THE MARSHMALLOW OVERCOAT

Since 1986 The Marshmallow Overcoat has kept its unique 1966-styled garage & psych
sounds alive by touring the globe and releasing scores of records. Now the 30-year history
of the band can be told, and all NINE ALBUMS of the band are finally re-mastered & available!
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30th ANNIVERSARY HALLOWEEN SHOW
ANNOUNCED FOR OCTOBER 29, 2016
IN TUCSON, ARIZONA

Tucson, Arizona – Legendary Tucson-based garage-psychedelic band
The Marshmallow Overcoat will celebrate its 30th anniversary in a concert
to benefit Tucson’s non-profit Downtown Radio KTDT 99.1 FM,
on Saturday, October 29 at The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress Street
in downtown Tucson.

Tickets are only $6, available in advance at the venue, and at the door
(if not already sold out). Doors open at 8 pm, with local sensations
The Desert Beats taking the stage at 9 pm, Cobra Family Picnic playing at 10 pm,
and The Marshmallow Overcoat scheduled for @11 pm.

One of the longest-ever-operating garage-psychedelic combos, The Marshmallow
Overcoat has toured globally, been featured on MTV and international television
and radio, released nine critically-acclaimed albums and more than 40 releases
in total over their three-decade span.

This will be their only Arizona show, and their first in Tucson for more than a decade.

The 30th Anniversary Marshmallow Overcoat line-up features players with decades
in the band, including original guitarist Al Perry – an honoree of several music halls of fame
-- and original vocalist Timothy Gassen, long known as an iconic garage-rock producer,
author, journalist and filmmaker with the nickname“The Guru of Garage.”

“This is an emotional opportunity for us to say thank you to Tucson for our 30 year
journey,” says Gassen, “while also helping Downtown Radio. We hope old friends and
a new generation of independent music fans alike will join us. This will be a very special
night for Tucson music.”

This classic lineup also boasts Matt Rendon on guitar – Rendon first auditioned for
the band in 1987 – and is now  a star of the Los Angeles Burger Records pop-scene
with his other band The Resonars.

Drummer Scot Gassen and bassist Dan Magee have each posted 28 stellar years
with the band, and keyboards wiz Bill Kurzenberger is the “newcomer” – he first
played with the group in 2008.

A CD version of the band’s “Very Best Of” collection will be given free to each ticket
holder at the show, which will also feature a psychedelic light show. Concert-goers are
encouraged to wear their spookiest Halloween costumes, with the best to be featured in
the video documentary currently also in production about the band’s 30 year history
and impact on independent music. The concert will also be recorded for audio and
video release.

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A short sampler video highlight for the "Very Best Of" 2-LP set.
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DIGITAL DOWNLOADS OF ALL MARSHMALLOW OVERCOAT
RELEASES ARE AVAILABLE AT OUR BANDCAMP PAGE!
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The "Psilocybic Mind" music video from the "Knights of Fuzz" DVD
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HEAR EACH ALBUM BELOW
then head to BANDCAMP to download them!

THE VERY BEST OF (2014) 2-LP vinyl & digital download

THE LIGHT SHOW (2008-2011)

PSILOCYBIC MIND (2002-2005)

A TOUCH OF EVIL (1993 & 1995)

FUZZ, SCREAMS & TAMBOURINES! (1992 & 2004)

THREE CHORDS & A CLOUD OF DUST (1991)

BEVERLY PEPPER (1990)

TRY ON...THE MARSHMALLOW OVERCOAT (1988)

THE INNER GROOVE (1987)
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25 YEARS IN A FEW PARAGRAPHS: the band history

Twenty-five years is merely the blink of an eye for most history books, but for a rock & roll
band it is approximately 25 times longer than most ever exist. Add in a decidedly
unconventional and underground garage-psychedelic band name and sound, and it
seems near miraculous that The Marshmallow Overcoat survived long enough to see and
hear a 25-year two-LP “best of” set. But garage and psychedelic sounds can ignite musical
passion that survives the decades.

