Frank Marino Review

[phlemmy]

Until yesterday, I had never laid ears on any of Marino's music. I listened to a few tracks on Myspace before heading to the show and thought it was pretty cool space rock stuff.

Frank's bio reads something like this:
1. I did a lot of LSD in the early 70s and ended up in a coma
2. While I was in the coma, Hendrix appeared to me in a dream and taught me how to play guitar
3. I woke up from the coma and feel that I am Hendrix reincarnated.
4. I'm a badass

Reading his bio and some concert reviews, I knew to expect some Hendrix and a few blues standards and those happened...Voodoo Chile (puke) and Red House (puke). Overall, the guy is absolutely incredible. He played for 3 straight hours. Impressive for a guy who is 53. His tone was incredible and his playing was insane. Of course his touring band was pretty damned good as well. If you get a chance to catch them, it'll be worth it.

[jps]

I saw him back in the early '70s with Mahogany Rush. What I remember of it was great; the show was at a club called reflections in Cincinnati.

[bitzerguy]

Frank is a showman, and his bio shows that to be true. I was introduced to Frank in 1975 through his brother Vince, who was the sound man for a few local bands here. Mahogany Rush were a cult classic at Norm Silver's Moustache club through the 70's in Montreal. Frank is very boisterous and is a stunning guitar player. He was playing custom made guitars with radial necks ambidextrously long before that guy with the custom military Hammer you see today.

Frank would play songs like Dragonfly right handed, then switch to a lefty Strat to play his Hendrix covers. While the covers got a lot of attention, his own material was much better and should have got more attention than they did.

He disappeared for a long time. It's good to see him back. He is a great guitar talent.