Mars were one of the most mysterious and truly naked bands that ever existed. And it has been a pleasure to bring you these two live LP's, recorded during their short trajectory on this planet.

The roots of Mars can be traced to Florida Presbyterian College, a small liberal arts school in St. Petersburg. Two students who enrolled in the Fall of 1970 were Mark Cunningham and Arto Lindsay. As Mark recalls "l met Arto on the first day of the school. We ran into each other outside, both looking to smoke a joint or something like that. We started talking and we both has these kind of creepy roommates, so we though -- let's put them together and put us together. We did it and the next day we were roommates." Although Mark was from Northern New Jersey and Arto's parents were missionaries in Brazil, they bonded over a shared love of the kind of oddball culture and music that has long resulted in fast relationships. Arto recalls, "Mark and l listened to a lot of music together. We didn't play music together right away. Well, we may have played along with records or something. But there was no band."

Soon after, the pair began to experiment together musically. Mark says, "l had been playing since l was a kid. l wasn't exactly trained, but l had a school band background on trumpet and baritone horn. Then l took up guitar, took a few guitar lessons and started playing in a garage band. We played covers and things. That was in '68 or so. l'm not exactly sure when l first picked up the bass, but down in Florida l was playing everything -- guitar, trumpet, piano, anything l could grab. lt was a very free music scene. There was a friend who wasn't part of the school who lived nearby. He'd come and hang out and he turned us on to all this free jazz. He played piano very free. So we used to have these big jams. Arto, normally, would recite. He'd do a mixture of things he'd written and things he'd improvised. There were other beat poet types around who joined in. lt was kind of a beat scene. We had the use of a hall in school whenever we wanted. So we'd go in there and jam and people would come and hang out." These activities went on regularly for their first year, as Mark studied Theater and Arto focused on Literature.

The following year, pharmacy magnate Jack Eckerd donated a ton of money to the school. They changed their name Eckerd College, and Connie Berg matriculated. Many other people who'd be associated with the no wave scene also ended up at (or hanging around) Eckerd. Gordon Stevenson (Teenage Jesus), Bobby and Liz Swope (Beirut Slump), Mirielle Cervenka (Teenage Jesus' manager), as well as people like Mark Pauline (Survival Research Lab). lt was really pretty free during that period." Mark says. "Which turned out to be only a moment. ln later years, it turned into a baseball school or something?"

Arto and Mark both graduated in 1974 and decided to move to NYC. They convinced Connie to join them. "l only went there for two years," Connie says. "So l was kind of undeclared. l used to eat lunch with Mark Pauline. Mark and Arto were roommates and they had the music thing sort of going on -- mostly Mark. He would ring-lead these jams and l think the school was very suspicious of him. He was the bad influence at the school, but he was totally Mark, not a lot of words. But l guess that always them curious -- what are the quiet ones up to?"

1974 was a transitional year for the New York music scene. "The whole New Wave thing literally getting off the ground," Mark says. "l think the first thing we saw was Patti Smith's Rimbaud Bash. Then the second or third concert by the Ramones, and possibly the first one by Television at CBs. lt just went on from there. l also did some theater workshops with Robert Wilson and Meredith Monk. But that just wasn't happening compared to the band scene, so l didn't take it any further. l didn't really know what l wanted to do in theater. lt had just been a way to get through school. l saw that to do the type if show's l'd done in Florida would be meaningless in the City,

As a beard for her parents, Connie continued her formal education. "l was going to NYU and l acutally studied with Spaulding Grey there," she says. "That was fantastic. He was involved in the Performance Group down on Wooster Street. Elizabeth LeComte has it now. Spaulding was married to Elizabeth at that time. And l went to Marymount Manhattan College for a while, but l really couldn't get the college thing together. l was doing too many other things.

"lt was just the fact of being in New York, being 19 and casting your net wide. The music scene was vibrant. Patti Smith at that point was just reading with Richard Sohl playing piano. Television and the Ramones had started. That was where the energy was. And also the loft jazz scene. l was going to everything. Even seeing David Bowie at Radio City. But it's such a different place now. At that time you could own the streets if you were game enough to try. lt was certainly very dangerous, but you could have a lot freedom that's not possible now. But the Lower East Side was so heavy then. l lived on 10th and B. That was in '75 or '76. lt was right by Tompkins Square Park. and nobody would go in there if they wanted to come out with their life. The mob dumped bodies there.

