MARTIN GREEN
PRESENTS: SUPER SONICS - 40
JUNKSHOP BRITPOP GREATS
On Cherry Red Records
Released July 17th
Title Photo - 1994 'Gang of Four' for Time Out 03 pic by Dave Swindells
About
DJ, curator and contemporary scenester Martin Green - saw everything that went on in the nineties - from behind the decks at his seminal London club Smashing. His Super Sonics compilation album tells the untold story of the other bands on the Britpop scene - beyond Oasis, Blur and The Spice Girls. And he shares a few other tasty tales with us in the interview below...
Michelle Olley catches up with Martin Green
happy lovely birthday Michelle Olley - best pp x
It’s a dusty old cliche about the 1960s that you were only ‘really there’ if you can’t remember it. Just as black and white footage of a tripping hippie babe dancing in a cloud of bubbles or a Beatles wig tell far from the whole story of the sixties (man), the same could be said of the sorted for E’s and whizz with a side order of cigarettes and alcohol Blur of the 1990s. I look at the official histories - the Britpop coffee table books and the I Love the 1990s talking heads chart rundowns and find myself wonder(wall)ing how we managed to boil down such an incredibly rich cultural moment to Liam Gallagher’s Met Bar squabbles and a Spice Girls’ pencil case.
“Basically I wanted to write our lot back into 90s history. It’s not that we’ve been consciously taken us out of it, but that whole Britpop thing is remembered as a very laddy culture - it’s all boys and guitars. It wasn’t really about that from our perspective as a gang!"
The nineties was about more than lad culture and girl power. What the history books rarely tell you much about is the less easily monetised stuff that came before Britpop ate itself. In the early 90s, British music was a kaleidoscope of new and exciting genres. Dance music was splintering in all directions from its 80s techno and house underground renaissance - acid house/hard house/handbag/happy house/scouse house etc. etc. to drum & bass, dubstep, gabba, hardcore, trance, jungle, trip-hop etc, alongside the new genres it was also moving out of the fields and into mega-clubs like London’s Ministry of Sound and Cream in Liverpool. Alongside this explosion in dance mix CDs, thanks to the late 80s Black Monday recession, clubbing was getting interesting - and fun again. If you had a following, there were plenty of venues that would let you put on a night for free - you took the door, they took the bar.
It was in this moment, in 1991, that Matthew Glamorre, Martin Green, Michael Murphy and Adrian Webb started Club Smashing in Maximus disco, Leicester Square, before moving around a range of overlooked old basement bars and speakeasys, finally settling in to the subterranean faded splendour of Eve’s in Regent St. A proper dolly mixture of pop, dance and rock music through the ages soon filled the old gentlemen’s club Saturday Night Fever-style dancefloor with an assortment of fabulous freaks and music lovers. (You might remember that dancefloor from Pulp’s Disco 2000 video). It was a real wild scene. That mixture of great music, live bands/acts, dressing up (with a healthy dose of imaginative silliness and esprit de coeur) and Matthew’s legendary consummate disco boss hosting skills soon made the night the hottest ticket in London. I was there most weeks when I wasn’t gigging or running a night myself. My band at the time, Salon Kitty, played our last ever gig at their last ever night, Christmas 1996. The band was dressed in House of Harlot pantomime cow outfits (with Pussy Riot-style zip up cow-face hoods with rings through the nose). I was dressed in a Beehive & Love red satin Mother Christmas number. Noel Gallagher was in the audience that night, with fashion legend Pam Hogg. Loads of other names too, no doubt, but it’s a blur.
It was in this moment, in 1991, that Matthew Glamorre, Martin Green, Michael Murphy and Adrian Webb started Club Smashing in Maximus disco, Leicester Square, before moving around a range of overlooked old basement bars and speakeasys, finally settling in to the subterranean faded splendour of Eve’s in Regent St. A proper dolly mixture of pop, dance and rock music through the ages soon filled the old gentlemen’s club Saturday Night Fever-style dancefloor with an assortment of fabulous freaks and music lovers. (You might remember that dancefloor from Pulp’s Disco 2000 video). It was a real wild scene. That mixture of great music, live bands/acts, dressing up (with a healthy dose of imaginative silliness and esprit de coeur) and Matthew’s legendary consummate disco boss hosting skills soon made the night the hottest ticket in London. I was there most weeks when I wasn’t gigging or running a night myself. My band at the time, Salon Kitty, played our last ever gig at their last ever night, Christmas 1996. The band was dressed in House of Harlot pantomime cow outfits (with Pussy Riot-style zip up cow-face hoods with rings through the nose). I was dressed in a Beehive & Love red satin Mother Christmas number. Noel Gallagher was in the audience that night, with fashion legend Pam Hogg. Loads of other names too, no doubt, but it’s a blur.
