MUSIC AUDITIONS
COUNTRY
CALIFORNIA, USA
09-02-2023 18:09 GMT
Marc Twang & The Gang
Current Score: ★☆☆☆☆ ☆☆
Biography:
Marc Twang hails from the windy city of Chicago. His parents were both classical musicians and brought the wonders of Beethoven, Brahms and many of the masters into their home. Much to their delight, Marc would pick up a ruler and proceed to conduct works such as Schubert’s "Unfinished Symphony" from a small makeshift podium his father constructed for the precocious three-year-old.
But Marc was a renegade at heart and by the age of five he had forsaken his interest in the classics. Much to his parents’ dismay, he began showing an unbridled enthusiasm for some of the more inane popular music of the times. His favorite tune was Maurice Chevalier singing "Just A Bum", with "Stinky Cheese" running a close second.
Hoping to elevate the boy’s deteriorating tastes, his folks moved the family to the cultural mecca of New York City. Marc mixed with peoples of all cultures and backgrounds, revealing a pot-pourri of ethnic music, opera, theatre and the creative energy unique to what was then America’s largest metropolis.
Unfortunately, this melange of cultural nourishment had no discernible effect on the obstreperous youngster as his interests became increasingly riveted to the frivolities of sports, model trains and chasing after winsome young virgins.
In a desperate attempt to redirect the boy’s trifling sensibilities, five years of piano lessons and several more playing the bass fiddle were imposed on the gangling teenager, but to no avail. By the time he finished high school he could barely tell a treble from a bass clef... and cared even less.
Twang spent a lot of time during that period apparently staring out his window into space. But it was actually his interest in weather that gave the impression of such aimlessness. Accordingly, he entered a prestigous, mid-western university with a meteorology major in mind. However, in a matter of months he understood that most of the attractive and available females were studying "liberal" arts. It was a difficult decision but one he made with conviction. He changed his major and promptly became embroiled in sex, recreational drugs and political upheaval... all the ingredients that inevitably lead a young man of the times to, what else, but... songwriting!!!
As a means of supporting himself, Marc used his degree to secure a job teaching in the public schools. But after several years of class mayhem he realized he had a choice: to spend the rest of his life imploring children to "sit down and shut up" or to pursue a life writing, performing and recording his original music.
Begging, borrowing, and working his way through the 7 0 ', 80's and 90's, Marc has written and produced hundreds of songs, instrumentals, a full-length musical, several folk ballets and an award winning Music Video.
He has spent a good part of his adult life traveling light, living around and about, working odd jobs (including thousands of hours substitute teaching), starting his own environmental organization, The Automobile Moratorium, and... consciously attempting to maintain a healthy perspective on what he perceives to be a "traumatized, modern, pseudo-civilization."
In May of 1980, Marc was diagnosed with Polycstic Kidney Disease, the most prevalent genetic disease in the world today. In the United States alone, over a half a million people are victimized by this enervating, potential killer. Marc continued to write, record and perform throughout the next twenty years and in October of 2000 he underwent successful kidney transplant surgery, and continues to thrive creatively. Despite the demands of his medical situation, Marc moves on…. composing, performing, and challenging contemporary culture with his provocative, timely reflections.