"The first place l lived was in an NYU dorm over on 5th Ave. But l never stayed there. That was indicative of the direction l was headed. l was studying, but only because my parents were paying for it. l had to keep the cover going. l was studying a lot of movement. Performance Art was really big. There was an overflow from Judson Church. l studied with Patricia Brown and that choreographer who worked a lot with Robert Wilson. l think it was in her class that l met Nancy Arlen. And she said, 'You have to meet Sumner [Crane].' So l met Sumner and then Mark met him. And we started playing together. Then Nancy joined. They had lofts down on Lower Broadway before it was Tribeca."

By this point Mark had gotten a job at the very bohemian Eighth Street Books, where he worked with Niles Jaeger (brother of Angela of the Stare Kits, and Hilary, who ran the infamous no wave watering holes Stinkys and late Tier 3). "l went through a couple of months at some straighter place," he says. "But that's where l ended up. We were living at 10th and B right on the park. Allen Ginsberg was living upstairs from us.We had a two bedroom place for $200 a month. lt was super cheap but it was heavy. We didn't last long. lt was scary but since we lived

there we had to act normal. l actually had more problems in the other neighborhoods than there. l don't think l ever got mugged in my own neighborhood. lt was always somewhere else. And we never got our place ripped off but other people in our building did.

"By the time we met Sumner, l think we were living in Chelsea. Sumner and Nancy were living on West Broadway. They had lofts on top of each other on West Broadway. lt was late '75 when we met them. Pretty much right away we decided to try something. Before this l had just been jamming at home. l can't remember if l even had a bass yet. But certainly l was playing. And l had a collection of little instruments l'd started assembling in Florida which l`m still collecting. l would bring them to the get-togethers. Those were like workshops that just a bunch of theater people getting together and fooling around. l used to go to those with the instruments. But we didn't start talking about having a band until we met Sumner.

"ln those days Sumner was always transforming but he was always really sweet. He was easy to get along with and didn't seem particularly crazy or anything. He was just really cool and very easy to work with. lt seemed very natural to want to do something with him. The first things we did were acoustic. He would play piano. l had gotten a bass by then so l`m not sure it was totally acoustic. l must have gotten an amp pretty soon. But Connie played acoustic when she started. l don't even remember what the guitar was or what happened to it. But she had an acoustic guitar of somebody's. We didn't have a drummer. We started jamming on Velvets' songs then going off on them doing long instrumental sections. lt kind of evolved from there. But the process took over a year."

Nancy Arlen was an extremely well-known figure on the proto-Tribeca art scene in those days. Both she and Sumner were visual artists of the first order and she was a good friend to many of the people she would be central to the no wave scene. According to Connie, "Sumner had gone to the studio art school on 8th Street. That's where he met Nancy and they were friends from that point on. Nancy never let up her career as a painter and a sculptor and had a lot of success in the '80's. Sumner had forsaken it at the time. Sumner was always forsaking something -- either forsaking art or forsaking music or forsaking both. l think he had forsaken visual art at the time. l didn't even realize he was interested in visual art until he got back into it in the '90's."

"Nancy lived upstairs in her own place," says Mark. "With her teenage daughter Bridget, and Sumner shared a place with a photographer named Joe Nunez, and it was more like Joe's place, so we rehearsed at Nancy's till we went electric and the neighbors couldn't take it anymore. ln fact we tried to build a soundproofed room in the middle of her loft but it was badly designed and never worked."

Arto says, "When we first moved up from Florida we all got a place together. l actually moved out of the apartment all four of us lived in because l split up with the girl with whom l moved up here. During that time Mark and Connie met Sumner and Nancy Arlen. They started to play. At one point they were thinking of asking me to play drums, but l didn't feel like being a drummer, l wanted to be a front-man. l did a few jams. l did one with James Chance and Gordon and maybe Mirielle. Nothing ever came of those but we definitely did a few rehearsals with that line-up. We did play a song called 'Water Torture.' Then Mars started to play and l started helping them by carrying their equipment and stuff like that. l don't know if l was already going out with Connie by that point or not but definitely they were my closest friends."

