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Marc's Biography thus far.
I grew up in Brooklyn in The Nostrand Housing Projects in the heart of the 1960's. One of my first memories was at age 5 waking up to the radio alarm clock with WABC pouring out tunes like Donovan's "Mellow Yellow", Tommy James' "Crimson and Clover", The Beatles' haunting "She's Leaving Home" and The Byrds' rendition of "Mr Tambourine Man". Those two and a half minute pop ditties melded deep into the fabric of my very being. Over the years those songs have proven themselves to be timeless, with the great hooks that the artists sang straight to my soul.
At age 9, my family moved to the sticks of Jackson, New Jersey. What a major transition from my Brooklyn roots. My entire being went through culture shock. I remember being picked on due to the differences of where we all grew up. Growing up in the projects my friends were culturally diversified. Coming from all walks of life, various races and religions. We were kids trying to find our place in the world. Prior to the move I never experienced racism or bigotry. I now saw the ignorance and unconsciousness that surrounded me.
At age 11, my parents bought me a nylon string guitar, nothing fancy, but enough to change my life. I had found the Holy Grail. My guitar became my best friend. Locked in my room I spent hours each day practicing and listening to Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Jeff Beck, Duane Allman, Jerry Garcia, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. I was on a mission to become the next great guitar hero. If I couldn't figure out a guitar lick because it was too fast, I would slow my turntable down to half speed so I could hear the subtle nuance of what made those amazing phrases happen.
At age 12, my first band, Purple Adventure, came together and we started playing middle school and CYO dances. Within 3 years we were playing well known Jersey Shore Clubs such as the The Tiki Lounge, The Chatterbox, and Good Time Charlies.
I soon joined Tidal Wave. With some of the best R & B and Funk musicians you could find in Lakewood, Freehold and Asbury Park. This was the next step in my musical journey.
Two years later I joined Nightflyer, which had a sound similar to The Band, Dire Straits and Southside Johnny. Nightflyer was responsible for my early performances in NYC where we frequently played at the Lone Star Cafe and Kenny's Castaways opening for Sam and Dave, Sly and The Family Stone, Rick Danko and Paul Butterfield.
Paul Prestopino, an engineer at The Record Plant in NYC, became my mentor. He played almost every string instrument from the mandolin to the banjo and was deeply involved in the folk music scene of the sixties. He performed with John Denver, The Chad Mitchell Trio, and Peter, Paul and Mary, who were some of my favorite acts. Paul worked with the biggest and the best from Aerosmith to David Bowie and Johnny Winter. His list of album credits as a player and engineer are a mile long. Paul's influence on my life convinced me it wouldn't be long before I had my own recording studio.
After Nightflyer fell apart, at age 19, I joined the popular shore band Bystander. We played 6 nights a week at all the famous shore haunts from the Osprey to the Tradewinds and every joint in between. Another year gone by, the promise of working on original music with the band didn't come to fruition which led to my departure.
As the bands fell by the wayside my interest turned to songwriting and I immediately purchased a Tascam 8 track recorder and Soundcraft mixing console and turned the family basement into a recording studio.
Turning 21, I started to play sessions and was hired by Steven Scharf the former head of A&R for Private Stock Records. Steve was telling me about his manager, music publishing veteran Barry Bergman. Bergman played a key role in the launching of such premier acts as Meat Loaf, AC/DC, John Paul Young and Flash In The Pan. He was an NYU graduate where he earned a marketing and management degree. Scharf kept telling me what an honest, loyal and brilliant manager Barry was. I had hoped I would get a chance to meet him. One week later I was recording my guitar solos for a Steve Scharf project when Barry walked in and said "who the f**k is playing that guitar solo?" He's been my manager ever since.
Barry stressed to me in those early days the importance of focusing on my songwriting and the rest would follow. A short time later he got me my first cover recording with a song titled "Line Of Fire" recorded by Canadian artist Lee Aaron. Through Barry's efforts I've had over 30 songs recorded by artists throughout the world. In 1989, I produced tracks for Capitol Records recording artist Helix. "Good To The Last Drop" became my first top ten Canadian hit from the album "Back For Another Taste".
In the early 90's, five of my songs landed on RCA recording artist Mitch Malloy's debut album. Three of the five songs charted in the Billboard Hot 100 with "Anything At All" reaching 25, while "Nobody Wins In This War" peaked at 26 on Casey Kasem's American Top 40. In support of the album we embarked on an eight month tour of the U.S. We performed with James Brown, Mr Big, Eddie Money, Julian Lennon, Extreme, Celine Dion, Michael Bolton, Mary J.Blige, Jon Secada, Tom Cochran and many more.
Rick Aliberti head of A & R for RCA was excited by my songwriting and immediately offered me a development deal. Although this venture wasn't successful I found my own voice as an artist and have since been focused on pursuing my own artist career.
In the mid nineties with my band, Kings County, I had the honor of performing an entire set of Byrds songs with Roger McGuinn at The Stephen Talk House in Amagansett NY.
Later in the 90's my career hit a detour when I was stricken with a life threatening illness known as ulcerative colitis, a result of genetics and poor stress management. Having spent 4 months in the hospital in 1999 and going through severe weight loss and numerous blood transfusions I was minutes from death's door. Thanks to the dedication of my surgeon Michael Arvinitis everything is back to normal.
2002 saw the release of my debut CD "Life Is But A Dream" co-produced with world class drummer, Rich Mercurio. A year later as a result of my CD one of my childhood heroes, Ian Anderson, personally asked me to perform my song "Identity Crisis" with him for a sold out crowd at NYC's Town Hall. Hosted by Bob Buchmann (program director at Q104.3 NYC's 1 classic rock station) my music was played on DJ Jonathan Clarke's radio show "Out of The Box" on Q104.3.
In April 2005, my song "This Life" was chosen to represent the Trojan Condoms National TV and Radio Campaign. The commercial's very powerful message as addressed in my song has resonated with many people as evidenced by the thousands of emails I've received about the song. My sophomore CD will be titled "This Life" slated to be released in 2007.
I have since written, sang, and produced TV and Radio ads for Dannon Activia Yogurt, Office Depot and V8.
