Mars (band)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mars were a short-lived New York City No Wave band formed by vocalist Sumner Crane in 1975. He was soon joined by China Berg, Mark Cunningham and Nancy Arlen, and briefly by Rudolph Grey. The group released a single live EP in 1980 and a compilation called 78 in 1986, although both releases were posthumous as the band broke up in 1978. Both recordings were compiled by Widowspeak in 1987 and reissued by Atavistic Records in 1996. They appear on the influential No New York compilation LP produced by Brian Eno, along with DNA (band), Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and James Chance and the Contortions, which brought No Wave into the foreground. Near the end of 2003, the complete studio recordings of Mars surfaced on the Spanish labels G3G and Spooky Sound. Mark Cunningham, Mars' bassist, runs Spooky Sound. After the break-up of Mars, Cunningham was part of the intensely bizarre John Gavanti project with Sumner Crane, Arto Lindsay, and others, as well as Don King and his current outfit, Convolution. Sumner Crane, guitarist and vocalist of Mars, died in 2003; drummer Nancy Arlen died September 17, 2006 following heart surgery.