"Arto really wanted a band," Mark says. "He wanted to be in Mars at one point. He thought, well, he could play the drums. But we just didn't that he would be content in that role. l don't know if we told him or what. But it was obvious he had to get his own band."

Arto says, "Mars was doing this Roxy/Velvets wall of sound and l thought, well they're doing that really good. And they're my best friends so l should be doing something completely different. lt should be sparse and rhythmic, broken up, fragmented. lt was supposed to be a series of fragments rather than a slow development which is what they were doing. l was just trying to give myself a place to start."

"What happened then," says Mark. "And this is really ridiculous, was we put an ad in the Voice for a drummer. We were so naive. We though any drummer would jump at the chance to play with us. l don't know what we were thinking. But the first one that came showed up in a van with a huge drum set ready to rock out. lt was hilarious. l remember this happening. l don't remember the actual playing but l remember this happening. And l know there were at least two or three until we decided we weren't even going to talk to anybody anymore.

"Then Nancy started playing paper bags. l think she intuited that she could do it. She showed us by playing paper bags with us. We thought -- oh that's great. Then l dunno at what point she got her drums. Jody Harris had started playing with us for a brief period while Sumner was still playing piano. Somewhere in the middle of that year we met Jody and Donny [Christensen]. Donny was friends with Nancy. She was part of that whole scene and she was very social so she was the one who would introduce us to people. Jody had just arrived. He was actually really nice. He could play well and we were still struggling to make something happen. But our approach intrigued him and we were having a good time. Then we realized piano would be impossible. That's when Sumner switched to guitar. Jody was very graceful and just said, 'l don't think you need me.' Or something like that and he bowed out."

"l don't remember having an acoustic," Connie says. "Maybe Mark or Sumner had one. Sumner started off playing piano so maybe it was all acoustic because we couldn't afford to buy an amp. But we pretty quickly switched to Danelectros -- those old Sears guitars. l always liked slide. Jody Harris was playing with us too before we performed. Sumner and Jody were my guitar teachers. l think the idea was just tot keep pushing it further and further out. That's what intrigued me -- how far could you push it out and still have it called music? lt was kind of curious too because in the press we got later -- no matter how unfavorable --no one questioned our capacities to play our instruments. lt was as though they really thought we knew what we were doing with our instruments. And l suppose at some point we did have a certain level of expertise."

Jody says, "l did play inconclusively with Mark and Connie, and Sumner. That never turned into a band. lt's charitable, although probably less than accurate, for Connie to credit me as her teacher. But l did get them those Danelectros they played. They were cool. And they had such a great sound. They were very strange people. When they were looking for a drummer they'd put these ads in the Voice -- 'Downtown rock band with bright prospects seeks drummer.' They had no clue what they were getting into. These guys would show up in a van from Jersey with triple bass drums and they'd hide. l had to talk to them. l was the only one who could actually talk to another human. 'Downtown rock band' said something to them that was different from the way other people read it."

lt was around this time that they shifted to playing original material instead of pillaging the Velvets' back catalogue. Mark says, "lt was an organic process. lt had gone along exactly with what we'd been doing in Florida. lt was like anybody could play that music. All it took was guts. We stared out jamming and then looked for things. Sumner was very conceptual and he had a technical background in terms of music, but did not have much training either. His father was a music teacher actually. He had been kind of a prodigy as a kid but had never wanted to study. So he would just shut himself up and figure out how to play Bartok on his own. But we would just start improvising. From the improving, Sumner would grab things, he was very good at that. That's pretty much how we worked from there on. Sometimes he would come in with a preset idea but that was later. At this point it was like jamming, then work on an idea from the jamming, then he would come up with lyrics and we'd take it from there."

With this line-up -- Connie and Sumner on Danelectros, Mark on an old bass he'd gotten from a friend in Jersey, and Nancy on her newly acquired drum kit -- the final version of the band solidified. Because they were louder than their fellow West Broadway denizens they moved their rehearsals to Donny Christensen's rehearsal space down on Warren Street (next door to where Lydia Lunch and James Chance were squatting in an empty building).

