Berkeley, CA. – What started as a joke three years ago a Berkeley High School when Michael Marshall, Marcus Thompson and three friends got together to lip sync The Time’s "777-9311” at a talent show has turned into the surprise runaway smash of the summer, Time Social Club’s "Rumors” and while the catchy Caribbean-flavored ditty on Sacramento – based producer Jay king’s Jay Records label is climbing the nation charts, rumors are circulating through the industry and counter charges fly between the groups new label David Lucchesi’s Danya Records, and between the group members themselves.

After winning the 1983 school talent contest, Timex Social Club decided to get serious. The following year, Marshall and Thompson wrote "Rumors”. Recorded it on a friends four-track machine and circulated it among friends.

"It’s pretty much like everyday life at school’, 20 year old lead singer Marshall says of the lyrics. "You know how people talk too much and spread rumors. We used to hear them all the time and got inspired to write it. Some of the people in the song are from the high school”.

The four-track tape of "Rumors” remained an underground hit around Berkeley, receiving heavy airplay on UC Berkeley’s tiny but influential 500-watt KALX, until the group committed it to wax this January at Starlight Studios in Richmond. As the record was breaking big in Dallas and the bay area heavyweight rap record promoter Lucchesi discovered that the group didn’t have a contract with Jay Records and promptly signed Timex Social Club to his own Danya label.

Lucchesi took the group – singers Marshall, Thompson, Kevin Moore and Keyboardist Alex Hill – into Fantasy Studios in May to begin recording an album, which will include a new improved version of "Rumors”. But according to Lucchesi, only Marshall was able to come up with suitable original material, so the album was completed in July by Marshall and producer Jay Logan, a keyboardist who had previously worked on Narada Michael Walden sessions. Disgruntled, Thompson, Moore and Hill split with Marshall and went on the road singing Rumors on the Run DMC Raisng Hell tour.

Meanwhile, Jay King formed a new group called Jet Set and cut an answer to "Rumors”, the tune criticizes the members of Timex social Club for having "stabbed” King with a knife. It’s set for release shortly on the Warner Bros. Distributed Tommy Boy label.

If Lucchesi isn’t laughing about "Jealousy” of the loss of two –thirds of Timex Social Club, he is confident that the new Marshall led Timex Social Club, will prove the winner.

And while King is pushing "Jealousy”, he recently arranged for Lucchesi to set up international licensing agreements for the original "Rumors”. The international single, as well as the follow-up on Danya, "Thinking About Ya”, are being remixed at Arthur Bakers Shakedown Studios in New York by ace engineer Shep Pettibone.