Ruby on the Vine

Ruby on the Vine/"This World of Days"
Ruby on the Vine/"This World of Days" (2004/www.rubyonthevine.com) I used to have a theory about Hoboken musicians from the '80s: They start out punk or new wave, downshift into indie and then all eventually end up doing some form of blues/twang rock. Ruby on the Vine not only holds to that theory, but trumps it. The brainchild of Myrna Marcarian, the lead singer of now-defunct Hoboken-via-Ohio indie outfit and critic's darling Human Switchboard, Jersey-based Ruby on the Vine is a semi-twangy mix of county, blues and pop rock worn by the rigors of time. The album is stacked with backing talent, including Marcarian's old Human Switchboard mate Ron Metz, Bernie Worrell of P-Funk and Tony Maimone of Pere Ubu. What sets it apart from projects like the Television- and Bongos-begotten Health and Happiness Show is Marcarian, whose smoky semi-rasp merits comparisons to Patti Smith, Debbie Harry or Marianne Faithful, but could just as easily parallel Steve Earle or a latter-day Joey Ramone. Though a strong, show blues shimmy is constant throughout the album, indie roots show through on Blondie-style rockers "Little Demon" and "Why You Wanna Make Me Mad" and Village acoustic-club slow jam "Today Is Just My Kind of Day." Marcarian slows it down, softens the beat and lets the vocals simmer, but never sells out the sound that endeared her and Human Switchboard to so many. There are tracks that will make punky kids listen twice and make first-generation punks nostalgic. It's artistic growth without compromise, and it looks like I may have to modify my theories. -- Jason Notte, HushNJ
- Hushnj

Ruby on the Vine at Coffee Club Café

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

By MARY ANNE CHRISTIANO

“It’s really amazing how music can warm up your world,” said Montclair resident Myrna Marcarian.

She should know. She’s been warming up the world with her music since the late 1970s, when she formed a new-wave band called Human Switchboard while she was in college. The band toured continually from 1979 to 1982 playing the hot spots in New York City, and played the new-wave circuit with bands such as Bush Tetras, Contortions, Lydia Lunch and Stray Cats.

Marcarian said that she started Human Switchboard with a friend from Syracuse University and recorded an EP (extended play) just for fun. She said, “Neither one of us thought about a career.” The EP was sent to a few places and soon they received their first review in “New Musical Express” magazine.

When Human Switchboard broke up in 1982, Marcarian went to work at PBS, Stanford University at the Hoover Institute and for the City University of New York. Later, she recorded a solo EP called “Myrna.” Her recent CD, “This World of Days,” she recorded with her new band, Ruby on the Vine.

Ruby on the Vine is made up of Marcarian on vocals, guitars and keyboards; former Human Switchboard drummer, Ron Metz; Geoff Steinberg, who has been Marcarian’s songwriting partner since 1990; Doug Hall on guitar, keyboards, organ and backing vocals; and guitarist, Mark Spencer.

Marcarian said that Steinberg’s mom used to take him to see Human Switchboard when he was 11 years old and he kept in touch over the years. She said, “Some of the songs on the CD are songs we have written together.”

About three years ago, Marcarian met Hall. She said, “I was in Bluestone having a beverage. This guy walks up to me and says, ‘Aren’t you Myrna Marcarian?’ Turns out I went to high school with him and he’s a producer. He was following what I was doing over the years. He said he had a home studio in his house. That’s where I recorded ‘Gather Round Your Wishing Wall’ and ‘You Belong to Me’ [both of which are on the new album]. We did five songs in his studio in Montclair.”

A classically trained pianist since age 3, Marcarian said she has played music pretty much all her life. Born in the Middle East, she grew up in upstate New York. She said, “I took music lessons until I was 21 or 22.”

Marcarian was inspired by the blues musicians who came to town when she lived in Syracuse, N.Y. She said, “I saw Muddy Waters. The one that really hit me was Buddy Guy. And Junior Wells. Junior Wells is the Frank Sinatra of the blues world. He was a charismatic guy. He had a lot of style; he could croon.”

After seeing Bonnie Raitt perform at a bluegrass festival, Marcarian said, “She was a big turning point for me. She was a very strong woman, she played guitar. She played blues. It’s generally a male-dominated field, playing blues. And here’s Bonnie Raitt, a white, independent woman playing blues.”

Currently Marcarian is in the process of working on a compilation Clash tribute CD and soon there will also be a Human Switchboard re-issue CD. When Marcarian isn’t working on music, she’s busy raising her two children at home.

Ruby on the Vine will perform at the Coffee Club Café, 151 Valley Road, on Saturday, May 15, from 8 to 11 p.m. There is no cover charge. For more information, go to www.rubyonthevine.com. - Montclair Times

Sunday, January 30, 2005
Waltzing with ... Ruby on the Vine!
One of the great pleasures of constructing The Sandinista Project, as I think I've mentioned earlier, has been that it has given me a good excuse to reconnect with longtime favorite performers. Those of you who remember Human Switchboard know that Myrna Marcarian is an outstanding singer; those who listen to her latest record with her band Ruby on the Vine know she keeps getting better. I am thrilled to share with you (in demo form) their gorgeous version of Rebel Waltz.