"By the time we finished that period we had a set," says Mark. "lt was pretty funny. lt was mixture of naive poppy quirky songs. l don't know what to call it but you've probably heard it since some of it's on those collections. The clunkers we never put out. There was one about Saturday night for which l played guitar and l don't think that will ever be heard."

They also began to prepare for their first gig, an audition night at CBGB in January 1977. To play an actual gig they realized they'd need a name as well."

"We had the name by the time we asked for an audition," Mark says. "Because we asked for that and got it pretty quick."

"We played a lot before our first show," says Connie, "Even when Mars was up and running we rehearsed a lot. We actually worked at it. lt was not an off-the-cuff idea. And we were together a lot. We were reading the same books. But it had taken us a year to decide to call the band China. Because we all had definitive ideas about what it should be named. l always wanted to call it a proper name like Mick Jagger. Call it something like that and see how we could get away with it. But l think we were really looking for a name that meant nothing. China could be a dinner plate or the country. Many things."

One of the people who made it to China's debut performance was Lydia Lunch. "l remember seeing a poster for China," she says. "Then somehow going to see their audition at CBs. lt was before l started Teenage Jesus and they were just the shit. lt was bliss -- insanity. They were the next link after Suicide. After Suicide was Mars which started the spiral into no wave. Suicide really occupied their own territory but they were a link between the traditionalists -- Television, Patti Smith, Richard Hell -- and Mars. Mars were certainly very influential on me. To me what Mars really defined was elevating personal insanity to the stage. lt was Connie's guitar sound that made me want to play guitar and made me realize l could start my own band."

"Once we started playing, we pretty much stayed with the Village scene," says Mark. "We like CBGB and Max's and that's mostly where we played. We played the Artists Space and the Kitchen once each but all other places we played were rock clubs. There were other ones around like Mothers and there was one down in Tribeca but they were all clubs. And we played regularly, maybe once or twice a month."

But they only played a few gigs under the name China. "The reason for their name change had something to do with Elton John but again we were victims of our own naivety," says Mark. "An ad came out in NME which of course, we were all reading at the time. There was a full-page on this band called China. l think they were former Elton John musicians. So they had a record deal and they got all this promotion. They lasted a few months l think. But of course as soon as we saw the ad in NME we decided we were finished as far as that name was concerned. We could have continued as China but l think it was all for the best."

ln an issue of NO Magazine there's a claim the band was contacted by Elton John and told to change their name tout de suite. "Well this could have been said by Connie or Nancy or someone," says Mark. "They were too much in interviews. They would say anything."

"Actually l think it was Rick Derringer or someone like that," Connie says, "lt was just some band that was playing some really big venue. We thought, 'Oh let's just forget it.'"

"l had a dream," Mark says. "l dreamed l saw a marquee for a theater and it said, ' Patti Smith and Mars.' That was a little too mystical for Sumner so it was Nancy that pushed for it more than anybody. My push was that, 'Come on, we're going from the Red Country to the Red Planet.'"

"And actually Mars is more definitive," Connie says. "China is pretty lame."

Through his job at Eight Street Books Mark met a lot of people. He became friends with Patti Smith, Richard Hell, Susan Springfield and the like. This indirectly led to Mars' first recording session.

"Lenny Kaye approached us at a CBGB gig," says Mark "lt way Lenny's idea for us to do a single for Mer Records and he got Jay Dee Dougherty to produce it. They were always at CBGB seeing everything. Lenny got interested. At the time Mer wasn't very active. Then Patti fucked everything up. She decided she wanted to go on tour and terminate all Mer projects. Without really consulting us too much they turned it over to Michael"

"l don't remember that Jay Dee session very well," says Mark. "There was a maximum of two takes of each song. lt was done quickly as well. At that point we were coming out of the more new wave kinda thing. That was '3E'. Also the production involved them turning the guitars down. You can hear them turning the guitars down when the vocals come up. That's something we would have never done. But we let them do petty much what they wanted. They convinced us we should do it like that."

