Cleaners From Venus
Living With Victoria Grey

Well, gentlemen, for me England is pop. Of course, there are also ghosts, biscuit tins, and all that poetry like bright star. But come on, really, there's no contest. And if at the round table of King Arthur only Ray, John, and Syd sit, at mine there are also knights a tad more ragged. After all, perfidious Albion was (and is) teeming with a whole array of delightful "minors," lots of small provincial Don Quixotes for whom not even the most quirky of minstrels ever dreamed of writing a scrap of song. Today we talk about the most neglected of them all, namely the gardener/dishwasher Martin Newell, genius of underground pop and honorary member of the magical club of great English eccentrics.

Here, this noble lad has been around for quite a while, even since the early seventies when he was just a glam youth heading a band that to say was without art or part is to say little. After that experience ended and that ill-advised Slade-like gang was left behind, he then throws himself into something completely nonsensical, which was following a grueling tour in Germany (one hundred fifty/two hundred concerts a year) with a shabby progressive group.

But, I ask you, how is it possible to shift from glam to progressive? Especially during the punk era? How? The thing seems incredible especially if you consider that Martin is someone who had his eureka moment in that split second of suspension that precedes Lennon's voice at the beginning of “A Hard Day's Night.” It was at that precise moment that, passing through a kaleidoscope, the world turned to color. And then, what interested him was certainly not to be a great musician, oh no, not at all. His only goal was to write beautiful songs. That after learning three chords there's no need to learn the fourth, it's writing that you have to do, that's the key. For the rest, just procure a good hair spray and get by a little with the jangle. And so, come on, from glam to progressive, it's something you really can't bear. And indeed, he falls into depression...

So, albeit reluctantly, he leaves the progster pals and forms the Stray Trolleys. And here it’s already a pop affair, much tuned wave for sure, but pop. Soon the songs are ready (after all, he writes like fifteen a day) and in a flash, there's also interest from record companies, so, okay, he records. Only that then, despite the promises, those songs never come out. It happens then that (one) Martin gets tired of waiting, and (two) takes a clamorously radical decision: to avoid fetters and pass through all the usual steps, that is no more record companies, nor bloody intermediaries.

In those days the social reason is already Cleaners from Venus and Martin's pard is a certain Lol Eliot. The two work in the same restaurant, day off on Monday. And it is precisely on Mondays that Martin's kitchen transforms into an amateur recording studio, with those two young minds in a creative frenzy and the peculiar advantages that restriction offers to fantasy. After all, as we know, necessity sharpens the mind, and less for less makes more. The music that comes out, played with very strange homemade instruments, is a flutter of lively ideas that bring Martin's fabulous songwriting into pop paradise. All this bounty will then be distributed through cassettes sold by mail order. Added value are the covers designed with infantile and sparkling lines by Martin himself who then adds: NO RIGHTS RESERVED – If you have money, buy it; if you don’t, copy it; if you do copy it write to… And it will go on like this for seven albums.

“Living with Victoria Grey” is their seventh album, or, if you prefer, their seventh cassette. We are in the period when, aside from some Cure-like crystalline sounds, wave instances yield to the absolute love for the sound of the sixties. Ray Davies, the less skewed XTC, Sir Paul and Sir John + some islands of madness like the Bonzo Dog Band. Without ever copying, but rather searching in the same direction. And, when searching, it doesn’t matter if the path has already been trodden, because, indeed, one is still searching. The final result is a very fresh work that flows like a charm. Sparks, tinkling, bicycles, kisses in the rain.

For instance, just to mention one, is it true that the guitar in track one reaches the sky? That “Mercury Girl” is a small perfect thing for the piano and refraction? And what are Belle and Sebastian, almost in soul version, doing at a certain point? And isn’t that madness of “Ilya Kuryakin” a classic example of well-executed kitsch? And regarding “Clara Bow,” how can it be so exquisite? And how can melancholy be so sparkly? And why does John sing Paul's songs and Paul sing John's?

I'll close by telling you that, thanks to a manual of poetic botany, I recently discovered the existence of underground trees. Such striking plant creatures remain beneath the ground thanks to a brilliant defense mechanism. They are found in a savanna area where thunderstorms often cause fires, and since the ground is a thermal insulator capable of protecting from fire, they place themselves underneath, to then peek out, showing large pools of leaves and flowers, during the rainy season. Here, in my opinion, the brave craftsman Martin Newell, isolating himself in the small workshop of his kitchen, has, in a way, behaved in the same way. That is, he has protected his music from external fires, keeping it light, quirky, and wonderfully personal. Knowing then that for a long time he made a living as a gardener, telling you this, I almost feel like I'm closing the circle. And the circle, everyone knows, protects not a little.