Marcy Playground to play Greenwich gig

It had been nearly a decade since John "Woz" Wozniak, lead singer of rock band Marcy Playground, had been out on a national tour. Wozniak had spent his days in his Vancouver studio, producing records by the likes of Mudhoney and Hot Hot Heat, as well as recording a solo album.

He never had any intention of taking his record on the road until his longtime friend and bandmate, bassist Dylan Keefe, suggested performing the material live as Marcy Playground.

"We had always been a trio," said Wozniak, who lives in Toronto with his wife and four kids. "Dylan got the record, he loved it and wanted to play it. He said, `we should tour this.' "

Initially, Wozniak was hesistant -- he wouldn't be able to juggle owning a studio and touring at the same time. It would be a tough choice, he said, between "being a studio owner or a musician and songwriter.

"So, I sold the studio I had owned for seven years," said Wozniak, who brings Marcy Playground to the Arch Street Teen Center in Greenwich Saturday. "We really wanted to do it, so it just made sense."

After playing at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, last summer, the band has played more than 100 clubs, theaters and college campuses across the United States and Canada. Wozniak, who for the last seven years had been ensconced in his studio, found it a difficult transition from the mixing board to the stage.

"It wasn't easy," he said. "I was out of practice and it takes a lot of endurance to be on the road."

But it was just a matter of time before the band, which had toured nonstop for a year and a half prior to the release of its breakout, self-titled record, found its niche.

Formed in 1996 in New York City by Wozniak and Keefe, the band was named for the formative locale in Wozniak's childhood, the Marcy Open grade school in Minneapolis. After enlisting drummer Dan Rieser in 1996, the band signed to EMI Records, toured relentlessly and as Wozniak explained, expected to "make it big."

However, Marcy Playground's debut album was released to little fanfare, a disappointment for the hard-working trio.

"That was a total pipe dream," recalled Wozniak, who was 23 at the time. "I was thinking -- you get signed and then you've made it. But you haven't made it. It's only the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road. It's not the Emerald City."

Then, in the summer of 1997, before a concert in Sacramento, Calif., the group got some more bad news: its label, EMI, had folded. That meant no more tour or financial support, dashing its hopes of success.

However, the band's fortunes turned when Chris Muckley, a DJ from radio station 91X in San Diego, began spinning its single, "Sex and Candy." The song, a mid-tempo, electric folk tune reminiscent of Nirvana's quieter moments, soon became the station's most requested song.

That caught the attention of then Capitol Records president Gary Gersh, who, as head of A&R at Geffen, had helped signed Nirvana. Soon after joining the label's roster, "Sex and Candy" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart -- a position it held for 15 consecutive weeks -- and propelled the band's debut to platinum status.

"It was definitely a shock," Wozniak said of the grassroots success. "We thought we had to start from scratch. We went from having no success with our record to four months later having the No. 1 song in the country."

As with many of their post-grunge peers, Marcy Playground found it impossible to mimic the commercial success of its chart-topping debut. "Shapeshifter," the band's edgier follow-up, flopped, as did its third record, "MP3." But as Wozniak explained during an interview last week, it was never the band's intention to strike it rich, but to "make music, be artists and communicate ideas to other people."

The band has continued to follow this mantra with its latest album, "Leaving Wonderland ... In A Fit of Rage," released July 7. A collection of folksy rockers that recall Paul Simon more than Kurt Cobain, the record is the band's most personal offering yet. Instead of producing this record as he had done with the last three, Wozniak turned over the reigns to Jeff Dawson, known for his production on Canadian diva Holly McNarland's debut.

Though he has long enjoyed producing, Wozniak said it feels "liberating" to forego that responsibility and get back to what he loves most -- playing live and connecting with his fans.

Said Wozniak: "To get out there and play music for people ... to have that symbiotic relationship with the audience, there's no finer reward."