"This compilation is full of gems from bands like Jocasta, Speedway, Kenickie, Bis, Sweetie, Earl Brutus, Huggy Bear, Add N to X and more (32 more, to be precise)"
This is the 90s I remember - small clubs, great music, loads of us out three or four nights a week (and holding down a job). A lot of that great music was live. Tons of promising bands we used to make the effort to catch in these discos and dive bars didn’t make it into the 90s pantheon of Proper Pop Stars (though a few did). So, when I saw on his Instagram feed that Martin had compiled a double album of bands and artists from that time, my heart skipped a beat. As I suspected, it was like going back in time to my nineties - to the secret history, or at least part of the secret history, that I do remember. I figured there would be stories galore here - and I was right. Super Sonics - 40 Junkshop Britpop Greats is one of those compilations that’s worth getting hold of for the anecdote-stuffed sleeve notes alone. DJ and art curator Martin Green has a glorious record of finding buried treasure - not just music but art as well. This compilation is full of gems from bands like Jocasta, Speedway, Kenickie, Bis, Sweetie, Earl Brutus, Huggy Bear, Add N to X and Menswe@r.
I pulled Martin onto a Zoom call to find out more about it - as you do these days - and we took a bit of a wander down a memory lane neither of us had visited in a while. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I started by asking what the album was about for him:
“Basically I wanted to write our lot back into 90s history. It’s not that we’ve been consciously taken us out of it, but that whole Britpop thing is remembered as a very laddy culture - it’s all boys and guitars. It wasn’t really about that from our perspective as a gang - it was much more art school, experimental and uncompromising. There were a lot of gay people involved, there were a lot of women and that’s kind of been rewritten out of it.”
I pulled Martin onto a Zoom call to find out more about it - as you do these days - and we took a bit of a wander down a memory lane neither of us had visited in a while. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I started by asking what the album was about for him:
“Basically I wanted to write our lot back into 90s history. It’s not that we’ve been consciously taken us out of it, but that whole Britpop thing is remembered as a very laddy culture - it’s all boys and guitars. It wasn’t really about that from our perspective as a gang - it was much more art school, experimental and uncompromising. There were a lot of gay people involved, there were a lot of women and that’s kind of been rewritten out of it.”
Stuart Vern from Murray & Vern - Yasui & Mark Carter outside Smashing NYE 1993
The CD booklet reads like a real labour of love - it’s a treasure trove of hidden history and anecdotes. Were there any stories you had to leave out that you would’ve added in if there was space?
“I did cram a lot in. I didn’t put any stories about going on tour with Pulp and all the other Pulp stories - like us sitting in the Blue Peter Garden when Jarvis was on the BBC pop quiz, funny things like that. One Smashing one is from when we moved to the Eve’s club. So many bands were starting to get signed that’d been coming down and it was really starting to take off. All the music industry was starting to turn up - this was in about 94-95. Adrian got a call from Creation, who said ‘We’ve got a band - Oasis - can you put them on the guest list?’ And he said ‘Yeah fine, we’ve been playing their record.’ We’d been playing Supersonic, and we liked it, and we said, yeah fine, we’ll put ‘em on the door. I was standing on the door with Adrian. I used to do the door before I went on DJing, to make sure all our mates got in, because we needed to do that because it was getting so popular. Oasis turned up. I think they’d been on telly once - on The Word or something like that - so we recognised them. Just as Oasis turned up, Matthew Glamorre turned up to host. He was always obsessed with people dressing up. He’d say
‘If you’re not dressed up you're not getting in’ - because Smashing was happening post-rave, just at a time when everyone was going out in T-shirts and jeans and we wanted people to dress up again - which they did. So Matthew gets out of a cab, in a big outfit, and Oasis are stood there, chatting to us. And Oasis are dressed like Oasis - shirts and bomber jackets. So, of course, Matthew stopped them and said ‘Who are you lot? You’re not letting ‘em in are ya?’ to Adrian. And we said “Yeah yeah yeah, they’re Oasis, they’re a new band and we’re playing their record,” and Matthew said to them “Right you lot, we’ll let you in but next time... make an effort” and they all came in very sheepishly and sat quietly in the corner. Then came over to the DJ booth, very quietly and said “Could you play our record?” And we played their record and they danced around. It was really sweet. Within a few months they became… Oasis - this gang of tough lads - but Matthew Glamorre completely terrified them.”
I remember meeting them back then as well and they were really nice fellas - “Really sweet.
The other favourite one was every year we did a special performance for May Day. Matthew Glamorre had a human maypole outfit, which I think Sybil Rouge made for him, which was basically ribbons all coming off of him and he’d get people to dance around him and wrap him up in these ribbons. Before we did it we had a May Day procession. We’d find someone and crown them May Queen. We’d get people to make an arch, and we’d walk the May Queen under the arch through the crowd and get her to the stage, where Matthew would do a ceremony, then we’d crown her and do the Maypole dance.”
Sounds a bit Wicker Man...
