The problem is me, continued: The Psychedelic Furs at the Marble Bar

Psychedelic Furs, Marble Bar, Baltimore, Sunday 5 July 1981

A George Herriman-inspired flyer for the Marble Bar announcing the upcoming Psychedelic Furs show. [1]
Poster by George R. Wilcox/Musigrafix. Image source: Accelerated Decrepitude

After the end of the academic year in Chicago I would return to the family home in Baltimore to work for the summer. There were three advantages to being at home: I didn't have to pay for meals, I had the use of a car, and the drinking age in Baltimore was only 18, which meant I could see shows at venues where alcohol was served. The chief disadvantage, of course, was that I was living at home.

Fortunately for my sanity Baltimore had become home to the City Paper, an alternative weekly similar to Chicago's Reader and New York's Village Voice. As part of my exploration of punk rock (see The problem is me) I began to notice ads for interesting-sounding shows at a place called the Marble Bar. It was located on West Franklin Street in the basement of the Congress Hotel, a former luxury hotel that was now an SRO in a run-down neighborhood just north of downtown. The Marble Bar had live local bands almost every night and once or twice a month hosted a group on tour.

To enter the Marble Bar you had to walk down narrow, dimly-lit stairs into a vast basement room. On the far side was a bar of solid marble. I've seen multiple online claims that the bar was 72 feet long; whatever its dimensions, it was huge.

The Marble Bar's marble bar. Image source: Baltimore Business Journal

The owners, Roger and LesLee Anderson, tended bar except when they'd take the stage with the house band (otherwise known as The Alcoholics) to do vintage rock 'n' roll covers. As I recall, a can of Budweiser cost $1. I would generally buy one when I arrived and then nurse it for the rest of the night. In my defense, I was an impoverished student and was supposed to be saving money for my return to college in the fall. And hey, it probably made for a safer drive home after closing.

LesLee and Roger Anderson at the Marble Bar. Photo courtesy LesLee Anderson. Image source: Baltimore Magazine

I don't remember the first night I went there in the summer of 1979 or 1980, but I soon went there regularly on Friday or Saturday nights. (Yes, I was one of the derided "weekend punks.") I would also go on a worknight (ah, youth) if a band I'd heard of was appearing there.

For a Baltimore basement dive the Marble Bar hosted some surprising shows, including Black Flag with the Minutemen (circa What Makes A Man Start Fires?), the Bush Tetras (circa Rituals), The Cramps (circa Smell of Female), the Dead Boys (circa Night of the Living Dead Boys), the Dead Kennedys (circa In God We Trust, Inc.), Iggy Pop (circa New Values), Sonic Youth (circa Confusion is Sex), The Teardrop Explodes (circa Kilimanjaro), Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan, the Undertones (circa Positive Touch), and X (circa Wild Gift—a great show, and unfortunately one of only two of those listed that I was able to see, the other being the Bush Tetras). Baltimore's location between New York City and Washington DC meant that it was a logical place for bands to stop over on their East Coast tours, and musicians probably spread the word about Roger and LesLee's stalwart support of the local scene.

Poison Ivy of The Cramps at the Marble Bar, 2 March 1983. Image source: Jim M (Flickr)

The bar wasn't air-conditioned and the only ventilation was its open door, so on nights when it was packed it could get pretty muggy and airless. It was, of course, also the era when people smoked in bars, and so before the night had advanced very far there was always a thick pall of (mostly) cigarette smoke hanging in the air. When you arrived home after a night at the Marble Bar your hair and clothes smelled like an ashtray.

The most crowded I ever saw the place was when the Psychedelic Furs played there. Like so many English punk and new wave bands they were formed after a Sex Pistols concert, but their sound also hearkened back to the early 70s glam rock era. [2] Like Roxy Music, the Furs included a saxophonist (Duncan Kilburn) in their lineup; like Lou Reed and David Bowie, vocalist Richard Butler sounded world-weary and his lyrics were often elliptical. But although their sound drew on many influences, Butler's gravelly, whiskey-and-cigarettes vocals and John Ashton's flanged guitar also made it distinctive.

