I was born in the capital city, three days before the shuttle went into space. Raised on the north east coast by both parents, I had a house like countless others, full of siblings, dogs and cats, a backyard, a cul de sac. I wanted to play guitar after I saw “Johnny B. Goode” in Back to the Future, but I was not immediately indulged.

So it was a spinet piano and lessons and Christmas carols and lots of Motown on the radio. A pleasant life, for certain, but no one gets to stay a child forever. So I grew and grew and finally grew my own demons in empty bottles and lined them on the shelf. I'd stopped plunking on the spinet but by then they’d finally handed me a guitar and somewhere to plug it in. And now, in my old soul adolescence, I began to speak.

There was music, yes, but so much more, there were words and words and words flooding out. And this became my mission. I began building a history, in the dank basement rooms crammed full of instruments, on the shoddy stages of community centers and gymnasiums and block parties. In a smoke-filled home studio an eccentric producer showed me the ropes. Here was the way to sing in the microphone. Here was how to better hear the pitch; one headphone off the ear. Here were the harmonies, 1-2-3. And the words and the music kept coming, faster and faster.

In Boston I found the friends who could keep up, and pull me higher than I'd ever been able to go. There were vast experiments in noise and violence. I learned the performer's endurance, the grind of vans and stages and the sweaty ritual of rehearsal, until the instruments became one instrument, until it all spoke the words with one voice. I put down the guitar and learned to break the wall between stage and audience, how to engage and connect.

Over time we focused. And I remembered again how words can whisper as well as scream. I picked the guitar back up, long forgotten friend. I began to compose songs, music and lyrics, like never before. When the grey city thawed for a fifth time, I went west, in the direction of so many seekers, to California. The friends had come too and for a time we ran the ritual again, the sweat and the stage, but things changed. There were fewer rehearsals, fewer audiences, fewer connections.

However, the words kept coming, words written in little leather books and words tattooed on my skin, words for speaking and words for singing. I befriended poets and artists and filmmakers. From my home by the ocean I devised a new path to follow. For the first time, I took the stages alone, from Boston and Brooklyn to Phoenix and Portland. I drove highway miles and learned to play harp and cut my hair and had my heart broken, all in a torrid few months.

When autumn came I rounded up more friends, far more than before and I committed these tales to song and I called it Welcome to the Danger Show. I carried a lot of history into those ten songs, so it's hard to for me to imagine that it's been nearly three years now, and that Danger Show was just the tip of the icy iceberg.

The words have kept coming, and the melodies too. I gathered a special few friends into a little live band called the Dead Messengers, and played in Los Angeles and lots of other places (47 states and counting). But most exciting of all, on March 6, 2012 the item, the relic, the RECORD will be here, so I can share it all with everyone.

I still got that spinet piano by the way.

Thanks for listening,



Marc M. Cogman





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Marc M. Cogman began his solo career in Venice, California, but spent nearly all of 2010 living on the road, traveling from place to place playing shows. He's recently landed back in Boston, Massachusetts. Mostly, he plays guitar, harmonica, and sings. He has a Masters Degree in Poetry from USC. He is published by Bullion Music and booked by Alanna McKeever for Sugarfly Entertainment. His first album Welcome to the Danger Show was released independently in 2007. His follow-up, Beneath a Balcony arrived in 2009 from Time-Act Records. His third album, Anthems comes out on March 6th, 2012. You can buy all the albums online, or at one of his shows all across the country, as well as his book of poetry Dangerous Music, and his awesome, home-silk-screened, limited-edition t-shirts.