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Martin is on Facebook under his own name and Cleaners from Venus/Martin Newell. He's also on Twitter and you can find his music on Youtube and Spotify
July / August 2019
Martin's Summer Newellsletter.
Yeah,
I know we don't do as many
newsletters as we once did but with Social Meedja, nowadays, there's news
all the time, innit? Well, erm, possibly but I still need to put things in
perspective, if only for myself.
Besides there are plenty of people who aren't on Farcebook,
Twatter, Monstagram or Gurgle, so let's roll!
Upcoming in the next quarter. : A film, a book, a
rather secret,( limited edition) soundtrack album and some download EPs.
First The film: Upstairs Planet
( dir. Graham Bendel) is a
71-minute documentary to be premiered at the Regent Street Cinema at
8.00pm on 29th August 2019.
This event will feature a short performance (after the film) by
Martin Newell: a few songs a bit of a yarn. This film is not
all about music. It's a portrait of
an English nutter and his way of life. A film for its own sake and all the
better for that.
Note:
James Sharp's documentary The Jangling Man which features many
music stars and surprise interviewees is still in production and will
probably emerge next year to co-incide with Captured Tracks Records' new
releases and re-releases by Cleaners from Venus and Martin. More on that,
later.
The Book: The Greatest Living Englishman – out in October
This is the
long-awaited and long-in-the-cook follow up to This Little Ziggy.
Covering the years 1975 to 1995, Martin Newell's
latest memoir takes up the story of
what happened after his glam rock band Plod broke up in 1975. We tour
England and Germany with Gypp. We meet Captain Sensible, Andy Partridge
and a host of other interesting people,as we all get tangled up together
in the coat-tails of Punk Rock.
We hear the
truth about The Cleaners from Venus, a band sometimes called "D.I.Y.
Beatles." Then Martin, in an unexpected twist of fate becomes England's
most published poet for many years. All manner of other shennanigans occur
and well, you need to read it really. A mixture of chaos, laughter and
genuine pathos, there's nothing else like it. And at 360 pages: that's 40
chapters, all of them stand-alone stories, it's a rather buxom read.
A New Album: So do you want the good news or the bad news?
The bad news
is that there's no new album this year. Too much other stuff going on. I
mean I'm good, but I'm not Superman (yet). The good news is that there's
loads of new stuff being recorded and we'll be doing you some download EPs
over the coming months, the most popular cuts of which will go towards a
new album early next year. So don't
worry. You'll be hearing some
of this stuff in the coming weeks and months.
Captured Tracks/ American News
The people at
Captured Tracks and
I
have some big plans for next year. These include a re-release of
The Off White Album
( vinyl/ CDs etc etc. and a vinyl single of Cleaners biggie
Only A Shadow.
In addition to this we're long
overdue a Teatime Assortment
(or whatever we call it)
Volume 2. This will comprise the absolute
crème de la-la
of all the new Cleaners albums
since 2015. On vinyl, natcho, and done in CT's usual dazzling style. This
is also, we hope, where James Sharp's film-in-production
The Jangling Man
will step out onto the stage. There
may even be (whisper it) a vinyl re-release
of Going To England.
This is all quite enough excitement for now, I reckon. So I'm signing
out before I burst
with anticipation.
AUGUST 2018
The Lammas Newellsletter
Friends, listeners and casual stalkers, I bring you the first Newsletter for
....ooh, bloody ages actually. It's been very busy. I've been working
a lot with Facebook; both my personal account and my Cleaners page, as
well as Twitter. I had to take the bull by the horns. Having studied social
media, it took me a few months to realise I needed to do something completely
original like being very positive in order to succeed. So, with the spirit of
this website very much in mind I
decided to turn the whole thing into a big friendly exhibition of my work,
music, writing, gags etc.In other words, a positive thing, with no political
content, or whining abouit how bad things are. Because, as my mate Billy the
Fish used to say, "We all know there's wasps in the jampot, it's just that some
of us, like Mart'n here, care not to see 'em."
