MARCHELLO - The Power of Money LP+7" BLACK (Pre-Order)

Available: 05 Sep 2025
High Roller Records, reissue, black vinyl, ltd 200, 425gsm heavy cardboard cover, insert, bonus 7" in exclusive p/s

Gene Marchello - all guitars, lead vocals, background vocals
Nick DiMichino - bass, background vocals
Gary Bivona - keyboards, background vocals
John Miceli - drums

Songwriter and vocalist Peppi Marchello was the founder of the legendary hard rock/AOR outfit The Good Rats from Long Island. The band was amassing an enormous regional following but never broke through on a nationwide scale. By 1984, The Good Rats were history and Peppi Marchello started working on a solo album. Soon enough Marchello senior teamed up with his son Gene, who was an up an coming guitar player in his own right. The name of the project was supposed to be Popzarocca but CBS Records thought it wiser for Marchello senior to stay in the background and take on the role of songwriter and producer, with Gene being the focus of the band as guitarist and vocalist. In March 1989, Marchello's debut album »Destiny« hit the shelves, combining high quality AOR/melodic heavy rock with Gene’s amazing fretboard skills. The song “First Love” was chosen as the first single and achieved heavy rotation on MTV. Today, »Destiny« is hailed as a forgotten gem of the genre. Gene Marchello him-self looks back philosophically: “It was my first deal, so I had nothing previous to compare it to, our manager used to work for CBS so he was in there all the time relaying our conversations to them and then stuff that they said back to us, telling us that they wanted me to sound more like Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi, but I don’t sound like those guys.” However, this was not really the end of Marchello as the band started work on a second album. Gene takes over the story: “Same band line-up, but a few other pro-ducers came in, which didn’t really work out. Me and my dad weren’t really happy with some of the sounds they were getting, some of them took it a little bit person-ally, we tried to compromise a little and do some of what they asked but it didn’t re-ally work with them.” Nevertheless, the two Marchellos completed the material for the projected second album. Songs such as “Every Man's Lover”, “Wall Of Paper” and the epic “All God's Angels” were scheduled to be published by CBS in 1991. In the end though, the ac-tual release was canceled by the label (for reasons unknown). Thanks to High Roller Records, you can hear now with your own ears that »Power Of Money« is every note as good as Marchello's debut album – if not better.
MATTHIAS MADER

TRACK LISTING
Side A:
1. The Magic Comes Alive
2. Boys Night Out
3. Every Man's Lover
4. Wall of Paper
5. The Power of Money
6. Rock Me

Side B:
7. All God's Angels
8. Good Good Girls
9. Sleazy Street
10. Dancers
11. Spitting Image
12. Riot

Side C:
13. I Feel Good

Side D:
14. Running Man