Jordan Tarlow: The Real Story of Martha Quinn’s Husband and His Life Today

Jordan Tarlow is an American musician, guitarist, producer, and composer who is best known to the wider public as the husband of Martha Quinn, one of the original video jockeys on MTV. His own career, however, began long before that connection, on stage with the garage rock revival band The Fuzztones.

Jordan Tarlow has always kept his private life private, which means the public record about him is thinner than for many people linked to famous names. This article gathers what is genuinely documented about his music, his marriage, his later studio work, and his life today, and it clearly marks the points that remain unconfirmed.

Early Life, and a Record That Starts With Music

Unlike many subjects of celebrity biography, Jordan Tarlow has never given the public a detailed account of his childhood. His date of birth, his birthplace, his parents, and his schooling are not confirmed in any strong public source. Websites that list a precise birth date for him do so without evidence, so this article treats his early personal details as unconfirmed and starts his story where the reliable record starts, with his guitar.

What is clear is that by the mid 1980s Tarlow was a working guitarist in the American garage rock scene. Garage rock was a raw, loud style built on the sound of 1960s bands, fuzz guitar pedals, and organ driven songs. A small but loyal revival movement kept that sound alive in the 1980s, with packed clubs in New York, Los Angeles, and across Europe, even when radio and the big labels paid it little attention.

That scene is the world Tarlow came from. He played in and around several bands of the period, and his name later appeared in connection with projects such as The Outta Place and other revival acts. The details of those early years are scattered across album credits and fan histories rather than interviews, which is normal for a working band musician of that era.

The Fuzztones Years

Tarlow’s best documented chapter began in 1987. The Fuzztones had been founded in New York City in 1982 by singer and guitarist Rudi Protrudi. When the original line up broke up, Protrudi moved to Los Angeles to build a new version of the band. The new group brought in Jordan Tarlow on lead guitar, John Carlucci, known as Speediejohn, on bass, Jason Savall on Vox combo organ, and Mad Mike Czekaj on drums.

That Los Angeles line up achieved something no other 1980s garage revival band managed. It secured a major label record deal, signing with RCA. In a scene built on small labels and self made records, a major deal was a rare prize, and it put the band in real studios with real budgets while keeping their fuzz drenched sound at the center of the music.

Tarlow played on the band’s album In Heat, released in 1989, where album credits list him on Rickenbacker guitar and vocals. He also played on the EP Action and on singles from the period, and he appeared in promotional videos for songs such as Nine Months Later, Hurt On Hold, and Girl You Captivate Me. Biography sources credit him as a co writer of several Fuzztones songs, including Look For The Question Mark, Black Box, and Action Speaks Louder Than Words. The exact writing credits vary between sources, so those song details are best described as reported rather than fully settled.

With the band, he toured in Europe and Canada in the late 1980s, where garage revival music had a strong and loyal audience. The exact year he left The Fuzztones is not clearly documented. Most accounts place his active period with the band from about 1987 to about 1990. The band itself carried on under Protrudi for decades with many later line ups, but Tarlow’s name belongs to that major label Los Angeles chapter.

Marriage to Martha Quinn

In 1992, Jordan Tarlow married Martha Quinn. Quinn was already a household name. Born in Albany, New York, in 1959, she had become one of the five original video jockeys when MTV launched in 1981, alongside Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and J. J. Jackson. Her warm, quick, girl next door style made her one of the most loved faces of early MTV, and for many viewers she was the human face of the channel itself.

The exact wedding date is reported differently by different sources. Some list a date in 1992, others give a date in January 1993 for a public record of the marriage. Wikipedia and most careful biographies settle on 1992 as the year, and this article follows that while noting the disagreement. How the couple first met has also never been told in detail in public. Given their shared world of music and music television, the connection is easy to understand, but the story itself remains theirs to tell.

The marriage has now lasted more than three decades, which makes it one of the longer and quieter marriages to come out of the early MTV era. The couple have two children, a daughter named Annabelle and a son. Quinn has occasionally mentioned family moments on her radio programs, including a funny and frightening early morning scare involving her son’s phone location that led her to call the police, but the family as a rule does not share names, photographs, or details beyond what Quinn herself chooses to say on air. Their children’s birth dates are not public, and they should stay that way.

Life Behind the Studio Glass

After his band years, Tarlow built a second career that fits his skills and his wish for privacy. He works as a producer, engineer, and composer. Trade coverage in Mix magazine described him as a show producer and engineer and as a composer for television commercials and film trailers. That kind of work is well paid, highly skilled, and almost completely anonymous, which seems to suit him well.

The same trade report told the story of the home studio the couple built in Malibu, California. When Quinn was hosting a show for SiriusXM satellite radio, she and Tarlow created a professional recording space of about 1,100 square feet. The studio, named RadioBu, included a main control room, a large glass recording booth, a machine room, and rooms for guests, and it held Tarlow’s large collection of vintage recording equipment and instruments alongside a modern Digidesign console. The project shows how their working lives joined together. Her voice was the public product, and his engineering and production skills helped make it sound right.

A solo album released in 2005 is credited to Tarlow in some biography sources. Because he has never promoted solo work in public, details of that record are hard to confirm, and it is mentioned here as a reported item rather than a settled fact. The same careful approach applies to lists of his other bands and session work, which come mostly from fan maintained histories.

His Life Today

Today, Martha Quinn remains a working broadcaster. Since January 2022 she has hosted The Martha Quinn Show for iHeartMedia, heard on more than 35 stations. She has spoken publicly about being diagnosed with endometrial cancer in May 2023, and about her treatment and recovery, with the honesty her listeners expect from her. Through that period, Tarlow has stayed in his usual place, present in her story as her husband of more than thirty years, but not seeking attention of his own.

There is no verified public social media account run by Tarlow, no memoir, and no interview series in which he retells the Fuzztones years. No reliable source publishes a net worth for him, and figures on low quality websites should not be trusted, so this article omits any number. What can be said is that he appears to live the life he has chosen since 1992, as a working musician and studio professional, a husband, and a father, with his family life kept firmly off stage.

For fans of The Fuzztones, his legacy is the guitar work on a major label garage record that still gets reissued and played. For fans of Martha Quinn, he is the steady partner behind one of broadcasting’s most durable voices. Both pictures are true, and together they give the real story the headline promises, without inventing the parts he has chosen not to share.

FAQs

Who is Jordan Tarlow?

He is an American guitarist, producer, and composer. He played lead guitar in the Los Angeles line up of garage rock band The Fuzztones in the late 1980s, and he is married to original MTV video jockey Martha Quinn.

When did Jordan Tarlow marry Martha Quinn?

They married in 1992, the year given by Wikipedia and most biographies. A few sources give a different exact date, so the precise day remains unconfirmed. They have two children.

What album did Jordan Tarlow play on?

He played guitar on The Fuzztones album In Heat, released in 1989, and on the EP Action and singles from the same period. Album credits list him on Rickenbacker guitar and vocals.

What does Jordan Tarlow do now?

He works behind the scenes as a producer, engineer, and composer, including music for television commercials and film trailers. He helped build the Malibu home studio used for his wife’s radio work. He keeps a private life and gives no public interviews.

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Final Thoughts

Jordan Tarlow’s story is a reminder that a real music career does not have to end in fame. He played lead guitar for the only 1980s garage revival band to land a major label deal, he married one of the most loved presenters in MTV history, and he then built a quiet, skilled life in the studio, where the work matters more than the name on the door. The gaps in his public record are not a mystery to solve. They are the sign of a man who kept his private life private, and this account respects that choice.

Featured photo: The Fuzztones – photo by Sander van Malssen, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr