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| From | Michael Coxe <popville@gmail.com> |
| Subject | Marty Rudnick RIP |
| Date | Fri, 11 Oct 2019 00:58:31 -0700 |
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I found out tonight Marty Rudnick passed onward to whatever comes after insanely great pop on planet Earth.
Marty was and forever will be forever an Auditier. Criminally Unsigned was the first (and only?) epic Audities specific CD release, not a "tape tree" (tho they themselves were epic) but an actual CD release populated with Auditiers.
Christy & I met Marty via this list, and in the 90s our houses were barely 3 miles apart in East San Jose. We'd get together at random times, or we'd go see he & his 90s duo partner (sincere apologies, I forget who that was) play tunes at the then current hip suburban dive-de-cour bar at the Hungry Hunter in south SJ.
Later, we kept in touch later via correspondence, and a few times in the 2K's Christy, myself & Marty actually actually enjoyed some face time, typically via a Rubinoos show. Our 25th wedding anniversary evening, with CvS performing, owes the sound and DJ'ing to Marty knowing just the guy to supply the sound system and DJ skills. Whatever the excuse, it was always a fine time.
Michael McCartney on Facebook is where I read of Marty's fate, and expect he will accept this quoting of his tribute to Marty's life. God bless....
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This is really tough for me and for the staff of The Time Machine Radio Show. Our dear friend Marty Rudnick has been in a medically induced coma and life support since this past Saturday, when his best friend Carl texted me over the weekend with a heavy heart. He suffered two cardiac arrests on the way to the hospital. It's unclear if he had a third heart attack. His wife Lucy has been at his bedside and his sister Natalie arrived yesterday. I know the extreme emotional difficulty of having to make the sorrowful decision to remove a loved one off of life support. It's a personal moment of both deep regret and deep love. It remains with you forever. Marty will remain in my heart forever.
Marty Rudnick released his timeless album "More Songs About Cars and Girls" in 2006 on his Sandbox Records label. The songs spread throughout the album, remain staples on the radio show thirteen years later. Marty was filled with so much wit and fast humor, that we connected immediately. Our friendship flourished from MySpace to years of ongoing phone calls. Marty was my personal iTunes and MAC advisor. He tried his best to convert me, but he understood my frustration with giggles as I headed back to the PC desktop world. Marty and I would discuss music of course, because we were music geeks, but he loved movies too. What's not to like in a friend when they like pretty much the same thing? Outside of the arts, we'd often just talk about our daily lives and ponder philosophical discussions that would often result in our cellular phone batteries ending before our conversations did. Then pick up the conversation on a those good old fashioned land lines that we all grew up with.
We'd swap stories and I always appreciated hearing about his life before I knew him. In addition to being an accomplished musician, Marty began his adulthood with employment at GRT Music Tapes. Chances are if you had a Steely Dan 8-Track in your car or home stereo, it was through Marty's company. Both Marty and Carl worked there and I whenever I think of the first time that I saw Batdorf & Rodney's "Life Is You" on 8-Track, I smile knowing that Marty and Carl where busy working bees at a tape duplication plant and GRT Mastering in the seventies.
Mastering was a passion of Marty's and he did a wonderful job on many albums that we've been featuring on the air from Nushu, Vox Pop, Agony Aunts, The Corner Laughers, Joel Crawford, Big Wheel and the numerous releases for Pop Garden Records.
"Criminally Unsigned" was the first release that I received from Sandbox Records back in 1997, followed by Vox Pop's self-titled album in 1998. Marty and I had met in the mid 1990's via Audities. We began a friendship that was cemented for the last twenty-four years. I can't begin to process what it's going to be like without Marty around.
Anyone who knew Marty would tell you the same thing. Marty could have been a stand-up comedian, if his love for music didn't distract him. Marty was the master of the running gag. It's just one of the many attributes that I loved about him. Back around 1994, Marty was half of an acoustic duo that used to play The Britannia Arms (an English pub) in San Jose a few Fridays each month. The duo was called "Al & Marty" (C'mon, who doesn't appreciate a nod to "The Mickey Mouse Club"?) Marty also did a duo with Tommy Dunbar of The Rubinoos one time. In true Marty fashion, he joked that he could never convince Tommy that they should call the duo "Dumb and Dunbar".
Out of nowhere, one day in 1998, I opened up my mailbox to discover that Marty had sent me his remastered vision of The Rubinoos' classic 1979 album "Back To The Drawing Board". He knew I loved that album but that we both had issues with Rhino's mastering of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" on a compilation the label had released. I recall his excitement of listening to The Time Machine's rebroadcasts on his TiVo service because TiVo had added Live365, so suddenly he was listening to the radio show on his television set. I believe to this day that Marty was our first official audience member via TiVo in San Jose, California.
