Gypsy Thrift by Poetiks

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In the early years of Blue Gum Art, Marina's poet friend, Raven, viola'd on a couple tunes, and Marina & Raven had a creative history of poetry, street theatre and friendship (see Processed World Magazine, Shaping San Francisco). So Raven & Marina started playing together again. Raven on viola, Marina on guitar and sometimes the Scottish princess, Angie McLaughlin, would sing with them, and they called themselves The Nice Asses, 'cause in fact, they really did all have pretty nice asses. The Nice Asses were mellow and airy with touchy harmonies and minimal song structure. (Someday you'll find an MP3 or two of them on this site.)

About that time, Marina was asked to do a gig with a full band. She was jamming in a project called Illuminated Backpacks with drummer, Claudia Lehan (Do or Die) and bassist/singer/guitarist, Antonette Goroch. Marina was also singing in Antonette's band, Liesl's Wet Dress, where she met Poetik's bass player, Roberto Zimmerman, also currently a member of the SF band, Elementary.

So...to make this long story longer, a band of sorts formed. They needed a name, and although it's been used before in many different ways for many other music projects, she called it Poetiks, 'cause she has a Master of Arts in Poetics from the New College of California, and she needed to do something with that thing. (See Poetics, Poetix, Waxing Poetics, Dead Poetics, etc....)

All of the above mentioned musicians as well as other amazing SF artists play on the Poetiks recording, Gypsy Thrift, which was recorded in the fall of '04 at Rodent Records Studios by Eric Haas & Elton Ridge. Other musicians on these recordings are Jessica Rowland (Spork, Soundchaser, Barbie Explosion), China Tamblyn (Kirby Grips), Elton Ridge (Chantigs) & Eric Haas (Midnight Bombers). This CD is coming out on Pax Recordings and will be available this summer.

And now. There is this band called Poetiks. It is currently a trio. They're evolving and writing new songs (which is good) and gigging and practicing (even better!) and doing what musicians do. They are: Claudia Lehan, Roberto Zimmerman & Marina Lazzara.

Thanks for checking out our music!!

Please also check out some of our other projects as well as our Friends' projects:

This

The Rabbles

Smile God Loves You

Elementary

The Brothers Zimm

Excuses for Skipping

The Barbie Explosion

Freedom Rock

The Dazzling Strangers

The Nashama Alma Band

www.paxrecordings.com

www.rodentrecords.com

BIO:

poet/guitarist/singer-songwriter Marina Lazzara was born and raised in Easton, Pennsylvania where the Lehigh River falls into the Delaware. After attending college, bartending and lying around the Atlantic shoreline for five years in Virginia, she moved to San Francisco and graduated from the New College of California with a Masters of Arts in Poetics and published a book of poems entitled The Backdrop Line. Her appreciation for music began as a toddler when her mother encouraged her and her sisters to sing in bed before falling asleep, and her two older sisters & cousins taught her guitar, drumming and songwriting. From there on, she spent most of her teenage years playing guitar and drums in a neighbor’s garage, talking about consciousness expansion and worshipping 70’s rock posters. She avoided structured ideas of “a band” in her twenties, seeing it as a great example of capitalistic personality exploitation. Instead, she opted to jam with friends and a bottle of whiskey in obscure practice places like a squatted converted boy’s bathroom. It wasn’t until her early thirties that she accepted “the band” as a true artistic experience, giving up the artsy poetry scene contaminated by narcissism and the creative activist scene contaminated with dogma. Although the indie-rock scene is diseased with trust fund brats, she found solace with some of her favorite working class musicians and joined, created, moved into her obsession with songwriting, head banging, and singing with angels.

Besides ambitious endeavors toward a life of creativity, selfish social activism to enhance the urban imagination and endless schemes to dodge student loan payments, Marina now works with the homeless and studies Botany & Herbalism. She has been in various bands including the rotating idie-rock trio, Blue Gum Art as well as Liesl’s Wet Dress, the Abstractions, Smile God Loves You, This and Poetiks (www.poetiks.com). Currently, she plays rhythm guitar with the SF band, the Rabbles (www.myspace/therabbles.com), who will release a CD this summer on Aboriginal Records entitled RabbleRabble.

Marina is finishing up a manuscript for a second book of poems and currently working on songs for a second solo project to be released this fall.

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