{"id":510,"date":"2011-05-10T05:11:12","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T10:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=510"},"modified":"2015-12-16T14:07:37","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T14:07:37","slug":"some-words-with-martin-newell-the-greatest-living-englishman-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/10\/some-words-with-martin-newell-the-greatest-living-englishman-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally, a Reliable English Electric: A Conversation with Martin Newell (part one)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I recently enjoyed the rare treat of a lively and wide-ranging conversation with Martin Newell<\/strong>. He\u2019s largely unknown to American pop audiences, and that\u2019s quite a shame. His music is pop in the best sense of the word: infectious melodies, straightforward instrumentation, witty (but never precious, arty or overly self-conscious) lyrics with clever turns of phrase, Newell\u2019s music is in many ways the logical progression from the best music of the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Newell\u2019s approach has earned him heaps of critical praise, and a reputation as a pioneer in the DIY movement. Back in the 1980s he began recording his sturdy pop songs using fairly primitive home equipment, and releasing the results on cassettes via mail order. In that sense he\u2019s something of a UK counterpart of America\u2019s own underground DIY king R. Stevie Moore<\/strong>, but Newell\u2019s work \u2013 under his own name and as the Cleaners of Venus<\/strong> \u2013 bears a more conventional, melodic approach than the often bent, avant garde stylings of Moore. His latest pair of albums resurrect the Cleaners From Venus moniker (for reasons he\u2019ll explain presently) and bear the musical hallmarks that have turned many who\u2019ve heard him into hardcore fans.<\/p>\n

My original plan was to speak with Martin and then craft a feature around the best quotes. I should have known better: Newell is eminently quotable, and whatever the topic \u2013 his work as a music journalist, his thoughts on the aesthetics of recording, his humorous recollections \u2013 it was too good to edit down to a stack of quotes. So here\u2019s most of our conversation, with the occasional comment from your humble host (in blue<\/span>).<\/p>\n

Newell disarmingly kicked off our conversation by telling me, \u201cI just had a listen to some of my old records to remind myself exactly what it is that I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill Kopp:<\/span><\/strong> What makes English Electric<\/em> and The Stopping Train<\/em> a pair of Cleaners From Venus records rather than the latest offerings from Martin Newell? Or, Brotherhood of Lizards, for that matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin Newell:<\/strong> The Brotherhood of Lizards<\/strong> is really different, because Nelson<\/strong> was involved. We were fifty-fifty partners in that. Even though I was the main songwriter, nothing got done without Nelson. I suppose he was sort of like the House of Lords: The House of Commons can do something, but the House of Lords can soon stop it.<\/p>\n

But these are Cleaners From Venus<\/strong> albums because they were made with the very same sort of facilities, and in a very similar way. I write the songs the day before I go into the studio, pretty much. And it\u2019s the same with production and creation values. The whole thing about Cleaners From Venus is that it was an anti-reaction to the music industry. I was really shocked when I got into the music industry and learned that people took months doing things. I thought, \u201cShouldn\u2019t we write the song today, record it tomorrow and release it the day after that?\u201d Because that\u2019s what the Beatles<\/strong> and the Hollies<\/strong> and all my heroes used to do. Mainly because they were forced<\/em> to do it.<\/p>\n

The thing is, it makes for good \u2013 I hate to use the word — zeitgeist, really. You\u2019re capturing the spirit of the age. If you\u2019re living the life, and then you write the song at the same time, and then you record it at the same time, and then you release it all within a few weeks, you\u2019re going to resonate — at least –with the people living in the same age.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> There\u2019s a precedent for that approach; when The Beatles started Apple, they had an imprint called Zapple that was designed to release albums that were sort of spontaneous; the idea was that they\u2019d retail for less. George Harrison<\/strong>\u2019s Electronic Sounds<\/em> and some of the John and Yoko<\/strong> stuff came out on Zapple. <\/span><\/p>\n