“I think it was about ‘94. Courtney Love came down to the club and we asked her if she’d do it and she said ‘Oh yeah, give us a bottle of champagne, I’ll be May Queen.’ so we processed Courtney Love through the crowd, and then when she got up on stage for the ceremony, when she turned around to be crowned, the whole club just gasped, because it was Courtney Love - brilliant really. It was a fantastic time…”
“I did cram a lot in. I didn’t put any stories about going on tour with Pulp and all the other Pulp stories - like us sitting in the Blue Peter Garden when Jarvis was on the BBC pop quiz, funny things like that. One Smashing one is from when we moved to the Eve’s club. So many bands were starting to get signed that’d been coming down and it was really starting to take off. All the music industry was starting to turn up - this was in about 94-95. Adrian got a call from Creation, who said ‘We’ve got a band - Oasis - can you put them on the guest list?’ And he said ‘Yeah fine, we’ve been playing their record.’ We’d been playing Supersonic, and we liked it, and we said, yeah fine, we’ll put ‘em on the door. I was standing on the door with Adrian. I used to do the door before I went on DJing, to make sure all our mates got in, because we needed to do that because it was getting so popular. Oasis turned up. I think they’d been on telly once - on The Word or something like that - so we recognised them. Just as Oasis turned up, Matthew Glamorre turned up to host. He was always obsessed with people dressing up. He’d say
‘If you’re not dressed up you're not getting in’ - because Smashing was happening post-rave, just at a time when everyone was going out in T-shirts and jeans and we wanted people to dress up again - which they did. So Matthew gets out of a cab, in a big outfit, and Oasis are stood there, chatting to us. And Oasis are dressed like Oasis - shirts and bomber jackets. So, of course, Matthew stopped them and said ‘Who are you lot? You’re not letting ‘em in are ya?’ to Adrian. And we said “Yeah yeah yeah, they’re Oasis, they’re a new band and we’re playing their record,” and Matthew said to them “Right you lot, we’ll let you in but next time... make an effort” and they all came in very sheepishly and sat quietly in the corner. Then came over to the DJ booth, very quietly and said “Could you play our record?” And we played their record and they danced around. It was really sweet. Within a few months they became… Oasis - this gang of tough lads - but Matthew Glamorre completely terrified them.”
I remember meeting them back then as well and they were really nice fellas - “Really sweet.
The other favourite one was every year we did a special performance for May Day. Matthew Glamorre had a human maypole outfit, which I think Sybil Rouge made for him, which was basically ribbons all coming off of him and he’d get people to dance around him and wrap him up in these ribbons. Before we did it we had a May Day procession. We’d find someone and crown them May Queen. We’d get people to make an arch, and we’d walk the May Queen under the arch through the crowd and get her to the stage, where Matthew would do a ceremony, then we’d crown her and do the Maypole dance.”
Sounds a bit Wicker Man...
“I think it was about ‘94. Courtney Love came down to the club and we asked her if she’d do it and she said ‘Oh yeah, give us a bottle of champagne, I’ll be May Queen.’ so we processed Courtney Love through the crowd, and then when she got up on stage for the ceremony, when she turned around to be crowned, the whole club just gasped, because it was Courtney Love - brilliant really. It was a fantastic time…”
1992 Smashing 'Hands In the Air photo by - Dave Swindells
I had so many brilliant nights out at Smashing. Not just at Eve’s either. The Gaslight, that Bierkeller place, Brighton - day trips.
“The difference between then and now - there were still squats in London, you could still live relatively cheaply. We used to go and knock on a door and you’d say ‘we’ve got a following, you take the bar and we’ll take the door’ - and because there were no expenses, you could be risky - noone was losing any money. If it went well you could make money - not a lot of money but you could make money, so that way you could try things, mixing up bits of music. You could try all sorts of different nights - so all these different nights were happening simultaneously because you could get the venues for free and you could just kind of do what you wanted, really.”
I wonder if that’ll be a positive consequence of the inevitable recession that’s on the way? They’re talking about it being as bad as the 80s...
“Hopefully. All of that creativity happened because of empty spaces and cheap places to live. I hadn’t really thought about the nineties before putting this album together and writing the sleeve notes. I think you can trace a line from the mid-50s until the mid-90s where it all felt like there was possibility - you didn’t have to have money to make things happen. Then after that, the developers came in, luxury flats started going up, they got rid of secure tenancies - so you didn’t get that diversity in London that you had during that period.”
It may never go back to that but it could move into some kind of new era. It does feel like things are starting to happen outside of the system - the illegal raves for example…
What was your criteria for choosing the songs/bands on this record?
“Phil King who was in Lush and used to come to Smashing, did these compilation albums called Junkshop Glam where he went and dug out all these glam records that weren’t Sweet and weren’t Slade and weren’t the known ones. He said to me ‘You should do Junkshop Britpop’ and I said ‘actually that’s a good idea, because there were so many bands and so much material being produced when there was still a vibrant live and indie scene’, and so the criteria was to find the bands that might’ve got signed but they only got one album out, or two albums out - and then it expanded to B-sides and funny singles and some bands who didn’t put anything out, like We Are Pleb. Sweetie had one single out, I think Elizabeth Bunny only had one single out. I was looking for people that’d fallen through the cracks, really. There were a couple of better known bands like Kenickie and Shampoo, but then when you look at the retelling of the nineties, all of those bands have been written out as well. It’s all Shed 7 and Pulp/Blur/Oasis, y’know. Oh, and Radiohead and that’s it. So I’m putting them back in.”
It felt like you were only allowed to have one band that was representative of the more flamboyant, expressive side of it and that band was Suede. Placebo at a push. Everything else had this NME-approved laddy sheen. It was such a joy to see some of those names again.
