designing a cover for a Flip Records release. But this isn’t Limp Bizkit’s drummer. In a truly bizarre coincidence, this is another John Otto entirely.
“I had forgotten that there were two Johns,” Florian said. “John Otto was the design guy at Flip.”
The band recorded its 1997 self-titled debut with bassist Steve Quinn. To be honest, this album grew on me a bit with each listen over the two years I’ve had it. It features these big, hulking guitars but slips just as easily into gentle passages. If there’s an overarching theme it’s trying to a make sense of a world that’s often unkind to women. It’s catchy but has this odd, otherworldly quality. It doesn’t feel like a forced posture. It showcases a band brimming with potential.
According to Brian and Lisa, the band broke up a few months after recording the album.
“It isn’t clear to my brother and I if the breakup is why they decided not to release it or if there were other factors involved (one theory being that we didn’t fit into their roster, style-wise, anymore),” Lisa said. “Flip decided to release it after all, so I assembled a new group of guys to tour in support of the record. I have no memory of playing shows with them, but Brian confirmed that I played a record release show with them and he talked about how surreal it was for him, watching other people playing our songs.”
Florian doesn’t remember Flip stalling the album, though he said it does make sense given the direction the label was heading in. He said he thinks John Broadus, who assisted the band in getting a record deal, helped push the album to get released.
Marcy did a small east coast tour supporting The Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker. Tucker was touring her album I Spent A Week There The Other Night. The album, which is fantastic, came out on Sky Records and was distributed by Ichiban. Marcy also shared stages with Yo La Tengo, Juliana Hatfield, Seam, Spell, Archers of Loaf, Swirlies and Man Or Astro-man?.
And that’s where Marcy’s story generally ends. The band didn’t release anything else and its original members moved on to other things. Brian played drums with Magnapop on its album Mouthfeel. Owens played guitar and sang in New Roman Times. Florian went on to work with bands like Sugarsmack and Dropsonic. Lisa continues to release music, at a very prolific clip, on Soundcloud.
Owens summed up the end of Marcy this way:
“We were young and idealistic whose wants and desires were different, no matter how much we wanted them to be the same. It will never change the fact to how much these 3 other people mean to me and still do.”
Photos courtesy of the band, except the album over photo from discogs.com
