ANTHONY MARIN
from: black fiction the larry birds coke machine glow white pee sofaking massive soundklash
Sounds Like
Anthony Marin was a huge Mexican genius.
I swear it's a good thing he wasn't a con man because we'd all be broke and naked.
If there was ever a mythical character manifested in real life it was Ant, he was like Huck Finn, always finding a way to make someone else paint the fence.
Three things we all know Tony loved:
1. He loved to hug pretty girls, really, really, really......loved to hug pretty girls
2. He loved to piss off our boss Tony Green, you couldn't write a better rivalry (in strict confidence, Ant told me he thought Tony was an okay guy, I hope he doesn't haunt me for giving that away).
3. He loved music. Ant was an intense scholar of sound, his knowledge of GREAT music knew no genres or boundaries. We'd go to his dirty little studio apartment after work, move some beer cans out of the way, crack open a few more, maybe expand our minds a bit and then he'd play me the greatest records I'd never heard. I have no idea where they all came from but he just kept pulling them out, every week, for over 5 years.
Ant taught me a lot of things about my own self worth, not to sell myself short but mainly about humility.
He knew I was a know-it-all, he'd keep baiting me into self righteous lectures about things I assumed he didn't know about and then would crack a smile and laugh, what a jerk, what an awesome jerk, eventually I learned, I learned many valuable lessons from him.
We'd have lunch everyday and dream out loud about making music for a living instead of working dead end jobs, running the treadmill...
He was my best friend and I'm really going to miss him.
The best lesson he taught me is the lesson that every loved one that passes teaches us, that we are all still alive and we need to live, love and find our purpose and passions for ourselves and our passed loved ones who are watching us and guiding us towards our destinies.
Anthony Marin is truly a Bay Area legend.
THIS IS ONE OF ANT'S MANY DUAL TAPE EXPERIMENTS:
THIS IS A MIX I ASSEMBLED OF TRACKS THAT ANT MADE WITH AN ASR-10 A FEW YEARS AGO...
CLICK THE PIC TO GIT IT.
If you were not a friend of Anthony Marin I will not add your profile. I take this very seriously and will not tolerate spam or any other nonsense. If you are a friend and / or loved one please write me a message with your add request so I can approve you with a clear conscience.
Many thanks.
A FEW WORDS FROM ANTHONY'S MOTHER:
My beautiful, loving, caring teddy bear of a son is gone now. He's gone to heaven to be with his Grandmothers, Grandfathers and GOD.
He joined us in this world on January 29, 1972 and left us far too soon on June 1, 2008. My baby was only 36 years old.
He loved life, he lived his whole life through music. From the time he was a teen he learned anything and everything he could about all kinds of music. He was a DJ for many of the Bay Area's clubs. At work they called him their "Musical Genius".He produced music for his friends and was a multi-instrumentalist for the band Black Fiction.
My son made friends everywhere he went. He has so many friends that love him and will miss him tremendously.But none as much as his parents, Denese & Alphonso Chavez, Benny & Cindy Serna, brothers Francisco and Gabriel Serna, sister Angela Serna and stepbrother Alphonso Chavez, Jr., and the rest of his loving family.
My Anthony has left this world but he left behind so much love, laughter, music and memories that any one who knew him will never be able to forget him.
My family and I want to thank all of Big Ant's many, many close friends, the Amoeba Music family and all of his musical collaborators for all they did to help us during this tragic loss of a wonderful son and man.
this page is a tribute to our dear friend Anthony Marin
in the very near future it will have photos, stories, music and whatever else his friends would like to share
we lost one of our greatest friends
we can never forget him
word...
Karen Pearson - Amoeba, remembers Big Ant:
I met Anthony is 1999. about a year after the store opened on haight street. he was looking for a job and more than one person referred him to me as a fountain of knowledge. he had worked at tower records and a little cd store in palo alto. he was also the record pool director at Que's record pool and a pretty well known DJ and music aficionado.