“When I was a little kid, my older brother would play all these great 1960s records,”
Marshmallow Overcoat founder Timothy Gassen told the San Diego Union newspaper in
1991. “I remember The Jefferson Airplane on the turntable, The Doors on the radio, and The
Beatles on our old black-and-white TV,” the singer and songwriter explained. “These things
infected me from the time I was five, and the stage was set from that point on.”

The infection blossomed in the spring of 1986, when Gassen pushed four other kindred
cavemen into a sweaty Tucson, Arizona living room to cut their first demo as The
Marshmallow Overcoat. They didn’t know it at the time, but they were triggering a chain
reaction leading to international tours, MTV video airplay, college radio chart-toppers and
a tireless schedule of recording.

That lovably crude demo turned into their debut “Groovy Little Trip” 45, and suddenly there
was no turning back. The records started pouring out, and by their 25th anniversary more
than 40 combined CDs, LPs, 45s and compilation appearances had seen release.

The 1980s rediscovery of garage and psychedelia was in full bloom when The
Marshmallow Overcoat plugged in their first fuzz box. Many of their contemporaries soon
dissolved or changed musical styles, but the desert combo remained true. The
Marshmallow Overcoat became one of the planet’s longest-ever-lasting flag bearers for
paisley punk.

Critics were confused, dumbfounded, or happily startled at the band’s approach and
delivery. “The best material here is capable of peeling the fluorescent paint off one’s
walls,” wrote the Arizona Daily Star in response to their first LP, 1987’s The Inner Groove.

Recorded for $250 in a friend’s living room studio, The Inner Groove featured fuzzed
Rickenbacker 12-string guitars, a vintage Sears toy organ, and vocals suitably delivered
from the bathroom via a long microphone cable. Like their many later records, it was also
drenched in tremolo, reverb, Vox, Farfisa, and the wheezings of Al Perry’s “Kustom Kraft”
guitar amplifier.

Crude. Distorted. Garage. Yes, the first recordings from The Marshmallow Overcoat blurt
these garage-rock battle cries at maximum volume.

Bigger budgets and more elaborate studios ensued, with the resulting albums bringing more
to cheer about. “The Overcoat has the roller coaster lilt of sheer pop and the feel of magic,”
exclaimed England’s Unhinged Magazine, while back in the U.S., Buzz Magazine observed that
The Marshmallow Overcoat “is the cerebral nugget that blows the lid off the underground!”

The UK psychedelic bible Freakbeat Magazine contended in 1988 their second album “Try
On The Marshmallow Overcoat should be listened to 1,000 times. This LP holds its own with
the most revered of classics.”

And as the recording studio became a second home, so did the tour van. The Marshmallow
Overcoat wore out countless tires on American and Canadian roads, blasting the fuzz and
Farfisa throughout the hemisphere. Along the way they swore they saw The 13th Floor
Elevators’ Roky Erickson in his native Austin, Texas, so they played “Tried To Hide” just for
him.

Arthur Lee of Love stood in the front row at one Los Angeles gig, then came backstage
to thank the band for doing justice to his “7 & 7 Is.” Lee was back the next night to see the
combo at another club, leaning on a pool cue, posing for photos with the band. (Gassen
later added several more choice Love cuts to the set.)

The everlastingly freaky Seeds front-man Sky Saxon also jumped up on stage with the lads
during a San Francisco outing, while touring the celebrated 1990 Beverly Pepper album, but
they escaped (musically and physically) unscathed. The same can’t be said after a nearriot
in Tacoma, Washington (in The Sonics’ old home-base auditorium) after the club owner
skipped with the evening’s gate receipts. The money mysteriously returned to the front door
shortly after the musicians “suggested” that the crowd should have a little fun with the
building.

The band’s lineup continually shifted, but the most dedicated musicians kept the faith
over many years — guitar wiz Chad White joined in 1987; virtuoso keyboardist Debra
Dickey, drummer supreme Scot Gassen and bassist Dan Magee signed on in 1988. All
would continue to contribute along with original vocalist Timothy Gassen until the band’s
finale in 2011.

