in a boss salad bowl

They were the much lauded pioneers of the of the bubble-psych-folk scene, playing to packed houses from coast to coast, and inspiring scores of other bands. They were the one, the only...


The members of the legendary quartet met in San Francisco, where they attended the same junior college, during the Summer of Love. Shortly afterward, they departed Haight-Ashbury for swingin' Toledo, Ohio, claiming that the Glass City was more in tune with their creative vibes.


Sources disagree on whether the band took its name from one of lead singer Zelda's improvised dessert recipes (the official story) or if it referred to a potent form of LSD in vogue with the counterculture crowd at the time. Proponents of the latter theory cite the band's unusual and eclectic lyrics (which featured lines like "We're so hungry we could eat a mountain or a city") as proof of a hallucinogenic influences, though it should also be pointed out that Nelson, who wrote the lion's share of the Mirage's material, had the reading comprehension skills of a ten year old.

In any case, the band quickly made a name for themselves in the local scene, earning them a residency at the Kaleidoscopic Zoo alongside heavy funksters The Soular System and giving birth to a host of similarly-themed acts. For a short time it seemed that Toledo was poised to displace both London and Los Angeles as center of the pop music universe. As big as The Marmalade Mirage was in the Great Lakes region, the release of the the band's debut single in 1969 rocketed them to nationwide fame within days of the record hitting the stands.

"The Marmalade Is Made," written by Nelson and crisply produced by Phil Spector, perfectly captured the band's unique style and electrified a nation with its deeply insighful examination of the social, cultural, and political upheavals of the time.


"It's the song I've always wanted to write, but never could," said Bob Dylan at the time, and John Lennon stated that it inspired him to write "Imagine."

Unfortunately, the runaway success of the single exacerbated the simmering resentments that had arisen between the band members. It also didn't help that they found themselves rushed into recording a full length album by their label, which sought to capitalize on their newfound fame, despite the fact that they had only four songs in their repertoire. The other three members of the Mirage saw this as an opportunity to secure some publishing revenue, which angered Nelson and led to material such as this...


Suffice to say, the album tanked. The bad news that the Mirage had been dropped by their label arrived during the middle of their "Spread the Marmalade" tour, and caused a full-on brawl between the bandmates. Morris had to be stopped from braining Zelda with a microphone stand by Valerie Brown, the bass guitarist of opening act The Pussycats, who broke the guitarist's arm in four places, ending the tour and putting the band on permanent hiatus.

So ended The Marmalade Mirage's brief moment in the sun, reduced from legends to footnotes in the space of a few short months. Zelda moved to an artists' colony in Taos, New Mexico, changed her name to "Galadriel Starshine," and supplements what she earns teaching at a local Montessori school by making high-end dreamcatchers and selling them to celebrity clients such as Dennis Hopper. (She even made an uncredited appearance in Hopper's self-indulgent 1971 flop, The Last Movie.)

Nelson left the music business and entered politics. A protege of Bob Dornan, his effectiveness as representative for California's 46th Congressional District has been slightly diminished after he was videotaped in a motel room with two horses, a donkey, $500,000 in unmarked bills and an empty case for transporting weapons-grade plutonium from Scandia Labs. Calling the allegations and evidence a "left-wing smear job," Nelson has vowed to fight the vote of censure and $50 fine levied on him by the House Ethics Committee.

After Morris's solo career as a singer-songwriter failed to take off, he cycled through a number of engagements with various bands, including a three day stint with Red Rider and a gig filling in for Rick Parfitt for the last few shows of Status Quo's Japanese tour in 2000. His efforts to take a new line-up of The Marmalade Mirage onto the summer reunion concert circuit have been held up by litigation from the band's other original members.

Charlie took the small sum he made from the band and opened an auto repair business in Lorain, Ohio. He never bothered telling his wife or kids about his brief life as a rock star, saying to friends in the scene "that's all behind me now." He served as a proud member of the Rotarians and played a vital role in organizing their annual charity pancake breakfasts. He died in his sleep of a massive heart attack in the winter of 1997.

As I was unable to locate copies of The Marmalade Mirage's actual recordings (which go for nearly a grand on eBay), I've decided to go with a couple of spiritually similar tracks by some of the Mirage's fellow travellers. Diabetics be warned; things are going to get rather syrupy sweet 'round here in a moment...