Update: I just learned that Ruby on the Vine has a live record coming out shortly. Preview it here.
- The Sandanista Project/Jimmy Guterman

Ruby on the Vine
"This World of Days"

This cd entitled “This World of Days”, by the New Jersey folk/pop band, Ruby on the Vine is a weave of songs that harmonies were made for. Fronting the band as lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and sometimes keyboard player, is Myrna Marcarian. The band’s sound is versatile with a dash of new country rock. These songs would make anyone want to dance. - Monica Yonge

RUBY ON THE VINE
This World Of Days
Jim Testa, Jerseybeat Magazine
April 2004


Twenty years ago, Myrna Marcarian was parked behind a Farfisa organ, providing feminist counterpoint to Bob Pfeifer’s dark and smokey urgency in the Cleveland-turned-Hoboken garage band Human Switchboard. They were one of the many great bands from America’s post-punk New Wave beloved by the press but virtually unknown to the public, save for a small, rabid fan base. Human Switchboard’s sole full-length release, Who’s Landing In My Hangar, has been out of print for 20 years, but the band’s name still rolls off the tongue of long-lived rock critics who can’t forget the band’s zesty intelligence, volatile sexual chemistry, and great songs. Unable to find another record deal after the release of Hangar, frontman Bob Pfeifer went on to a career in the record industry, both in A&R and as president of Hollywood Records for a time; he now owns his own management firm. Marcarian hung around Hoboken but has been unheard since the release of a little-heard 1989 solo EP, “Human Touch.” Now she’s back, fronting the New York City-based folk/pop combo Ruby On The Vine. Partnered with former Switchboard drummer Ron Metz and guitarist/co-songwriter Geoff Feinberg, The World Of Days is a remarkable comeback, a fresh and vibrant collection of songs that sounds as if Marcarian hasn’t missed a beat despite a 14 year layoff. Switchboard’s best songs were often driven by the combustible on again/off again romantic relationship between Pfeifer and Marcarian; now, Marcarian’s the older but wiser woman, still sultry and sexual, but less concerned over issues of fidelity than she is with just getting it on. Purring and wailing like the mature Patti Smith, Marcarian’s voice sounds terrific, from slinky sex-kitten torch songs to passionate ballads to driving, garagey (and yes, Switchboard-like) tracks like “Little Demon” and “Why You Wanna Make Me Mad.” The band’s been keeping a low-profile thus far but here’s hoping 2004 sees Ruby On The Vine bring some of that old Human Switchboard magic back to a NYC club scene that’s starved for a band with this much substance and passion. (www.rubyonthevine.com)
- Jerseybeat Magazine

Still-human ex-switchboards from Ohio emerge homespun
Modems for Moderns
by Richard Riegel
December 5th, 2003

Ruby on the Vine
This World of Days
Gracious Records


There were no hang-up calls when Human Switchboard connected person-to-person in area codes from Ohio to New York City at the cusp of the 1980s, as they were resolutely living out the era's creed that Doing It Yourself would restore passion to pop music. But just as the buzz about their Who's Landing in My Hangar? debut album (still a classic, still regrettably unavailable on CD) was cresting in 1982, I.R.S. Records' Faulty imprint was deleted. Human Switchboard were left stranded on their good-press island without a promo canoe to paddle home, and they eventually imploded.

The frenzied heart of Human Switchboard was always the musical clash between vocalist-guitarist Bob Pfeifer—nervous, aggressive, presumably unblinking behind his constant shades—and vocalist-keyboardist Myrna Marcarian, sarcastic and sensual from her bleating-Farfisa hip. In those flailing-notes confrontations, Bob and Myrna seemed like the Sonny and Cher of new wave, albeit with more Mensa potential. Their songs reflected the tough times they'd seen in college towns like Kent, Ohio, including that perennial thesis topic: varieties of infidelity found in cold-water grad-student flats. Drummer Ron Metz faithfully provided the Switchboard's fervent pulse as the thrift-store dishes flew and a series of bassists came and went.

After the split, Bob and Myrna released dueling solos of a sort: his After Words LP of 1987 and her Human Touch EP of 1989, intense records without immediate sequels. That once acerbic critic of corporate rock Bob Pfeifer then penetrated the beast himself, first in A&R at Epic, and then as president (!) of Hollywood Records. Today Pfeifer runs his own media-consulting company, Segnana.

The other two Human Switchboard principals are meanwhile featured on albums from ongoing groups. Ron Metz in fact appears on both discs—full-time with the Schramms, for whom he's punched the beat since guitarist Dave Schramm spun them off from Yo La Tengo in the late '80s.

Myrna Marcarian rules the humanist motherboard of Ruby on the Vine, named after an Omar Khayyam elegy but also suggestive of the darkly faceted sheen of Marcarian's vocals. Though she plays keyboards less often than she plays her new signature instrument, acoustic guitar, she sometimes attacks the latter with a hard edge recalling Pfeifer's strum und drang. Ruby on the Vine's intriguing folkpop songs, most written by Marcarian, some with electric guitarist Geoff Feinberg, project a worldview as desire-driven as Human Switchboard's, yet with more accommodation at the end of the stark hallway: Love exists, fidelity too, but you have to work at them—thus, the erotic fiats of "You Belong to Me" and "Don't Be So Sure." The album rolls from homespun ballads like "Gather Round Your Wishing Wall" to the startling (in this context) garage rock of "Little Demon" and "Why You Wanna Make Me Mad," the latter two with riffs that tunnel right through the hangar wall. We already knew she could walk alone, and now she's sounding real sharp again. So maybe next time out, Ms. Marcarian will lyrically address the existential conundrum that continues to bedevil the creative class: Should I have gone to law school?!? - The Village Voice