Manda & The Marbles

The retro trio Manda and the Marbles crafts new wave-infused punk rock with a distinctly poppy edge, built around Manda on vocals and bass, guitarist Joe A. Damage, and drummer Mark Slak. Manda first encountered recording engineer Joe A. Damage during her stint in Dick, Jane and Sally, and the addition of Mark Slak soon solidified the lineup as the Marbles. A demo cassette found its way to Break-Up records, which issued the seven-song album Rock's Not Dead in 1999. The improved-production follow-up Seduction arrived the next year. The year 2001 stood out when the band shared a CMJ Music Marathon bill with the Hissyfits and subsequently signed to Go-Kart records. To sidestep potential mix-ups, they formally dropped the Marbles name, which cleared the path for the 2003 release of More Seduction, a remastered edition of Seduction expanded by four new songs.