Technical stuff about music is possibly to be frowned upon too. Chiefly
because I'm terrible for doing it myself, and once I get going and it's very
boring for those who are not iinvolved in the subject.
News
I'm
not planning any books. This Little Ziggy Pt.2 and The Jigsaw Coast
are both on ice at the moment, while I step back from writing in order to
simply enjoy my life and my eyesight ( which I nearly lost) having been restored
to me. In other words, I want to look clear-eyed at the end of an English
summer and the whole of an English autumn, for the first time in nearly 30
years, with no deadlines looming
over me. The only gigs I'm looking at (which I know about) are
Folk East, the
lovely folk festival at Glemham Hall (Sat 18th August)
which I'm doing again with
The Hosepipe Band. There are two other
Hosepipe Band gigs in October. These are at The Milkmaid Club in Bury St Edmunds
(19th October) and The Headgate Theatre (28th October)
They're a great crew and I love working with them. Other gigs are on the
far horizon. News on them later on.
Recording.
Yep I'm working on 8 track recording machinery now so I don't know if I can
really call myself Lo-Fi anymore but I'm still very much d.i.y. The new album,
which I hope to have out, round about end of October will probably be called
Life In A Time Machine and I'll tell you now, some of the tracks are
sounding great! Ask Paula the Webster. Nuff said for now.
Records and Record Companies,
I'm staying with
Captured Tracks having re-signed licensing with them for
at least another 3 years. We decided we like the cut of each other's respective
jib so we're sticking together. Who else send me flowers on my feckin' birthday
hah? Hah? At some point in the
coming CT and I will be working on
new releases too.
I'm
delighted to announce that I've also re-signed to Notting Hill Music
Publishing who've continued to steward so much of my classic Cleaners from
Venus catalogue
The
great Cherry Red Records are re-releasing the CD of Greatest Living
Englishman this autumn. This is largely due to a) the success of the
Captured Tracks vinyl version and b) because they looked in their store-room
this spring and discovered that they'd run out! God bless 'em!
Soft Bodies Records
who released my three of my 'renaissance' albums are no more.
However, Johnny Vertigen and Jodie Lowther, musicians and general
damagers are still very much working with me as Karakasa Design, (videos,
sleeves etc) while Johnny himself is now digitally managing me. Which is the
reason I'm now on
Spotify, i-tunes ,
Bandcamp and various other modern platforms, rather than still trying to sell
dodgy old CDs by hand at gigs in scuzzy 'music venues'.
Film: That's
right. At present Cap Tracks and film-maker James Sharp have been making a
20-minute documentary about me, my life and my working methods. It has the
working title The Jangling Man.
Once
it's been edited (it's in edit now) , there is much talk of a 7-inch single
release of Only A Shadow, which has now amassed nearly 210,000 views on
YouTube. The likely b-side will be
Incident in a Greatcoat a real
Lo-fi classic of mine from the early 90s.
Meanwhile, other bits of filming and filmed interviews are likely to emerge in
the coming months, but I can't say much at present.
Right now, I have songs to write and an album to finish! So, see you
soon.
Mwah!
(big girly kiss and
flounces out).
Now to the beach, the cliffs, the coast By unknown copses, farms and fields That haze which loiters on the land Seen from the sluggish traffic, yields When pilgrims park and come to stand Before the grail of sea and sand Amazed to find on reaching here That others had the same idea We cook ourselves, saut our flesh In oil -some boil, some bake, some fry A few prefer to grill from fresh Till overdone with hours slipped by And calculations badly-made In farenheit or centigrade Flip-flop to feisty beachside bars Along a blinding esplanade Where noisy, clocking all the cars Sit shirtless, shaven, Stella boys St George on shorts or union jacks To stem the sweat on tattooed backs It may be August, hellish hot But still we're British, are we not? Such unexpected summer heat Our transport system's paralysed The suzerain has come, The Sun We bow before him memerised Throw open doors and sit outside Abandon chores, let dinner slide Unfasten windows dim the light Lie naked in the shameless night And listen to the drunken streets Sleepless under single sheets