Marcy Playground Hit Getting Plenty of Play

Few circumstances would seem more devastating to an up-and-coming rock band than the demise of its record label.

But Marcy Playground, a New York trio whose “Sex and Candy” has been the most frequently played single for weeks on college radio stations, took the news quite calmly when EMI closed its doors last June--only four months after releasing Marcy’s debut album.

“I saw it in some strange light as an opportunity to try something new and different,” says John Wozniak, the group’s singer-guitarist and primary songwriter. “I never saw it as a negative.”

As it turns out, he had reason for his hopeful attitude.

The group, which also includes bassist Dylan Keefe and drummer Dan Rieser, was signed by Capitol Records within weeks and is now attracting mainstream attention thanks to its offbeat hit single.

“Sex and Candy” has topped Billboard magazine’s modern rock airplay chart for nine weeks and is powering sales of the band’s album, “Marcy Playground,” which sits at No. 40 this week on the Billboard 200.

“I’m really surprised that it has connected with so many people,” Wozniak says of the single, which is distinguished by its languid tempo and Wozniak’s droll delivery of the lyrics, a dreamy reverie about a mysterious seductress. “It’s a little quirky, which probably has a lot to do with it. It’s really different from everything else on the radio.”

Even before Capitol entered the picture, “Sex and Candy” was generating a mild buzz thanks to radio programmers in San Diego and San Francisco.

“When a new artist starts lighting up the phones with requests,” says Steve Rosenblatt, vice president of marketing at Capitol, “you’ve got to say, ‘Hey, there’s something going on here.’ ”

Capitol wasted no time in signing the band and quickly re-releasing the album.

“We knew this was a special song that people were going to react to,” Rosenblatt says. “It’s one of those songs that, once you hear it, it sticks in your head. And then when we met the band and saw they were good people and were willing to do the work to break the record, we said, ‘Let’s get into business with these guys.’ ”

Business concerns, however, are far from paramount in Wozniak’s mind.

“I’m a musician, and that comes first to me,” says the singer-songwriter, whose band plays a sold-out show Wednesday at the Troubadour. “Being a successful musician comes a distant second. . . . I figured if we could sell 10,000 records in our entire career, I’d be the happiest guy in the world.”

Wozniak, a huge fan of Jimi Hendrix, turned to music as a means of escape when he was 13.

As a shy kid picked on by classmates at the Marcy Open School in Minneapolis, he had been so frightened of his tormentors that during recess he stayed upstairs in a classroom and looked down on the Marcy playground.

Years later, after relocating to New York, he took the name for his band after recruiting Keefe and Rieser for the rhythm section.

And last week alone, despite the potentially debilitating events of last summer, sales of the group’s debut album more than tripled Wozniak’s lifetime goal. Total U.S. sales are about 335,000 copies.

“I don’t really think about it,” Wozniak says of the band’s momentous change of fortune over the last few months. “I’m living in this little world of touring and meeting people and keeping this thing called Marcy Playground functioning. It has turned into a little bit of a monster.”

* Marcy Playground plays Wednesday at the Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, 8 p.m. Sold out. (310) 276-6168.