M   A  R  K  M  A  L  L  M  A  N

MARATHON 3 : The 78 hour long song

From October 7 through October 10, Mark Mallman will perform one of the greatest feats of his career thus far, the 78 hour-long song “MARATHON 3”.  His nonstop multi-day performance will take place at the Turf Club in St. Paul, MN and will include well over 500 pages of lyrics and close to 100 backup musicians over the course of 4 days.  It's been six years since Mark’s last marathon performance (Marathon 1 happened Sept 10-11 1999, and Marathon 2 took place September 4-6, 2004).

This Piece is representative of one of indie rock's unsung heros life's undertaking.  “This piece is a musical installation of 3 marathons.  Each phase is 26 hours long, like a Marathon is 26 miles.  The first phase is called “A Giant Wave”, the second “Blood Flow” and the 3^rd “Liquid Moth.”  When asked recently if he was planning on setting a world record, Mark declined. “I am not a magician or a stuntman attempting to set a world record.  I am a professional musician.  I seek to expose the raw nerve of creativity itself.”  Humble words from the man known to have performed some of the most memorable live shows over the past decade.

Mark Mallman's career brags the release of six outstanding original full length albums, film and tv scores, and countless tours.  His songs have been featured on This American Life, MTV, VH1, MSNBC, Current Television, and Public Radio International. Mallman is also featured contributor in the book “Music Theory for Dummies” alongside Bob Moog, John Cage, and Andrew Bird.  Mark has been touring America twice a year since 2003 and is currently signed with Badman Recording Company. 

The Marathon 3 event will be webcast live from www.markmallman.com.  It will begin Oct 7 at 4pm and end Oct 10^th at 10pm Central Standard Time.  A full schedule of guests and performers will be released a week before the event.  Advanced tickets are available through First Avenue.

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”.