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.