Is there anyone missing from the compilation that you would’ve loved to include but weren’t able to reach/get?
“There were a few. The problem is, any time a band was signed to an indie label that got bought out by a major, the majors are quite slow at getting the rights approved. The majority of the artists on this record either own the work themselves or are on indies like Fierce Panda that’ve still got control over their back catalogue. As soon as it goes to the majors, you just seem to fall into the void and just sit there. They can’t find paperwork, they can’t find masters and it all just gets a bit complicated. Other ones that I had - I had Box Star A.M. by Embassy, which is a great track - and we just couldn’t find the band anywhere so that didn’t go on there, which is a shame. Mark Stratford who A&R’ed the album with me - who runs RPM - he said he had more trouble finding rights to tracks from the nineties than he did tracks from the sixties. People don’t know where things are. I think I had 60 tracks - and we got 40 out of those.”
Why no Minty? (Leigh Bowery and Matthew Glamorre’s) Minty were pretty much Smashing’s House Band, weren't they?
“Minty were on it. But then they signed a new deal - they’re reissuing their album. And the record label said they didn’t want it coming out at the same time.”
Shame!
“I know! But you know what it can get like with record companies… I think you should just get things out there for people to see - you don’t know who’s going to be inspired by it. It was the record company - it wasn’t Matthew.”
“The difference between then and now - there were still squats in London, you could still live relatively cheaply. We used to go and knock on a door and you’d say ‘we’ve got a following, you take the bar and we’ll take the door’ - and because there were no expenses, you could be risky - noone was losing any money. If it went well you could make money - not a lot of money but you could make money, so that way you could try things, mixing up bits of music. You could try all sorts of different nights - so all these different nights were happening simultaneously because you could get the venues for free and you could just kind of do what you wanted, really.”
I wonder if that’ll be a positive consequence of the inevitable recession that’s on the way? They’re talking about it being as bad as the 80s...
“Hopefully. All of that creativity happened because of empty spaces and cheap places to live. I hadn’t really thought about the nineties before putting this album together and writing the sleeve notes. I think you can trace a line from the mid-50s until the mid-90s where it all felt like there was possibility - you didn’t have to have money to make things happen. Then after that, the developers came in, luxury flats started going up, they got rid of secure tenancies - so you didn’t get that diversity in London that you had during that period.”
It may never go back to that but it could move into some kind of new era. It does feel like things are starting to happen outside of the system - the illegal raves for example…
What was your criteria for choosing the songs/bands on this record?
“Phil King who was in Lush and used to come to Smashing, did these compilation albums called Junkshop Glam where he went and dug out all these glam records that weren’t Sweet and weren’t Slade and weren’t the known ones. He said to me ‘You should do Junkshop Britpop’ and I said ‘actually that’s a good idea, because there were so many bands and so much material being produced when there was still a vibrant live and indie scene’, and so the criteria was to find the bands that might’ve got signed but they only got one album out, or two albums out - and then it expanded to B-sides and funny singles and some bands who didn’t put anything out, like We Are Pleb. Sweetie had one single out, I think Elizabeth Bunny only had one single out. I was looking for people that’d fallen through the cracks, really. There were a couple of better known bands like Kenickie and Shampoo, but then when you look at the retelling of the nineties, all of those bands have been written out as well. It’s all Shed 7 and Pulp/Blur/Oasis, y’know. Oh, and Radiohead and that’s it. So I’m putting them back in.”
It felt like you were only allowed to have one band that was representative of the more flamboyant, expressive side of it and that band was Suede. Placebo at a push. Everything else had this NME-approved laddy sheen. It was such a joy to see some of those names again.
Is there anyone missing from the compilation that you would’ve loved to include but weren’t able to reach/get?
“There were a few. The problem is, any time a band was signed to an indie label that got bought out by a major, the majors are quite slow at getting the rights approved. The majority of the artists on this record either own the work themselves or are on indies like Fierce Panda that’ve still got control over their back catalogue. As soon as it goes to the majors, you just seem to fall into the void and just sit there. They can’t find paperwork, they can’t find masters and it all just gets a bit complicated. Other ones that I had - I had Box Star A.M. by Embassy, which is a great track - and we just couldn’t find the band anywhere so that didn’t go on there, which is a shame. Mark Stratford who A&R’ed the album with me - who runs RPM - he said he had more trouble finding rights to tracks from the nineties than he did tracks from the sixties. People don’t know where things are. I think I had 60 tracks - and we got 40 out of those.”
Why no Minty? (Leigh Bowery and Matthew Glamorre’s) Minty were pretty much Smashing’s House Band, weren't they?
“Minty were on it. But then they signed a new deal - they’re reissuing their album. And the record label said they didn’t want it coming out at the same time.”
Shame!
“I know! But you know what it can get like with record companies… I think you should just get things out there for people to see - you don’t know who’s going to be inspired by it. It was the record company - it wasn’t Matthew.”
1993 Angela Murray from Murray & Vern
Favourite gigs from the time?
