Marlow

Despite the jam-band pedigrees of guitarist Lo Faber, drummer Ted Marotta, and Pasternack himself, Todd Pasternack’s Marlow project is routinely mistaken for that genre. Marlow’s actual sound is earthy roots rock that recalls Tom Petty, the Black Crowes, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Bruce Springsteen far more than the Grateful Dead, Kingfish, or the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Sheryl Crow supplies another apt reference point, and Pasternack has also named Aimee Mann—former lead vocalist of the 1980s band ’Til Tuesday—as an influence. Like Mann, he favors dark, melancholy lyrics whose world-weary tone matches Marlow’s debut album, White Out. Saturated with sadness, disillusionment, heartbreak, and remorse, the record documents the collapse of a romantic relationship. In a 2002 interview Pasternack called that liaison “a very unhealthy, abusive relationship” and described writing the confessional material as cathartic, viewing White Out as part of his emotional recovery.

Pasternack, who handles acoustic and electric guitar plus bass and piano, had already logged years in bands before launching the Marlow project in 2001. Raised in New York City’s Long Island suburbs, he was living in Albany, NY, when he joined the local Mr. Ferguson Band and co-produced its two albums. Members of the East Coast jam band Ominous Seapods knew his work; after guitarist Max Verna announced his departure in late 1998, Pasternack was recruited as replacement. He has also played with the Lo Faber Band, another East Coast jam outfit. When the Seapods opted for an indefinite hiatus in 2001—without ever officially disbanding—Pasternack started Marlow and assembled musicians from both the Seapods and the Lo Faber Band. In November 2001 he began co-producing White Out with Seapods drummer Ted Marotta and bassist Lo Faber; keyboardist/organist Devin Greenwood, whom Pasternack knew from both groups, appeared on several tracks. Recording wrapped in January 2002, and Pasternack released the album independently on his own Marlow Music label later that year. After residing in various parts of New York state for most of his life, Pasternack moved to Philadelphia in 2002.