I met him and the first thing i saw was this giant person with a giant smile. the biggest smile i think i had ever seen. quietly unassuming. with a serenity and a sort of all-knowing quality. and, as it turned out, he DID know all. almost ALL there was to know about music---ALL kinds of music. every genre, every era, everything. he came on to work on the hip-hop floor at amoeba, and then he became a vinyl and 12" pricer. if there was EVER ANY question from any customer that none of us could figure out---we went straight to BIG ANT. 'cause he would know.
At our first meeting, we had a "music test" that potential amoebites would take. and he aced it. i was amazed that someone so young knew SO much about so many types of music. it was his quiet passion. he just absorbed music and information about music. but unlike so many of us, he wasn't limited to any one sound or focus--he was open to it all. he seemed to understand it all.
We talked for a long time that day, and i remember falling in love with his sweet spirit. and from then on whenever i would see BIG ANT, i would feel that same comfort and reassurance. later, after i moved down to LA and i would come back to the store on occasion or see him at events, i would cherish the giant hug he would so generously give me. always a big smile and a bear hug. something i could count on. he was generous with everyone. and everyone felt it.
He was one of the most sincere, genuinely sweet people i have ever met.
Billy Jam (Amoeblog & Hip Hop Slam)
I originally met Anthony "Big Ant" Marin through DJ'ing and hip-hop music over at Cues in Daly City. And over the years I would always run into him at hip-hop music places: clubs, DJ events, and of course at Amoeba. He was one of these guys who was always really nice but shy and quiet until you got to know him. And then he would let you see his humor, his wit. He was always happiest when he was surrounded by music. And like most Amoebites he didn't just love his music, he knew his music, inside and out -
especially his hip-hop. But in the true tradition of being a real hip-hop DJ (musically open-minded) he thought beyond the preverbal box or crate - always seeking out new sounds and styles. As his fellow Amoebite Robert Haines so accurately noted in his tribute to Ant: "He knew as much about Nurse With Wound as Mac Dre." I remember one time a good few years ago he broke me off this mix-CD he had been working on. It was Radiohead. And I was like, What? Is this a hip-hop remix? "Just check it out" he said. I did and it was nothing like I thought it would be. It was a totally transformed & reinterpreted, sweetly glitched out version Thom Yorke & Co. In life Big Ant was many things; a DJ, a producer, and a multi-instrumentalist. In Black Fiction - the band he was in with fellow SF Amoebites Tim Cohen and Jason Chavez - he played guitar, keyboards, and percussion. But more than all that: he was just a really good person. RIP BIG ANT.
Luis (Amoeba SF - Hip-Hop)
I am gonna miss him a ridiculous amount. He was both a good friend and an awesome person. In terms of musical knowledge, he knew everything about vinyl and hip-hop. But it was amazing because it went well beyond simply hip-hop. He knew all music and he helped me a great deal with titles and what to look for. I always told him how important he was to me and to the store, and now I am glad I did. Big Ant's presence was awesome to be around. He was hilarious, always quick with the one-liners. The best would be when he would make a joke that was so funny that he sometimes would
laugh as much himself. He had this great laugh or giggle. Everybody loved being around him and everybody is gonna miss been around him everyday.
Robert Haines (Amoeba SF)
He and I had a bunch of mutual friends down in South Bay from before we even met. So we kinda felt like we always knew each other. He is the funniest and quickest witted muthafucka I ever met in my life. You could say something funny to him and before it was even fully out of your mouth he would have a retort ready to go - one that was probably way funnier than whatever you said. He was a classic shit talker. It was fun to throw shit around at each other. If you were his friend and you happened to be a pretty girl - then he hated your boyfriend. He was the most musical generalist. He found things to like in almost every type of music. And he really knew it. Like he knew as much about Nurse With Wound as Mac Dre and was great at blending different styles. I remember he took an Aaliyah vocal for "Try Again" and put it over a Suicide's "Cheree" and it worked perfectly.
JEFF HARRIS:
I'm still trying to make sense of some very sad news I received the other day.
After a busy weekend I logged on to my My Space page to see what was going on and update my page. A blog entry from my friend DJ 4AM broke the news that our mutual friend Anthony Marin had passed away over the weekend.
