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Drummer Takes Center Stage at Elevens by Donnie Moorhouse
Tomorrow night, prolific drummer Brian Marchese steps to the front of the stage with his project, Sitting Next to Brian, with a show and a CD release party at The Elevens.
“It’s more like you get tired of staring at singers’ bums,” joked Marchese when asked about the motivation for his songwriting career. “I’m still drumming while I’m singing, but when we can, we set the drums up out front…Dave Clark style. I never wanted to be a lead singer, but what else am I going to do with all these songs I’ve written?”
The songs are packaged nicely on “Polite”, the new Sitting Next to Brian release that also features prominent Valley artists like Trace Meek, Henning Ohlenbusch, Ken Maiuri, Lesa Bezo, Dennis Crommett and Rick Murnane.
He didn’t have to look far for help on the project, given his history of drumming around the local music scene.
Marchese continues to work with such bands as The Figments, Aloha Steamtrain, Lo Fine, Haunt, School For the Dead, The Fawns, along with artists like Mark Mulcahy and Mike Flood. In past, he has laid down beats for Humbert and The Gay Potatoes.
“The Figments are my oldest project”, he said. We still play and put out records, but not as often. The Aloha Steamtrain officially disbanded in 2002, but since the return of Lord Russ to the Valley, we’ve been popping up here and there for fun occasions. All the bands I’m in because I love the singer/songwriter’s vision, and I love putting a beat to it all.”
Marchese likens the drum stand to the driver’s seat on a bus with everything being dependent on the guy at the wheel. He says he doesn’t contribute his songs to the various bands he works with for fear of “cluttering things up”, but has been inspired by the local songwriters. “When these writers were saying, ‘wow, you’ve got a distinctive style there, young Brian’, I made my move,” Marchese said.
He is taking the release and promotion of the album seriously with hopes for national reviews and some more extensive touring.
“That is, when the other 10 bands aren’t playing,” he said.
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