“Well, Minty. We moved around lots of different venues initially before we settled on Eve’s. We were at a club called The Gaslight - an old gentleman’s club in Mayfair - and we wanted more bands on, because a lot of people in bands were coming down to the club, people like Blur and Denim and their mates. The previous venue Maximus had a big stage and we could put bands on, but we couldn’t do that at The Gaslight, just cabaret acts. We approached Madame Jojo’s and they said yes, so on a Tuesday night there we’d do Smashing Live. We put on These Animal Men, we put on the bands around that New Wave of New Wave period, and Leigh Bowery said to Matthew ‘Oh it’d be great to perform’ and that he’d got a band called Minty. Then about ten days or so before the gig, Adrian said, ‘What are they gonna be doing?’ And Matthew spoke to the musician Richard Torry who said ‘Oh, we’re going to be doing some poems…’ and Richard plays guitar… and Adrian said ‘No way! I’m not having them on the stage, they can fuck off, this is live show for bands and that’s not a band.’ So Matthew went to Richard and Leigh and said, ‘Look, it’s a band night, so let’s put a band together.’ So Matthew built Minty around Richard and Leigh, got Nicola Bateman in, Leigh’s best friend and Matthew on keyboards, Honolulu, Matt Fisher who was on bass and Danielle on guitar. He just built this band out of thin air basically, put them together and that’s how Minty was formed. Sto Mathew was responsible for turning Minty into a proper pop band from a little cabaret thing. I think they did it in 10 days - there were a couple of rehearsals...
They came on stage at Madame Jojos and Leigh sang Useless Man and gave birth to Nicola and then he sang Ashes to Ashes, where he undressed, and then he sang Orville’s Song - with Sheila Tequila from Beautiful Bend dressed as a giant canary. And it was just genius the whole thing - it was the ultimate art school rock confrontation - it was really, really great and it blew everyone away. I saw a lot of Minty gigs after that - I used to DJ for them - and they were fantastic, though tragically Leigh passed away at the end of ‘96, Mathew carried on with the band.”
We need more of that
Leigh saw Salon Kitty play at Smashing… he was really supportive - that was a really amazing way to meet him
“He loved it, y’know. Everything goes in generations. Our gang, our sort of nineties gang and what we were doing was quite different to the eighties gang - and Leigh was very much part of the eighties gang. He was the king of that scene. And there weren’t a lot of people from the eighties that used to come down to Smashing but Leigh was very into it and really championed it. He used to come down as often as he could - jumping about to Elastica - he absolutely loved it.”
You’ve always been a bit or a curator - and now you work with the DuoVision art gallery as well as music. Is there anything else you curate?
“Mainly art and albums. This album is my 29th. I’ve just completed my 30th with (St Etienne’s) Bob Stanley - which is a country album, a bit like Bobby Gentry-style weird spooky country.
When I DJ it’s like a curation to me, I don’t go ‘Oh what’s in the charts?’ it’s all digging around boxes, finding funny records, hunting for things on the internet. And it’s the same with art. One of the artists I’ve been working with for a lot of years, Caroline Coon, is a very famous journalist, but nobody knew she painted - it was all in a cupboard. The artist Duggie Fields introduced us to her. We offered her a show - her first ever show, aged 73. We did the show with Peter Doig, he saw her work, wanted to show it and now it’s going to New York; we’re also talking about the Tate showing something, so it’s brilliant. It’s similar with a lot of these musicians I’ve found, these funny records that noone wanted and now there’s big interest. It’s just finding all these things, these incredibly creative things that are a bit forgotten - mainly because of trends - things go in and out of fashion and things get left behind. That’s exactly what I’ve done with this album.”
Where’s the best place to go crate-diving these days?
“The best place I've been to recently was Stockholm. I put an exhibition on there - and there was something like 80 record shops. It’s incredible. The krona’s weak against the pound, so it was brilliant. I don’t really find a lot in the UK - bits and pieces here and there - but you have to go out of the country really. Everyone’s so ‘on it’ and looking at prices here these days.”
Everything on vinyl’s like 20-30 quid in record shops...
“Except the records that I’ve got on this album! Most of them, the postage was more than the record… apart from all those Britpop boys. I say ‘boys’... for us, one of the big parts of that scene was all those women and all those amazing females forming bands, writing music - there were so many women around, doing brilliant things in that period, more than any other period I can think of. I would say 50% of the bands we used to see were female led. Easily. Or had a female drummer. Women were really an intrinsic part of that whole scene - I wanted this album to redress the balance, from the Riot Grrl thing onwards. Although I umbrellaed it under Junkshop Britpop, we’ve got all the genres of the time - Riot Grrl, New Wave of New Wave, Electronica, Pop - there’s loads of things in amongst that whole nineties period that were very creative.”
You’ve played all over the world, in all kinds of settings. What was the strangest DJ gig you’ve ever had?
