{"id":1967,"date":"2019-02-28T23:12:19","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T04:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/?page_id=1967"},"modified":"2020-07-21T14:48:20","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T18:48:20","slug":"a-bunch-of-canadians-from-the-colonies-martha-and-the-muffins-martha-ladly-nash-the-slash","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/a-bunch-of-canadians-from-the-colonies-martha-and-the-muffins-martha-ladly-nash-the-slash\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201ca bunch of Canadians from the colonies\u201d: Martha and the Muffins, Martha Ladly, Nash the Slash"},"content":{"rendered":"

MARTHA AND THE MUFFINS<\/p>\n

In October 1979, around the same time as Duggie Campbell: DinDisc released its fourth single: the debut by Martha and the Muffins, \u201cInsect Love\u201d b\/w \u201cCheesies and Gum.\u201d The Muffins are especially important in the DinDisc story for three reasons. First, they were to be DinDisc’s first signing, with Wilson putting the wheels in motion months before OMD were snapped up. Second, they gave the label its first chart hit with \u201cEcho Beach,\u201d which peaked at #10 in the UK singles chart on March 29, 1980, and bestowed both DinDisc and producer Mike Howlett new credibility in the British music industry. Third, DinDisc scouted the band at the beginning of their career, before any other labels expressed interest; unlike OMD, with Martha and the Muffins there was no indie label comparable to Factory Records through which DinDisc might farm the band. That the Muffins came from Canada only underscores DinDisc\u2019s considerable investment in this group, which went on record five more albums after DinDisc folded. The case of Martha and Muffins offers a window into DinDisc\u2019s A&R operation from soup to nuts and further illuminates the artistic and economic dilemmas that came with signing onto Carol Wilson\u2019s label.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written elsewhere about Martha and the Muffins, Canada\u2019s most significant new wave export (click here<\/a> for a career overview). I go deep on their 1978-82 era in this section, drawing liberally from my original interviews with the band\u2019s principals and producer Mike Howlett; all quotes without specific citations come from these primary sources.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the DinDisc story, the relevant facts begin with the 1977 formation of the band, which grew to a six-piece composed of three art students from the Ontario College of Art<\/a> (guitarist Mark Gane, keyboard player\/vocalist Martha Ladly, saxophone player Andy Haas), two figures from the musically fertile suburb of Thornhill<\/a> (vocalist\/keyboard player Martha Johnson, bassist Carl Finkle), and a younger brother (Tim Gane) enlisted on drums. With their intelligent and danceable mix of high art, feminist performance \u2014 the band was fronted by two women named Martha \u2014 and new wave irony, the Muffins stood apart from the punk aggression and populist rock that pervaded the city\u2019s clubs. By 1978 they\u2019d been become a favorite to the thriving downtown art scene<\/a> based in Toronto\u2019s Queen Street West neighborhood. \u00a0After a year of local gigging and persistent disinterest by Canada\u2019s record interest, on a lark the band sent their demo to Glenn O\u2019Brien, the New York-based editor of Andy Warhol\u2019s Interview <\/i>magazine and host of \u201cTV Party,\u201d a public access variety show<\/a> featuring NYC\u2019s demimonde. To their great surprise, O\u2019Brien replied with enthusiasm and landed the band a gig at Hurrah in NYC \u2014 their first performance ever outside of Toronto.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

See fifth line from bottom of last column, under \u201cPredictions for 1979\u201d: \u201cMartha and the Muffins will play New York.\u201d Remembers Martha Ladly \u201cWhen [O\u2019Brien] picked [our demo] up and we got a review in that, in Interview magazine, we thought, \u2018Whoa, this could lead to something!\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/div>O\u2019Brien passed the demo onto Robert Fripp, the prog-rock guitar hero who was then in between incarnations of King Crimson, and Virgin A&R man Dave Fudger. All three showed up at the March 2, 1979 show in New York. It\u2019s unclear why Dave Fudger was in New York, and how far along Wilson\u2019s plans for DinDisc Records were at the time. Most likely Wilson had begun enlisting Fudger into her scheme, since (according to the members I\u2019ve interviewed) after the Hurrah performance he conveyed news of Wilson\u2019s keen interest in the band. The band solicited Fripp for his opinion of their options. In separate interviews with me, Mark Gane and Martha Ladly give different emphases to the response they recall.<\/p>\n

