Epics In Miniature: The Greatest Hits of The Marked Men
The Marked Men are a first-ballot entry into my personal music Hall of Fame.
The Greatest Hits compilation seems to be a much maligned concept. I both understand why that is the case and also hate that it is the case. I have about 15 greatest hits CDs in my car at this exact moment. Sometimes all you need from a band is their hits (see: Phil Collins, Creedence Clearwater Revival) and sometimes a band’s hits are the best jumping off point from which to dive into their deep catalog (see: Johnny Cash, David Bowie). If you're not a "Big, Rich Rock Band" you don’t usually get to release a greatest hits compilation. So, in this ongoing series, I'll be making them on behalf of the overlooked, underappreciated or otherwise passed over1.
Today: The Marked Men, from Denton, TX, the progenitors and perfecters of a genre2 that it’s easiest to call “That Denton Sound”
I know I’ve been over-using the ‘pasting my own tweets into my articles’ gimmick BUT part of why this Substack exists is because I realized want to write 1000 words abut things I care about, instead of 140 characters…AND in this case, well, this is the same introduction either way.
It’s hard for me (or most of us?) to really understand what its like to truly excel at something, like top-tier, as-good-as-it-gets, best-at-what-you-do excel, so I find it especially baffling when people are that good at a thing but remain really chill and humble about it. If I was that good, I’d be telling the whole world about it on a daily basis: picture me outside the DMV, with a megaphone, yelling about my bands new album. I’d be that guy. Meanwhile, on the saner end of the human spectrum, the four Marked Men have seemingly purposefully gone out of their way to keep their band as low-key and under-the-radar as possible. Like, these dudes have real serious non-music day-jobs3 and this is/was their downtime activity.
In some way, I think that adds to the overall mystique of the band. Actually, calling it mystique might not be right. That would run counter to the low-key vibes. It’s all very small scale, stripped back and DIY. They recorded in a studio that Jeff had setup in his shed. The pictures of them on the records are either blurred or purposefully faceless. There’s no liner notes, there’s limited details on everything. No fuss; no muss4. They Jam Econo! Mike Watt would be proud, right? Everything is directed purely into the songs.
And, oh, those songs. The seeming ease5 with which this band masterfully does every little thing so perfectly. It’s truly a cosmic marriage of people. Oft replicated, never bettered.
About that cosmic marriage, there are ties that bind here that pre-date this group. Jeff Burke (guitar/vocals), Mark Ryan (guitar/vocals) and Mike Throneberry (drums) all played together in The Reds, which I guess is kind of a sonic-prototype for the Marked Men. The Reds are a perfectly competent punk band, but not at the Marked Men level. It took the addition of Joe Ayoub (bass) to bring it all together. In fact, the combined magic of these four people is seemingly so powerful and distinct, that none of the other groups6 they’ve been in - together or separately - can hit the highs that the Marked Men can, even while many of them are excellent bands in their own right.
Like many bands, The Marked Men (yet again!) first came to me from the magical world of Swami Records (and in turn kickstarted my ongoing relationship with Dirtnap Records.) In 2006, when Swami announced that he’d be putting out the third Marked Men album and I (really, I think a lot of us?) said “who?”, only to then immediately purchase - and be blown away by - On The Outside.
Sidebar: This also created a Pandora’s box moment, because it turns out that these dudes are in about a million other bands.
On The Outside is really a phenomenal record. I remember that I got it when my folks were on vacation and I “borrowed”7 my mom’s car to drive to work that week and was really cranking it LOUD on those drives. I was also not listening to anything else that week. Just On The Outside, on repeat.
Then, due to playing catch up on that album, Fix My Brain landed really quickly afterwards and really sealed the deal on this being a band I love. From there, I went backwards and picked up The Marked Men, both Reds albums, and various other side bands: High Tension Wires, Chop-Sakis, Potential Johns, etc. There was really a period there when barely a day passed when I wasn’t listening to a band that at least one of these dudes was in.
And then, a quiet period for a few years. Until 2009, when Ghosts arrived from the void (see what I did there?) and raised the bar again. Besides it not being their last album, the only thing I wish I could change about Ghosts is that it hadn’t been released while I was still processing the bizarre year that I had in 2008 (frankly, it was a disaster of a year.) But, as we all learned from George Costanza, if you’re gonna go out, go out on a high. And Ghosts is definitely a high.
After that, in between hoping in vain for a new record I really was focused on making sure I saw a live show at least once, given that they would typically play at least one or two shows a year, in Texas and/or Chicago.
And in 2017, the universe lined up and I finally saw the Marked Men play live, right here in Los Angeles, CA. Unfortunately, the live sound mix was horrible, but it didn’t matter, because I completed the final square on my Marked Men bingo card. It was everything I wanted it to be and they were even better than imagined (and my expectations were pretty high.) It’s a confident move to let a band as good as Royal Headache open for you8 but when the cosmos has granted you some kind of band-alchemy-superpower, you can do any fucking thing that you want to and pull it off.
To steal a line from Ric Flair, diamonds are forever and so are THE MARKED MEN. I love them with all my heart and both my ears.
I now present to you, unofficially released via Spotify on my imprint label Chapterhouse: Whitehead Records…THE GREATEST HITS OF THE MARKED MEN.
Disclaimer: All of their albums are textbook examples of perfect album tracking, and I fear that by presenting the following songs in differentiated order there’s a risk I’m fucking up the alchemy. So I guess, listen to these albums for the truest experience. And as always, if you like it, buy it! Everything is available digitally from the Dirtnap Bandcamp or physically from Green Noise Records.