The Pop Corn Generation - Kitchy Kitchy Koo (from a 1968 single)

The Tingling Mother's Circus - Positively Negative (from The Tingling Mother's Circus, 1968)

(Blame it all on Harvey Pop Comics #2; November 1969)

natural’s not in it

“Names would be as useless to them as their non-existent tongues.”

Thank you, Roy Thomas, you rascally one. That line never fails to bring a smile to my face, and I’m not big on smiling, either.

Way back in my undergrad days, a professor of mine called me out on my unusual style of writing – the heavy use of ellipses and dashes, the twisted and recursive use of qualifying phrases and clauses, the strange juxtaposition of highbrow terminology and vernacular slang – and asked me how such a thing came to be. “Oh, that’s easy,” I told him. “I read a lot of comic books in my formative years.”

I’m still not certain if the furrowed brow and slow deliberate shake of the head he gave in response was rooted in disgust or pity. Perhaps a little of both, now that I think back on it.

Our trash-talking, colorblind android friend in the above picture is Adam 1 (no relation to Martin Milner), whose plan for androidal domination of the world hinged on replacing then-congressional candidate John F. Kennedy with an robot duplicate, with the very prescient notion that Kennedy would go on to become president of the United States. (Let’s see, Kennedy was elected to the House in 1946, and was sworn in as president in 1961. You don’t find that kind of long range planning in today’s evil masterminds. It’s all about instant megalomanical gratification for this new generation with their evil iPods, evil sports shakes, and evil microwave burritos. Bah, I say.)

Adam’s plans were thwarted, but at the cost of Captain America’s life, not the Captain America who spent decades frozen in a block of ice, but his replacement, who previously fought crime as The Spirit of '76. The Spirit of '76 was an amalgam of two other characters. His minuteman costume was a stylistic nod to the 1940’s superhero Fighting Yank, but he was introduced as a member of the Crusaders super-team, who were a direct reference to DC’s Freedom Fighters, and he stood as the Crusaders’ analogue to the Freedom Fighters’ Uncle Sam. (Yes, that Uncle Sam.)

After the Spirit of '76’s demise, the role of stand-in Captain America was taken up by the Patriot, a character who wore hot pants while fighting Nazis in the 40’s, but has since been retconned into a pair of tights that cover his previously bare thighs. (A lateral improvement, but he seemed happy enough about it.)

I know what you’re thinking at this point, but don’t you dare say a word. I’ll have you know that comics are an art form that dates back to the cave paintings made by our Neolithic ancestors. Today’s dour adolescent power fantasies involving dudes in tights sac-punching each other are the pinnacle of a cultural legacy as important and storied as the mastery of fire and the invention of the wheel.

The above musings are only tangentially related to today’s musical theme, which can be summed up as “songs with one-word titles suggesting artificiality or fakeness.” Because of the androids, see? Ah, forget it. Let’s just get to the songs.

X-Ray Spex – Art-I-Ficial (from Germfree Adolescents, 1978) – Such an clever and insightful teenager, that Poly Styrene. She had a ferocious set of pipes, too.

Curve – Doppelganger (from Doppelganger, 1992) – Kind of shoegaze, kind of gothy, kind of forgotten these days, which is unfortunate.

Ibiza Babes – Fabricated (Skimpy Fade-Out Mix) (from Chillout in Ibiza 4, 2004) – Oh, to be rich and European and dosed to the gills with a genetically damaging designer drug while raving the night away at some private party staged by the spoiled child of a German industrial magnate. There would be no need for Hamlet-esque existential dilemmas, only one obvious course of action to take: put the barrel of a Glock in my mouth and pull the trigger.

The Who – Substitute (from Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, 1971) – Yeah, yeah, I should have went with the Sex Pistols’ cover version, but man cannot live on punk rock alone.

The Epoxies – Synthesized (from Stop the Future, 2005) – The best example of the wonderful micro-genre that is synthpunk. One of my wife’s favorite songs, the single version was played at our wedding reception.

Kid Creole & The Coconuts – Imitation (from Tropical Gangsters, 1982) – Kid Creole was in The Forbidden Dance. That bit of trivia has nothing to do with this particular track, but I felt compelled to mention it. Expect a massive lambada revival to commence any day now.