Alas, they but a simple band, but a very interesting one at that. You’ve heard Ariel Pink right? Ever wonder where he got the inspiration to make his music sound like it was recorded on the other end of a tin can and string microphone? I hope you never bought into that whole “it sounds like shit cause it was the best we could do” bit. Mr. Pink has always been able to record to any level of fidelity he wanted to but as chosen his own aural aesthetics to mimic the likes of The Cleaners from Venus and their contemporaries is the British d.i.y. post punk era. What separates the Cleaners from said contemporaries was the quality and volume of their output. The brains behind the outfit was always Martin Newall who had strangely been involved in the music biz for many years on both an indie level and major. The indie side always made more sense to him so he hung out there, living in obscurity but non the less happy and productive.
The two albums i’m putting up are In The Golden Autumn and Under Wartime Conditions. In the Golden Autumn is the easy favorite of mine with far better songs and the production getting in the way less than in Under Wartime Conditions. There are moments i like in Under Wartime but i’d say go straight for In the Golden Autumn which gets my highest recommendation and if it fits your fancy well dig in to Under Wartime Conditions. If you still want more i will direct you right over to BarfOutDolls bloggorama from even more albums from the Cleaners (They will be up shortly, so I’m told). Most of which i’m yet to hear but i plan on checking them out ayyyysaaapppp.
Download: In The Golden Autumn (1983)
Download: Under Wartime Conditions (1984)
Check out this bunch of goofballs! Left to right Dave Vanian of the Damed, Mr. Rock and roll High school himself and Captain Sensible also of the Damned who hired Martin Newell to be his lyricist on all solo projects after ol’ Robyn Hitchcock left to do his solo gig.
one final thing, if you have some spare time here is a lengthy in-depth interview with the man himself. I tried in vain to insert it into this post, to no avail. Why does wordpress suck balls with video??????????
Video Interview with Mr. Martin Newell
Tags: Cleaners From Venus, fame is for the real crazies, Martin Newell, Tape hiss is a good thing
May 11, 2009 at 2:04 pm |
Don’t forget Martin’s website.
March 12, 2010 at 10:31 am |
[...] and away the most popular post ever seen on this here rinky dink blug was on the two albums by the Cleaners From Venus. It really wasn’t one of my more well written posts, (and maybe this one is sliding towards [...]
September 24, 2010 at 5:40 am |
Great post! I first discovered this band on CD Baby (of all places). I haven’t heard much of Martin’s solo output, but being a HUGE XTC fan I purchased THE GREATEST LIVING ENGLISHMAN which was an album he and Andy Partridge put out in 1993.
Great jangly-guitar stuff. Thanks for post the albums BTW.