For the album, see Marcy Playground (album)
Marcy Playground is an American alternative rock or post-grunge band.
Named for the formative location in lead singer John Wozniak's childhood, the Marcy Open grade school in Minneapolis, Marcy Playground emerged in the late 1990s with clean and subdued alternative rock (often sounding like a tranquil Nirvana).
Wozniak's first effort, Zog BogBean - From the Marcy Playground was a self-produced labor of love, recorded in his bedroom studio with his then-girlfriend Sherry Frasier in the early nineties. A small run of CD's was self-released by Wozniak, and to this day it remains extremely difficult to find.
After attending the Evergreen State College for two years, Wozniak moved east to New York, where Marcy Playground began to coalesce around the songs that would become the self-titled album. Bassist Dylan Keefe and drummer Dan Rieser filled out the band's sound, and complemented Wozniak's songwriting. The self-titled album was released in 1997, and Marcy Playground emerged into the mainstream with the success of the single "Sex and Candy." Marcy Playground is quiet and minimalist in tone, but filled with emotion and childhood imagery. Woz's songs run in many different styles: some are modern folk music; many have undertones reminiscent of children's songs; the blurred sound of psychedelia makes appearances; and then there are the songs where Wozniak clearly defines himself as a rock man. A lot of its commercial draw was due to the success of Seattle's grunge-influenced sound (see post-grunge).
Marcy Playground's next outing was 1999's Shapeshifter, in many ways a more complex album than Marcy Playground, despite not being as much of a success commercially as the self-titled album. The songs are longer and harder-edged than those on the self-titled album, and have a more layered sound. Whereas most of Marcy Playground has the feel of a quiet, unplugged live show, Shapeshifter is clearly amp-driven rock, and maybe even less grunge inspired.