One night in '78 Mark's parents came over from Jersey to see them play. "We were playing a show with Lydia," hey says. "lt was funny. They came with friends. They were charmed but at the same time probably shocked a bit too."

Connie recalls the night. "They surprised us at a show at Max's. Teenage Jesus was playing also, And they really though that Lydia was entertaining. But they didn't know what to say about Mars. They said, 'Well it's like going to the Museum of Modern Art.' We were pretty arty. But what really strikes me too is that nobody sounds really sounds like Mars."

Andy Schwartz (of NY Rocker) recalls seeing them around this time at Max's. The show would be his first review for the paper. "It's been a long time since I've seen the text," he says "but I remember the tone of the review was one of complete mystification. I really was willing to acknowledge in print I had no idea where this was coming from. I wrote something along the lines of, 'This sure is a long way from Bo Diddley.' Now I can see it was and it wasn't in most respects it is a long way from Bo Diddley. Also new to me was the idea of music that was nominally rock & roll, or at least played in a rock club, that was in no way uplifting or liberating, and did not make you feel good. I didn't even know if I wanted to hear that."

But even when the reviews were non-positive critics seemed to give Mars a modicum of respect. "well we weren't smiling and laughing," says Mark. " But I was terrified all the time. It wasn't easy on stage. I was concentrating on what I was doing and trying to make my fingers work. I wasn't thinking of much else. I suppose I had attitude but I guess it wasn't too defined. Sumner would get totally into his role as a singer and go out. Connie had her attitude and her face but she was pretty tough. Nancy was probably the party girl type to a degree. But the thing about those reviews - the thing about us being negative and nihilist, it wasn't like that for us ever. We always felt it was very musical. But this is the thing that people continue to say."

"It may be because there was a lot of campy stuff going on at that time," says Connie. "Things that were accessible from a certain standpoint because of that aspect. l think the amount of time we spent working on the material was obvious in a certain sense. But as far as influences, we were just really interested in the idea of deconstructing things to see how far you could push it before it stopped being music. We had the arrogance of being young and thinking we could destroy everything. That kind of energy really propelled it."

ln December '77 Mars got they're biggest gig yet, opening for the Patti Smith Group at CBGB Theater, thus fulfilling the dream that Mark had earlier that year. While both of us (Coley and Moore) have keen recollections of experiencing Mars live it is Thurston who recalls his first Mars encounter that evening -- "My friend Harold who went with me to every singer Patti gig was crying, "Why won't this end? This is not even music!' I was thinking, 'Yeah you're right. But it's amazing in a way.' And I was wondering -- is that a chick? The way Connie was singing was so demented. I was kinda fascinated by it. Then the 7" came out right around that time. I saw it on St. Marks Place, some guy was selling records on the sidewalk. So l bout it and it blew my mind cause it was nothing like they were live --it was two actual songs and they were really good songs."

Remembering that night Mark says, "lt was hilarious. l think we had exactly one half of the audience booing and the other half cheering. l've got it on tape. lt's nice especially for audience reaction. But we were disoriented in terms of sound. We'd never had such an abstract sound coming more from out of the theater than the amps. I wouldn't say it was a great set but it had its effect."

"l don't remember any of the audience ever liking u," Connie says. "l really don't l think the general reaction was that 98% of the people were scratching their head and 2% of the people were intrigued. But that's what we were shotting for."

By this point the material Mars was playing and writing had begun to evolve far away from their poppish origins. "When we went abstract it was definitely an attempt to go completely away from that kind of new wave song structure," Mark says. "Even though we had done that in a very minimal basis, when we started detuning, that was the trigger. lt took it into another place completely. Cause once we did that we could forget about chords. l started playing bass more like a percussion instrument. l have to say we were also influence by Charlemagne Palestine. These kind of half step drone things. l would do that a lot on the bass l would build them up and work them percussively like he would do on the piano. We were going to his loft shows any time he did them. He was friends with Nancy also.

"And l was not into the New York punk scene at all -- that scene was a rebound from the records them coming off the London scene. The original New York punkers l didn't like too much either because the rock thing was boring, but at least they were more original than the Dead Boys and that whole wave. Also they hated us. Punk magazines never said anything about Mars. For them no wave didn't exist. But l got super confused when we started getting called 'post-punk'. l remember hearing the Sex Pistols when we were already playing. l didn't get it."

