Yesterday Soph and I traveled to Wivenhoe to attend Martin Newell's book reading at the Wivenhoe Bookshop, for his new book, 'Stars On A Tray', a collection of his Saturday columns for the East Anglian Daily Times. I discovered Mr. Newell's (abundance of) work last summer when I stumbled across "Living With Victoria Grey: The Very Best Of The Cleaners From Venus" on the internet somewhere and fell in love with it. (I was so impressed that I listed "Discovering Martin Newell & The Cleaners From Venus" as one of my highlights of 2010 for Friendly Noise magazine) I was also astounded at the story behind the band, how many of their albums were very unconventionally released home cassettes and you'd have to send away or trade for them, but all yielding a lot of amazing pop songs. A few of these are due to get a proper, remastered, release very soon, but since it took me a while to track a lot of them down, here's some of the original cassette recordings here.
We met the man and he was very nice, funny and interesting, filled with a real passion for music and the life he's led. Some great stories. He seemed to really enjoy talking to Soph about The Plod, his first band, and was excited and surprised that Soph plays them at GlamRacket. We each picked up his, what looks to be highly entertaining, memoir of those days, This Little Ziggy.
There really is an incredible amount of music to delve into. Besides his solo work and The Cleaners (from both of which he continues to release albums and e.p.s at least once a year, details on his site), there's the Stray Trolleys (this took me a while to find but is great) and The Brotherhood Of Lizards. Here are some of my favourites:
"Goodbye Dreaming Fields". Lead-off track from his "The Greatest Living Englishman" album. Produced by Andy Patridge of XTC and Martin's best-known work.
The incredibly lovely "Mercury Girl" by The Cleaners From Venus:
"Victoria Grey":
"Marilyn On A Train" (the 'Blow Away Your Troubles' version is great too):
For more of an introduction to Martin Newell's life and work, there's the Cherry Red TV interview conducted by Iain McNay:
Hi Aug, Greatest Living Englishman is a contender for my favourite album of the 90s. I do wonder if Damon Albarn heard it as I do think Modern Life Is Rubbish, which followed a year later, seems to be very similar in parts. And they are both Essex boys to boot.
ReplyDeleteHey Ashley - I never thought of that before but can see it now. At points it reminds me of Guided By Voices (who I love). Heh, I did think of Damon as our train passed through Colchester.
ReplyDeleteAndy was going to be the original producer of Modern Life is Rubbish. I heard the abandoned tracks, which he and blur made together before deciding not to work with each other.
ReplyDeleteOh Wow! How were they?
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