“The most celeb-y DJ gig I did - which actually felt like a dream - was an after-show party with Steve Mackie. It was for Cream when they played at the Royal Albert Hall. When you do after-shows you don’t know what it’s gonna be like. Sometimes the band doesn't even turn up; there’s just a few of the road crew and a couple of people. This one was in this big house in Kensington Gardens, on the ground floor. It was a load of interconnecting rooms - fairly small rooms - so me and Steve are setting up, starting our set, and guests are starting to arrive from the Albert Hall - we’d been told Eric Clapton wasn’t gonna be coming, because y’know, he isn’t drinking, so he isn’t too keen on coming to after-shows, so we thought… oh, well… it’s a job… We started DJing in this room between two corridors with one door to the left and one to the right. The first people to walk through the door are Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara Bach, and Ringo comes over while I’m playing Walking the Dog - and he starts whistling and gives us the thumbs up. Then through the other door comes Alice Cooper, then in comes Roger Waters, then Bryan Ferry, then Ginger Baker, Tom Hanks... and the most famous people in the world are all at this party and me and Steve are like (agog face) … one after another… it was like being in your living room, like a small room with all that lot - that was really bizarre. Brilliant, but bizarre”
“Well, Minty. We moved around lots of different venues initially before we settled on Eve’s. We were at a club called The Gaslight - an old gentleman’s club in Mayfair - and we wanted more bands on, because a lot of people in bands were coming down to the club, people like Blur and Denim and their mates. The previous venue Maximus had a big stage and we could put bands on, but we couldn’t do that at The Gaslight, just cabaret acts. We approached Madame Jojo’s and they said yes, so on a Tuesday night there we’d do Smashing Live. We put on These Animal Men, we put on the bands around that New Wave of New Wave period, and Leigh Bowery said to Matthew ‘Oh it’d be great to perform’ and that he’d got a band called Minty. Then about ten days or so before the gig, Adrian said, ‘What are they gonna be doing?’ And Matthew spoke to the musician Richard Torry who said ‘Oh, we’re going to be doing some poems…’ and Richard plays guitar… and Adrian said ‘No way! I’m not having them on the stage, they can fuck off, this is live show for bands and that’s not a band.’ So Matthew went to Richard and Leigh and said, ‘Look, it’s a band night, so let’s put a band together.’ So Matthew built Minty around Richard and Leigh, got Nicola Bateman in, Leigh’s best friend and Matthew on keyboards, Honolulu, Matt Fisher who was on bass and Danielle on guitar. He just built this band out of thin air basically, put them together and that’s how Minty was formed. Sto Mathew was responsible for turning Minty into a proper pop band from a little cabaret thing. I think they did it in 10 days - there were a couple of rehearsals...
They came on stage at Madame Jojos and Leigh sang Useless Man and gave birth to Nicola and then he sang Ashes to Ashes, where he undressed, and then he sang Orville’s Song - with Sheila Tequila from Beautiful Bend dressed as a giant canary. And it was just genius the whole thing - it was the ultimate art school rock confrontation - it was really, really great and it blew everyone away. I saw a lot of Minty gigs after that - I used to DJ for them - and they were fantastic, though tragically Leigh passed away at the end of ‘96, Mathew carried on with the band.”
We need more of that
Leigh saw Salon Kitty play at Smashing… he was really supportive - that was a really amazing way to meet him
“He loved it, y’know. Everything goes in generations. Our gang, our sort of nineties gang and what we were doing was quite different to the eighties gang - and Leigh was very much part of the eighties gang. He was the king of that scene. And there weren’t a lot of people from the eighties that used to come down to Smashing but Leigh was very into it and really championed it. He used to come down as often as he could - jumping about to Elastica - he absolutely loved it.”
You’ve always been a bit or a curator - and now you work with the DuoVision art gallery as well as music. Is there anything else you curate?
“Mainly art and albums. This album is my 29th. I’ve just completed my 30th with (St Etienne’s) Bob Stanley - which is a country album, a bit like Bobby Gentry-style weird spooky country.
When I DJ it’s like a curation to me, I don’t go ‘Oh what’s in the charts?’ it’s all digging around boxes, finding funny records, hunting for things on the internet. And it’s the same with art. One of the artists I’ve been working with for a lot of years, Caroline Coon, is a very famous journalist, but nobody knew she painted - it was all in a cupboard. The artist Duggie Fields introduced us to her. We offered her a show - her first ever show, aged 73. We did the show with Peter Doig, he saw her work, wanted to show it and now it’s going to New York; we’re also talking about the Tate showing something, so it’s brilliant. It’s similar with a lot of these musicians I’ve found, these funny records that noone wanted and now there’s big interest. It’s just finding all these things, these incredibly creative things that are a bit forgotten - mainly because of trends - things go in and out of fashion and things get left behind. That’s exactly what I’ve done with this album.”
Where’s the best place to go crate-diving these days?
“The best place I've been to recently was Stockholm. I put an exhibition on there - and there was something like 80 record shops. It’s incredible. The krona’s weak against the pound, so it was brilliant. I don’t really find a lot in the UK - bits and pieces here and there - but you have to go out of the country really. Everyone’s so ‘on it’ and looking at prices here these days.”
Everything on vinyl’s like 20-30 quid in record shops...
“Except the records that I’ve got on this album! Most of them, the postage was more than the record… apart from all those Britpop boys. I say ‘boys’... for us, one of the big parts of that scene was all those women and all those amazing females forming bands, writing music - there were so many women around, doing brilliant things in that period, more than any other period I can think of. I would say 50% of the bands we used to see were female led. Easily. Or had a female drummer. Women were really an intrinsic part of that whole scene - I wanted this album to redress the balance, from the Riot Grrl thing onwards. Although I umbrellaed it under Junkshop Britpop, we’ve got all the genres of the time - Riot Grrl, New Wave of New Wave, Electronica, Pop - there’s loads of things in amongst that whole nineties period that were very creative.”