Tell me about the recording of these new albums.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Martin:<\/strong> We made these new Cleaners From Venus albums in Dave Allen<\/strong>\u2019s shed less than a year ago. I just said to him, \u201c\u2018Let\u2019s do some recording.\u201d And it\u2019s literally a garden shed with a little eight-track machine in it. Two hundred quid\u2019s worth of equipment. It\u2019s the sort of thing someone still in high school could buy, if they wanted. But they don\u2019t know how to use those things!\u201d<\/p>\n

We had one Shure SM-58, my Rickenbacker, my two-hundred-quid guitar, and some drum sounds; I might have collected a tambourine somewhere. The thing is, it worked right from when we started. It was just like I used to do, so I thought, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we just do this?\u201d What it is, is fun. The Cleaners From Venus was fun. And it stopped being fun sometime after we started getting in big studios.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got nothing to lose now, and nothing to gain. I haven\u2019t even registered the English Electric<\/em> songs yet with any sort of publisher; I haven\u2019t even filled in the forms. I don\u2019t care<\/em>. I didn\u2019t even send review copies out. I told people about it on the web site, I released it for download, and we made a few copies. That\u2019s how Cleaners From Venus used to work. That band was a log raft with me as captain. And a pair of raggedy underpants for a flag. And I thought it was fun then, so I thought, \u201cDo I need the money? Do I need the fame? No, I don\u2019t. What I do need to do is make music. So I\u2019m going to do that.\u201d Let\u2019s see how we go from there. Then maybe we\u2019ll try and sell something.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Home recording technology has come a long way since the days of the Tascam Portastudio. Yet the ambience on these new records is a lot closer to the sound you got on the earlier cassettes than to anything approaching digital. Why?<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin:<\/strong> The way I record, when I\u2019ve got a producer — well, not a producer, but someone there \u2013 they\u2019ll ask, \u201c\u2018Are you sure about this, Martin?\u201d And I\u2019ll say, \u201cLeave the bum notes in.\u201d Because that\u2019s what I did with the Cleaners. Leave the mistakes in! Mostly people don\u2019t notice. You know how some artists say, \u201cI\u2019m an absolute perfectionist. And nothing gets past the gate \u2018till I\u2019ve okayed it.\u201d Well, I\u2019m exactly the opposite. Let\u2019s bang it out and then we\u2019ll go out and I\u2019ll buy you a drink.<\/p>\n

Within reason, of course. I don\u2019t want to put out something that sounds like shit. But most of the time it doesn\u2019t, because I\u2019ve been doing this thing for a very long time now. And if I\u2019ve not got it right by this<\/em> time\u2026if it feels good, leave it! If the guitar part is distorted, or there\u2019s a pop on the mic, if it\u2019s not too bad, I just leave it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The amount of time I have made a record, having made the demos, and then we started recording it painstakingly, I come out at the end of it thinking, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t we just release the demos?\u201d<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> And that\u2019s what you did with the second new disc, Stopping Train<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Martin:<\/strong> Well, we really did. Many of those tracks \u2013 the first four, at least — were really demos. One we did at Fiona\u2019s, the next door neighbor. She\u2019s just got an old four-track tape machine. She knows a little bit about recording, but not much. So I just went over with my guitar. She has this four-track machine, but she doesn\u2019t know how to overdub, though. No ping-ponging. So we only had four tracks: I could do three vocals and one guitar. I just said, \u201cFair enough, we\u2019ll do that then.\u201d And then a friend of hers called Nick mastered it onto a digital machine, but I wasn\u2019t there or anything: \u201c\u2018Oh, no. You do that. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll do a reasonable job.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think musicians make far too much fuss about things. I\u2019m really fed up with it, which is why I won\u2019t work with them any more.<\/p>\n

continued<\/a>\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on \"\" Twitter<\/a> and get notified
\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently enjoyed the rare treat of a lively and wide-ranging conversation with Martin Newell. He\u2019s largely unknown to American pop audiences, and that\u2019s quite a shame. His music is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1417],"class_list":["post-510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","tag-martin-newell","cat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9934,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions\/9934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}