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Bulletin Friday, September 18,1981
Reesa: 'I’m not all that weird' What makes Reesa and the Rooters tick? Certainly not the prospect of a big record deal and tour dates with The Rolling Stones. "To be honest, we haven't had any interest from record companies, and we're not really looking for it," flat-outs Reesa Marchetti — Mrs. Reesa Marchetti, that is — who has led her Woodbury, N.J.-based band through three years on the area rock scene. For the Rooters, survival is a trump card: sooner or later, the public's bound to come around. On Wednesday night, for example, Reesa and company will realize one of their most prestigious bookings so far when they play Philadelphia's tiny Bijou Cafe, 1409 Lombard St. It's a fitting showcase for a band that's proven itself at virtually every other club on the regional map, while critics keep scratching their pens for the right words. Onstage, Reesa sings with chesty fervor, favors space helmets and spandex, fondles stuffed animals during numbers, tends to writhe on the floor when the music really heats up and is not above bursting balloons for emphasis. "I'm not all that weird," she disclaims. "I just like to be spontaneous and do as I feel. It loosens me up." Rooter rooters know what she means, and their support is growing. Last year, the band released a singe on its own independent label. It's still selling respectably at area record outlets. The two songs are "Ultra Man in Surf Villa," which explores a dice-loaded battle of the sexes, and "TMI," a nuclear love song ("melt my heart like TMI," invites Reesa). Good stuff, actually — maybe even the stuff of post-punk legend. "This all started three years ago," explains Reesa, who spent more than a decade going nowhere as an area folk singer with a bluesy bent. In between her musical pursuits, she endured gigs as a waitress and file-clerk. "I was being a `restaurant singer' at Shippen's, and one night it occurred to me to make my move. I brought my brother, Larry Laskey, onstage with his guitar, and we started doing old rock. I got fired." And the Rooters were born. In short order, bassist Cherie Rumbol, a woman of strange, mini-skirted charisma, signed on. Minimal-minded drummer Bob Z. rounded out the foursome. It's been onward and onward ever since. But while many of the area's more ballyhooed new wave acts have shown a tendency to flare and fizzle with their first injection of big record company money, Reesa and the Rooters have hung in — undamaged by fame or ambition, undaunted by the long haul — with absolutely nowhere to go but up.
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