I'd known Ant since the early 90's when he worked for Tower Records, Cue's Record Shop and Amoeba SF. He was truly a unique individual who was as knowledgeable and passionate about music as he was open and friendly. Whenever I'd run into him the coversation would always center around music. What records we had recently bought, what we were still looking for, and me constantly asking him if he had seen any particular used records in the back room at Amoeba! As someone whose life revolves(no pun intended)around music, Anthony was one of those rare few people that I've encountered in my young life, that knew as much as I did about records. That was one of the many things about him that made him a real joy to be around.
Wherever Big Ant is right now, I really hope it's somewhere there's lots of great music to listen to and talk about, and lots of pretty girls to hug. I'll miss you my friend...
Diego Gonzales:
he was a creative compassionate prankster who actually listened to the universe around him.
a musical genius who reflected what he heard back at us all, holding nothing back.
he has vanished into the white noise at the end of the tunnel.
yo!yo!yo! so here's a couple low-fi tony photos. circa ?. i think at this point he's manager at a small record store (a position he was forced to take by the way and his work ethic reflected it) where we both worked at on university avenue in palo alto. i lived with tony at the time and we both did radio shows at kzsu stanford. i'll hit you with some more photos maybe next year or so. i ain't got many if you know me like tony did you'll know most of my photos are of scenery and weird lights and stuff. not that it matters to all y'all anyways, thanks. have fun and all that jass.
I worked at Tower with Tony in the first half of the '90s. We were also roommates, fellow record collecting geeks, and good friends. I hadn't spoken to him in a few years, and it was with great sadness I came across news of his passing last year. I guess his spirit was just too big for his body. I can still hear his laughter. Later big guy.
One whole year, Ant. Me and Dave will never forget, a part of us left with you, a big hole in the neighborhood, a big hole in our past. The show grinds on.
A year ago my friend (and friend to many) Anthony Marin passed away, we worked on a lot of music together but this blend we did was always one of my favorites. It's a mix of Dinosaur L and Buddy Holly. click the link to get it...
Another dream, another conversation about music. I had learned a lot from you and still carry those lessons with me every day. You put me on to so much music. You introduced me to so many good friends. You are truly missed.
So it seems that it's been almost an entire year since I've seen you, in a little over a week it will be the anniversary of the last time I drove you home from work, I remember it was a wednesday, by sunday we had found you, gone. I can honestly say, it hasn't gotten a damn bit easier to live my life without you, I guess that just goes to show how great of a man you really were and that I'll never stop crying in those quiet moments when I realize that I'll never see you again. I miss you maine!
The most surreal thing happened the other night. I had a dream that we were hanging out. It was so real. You mentoring me, I swear you were talking to me, some how, some way. I'm still in awe. Because I know you know it was important. I do hope we can catch up again soon. You are missed in this parallel universe. I do know we have a meeting place now.
What up G? Sorry didn't make it to Frisco for your B'Day. La Familia needed some attention. That is the only reason why I would ever miss something like that. Guess thats the way it is & it has been the last few years we got to hang out. That's what happens when one gets married & has a kid. Anyways, forget you not my bro. I will try to take a trip sometime this year. Although, who do I visit now? Well, I am sure your spirit will still be there. Peace.
sorry i couldn't make it to your birthday...but i think that we put enough time in together at the beauty bar that i'm excused...still, i wish i could've been there.
My sweet Ant, I am late wishing u happy bday but i have looked at your face everyday this week and talking about you alot, keeping you here with me.I miss you making fun of me.
watched a Who documentary on cable last nite & i still think "Eminence Front" sucks dude. i know you'd play that shit at Beauty Bar just to piss me off but it still sucks.
Big Ant!!!! Moments in Crunk is the shit.... I remember the day you conceived that piece.... I heard you scratching some records over that Art of Noise track and I had come over and give you props.... Miss you homie....
That is such an awesome picture of the brothers. I love it! I never thought you would be gone, really, it still hurts everyday to miss you. You are everywhere though, and your jokes live on. I can smile and cry at the same time when I see you fooling with me. I wish you knew this love we all have for you while you were still alive. But you know it now, its so big...all that love.
I love and miss ya, Ant. Your spirit and humor is still with me man. I wish we coulda seen MBV together. You woulda LOVED it... Love and peace to you eternal, Brock
