Larry Martin Factory
Early Dawn Flyers And Electric Kids

1977 was a crucial year in my relationship with music and the record industry: after several years spent buying 45s, I, then a thirteen-year-old who no longer needed to be accompanied to various stores, decided to make the switch to the larger format, at a decisive moment for the evolution of all pop music. The enlightenment came when Ciao 2001, the only music weekly available at our newsstands, decided to plaster the cover with a catchy phrase, in order to sell a few more copies: "But what is this Punk?" Luckily, the answer was given to me not only by those pages but especially by those who, at home, in full Velvet-Stooges trip, spent time singing in my face "We can be heroes, just for one day!"

Very useful were the album ads in those same pages, and in early '78, taking advantage of just 3000 lire, I brought home a United Artists compilation called Punk Off!, the first LP purchased with my savings, discovering Stranglers, Dr. Feelgood, and Buzzcocks: a historical trilogy for me, completed shortly thereafter by Punk Collection Vol.1 by RCA and Heroes And Cowards, with the entire early Stiff catalog included.

In each of those records, it wasn't so hard to understand how the genre was already subject to various interpretations at the time: where the sound didn't reach, the attitude did, and that was enough to make Damned coexist with Elvis Costello, the Talking Heads with the Dead Boys, the Ramones with Larry Martin Factory.

Yeah... Larry Martin Factory... the only album from that batch that had been purchased a few months earlier by my decadent big brother, worshipped as much as a Berlin or a Low, but in the context of a shabby brasserie in Montmartre making it practically unique in its kind.

An American in Paris in rocker version: producer for other artists, composer of film scores, including Godard, collaborations with names of the caliber of Francoise Hardy. The relative proximity between Paris and London does the rest in bringing this man closer to sounds that merge Rock'n'Roll with tense and desperate tales, and if Lou Reed that important year seemed to have pulled back with the innocuous Rock'n'Roll Heart, this dusty album hides the best response.

A Factory moved to that brasserie, a place not unlike one of Camden Town's many grotty pubs, realm of sixteen-year-old delinquents, pickpocketing, and white powder consumed in the toilet in haste, leaving the bloodied syringe on the ground. A bartender with a sweaty tank top and a perpetual cigar in his mouth, interested exclusively in money rather than the cleanliness of the establishment, including that creaking stage where the soundtrack of a long night to the extremes is played out, until waking up in the late afternoon, in full withdrawal crisis.

The combo entertains like a PubRockBand, but this is not about Milk&Alcohol Stories like Dr. Feelgood, to sober up with a nice shower; the approach is much stronger and musically interesting, and if Monsieur Martin often lingers on the four chords constantly re-tying the dirty canvas, the classical pianist Michel Carras ennobles the plots, also with the aid of very thin golden wires based on String Synth, essential as it should be. All this finds the perfect balance in the composed toughness of Dog Day Afternoon, and in the smoky vocal outbursts of the leader in Moonlight Rock, an anthem for hooligans in all respects. Elsewhere the admirable versatility of the collective truly makes the difference: the historical Sweet Mama Fix expands on damask drapes wrapped around the victim's body, and it's no coincidence that a real Funeral March acts as a sad and rhythmic epilogue... gloomy and superb moments.

No Widow On The Beach and the Title Track with lovely sax flourishes throw more fuel on the fire, in an attempt to warm up the stumbling atmosphere laden with writhing in Snow Line Rover: an explicit request for toxic help in the midst of a thunderstorm. But to reach the climax, one must wait for the death knell that introduces a final macabre street vision, Murder breathes the occurrence of a miserable affair sealed in blood, including a vain escape route in the rhythmic pumping, before being caught in an unlucky and dark cul de sac.

There's nothing more I can say, except that justice should finally be done to a piece of insane and solid rock like this: it absolutely deserves a CD release; it was only published in France and Italy, and not many had the chance to hear it and fall in love with it. 

Sweet mama fix, death on your lips, you know every trick, sweet mama fix, sweet mama.......FIX!