MARK MALLMAN: MARATHON 3
From October 7 through October 10 at The Turf Club, Mark Mallman will perform one of the greatest feats of his career thus far, the 78 hour-long song “MARATHON 3”. It's been six years since the last Marathon and the third installment will include well over 500 pages of lyrics and close to 100 backup musicians over the course of 4 days.
Thursday, October 7
at Turf Club / 8:00 pm / 21+
Obviously this is no small task so Mr. Mallman has prepared a mission statement.
MARK MALLMAN: MARATHON 3
MISSION STATEMENT
Ask me why, and I will say, “because”.
Why did Henry David Thoreau go into the woods? Like him, like a snake shedding its skin, I need to free myself. I am not a magician or a stuntman attempting to set a world record. I am an animal in a stage/cage undergoing a metamorphosis of boot-stomping rock and roll and whirlwind synthscapes. As a monk goes into silence, I go into the Third Temple of Rock where I find the raw material of creativity itself. I seek to expand my ability to hear, to feel, to express, to perform.
The completion of Marathon 1 (26 hours) in 1999 left me with a profound sense of accomplishment, joy, and inner faith. Marathon 2 (52 hours) in 2004 left me with a newfound outlook on musicianship and lyrical abandon. Marathon 3 (78 hours) is my mammoth vision-quest to lose myself entirely in a swirling mass of rhythm and distortion. The collapse of the music industry has begun to reshape the once profit-driven structure of a pop/rock song (as illustrated by the mass popularity of fantastic bands like Animal Collective, Radiohead, and the Arcade Fire). Marathon 1, 2 and now 3 have been exercises in formula deconstruction. These massive undertakings are the goggles I use for seeing through the dense fog of conventionality and conformity that consume the day to day activity of “the real” world.
Why did Alice fall into the rabbit hole? For the past fifteen years I have been moving in two opposing directions: A) shorter, tighter pop songs B) longer, more expansive voyages of sound. The earlier I've been touring the world behind since 2003, the later I've performed in various disguises as “Marathons”. The closer I get to perfecting my craft as a songwriter, the greater my hunger to smash the walls that define the structure itself. Each Marathon song is 26 hours long, with a new page of lyrics every five minutes. Each page of lyrics represents your typical rock/pop song. Yet each page is connecting, like a centipede in song form.
As you listen/view the performance, I hope you too can challenge your notions of structures within your own reach, possibly even to stretch, bend, shrink, smash, or distort them until they become something new. We must take time to address the walls that confine us. Thus, like a caterpillar entering a chrysalis, I am once again journeying into the musical cocoon of Marathon 3. Why did John Cage compose the 639 year song (Organ²/ASLSP ) which is still performing as you read this in Halberstadt Germany? Is it the position of the artist to ask why? After all this time, I do not have an answer.
Ask me why, and I will say, “because”.