The Marble Bar had a sign near the door announcing that the maximum occupancy was 449 people, but I'm guessing there were many more jammed into the club that night. We were so tightly wedged together in front of the stage that you couldn't move; had there been a fire none of us would have made it out alive. I have no idea how the Furs made their way through the densely packed crowd massed between the dressing rooms and the low platform that served as the stage, but somehow the band suddenly materialized a few feet in front of me. In addition to Richard Butler, Ashton and Kilburn, the band included Roger Morris on second guitar, Butler's brother Tim on bass, and Vince Ely on drums. When they launched into the first song, "Into You Like A Train," we all started jumping up and down in unison, because that was the only way you could move. And if the people jammed up against you were jumping up and down, you did too. I understood instantly why English punks had invented the pogo.

The Furs had just released their second album, Talk Talk Talk, and played most of its songs, including "Mr. Jones," "All of This and Nothing," and "Pretty in Pink," plus many favorites from their first album (here is the setlist). Although they would go on later to have some hit synth-pop and dance singles, and "Pretty in Pink" would even become the title song of a John Hughes movie [3], for me the band was at its peak this July night in a sweaty Baltimore basement.

Astonishingly, the Marble Bar show was recorded and has been posted. I'm amazed that 43 years later I can, at least aurally, relive that night, sound system issues and all (you can hear the high end drop out towards the end of "Pretty in Pink" at about 27:24 in the video, and it stays out for the rest of the show). At the end of the show (around 55:12 in the video) Roger Anderson says "this is one of the best shows we've ever had here," while apologizing for the sound and proactively refusing the refunds that no one was asking for—we just wanted an encore. A very Marble Bar moment. I don't recall being disappointed by the sound, but I was very close to the stage—so close that I remember watching the ever-lengthening ash on Richard Butler's cigarette, waiting for it to fall. The song "Fall" from their first album was not, alas, on their set list; probably it was planned for an encore that didn't happen due to the sound system issues. Whatever the problems with the sound system, it was a great concert and a peak Marble Bar experience.

https://youtu.be/KjQn895U4n0

Coda: On 26 April 1984 Roger Anderson had a fatal heart attack in the Marble Bar. [4] LesLee tried to keep the club going for another year or so, but in May 1985 she gave up the lease. Apart from some sporadic shows over the next few years the Marble Bar has been empty ever since, and the neighborhood is even more desolate now than it was then.

I'm clearly far from the only person with fond memories of the Marble Bar. Tom Warner's blog Accelerated Decrepitude offers some excellent posts about the place and the people who made it special:

• Marble Bar Poster Art
• Marble Bar Pixs
  
• Retro Baltimore: The 2016 Marble Bar Photo Shoot

Baltimore Magazine published a good retrospective on the 35th anniversary of the Marble Bar's third "closing forever" party in 1987:

• The Marble Bar, a Haven for Punks and Misfits, Closed Its Doors for Good 35 Years Ago by Kendell Shaffer and Hope C. Tarr, Baltimore Magazine, May 2022
  

The Psychedelic Furs show at the Marble Bar was not the only memorable event of that summer. Just nine days later I went to see another exhilarating show by a favorite band in a very different venue: a volleyball gym.

Next time: Ramones

Last time: The problem is me: The Sex Pistols, Steve Jones, and Lonely Boy

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1. The flyer suggests that the show took place in June; however, a June calendar for the club doesn't list a Furs show, and multiple sources (including Setlist.fm and YouTube) confirm the 5 July date. Note the $5 ticket price (in advance).
   
2. Alex Ogg, "All Of This And Nothing: The Psychedelic Furs On Talk Talk Talk." The Quietus, 2010, https://thequietus.com/articles/05128-the-psychedelic-furs-interview-talk-talk-talk/
3. In Alex Ogg's interview linked above, Richard Butler says "The idea of the song was, 'Pretty In Pink' as a metaphor for being naked. The song, to me, was actually about a girl who sleeps around a lot and thinks that she’s wanted and in demand and clever and beautiful, but people are talking about her behind her back. That was the idea of the song. And John Hughes, bless his late heart, took it completely literally and completely overrode the metaphor altogether!"
4. In the image of the article on Baltimore Or Less, the first character of every line in the first column is cut off, and so I think the transcription misstates the date of Roger Anderson's death. According to the retrospective article in Baltimore Magazine linked above, he died on 26 April 1984, not 6 April. [Since this was written, almosthipguy (Tom Warner) has corrected the date—many thanks!]