1 MASTER WICKED9 (On The Outside) - How better to introduce the Marked Men than with their most sizzlingly hot track. Start as you mean to go on! What’s it say up there in that tweet? Killer Hooks and Raw Power? Check and Check. If this one doesn’t grab you, you can probably quit now and save yourself another 40 minutes of listening time.
2 WAIT HERE, WAIT FOR YOU (Fix My Brain) - Any song that is less than two minutes long and finds time for a guitar solo, no matter how short, is doing something right. This is an insanely niche observation, but the hi-hat sound on all these records is remarkable. All the drum parts are great, so solid, never showy, always where they need to be, but there’s something about that hi-hat sound that always jumps out at me.
3 RIGHT HERE WITH YOU (On The Outside) - This is basically a perfect pop song, like some real AM radio stuff, but packaged up in this punk/garage/whatever style. (It even appears to be that classic AM staple: a “love song.”) The melody, the vocals, the riff, the whole thing. As good as it gets.
4 DESTROY THEM and 5 MY EYES FAIL ME (The Marked Men) - The self-titled debut is probably the least spectacular of the records, but you can’t build a house without a foundation, right? Plus, it’s still gets an A grade. These are probably the two choicest cuts from that record.
6 GONE AWAY (On The Outside) - This is the third track on this album. The first time I listened to this record, this is the point at which the whole thing went supernova and I knew I was gonna be completely hooked (on these hooks). Also, the wall of guitar noise in the right channel? All I can say is “chefs kiss”
7 GET TO YOU (Ghosts) - This song is the ultimate Epic in Miniature and what made me think of that name to begin with. It accomplishes so much in 2:14. While On The Outside probably gets the most attention overall, I think Ghosts might be the most complete Marked Men record.
8 IT’S WASTED (The Marked Men) - There’s that hi-hat sound again. Actually on this one, it might be the ride cymbal. I really need to do a forensic analysis of the drums on these records. Anyone have a multi-track mixing desk I can borrow?
9 ON and 10 THE OTHER SIDE (On The Other Side10) - This was the last ‘new’ thing that they ever released, and for a band that’s really an album band and not a singles band, they ended by producing a single that perfectly showcases everything they do.
11 FIX MY BRAIN and 12 GOING CRAZY (Fix My Brain) - I can’t really separate these two from each other either. You can’t have one without the other. Yin and Yang, Jeff and Mark.
13 ALL IN YOUR HEAD (Ghosts) - The opener for this album and, when this record came out, a perfect reminder that while they mighta been gone for a while, they hadn’t lost a step.
14 LOCKED UP (Ghosts) - Actually, this might be the ultimate miniature epic, clocking in 1:15 and packing a hell of a punch.
15 NOT THAT KID (Ghosts) - A perfect exercise in small-scale dynamics. At the risk of being repetitive, getting so much done in so little time is akin to some kind of sub-atomic physics.
16 STILL WAITING (On The Outside) - On The Outside is such a sugar-rush of constant highs, that as each thing peaks, it just seems like there’s no way to maintain it. And then Still Waiting hits and it seems impossible that there can be anything afterwards. Which, of course, there is (…and the highest-high of all, Master Wicked, is still laying in wait.)
17 COOL DEVICES (On The Outside) - So fun story: for the longest time, the way I separated Jeff and Mark in my mind was by referring back to Still Waiting or Cool Devices. Which was based on a comment on the old Swami Records forum (RIP) by our pal Kevin. (Hi Kev!)
18 STAY HOME (Fix My Brain) - To pick up a thread from last weeks piece, it is not an accident that all four album-closing tracks are on this compilation. These dudes really know how to put that exclamation point on their albums. But in the case of this compilation, this is a false finish (best commentator voice: “by god, she kicked out…SHE KICKED OUT!”)
19 ONE MORE TIME and 20 BLEW MY HEAD (Ghosts) - When you’ve gotten so good at the album closing track that you take it up a notch and go with a two-part closer. Which is how I think of these two songs. And close they do, pulling down the curtain on the final Marked Men record.
Next week: I’m gonna be out of town, so I’m resurrecting something weird I made a few years ago that is related to the Marked Men.
If you liked this, maybe tell a friend?
Originally I was gonna have one name for all the pieces in this series (“Clandestine Curations”) but I've now decided its more fun to make up a name for each greatest hits album instead.
There’s never been an easy label for this sub-sub-genre. It just ends up a hyphen filled mess like Melodic-Garage-Power-Pop-Punk? So, it’s just that fuckin’ Denton Sound!
Jeff, Mark and Mike all work/have worked with people with mental health needs.
This extends to their live shows too. They will rip through 15-20 songs in 45-60 minutes with very few breaks between songs and no stage banter other than a few “thankyous”.
I’m sure its not easy. The clearest hint of this is the inclusion of “Obsessed Over” in the credits of Fix My Brain.
The closest anyone has come is probably Jeff’s current(?) band Radioactivity and, wierdly, the self-titled Chinese Telephones album that Jeff produced that features no Marked Men (and those dudes aren’t even from Denton!)
I think she knew about this in advance?
See also: letting The Schizophonics open for you.
I heard (citation not found) that this song was named this because some kid in the crowd at a live show was singing Master Wicked along and the band just went with that. I think the correct lyric is “I’m still with you”?
On The Other Side is both the name of a 7” single and a singles compilation.
gone away's placement is perfect. the record starts out great but this song in the #3 spot is the aural equivalent of stepping hard on the gas.
if that wasn't long enough, i forgot to respond to the hi-hat comment. so glad you brought that up. his hi-hat work is dare i say it, even better than Tommy Ramone's. you will be in pain after air-hi-hatting to just one Marked Men song.