By this time bands like DNA, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, and the Contortions had all formed. For a time all four of them rehearsed at a loft on Delancery Street rented by Lydia and her drummer Bradly Field. Robin Crutchfield (DNA) recalls, "Ikue [Mori] didn't own drum when she joined the band and Nancy Arlen's drums were there for us to borrow as Mars were rehearsing there too. So all four of the No New York band rehearsed at Lydia's before Nancy and Sumner got soundproofing in their loft and moved Mars there."

Brian Eno was hanging around New York at this time producing the Talking Heads and checking out new happenings. Anya Phillips (who was then managing the Contortions) and some others got him intrigued by the idea of putting together a compilation of some of the new bands in the city. The resulting album would be the epochal Now New York LP. And while it has been widely reported that the idea for the album grew out of a legendary series of concerts at the Artists Space in the Spring of 1978, th notion had actually been percolating for a while.

Still the Artists Space shows were an important meeting. The bands that played over the five nights were a who's who of the underground scene of that Spring: Communists, Terminal, Gynecologists, Theoretical Girls, Daily Life, Tone Death. Contortions, DNA, Mars, Teenage Jesus. Mars' two sets from May 6 have previously been released as Feeding Tube LP FTR048. Recorded by D. Perry Brandston they give evidence of the band's primitive power and the mysterious aura they developed as they began their transition beyond wasy frasp. The roar of their unknown tongue mastery is a thrilling and murky thing to behear. And it set the stage for their session with Eno the next month.

The story of the creation of No New York (and the scene polities surrounding it) has been told frequently (and to a somewhat exhaustive degree in out tome No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground New York. 1976-1980). Mark says, " That Artists Space shows were important for us but it's not true that Eno discovered us there. l remember Eno being at the CBGBs Theater gig. The Artists Space shows were in May and we all recorded in June. lt took a long time for the thing to come out. How could he have discovered all these bands in May then have had all the meetings about who was in and who was out and everything? That took months. Eno had Any Phillips there deciding who'd be on it, She had more that his ear. But we all felt the fewer bands the better because then we'd each have more space. We all realized this might be our one chance to have something that would be distributed correctly. And not even Eno wanted something that would only have one song or two songs a band. We wanted to be able tot present ourselves. Once we decided that there was a campaign to limit. But we all felt it should just be those four bands and that's what i t ended up being. lt was the logical division once it got to that point. Well how are you going to limit it? He wanted us there so..."

Connie recall, 'lt was a big deal that Eno was around and he was all over the place. l don't think we specifically knew he was going to be at that Artists Space concert but he was at every party However that night was sort of eclipsed by a car wreck l was in. Jim Sclavunos had an old car and Jim and James and maybe Lydia...there was a whole car full of people and for some reason l was the designated driver. At 14th Street and 3rd Avenue l was rearended. l'm not a very good driver, especially in the city, because l have no depth perception. So l have both daredevil inclination and at the same time his thing of - What? What? l can't see where l am. So l'm pretty hard to follow. But it was these tough guys from Jersey. They were all pissed off but actually by law they were at fault. l just kept driving because the car was loaded. l got to Gramecry Park and then the cops showed up. James took off running and l remember everyone else fled in different directions leaving Jim and me to deal with it. We were supposed to go down to the station and Jim had to get the registration, lt was probably 2:00 in the morning. By the time we got to the police station l was completely composed. So that's really my memory of that night.

"The session with Eno was abit traumatic because he so muc h wanted to produce the material and we so much wantedit to be unproduced,. There was all this stuff added to the music and it was our first exposure to someone who really wanted to be a producer.. lt was awful l didn't like it at all. The tracks ended up alright but it was very unpleasant. Of course he himself was a very pleasant guy but it was a battle. But what's really wild about that album is that we have never made any money from it. A few people asked where the money was for this record. They said, 'Well it hasn't recouped its expense.' We said, 'Let's look at the balance sheets.' lt was already making money. We were totally ripped off for that/"

"We actually did get paid for it." Mark says. "That's the only record Mars ever got paid for. When it came out we were paid, l think, $800. Not a lot but at that time it was a good payment considering we hadn't received anything for the other stuff. Then a year or so later we got another similiar payment. all the bands did. The curious thing is when the reissue started a few years ago we all looked for the contracts and nobody could find any, That throws me off because we had to sign something to receive money. lt doesn't make much sense. l had all the Mars contracts in one place and it wasn't there. Lydia the same. Arto didn't know anything either. James l didn't talk to. But we could never even go to anybody and complain about the fact that it was out there. We eventually got some royalties but..