With changes in band personnel came a shortened band moniker — simply “The Overcoat”
— for the 1991 Three Chords & A Cloud of Dust! and European-only 1993 A Touch Of Evil
albums. Gassen soon brought the “Marshmallow” back onto the marquee for the remainder
of the band’s life (and those two albums are now available under the band’s full name). By
whatever designation, the group’s dedication to garage-a-delia thankfully remained intact.
And the world began to listen.

A two month 1992 European tour prompted wild nights from Holland all the way to Greece
as the band’s frenzied stage show scorched The Continent. France’s Kinetic Vibes Magazine
wrote that the band “creates an apocalyptic universe of shapes and colours...an alchemy
of sounds that subliminally invade the depths of our minds and spin in the unexplored zones
of our psyche.” Italy’s Davy Magazine also reacted strongly to the European invasion: “Like
a piece of wood left too long in the rain, The Overcoat has assumed weird and twisted
forms. Music from the last outpost of the world could hardly be more mysterious.”

Musically, the band gladly credited the cream of the original 1960s garage-psych crop as
their fathers. The Marshmallow Overcoat’s records are jammed with loving nods to The
Electric Prunes, Love, The Seeds, Strawberry Alarm Clock and Music Machine, among
countless other lesser-known 1960s kingpins.

Electric Prunes vocalist James Lowe noted, “The Marshmallow Overcoat is more than a
sticky jacket, these guys are holding it in the fire! 60’s Garage energy all the way with a
slight hint of purple.”

Their affection for both caveman-like garage punk and its opposite world of refined
psychedelic-pop raised eyebrows under the bowl-cuts of some purist fans — few bands
attempted both ends of the garage-psych spectrum.

Garage monsters such as “Psilocybic Mind” and “Santa Fuzz” overload the grit-meter, while
their paisley pop shimmers with “Beverly Pepper” and the majestic “Our Love (Will Survive).”
Between these extremes stand “Dia De Los Muertos” and “The Beyond” as classics of addled
psychedelic mood.

MTV (Music Television) even picked up on the buzz, airing the classic “13 Ghosts” music video
clip worldwide, while other international music shows broadcast the videos for “Suddenly
Sunday,” “When It’s Dark,” “The Mummy” and “Psilocybic Mind.” After countless concerts
across the globe and dozens of record releases, The Marshmallow Overcoat finally stopped
touring in 1996 — a full 10 years after their first shows.

But they would not stay silent.

The nagging desire by Timothy Gassen to make more garage and psych sounds drove him
to reform the band, and they blossomed again from 2000 all the way through 2011. The
renewed lineup notably included ace multi-instrumentalist Matt Rendon (who first joined the
band’s “live” lineup in 1996), and keyboard maestro Bill Kurzenberger.

This last chapter of The Marshmallow Overcoat captured some of the band’s most vibrant
original sounds with more than two-dozen new recordings. Besides the classic 2003
Psilocybic Mind vinyl EP, the kaleidoscopic Light Show CD album appeared in 2008. That
album would be the last long-player from the band, and that same year they performed their
final “live” show to celebrate its release.

To mark the band’s 25th anniversary in 2011, three new songs were recorded in the
subgenres that the band always loved: 1966 fuzz garage, moody psych and jangle power-pop.
Of special note in those last sessions was the use on “The Beyond” of the venerable 1960s
keyboard instrument called a Mellotron, most famous for its flute and string section additions
to psychedelic-era Beatles records. In its honor the instrument was renamed a “Mallowtron”
for the farewell session.

In 2011 the band also shared the 6-CD Complete Sound set with fans. The box set collected
for the first time all 138 re-mastered Marshmallow Overcoat songs in an extremely limited
edition. The entire Marshmallow Overcoat discography later became available as digital
downloads (along with the 28-song “best of” set).

But now, more than 25 years after plucking their first notes, it seems they’ve slipped on their
paisley shirts and Beatle boots for the last time. Their Vox Jaguar keyboard sits silent in the
corner, their fuzzboxes finally quiet. But The Marshmallow Overcoat won’t be forgotten —
there’s a band in a garage down the street right now trying hard to learn their songs.

— by MARCUS TYBALT, Jr.