Who are the Dark Marbles? Answer: Central New Jersey’s (and the greater NYC area’s) favorite loud and crude garage rock and roll band! With a little bit of power-pop and surf instrumental thrown in the mix!
You Go, you swingin’ cats, Go!
The Dark Marbles recently played the world-famous Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ with one of the winners from Little Steven’s/Dunkin' Donuts national “garage-band search” contest winners: Muck and the Mires. That was one great show! The Dark Marbles were thus on the same bill as Sky Saxon and the Seeds.
Recently they were nominated for the local Asbury Park Music Awards, and they opened for Jason Ringenburger, lead singer from Jason and the Scorchers, together with another well-known Asbury Park NJ band called Maybe Pete.
In the past, they've also played at Desmond’s Tavern in NYC with the Nines and the Demands, in NYC many times with the Coffin Daggers, with Philadelphia’s Mondo Topless, the Von Ghouls, the Apes, the What Fors, the Howling Thurstons, and they've played several times with Get-Hip Records recording artists Irving Klaws. Each one was a show not to be missed!
Yod Crewsy is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist. Most people call him “Yod Crewsy” or “Yod the Mod”. He's been playing his Rickenbacker 330 and his Vox guitars since 1984 or so, when he was in the seminal Buffalo garage/punk recording artists “the SplatCats” (he was with them until 1986 or so).
A little musical background history: The SplatCats had the reputation of being the trashiest (and brashest) punk/garage-rock and roll band in all of Buffalo’s musical history, opening for such bands as the Goo Goo Dolls, Forgotten Rebels, the Hoodoo Gurus, the Fleshtones, the Cynics, the Dundrells, the Volcano Suns, the Lyres, the Chesterfield Kings, and the Ramones. While Yod was in that band, the SplatCats put out a 5-song self-produced EP called “Five Big Ones” as well as an LP on Moving Target Records called “Sin 73”. After leaving the SplatCats in 1986, he formed the first, primeaval version of the Dark Marbles.
Not satisfied with this group, however, he hooked back up with one of his former SplatCats band mates, namely bass player Casino El Camino (now with the Sons of Hercules) and together, they formed a new group, the JackLords.
The JackLords only lasted a couple of years and recorded only one item - an album called - “Mother’s Rock” - issued on NJ’s Skyclad records. The JackLords won many awards, however, as the best new band in Buffalo (Buffalo Nightlife Awards), and they opened for the Cynics, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, and Teenage Head. They played shows with the Original Sins, the Raunch Hands, the Headless Horsemen, and also with the bands Go to Blazes and Pink Slip Daddy. Most notably, based upon their “fun-tastic” live shows, the JackLords were chosen to open for the (now late) great Roy Orbison and his band at one of Roy's last live shows at the revered Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo (see photo at www.Jacklords.com). In the early 1990s, the JackLords broke up and all the members went their separate ways. Yod then put together another version of the Dark Marbles, with, initially, new members Pete and Dave DiBiasio (bass and drums), and afterwards with the famous Patrick Kane on lead guitar, Doty Hall on bass, and Al Konrad on drums.
But then Yod moved to New York City....
In the band's present line-up: drummer Tony Stupiello used to be in NJ’s Speedcrazy, long-legged bassist Deb Schuster also plays in the NYC all-chick rockabilly outfit Catspaw, and lead guitarist Peter Quilla came from the now-defunct NJ bands The Vigilante Cowboys and The Noise.
In the greater NYC-NJ area the band has played at such NYC clubs as Don Hills, The Orange Bear, Nightingale’s, Desmond’s Tavern, the Charleston Tavern, the Hells Kitchen Bar, the Bellevue, Hank’s Saloon, and in NJ, the Broadway Café in South Amboy, Maxwell's in Hoboken, The Saint in Asbury Park and the Crossroads in both Garwood and Asbury Park. Their latest show was at the Berkeley Carteret Hotel in Asbury Park on January 21, 2005.
A live “bootleg” CD from one of the band's live shows at the Saint (in Asbury Park, NJ) has been mass-duplicated and is floating around out there with the general public, and it recently received rave reviews in NJ's "The Aquarian" music weekly from music critic Al Muzer.
The band is also distributing the recording of that October 8, 2004 live show at Maxwell’s, because it captured the band in peak energy and at top form.
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