You’ve played all over the world, in all kinds of settings. What was the strangest DJ gig you’ve ever had?
“The most celeb-y DJ gig I did - which actually felt like a dream - was an after-show party with Steve Mackie. It was for Cream when they played at the Royal Albert Hall. When you do after-shows you don’t know what it’s gonna be like. Sometimes the band doesn't even turn up; there’s just a few of the road crew and a couple of people. This one was in this big house in Kensington Gardens, on the ground floor. It was a load of interconnecting rooms - fairly small rooms - so me and Steve are setting up, starting our set, and guests are starting to arrive from the Albert Hall - we’d been told Eric Clapton wasn’t gonna be coming, because y’know, he isn’t drinking, so he isn’t too keen on coming to after-shows, so we thought… oh, well… it’s a job… We started DJing in this room between two corridors with one door to the left and one to the right. The first people to walk through the door are Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara Bach, and Ringo comes over while I’m playing Walking the Dog - and he starts whistling and gives us the thumbs up. Then through the other door comes Alice Cooper, then in comes Roger Waters, then Bryan Ferry, then Ginger Baker, Tom Hanks... and the most famous people in the world are all at this party and me and Steve are like (agog face) … one after another… it was like being in your living room, like a small room with all that lot - that was really bizarre. Brilliant, but bizarre”
Andrew and Michelle from Salon Kitty backstage 1993
What’s your current ear-worm/song you can’t shake?
“What’s funny is I’ve got one from the album that I just can’t get out of my head. When I put a compilation together I spend a lot of time programming it - days and days programming the running order, mixing it about so it all flows - which takes a while when you’ve got a diverse selection of music. Now I’ve got this song Entertainment by Sean McCluskey’s band Speedway”
What are the Smashing gang all doing now?
“Matthew’s working on Minty reissues, Adrian’s in India, having a break from teaching and Michael’s working with a homeless organization, working to house people and help people who’ve got issues with housing. We’ve not had a reunion - three of us did a party a couple of years ago, but not all four of us.”
No album launch?
“I was gonna throw a big party - of course! - and put some of the bands on and everything but that’s all gone out the window for now. I think once we can we’ll maybe do something. Maybe next year. I’d love to.”
What’ve you got coming up in 2020 (virus permitting)?
“Apart from the country album for Ace records, we’ve got a couple of exhibitions planned. I’m talking about putting a show on with Sean McLuskey and Dave Swindells about club life in the nineties. Again, I’ve got a lot of issues about all this - about what’s being written out of things. There was a book about the nineties that was talking about the centre of the Britpop scene being the Atlantic bar! And we were saying, there were so many - there were the things that you were involved in (Skin Two, Disco Scum, Street Life), you had Smashing, you had Blow Up, Sean McLuskey’s Fantasy Ashtray, Frat Shack, there were so many of these really interesting clubs with live bands, all kind of mixed together - and (Time Out Nightlife Editor) Dave Swindells was out photographing all of it. He’s got this incredibly diverse archive - some of it’s in the booklet and on the cover/sleeve. London club life wasn’t just about Pushca, Pascha and all these great big corporate house clubs. It was so dreary all that stuff - so while you had this boom boom boom going, you had us lot in there, doing really interesting things and out of that grew all these great bands.
When we were in the nineties we were saying ‘Oo it’ nothing like the sixties’, but now we’re looking back at it with the same time distance, we’re thinking ‘Actually, it was good, it was more genuine’, y’know. It wasn’t governed by commercial forces. It wasn’t about money, it was about doing what you wanted to do. Everyone was genuine.”
How’s your lockdown been?
“It’s been a very strange period. Good things and bad things. The bad things have been zero work and feeling like the career’s fallen completely apart - and the good things have been finishing this album and cycling around London in complete safety for the first time, with noone around. I cycle a lot so I’ve been enjoying that aspect of London - going down the West End and the air being fresher - but it’s been a very odd period. It was like being a kid, when you used to go into London on a Sunday and all the shops were shut. I think for us lot who didn’t have any option but to stay in London, we’ve had to be on the frontline. London did feel very much like the frontline of it all at the start. I think it toughens you up a bit, really. I put my mask on, I get on my bike and get on and do things. I couldn’t sit in a big garden in Surrey and have everything delivered. I had to go out and front it all out really.
Also, I spent a lot of time digging through the internet for old movies, catching up on things I hadn't seen, so that was really good - because I love my old cult films - actually having a lot of time to really dig around.”
I’ve seen a few of your finds on Instagrams - you’ve put up a few gems on there...
“It’s what I’ve always done - keep digging and digging around - with records or art or anything, dig dig dig dig dig…”
We dig, Matthew. We dig it a lot.