It was through Marty, that I made some wonderful friends. Marty introduced me to Carl, who has come to visit Maui many times, as did Les Chan on numerous family trips. It was not too long after striking up lifelong friendships with Carl and Les, that an artist I had been playing on the radio since 1999, not only produced Marty's album, but also produced and played on Marty's theme song for The Time Machine. This was the year that Marty brought into my life producer and singer-songwriter Michael Carpenter. That's right. If anyone reading this has been listening to The Time Machine over the last thirteen years, then you've heard "The Time Machine Theme Song" that opens the radio show. It's extremely catchy and was well received by the radio audience. I've had radio listeners come up to tell me that they can't shake the song out of their heads and sometimes they find themselves singing it for no reason. That's the power of a catchy melody. Years later, I discovered that a bit of
that melody came from a song titled "It Takes One To Know One" that both Carl Mindling and Marty Rudnick wrote, but never recorded. The Time Machine's Summer Blue and Jenny Leong were so taken aback about being part of the song's lyrics, that they remained humbled about it all these years later. The theme song for The Time Machine proved to be so much fun that it inspired other artists to be added to the mix in a rotating fashion on the daily show that included both The Smith Bros. and Laurie Biagini that get played to this very day. So in less than one year, Marty introduced me to three new friends, recorded a radio show theme song for all of us to play at The Time Machine and even found the time to contribute as a writer for The Time Machine's website. I'll post his fantastic write-up about The Rubinoos in the comment section below.
In Marty's already busy schedule, he found time to share his appreciation for the radio show. I am still blown away that he took the time to put together a short music video for the theme song which includes Summer Blue holding his album at the very end of the video. I'll include that video link in the comments below as well.
I first heard Marty's musical prowess on Mersy Beach in 1997 and later working with Michael Carpenter to do a cover of "Marcella" by The Beach Boys. It's his album "More Songs About Cars and Girls" that you need to hear from beginning to end. It's been a radio listener favorite on The Time Machine Radio Show and after it's initial run on CD, Marty made it available as a digital download. I highly recommend you get yourself a copy of his entire album. I'll include his most recent Bandcamp link for you to get his album and sample the songs. His love for other musicians can be heard on this album with The Rubinoos' Al Chan and Tommy Dunbar singing back-up vocals on Gerry Goffin and Russ Titelman's "Yes I Will" and "Some Summer" composed by Marty with Carl Mindling, Rob Smith's backing vocals on "Only Heaven Knows", flugelhorn player John Lovell, slide guitarist Marvin Roberts, woodwinds by Tom Mitchell, John Weston on the pedal steel guitar and of course, Michael Carpenter on
every other instrument heard on the album, in addition to Marty's multi-instrumentalist talents.
There are so many things that Marty did for me personally, as well as Summer Blue and Jenny Leong, but I have to share with you his love for the radio chat room. There was a time when Massachusetts radio listener Dan Sharpe would tune in online to listen to the audio stream back in 2005 or 2006. My memory gets fuzzier by the day. Dan suggested creating a radio chat room for listeners around the world to participate in the live broadcast from Maui. I thought it was a wonderful idea. My only impression of online chat rooms was of a more insidious nature, so this seemed like a really positive idea. Dan designed and set up the radio chat rooms for both Pop Garden Radio hosted by Adam Waltemire out of Florida and The Time Machine with Summer Blue and myself out of Hawaii. It was a blast. Not only did everyone who logged on have a great time, but everyone had the opportunity to have a meaniful conversation with an artist. The artist also had the chance to ask questions of the radio
audience who were in the chat room. It was cool to see that there were many crossovers between the two radio shows becuase back then we were back to back on the air in different parts of the country, so once The Time Machine ended, many of the folks would head over to Pop Garden Radio and meet more new online friends. It was a pleasant surprise to see friendships form because of this chat feature. Marty told me how wonderful it was to get to know my classmate Lynette and her husband Eddie. He had fun trading goofy bits with singer-songwriter Eytan Mirsky. He appreciated Laurie Biagini's love for great sixties music. Eddie Finley and Marty seemed to appear to have the same sense of humor in the radio chat room. If Summer Blue or I weren't paying close attention, we would mix up both Eddie and Marty, as to who wrote what. They were that similar with their joking manner.
Facebook and smart phones that would not adapt to the radio chat room app back then caused the popularity and ease of the chat room to slow down. We had to eventually bid the radio chat room farewell a few years ago, but I will never forget the humor, positivity and fun that Marty injected into those conversations.
Marty told me about his younger days living in London and his first trip to Hawaii where he experienced his first ever luau. He got married young and it ended up not being a good fit for the couple. They divorced and he remained single for decades until falling deeply in love with Lucy. They were sweethearts according to Marty and he was so happy to have her in his life. Marty...I am so happy to have had you in my life....Aloha 'Oe, my dear friend...you will be missed...more than you could have ever imagined...
Marty's service will be this Tuesday, October 15th:
Messiah Lutheran Church
801 High Street
Santa Cruz, California
95060
Viewing at 10:30 AM
Service at 11:00 AM
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