"The actual session was smooth for us. We played the four songs like it was a real et. And it was all first takes. Eno was very pleased, we were too. We might have done a couple of them over. lt is possible but l like to think it was all first takes. lt was quick. The mixing was on a different day and that was little trickier. We all insisted on being there. So we were stopping him from adding effects. l don't know how he felt at the time but he took it oretty well. So 'Helen Forsdale', which is the most treated, we had mixed feelings about, but it's a great mix. He got something very special."

The tracks Mars recorded for the album all sound incredibly boss and show the band advancing even deeper into the realms of the unknown, But the scene in New York was mutating as fast as ever with the Mudd Club heralding a more fashiony dance scene, and some of the bands on No New York found themselves having a hard time getting any traction in this new environment. The sever haircuts which presented the No New York constituents as being one slight step from a mental hospital were now being worn by Mudd Club and Danceteria habitus as a sort of trendy quirky haute-glamour pose.

Mark says, "We had been playing every month then suddenly, with No New York in the process of coming out, we couldn't find anything. Max's was having problems, CBGB was changing. A lot of places hadn't opened yet. No one wanted to book us. At first we kept rehearsing because we were still making new songs. But it was frustrating, On one hand we sorta though we'd made. On the other hand suddenly there were no gigs. l don't think we rehearsed much as it went on. l think Nancy was losing interest also. There are a lot of reasons we broke up -- both personal and musical. But it did kind of make sense. l don't know if Sumner had ideas of where he wanted to go and felt we -- especially Nancy -- weren't into it. And he stared being a little wild at that point too. One day he got really angry about something and that was the end of it. But in general l would stick with the musical reasons for our demise because they're true. We had gone completely from one end to the other. You can see from what Sumner did afterwards, that from that point it was changed. lt didn't make any sense for Mars to change in that direction."

The album you're holding documents the penultimate gig by Mars headlining Irving Plaza. Marks recalls, "Eno recorded the lrving Plaza gig we did with Rudolph Grey. He had a fancy cassette recorder. And that was that. There was no rehearsal for it. Rudolph came on stage and stood there the whole while with his guitar. l don't know whose idea it was but Sumner loved it." Connie says, "We were pals with Eno anyway. Just because the lsland session was awful didn't mean we wouldn't hang out. He's very bright. That was the only gig Rudolph did with us although he and Sumner were very tight. l think Rudolph may have played a few rehearsals with us. Was Red Transistor still around at that time? He might have been bandless around that point. l knew Rudolph pretty well but he's such a girl chaser that if you're a girl and you want to know Rudolph you need a chaperon."

Rudolph says, "l remember the first time l heard Mars was over the speakers upstairs at Max's. lt was '3E' and that really impressed me. Later on l told Sumner this. lt was not long after the record came out and l told him l though it was a masterpiece. He really appreciated that. ln fact l got him to write down the lyrics for me. But l really met Sumner sometime in '78, not sure when. Lydia was the one who introduced us. l was talking to her outside Max's one night. She said, ' You should meet Sumner.' She thought we'd get along. She gave me his address and maybe his phone number. One night l just went over there. There were comic books lying all over the place. lt was on E. 4th Street. lt was a reconditioned Chinese laudry. l should have taken some photos of that. He took baths in a huge sink that had been used for the laundry.

"When Red Transistor split up l tried to form a band with Jim Sclavunos on drums and Sumner on guitar. We went into a studio and did some numbers. l remember listening back to the tape and Sumner's guitar sounds incredible. Like breaking glass or something. He sang a number, and l sang a number called 'John's Upstairs, He's Sleeping." But that was it. Mars was nearly finished by then although l did play at their second to last gig at lrving Plaza. l was standing there for the whole set. The plan was for me to come on for the last song which l did. For years later people would come up to me and mention that appearance. And Eno was there recording it. That was a very hot day. l remember mentioning that to Eno who was talking to Nancy Arlen."