I feel like the best way to end this little trip into the Remember Zone is with a Smashing Oasis anecdote of my own from 1996. When me and Pete Thomas, (our cow-costumed guitarist, borrowed that night, formerly of Raymonde and RPLA) were standing in the corridor by the bogs, waiting to go on stage that fateful, final Christmas gig, Noel Gallagher (still in shirt and bomber jacket, but now with a giant bodyguard) came out of our dressing room/broom cupboard, walked up to us, looked Pete in the eye (Pete’s eyes staring out through the cow headgear like eye on the gasmask flyposters for Chernobyl) and said “When you get out there mate…” Noel gave Pete a thumbs up… “Milk it…”
“What’s funny is I’ve got one from the album that I just can’t get out of my head. When I put a compilation together I spend a lot of time programming it - days and days programming the running order, mixing it about so it all flows - which takes a while when you’ve got a diverse selection of music. Now I’ve got this song Entertainment by Sean McCluskey’s band Speedway”
What are the Smashing gang all doing now?
“Matthew’s working on Minty reissues, Adrian’s in India, having a break from teaching and Michael’s working with a homeless organization, working to house people and help people who’ve got issues with housing. We’ve not had a reunion - three of us did a party a couple of years ago, but not all four of us.”
No album launch?
“I was gonna throw a big party - of course! - and put some of the bands on and everything but that’s all gone out the window for now. I think once we can we’ll maybe do something. Maybe next year. I’d love to.”
What’ve you got coming up in 2020 (virus permitting)?
“Apart from the country album for Ace records, we’ve got a couple of exhibitions planned. I’m talking about putting a show on with Sean McLuskey and Dave Swindells about club life in the nineties. Again, I’ve got a lot of issues about all this - about what’s being written out of things. There was a book about the nineties that was talking about the centre of the Britpop scene being the Atlantic bar! And we were saying, there were so many - there were the things that you were involved in (Skin Two, Disco Scum, Street Life), you had Smashing, you had Blow Up, Sean McLuskey’s Fantasy Ashtray, Frat Shack, there were so many of these really interesting clubs with live bands, all kind of mixed together - and (Time Out Nightlife Editor) Dave Swindells was out photographing all of it. He’s got this incredibly diverse archive - some of it’s in the booklet and on the cover/sleeve. London club life wasn’t just about Pushca, Pascha and all these great big corporate house clubs. It was so dreary all that stuff - so while you had this boom boom boom going, you had us lot in there, doing really interesting things and out of that grew all these great bands.
When we were in the nineties we were saying ‘Oo it’ nothing like the sixties’, but now we’re looking back at it with the same time distance, we’re thinking ‘Actually, it was good, it was more genuine’, y’know. It wasn’t governed by commercial forces. It wasn’t about money, it was about doing what you wanted to do. Everyone was genuine.”
How’s your lockdown been?
“It’s been a very strange period. Good things and bad things. The bad things have been zero work and feeling like the career’s fallen completely apart - and the good things have been finishing this album and cycling around London in complete safety for the first time, with noone around. I cycle a lot so I’ve been enjoying that aspect of London - going down the West End and the air being fresher - but it’s been a very odd period. It was like being a kid, when you used to go into London on a Sunday and all the shops were shut. I think for us lot who didn’t have any option but to stay in London, we’ve had to be on the frontline. London did feel very much like the frontline of it all at the start. I think it toughens you up a bit, really. I put my mask on, I get on my bike and get on and do things. I couldn’t sit in a big garden in Surrey and have everything delivered. I had to go out and front it all out really.
Also, I spent a lot of time digging through the internet for old movies, catching up on things I hadn't seen, so that was really good - because I love my old cult films - actually having a lot of time to really dig around.”
I’ve seen a few of your finds on Instagrams - you’ve put up a few gems on there...
“It’s what I’ve always done - keep digging and digging around - with records or art or anything, dig dig dig dig dig…”
We dig, Matthew. We dig it a lot.
I feel like the best way to end this little trip into the Remember Zone is with a Smashing Oasis anecdote of my own from 1996. When me and Pete Thomas, (our cow-costumed guitarist, borrowed that night, formerly of Raymonde and RPLA) were standing in the corridor by the bogs, waiting to go on stage that fateful, final Christmas gig, Noel Gallagher (still in shirt and bomber jacket, but now with a giant bodyguard) came out of our dressing room/broom cupboard, walked up to us, looked Pete in the eye (Pete’s eyes staring out through the cow headgear like eye on the gasmask flyposters for Chernobyl) and said “When you get out there mate…” Noel gave Pete a thumbs up… “Milk it…”
Michelle Olley
MARTIN GREEN PRESENTS: SUPER SONICS - 40 JUNKSHOP BRITPOP GREATS is out July 17th on Cherry Red Records
Martin Green
can be found (when not behind the decks) at:
https://www.martingreensound.com/
https://www.instagram.com/martin_green_sound/
Matthew Glamorre and Minty
https://www.facebook.com/Minty-HQ-100446594812563/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mhardern/?originalSubdomain=uk
Martin Green
can be found (when not behind the decks) at:
https://www.martingreensound.com/
https://www.instagram.com/martin_green_sound/
Matthew Glamorre and Minty
https://www.facebook.com/Minty-HQ-100446594812563/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mhardern/?originalSubdomain=uk
share