Mark Gane: I remember we asked him at that show what he thought about Virgin, and he said, somewhat prophetically, I think, \u201cI don\u2019t think Virgin would be necessarily the right label for you.\u201d He didn\u2019t say who, but that was kind of his opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martha Ladly: He just said, \u201cYou know what? You’re good, you’re clearly enjoying what you’re doing \u2014 go for it. You know, it’s a fun way to make a living. Go for it. And what do I think about Virgin? think they’re going to be big. I think they’re going to be important. You know, they\u2019re all robbers, but they\u2019re as good as anybody. So, why not? You should do it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ten days later, Wilson flew from London to attend Martha and the Muffins\u2019 showcase at Toronto new wave club the Edge. Her instincts confirmed, she set the ball rolling. Having heard almost two albums\u2019 worth of potential material, Wilson quickly identified the song she thought could break the band out in the British charts.<\/p>\n

The “Echo Beach” demo was always there, and the key reason for signing them… The band looked interesting and original too. I liked their attitude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By the end of March, two months before she began actively scouting OMD, she enticed the Muffins to sign over their publishing to DinSong Music for an unspecified advance and consider an eight-album deal with Dindisc Records \u2014 a time-consuming process for a self-managed band that required a majority vote for members to sign off on any decision. In April, she sent Mike Howlett, still a commercially untested producer at that point, out to Toronto to record \u201cEcho Beach\u201d \u201con a speculative basis \u2014 no contract had been signed, but negotiations were well under way\u201d (Howlett 2009: 37). Straight away he observed a flaw in the band\u2019s performance (a weak kick on Tim Gane\u2019s bass drum) but completed the recording. (He also assigned Tim an exercise he learned from Gong\u2019s drummer: placing his foot on a brick and raising it by pressing down on the heel.) When the band signed the DinDisc recording contract, Wilson scrapped that version of \u201cEcho Beach\u201d and quickly sent Howlett back to Toronto for formal pre-production of their debut album. There, one of new wave\u2019s great singles took its definitive shape when Howlett urged the band to repeat the song\u2019s guitar riff, which originally Mark Gane played in the intro only, again after the first section. Recently, Gane and Martha Johnson remembered his initial resistance to the producer\u2019s idea.<\/p>\n

Martha Johnson: I remember when Michael Howlett wanted to put the hook line, the \u201cEcho Beach\u201d hook line in the middle of the song, [Mark] said, \u201cNo, I won\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Gane: I know, it was a really good idea.<\/p>\n

Martha Johnson: It was a really<\/i> good idea.<\/p>\n

Mark Gane: I mean, I was a stupid kid for a lot of this. And thankfully he did do that, because that really makes it\u2026 But when he came over to work, do pre-production, we were doing it at Carl\u2019s house in Thornhill, and I remember distinctly going out into his backyard, which is basically blank lawn, and lying on the lawn at night looking up at the skyline going \u2014<\/p>\n

Martha Johnson: \u201cYou\u2019re going to ruin my song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Gane: \u201cFucking Howlett is wrecking all my songs.\u201d Because \u201cRevenge (Against the World),\u201d you know, there\u2019s a long intro, but I wanted that intro to be twice as long.<\/p>\n

Martha Johnson: It was pretty long.<\/p>\n

Mark Gane: You know, dnnh-dnnh-dnnh [hums the intro melody] forever, and then<\/i> it would come in. And he convinced me to cut it at least it in half. But I thought, \u201cNo, no, you\u2019ve got to ride that thing for a long time.\u201d And, you know, I guess there\u2019s always that battle between, Is this guy crazy, or are we all going to think it was great ten years later? I don\u2019t know, I didn\u2019t think about it that way, but, I think there\u2019s a battle between the purity of vision and what the world makes of it, or how the world is going to deal with it \u2014 how the producer is going to deal with it, how the record company is going to go, \u201cMark, you know, we can\u2019t have an intro that long.\u201d And you go, \u201cI believe in the listeners.\u201d Look, if Captain Beefheart can have an audience, why can\u2019t people hear 25 bars of this? You know, why not?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n