Following the faily triumphant lrving Plaza gig, Mars recorded an EP for Charles Ball's Lust/Unlust label, with Arto Lindsay as producer. "l knew Mark because he worked in the 8th Street Books," recalls Charles. "As far as him being articulate or anything like that -- no. lt was just that he was very good friends with Arto. How the session happened, how it was played and how it happened -- there was a tremendous amount of post-production. l`m so proud that l took the binaural tracks, which give you all the cues as to where things occur in audio space, then added false space -- hyper space -- on top of that with digital delays and reverbs that hadn't existed two years before. lf you had gone into the studio in 1976 it would have been some kind of analogue delay line. By 1978 it was a digital delay line and that made a huge difference.

"Unfortunately l didn't have any kind of rapport with the women in the band. But to me no wave was work. lt wasn't what l was listening to for inspiration. But Mars gave you possibilities to do things. That Mars recording was far better than the master would have led you to believe. That was because there was suddenly all this potentially there that had never been there before because of tape saturation. So besides adding six dBs to treble, l feel as though l was responsible for using new tape saturation limits. But what can that mean to anybody but a producer? On the other hand what does it mean to the listener? l should have made a lot more records."

Arto says, "l was called as producer on the Mars record but l remember we recorded it through a binaural head. And the tapes were real fucked up. The studio got flooded. When Mark finally put out the reissue, he mastered it off a cassette. And it sounded a lot better than the recored had when it first came out. Because the tape was ruined during the flood. That's a great record. l didn't do anything for years after that as producer. At least that l can remember."

Soon after the EP was recorded Mars played their final gig on December 10, 1978. Rudolph Grey says, "The first Blue Humans gig was the final Mars gig at Max's on a bill with DNA. lt was just me and Rashid Bakr on drum." "We just folded after that Mars gig," Connie says. l still really have no idea why. l think it was Sumner who wanted it to end at that point. l was like, 'Alright, fine.' But we may have just exhausted the material. We launched into John Gavanti not long afterwards. That changed the dynamic, the content and what we were doing. Sumner was living on E. Street in a Chinese laundry. Now it's a second hand goods store. l was walking down there one day and l was like -- oh my god it's open. And l walked in. lt was a former Chinese laundry just with a toilet and a sink."

"Well, before Gavanti there was Sumner's retreat into his room," Mark says. "That's where he started with the blues stuff. He was totally obsessed with Bukka White and Skip James, but his actual playing was more like Bukka. Then he started developing the Gavanti thing. l don't think he got us involved until it was pretty much all written."

l remember being at Sumner's one time and he had decided to get rid of his book shelves," says Jim Sclavunos. "His whole book collection -- which was amazing -- philosophy, obscure poetry, literature, all this stuff -- was just all on the floor a carpet of it. And it was just getting crushed under boots. This was around the same time he stared wearing that white painter's cap around all the time. And white gloves too. l started to think he was getting a bit of a Howard Hughes complex."

"Certainly Sumner had a lot of complexes," Connie says. "l'm sure in this day and age they would have a lot of diagnoses for Sumner's condition and just the right medicines. He wouldn't have had to do what he did. He could just go to work or whatever. Sumner was fantastic but had a lot of quirks and phobias and different things."

While their Lust/Unlust EP would not be released until 1979, Mars were finished. All of the former members continued to do music except Nancy, who returned to her sculptures and found fame as the new decade unscrolled. Sumner recorded the amazing John Gavanti LP. And although his Coffin Full of Blues cassette has not yet been issued we here in the Negative Glam production offices are working on it. Connie has recorded in various formats with Mark Cunningham, Lydia Lunch and solo. We are also hoping to work with her on realizing a long-lost project in the near future. And Mark Cunningham, in Spain for that last many years, has been active with Raeo, Bestia Ferdia and many others.

But Mars continues to haunt the memories of all who saw them. As well they should. For now and forever. Amen