Long ago (1977), and not very far away, (downtown Toronto), a new wave
music formula was born. What would happen if you took three art students,
(Mark Gane, Andy Haas, Martha Ladly), an ex-theatre student who was
working at an art gallery, (that was me - Martha Johnson), a business
administration student, (Carl Finkle), a nineteen year old kid fresh out of
high school who hadn't quite figured out what to do next, (Tim Gane), and
told them to sing, play and write songs together on instruments they were
only beginning to explore? MARTHA AND THE MUFFINS was the end result.
Our creative strengths and public attraction came trom the diversity of our musical tastes, approaches to our instruments and appearances within the band. Carl the bass player wore three piece suits on stage while the two Marthas would sport a big white sweater with an M on it that they'd both squirm into and sing from. Mark and Andy would be trying to push the tonal limits of their guitar and sax respectively while my weedy sounding Acetone organ strained over the chaos to pump out the hook lines or simple chord structures of songs like "Halfway Through the Week", "Sinking Land" and "Trance and Dance". There were lots of fabulous, creative moments and bizzare fun on stage with that original line-up. Whether it was New Years Eve at The Edge in Toronto or later opening for Roxy Music at Wembley Arena in London, you never quite knew what might click or crack between band members when the music started.
It was really quite astonishing when in 1979 our door to the future opened when Glenn O~Brien of Interview magazine in New York wrote us a note responding very favourably to our demo tape that our sax player had sent to him. it turns out Glenn and Robert Fripp, (who seemed to be hanging out with Glenn at that moment in time and who later came to our first New York gig at Hurrah to check us out), said they were quite taken with the tape while listening through the many cassettes that landed on his doorstep. When Glenn passed our tape on to an A&R person from Virgin who was in New York at the time, things began to move very quickly.
We were signed to Dindisc/Virgin Records in London and by the summer of 1979 we were recording our first album, "Metro Music", at The Manor, just outside of Oxford, England. Soon, we were tying Anne Murray for Song of the Year at Canada's Music Awards, the Junos and playing all over the U.K. and Europe to audiences who completely overwhelmed us with their support and enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, as with many young groups, the pressures of success and fame brought on differences of opinion, personality clashes and ultimately the erosion of band unity. It was very difficult for those six people to weather the changes that came with the success in 1980 of Metro Music" and the world-wide top ten hit "Echo Beach".
A strife-ridden second album, "Trance and Dance", was recorded during the
summer of 198O at The Manor Studio with band morale at an all-time low.
Tensions from both inside and outside the band placed great pressure on a
group which until then had been quite tight and unified. The resulting
conflicts caused some members to leave and in time be replaced with new
players. Although those people have come and gone, Mark and I still have
ongoing contact with everyone from that original band except Andy Haas.
Our third album, "This Is The Ice Age", was a major turning point for us. It led us into a long, (three albums) and immensely rewarding co-production relationship with Daniel Lanois. His sister, Jocelyne, was our new bass player and suggested Dan as a good creative match for us. He had been working with Brian Eno, (a definite influence on our music), and like us was interested in using the studio as a compositional tool, as well as incorporating found sound into our music. The summer of 1981 working in Toronto and at Dan's and his brother Bob*s Grant Avenue Studio in Hamilton was probably one of the most stimulating and creative times in Martha and the Muffins history. There were no limits. Mark and I still feel that "This Is The Ice Age" is our best single work and that it came closest to achieving many of our musical goals.
Our fourth album, "Danseparc", in 1983 found us as a four piece band, (me,
Mark, Jocelyne and Nick Kent on drums) which was augmented with guest
artists in the studio and touring players when we went on the road. We
played both coasts of the U.S.A. and went back to the U.K. We changed
labels at this point signing over from Virgin to our then manager Gerry
Young's independent label, Current Records which was distributed by what
was then RCA Canada. Although three videos had been produced by
Dindisc/Virgin, the video for "Danseparc" was the beginning of our creative
input into this relatively new art form. Throughout the years to come, we
made more videos, several of which were well received by fans and the
music industry alike.
By the time we were ready to make "Mystery Walk", many changes had been made. As live performance was of secondary interest to studio development and as we desired the freedom to incorporate many different musicians into the music, Mark and I, (being the songwriters), decided to go from a band to a duo and shortened the name to M+M, (M plus M). At this time we also formed our own music publishing company called Mystery Song. For this album Dan thought a new setting would be a healthy inspiration so we booked the Power Station in New York City. The New York element was very exciting as we had one of the funkiest rhythm sections around in Yogi Horton and Tinker Barfield. They were recently off the road with Luther Vandross and were quite a change from anyone we had worked with before. Dan was the one who suggested the Brecker Brothers for a horn section on "Black Stations/White Stations". (By the way, their horn line was taken from Tinker's bass line!) It all worked out extremely well and the song went to number two on the dance charts in the U.S. (We never made number one as Prince had that spot for weeks with "When Doves Cry").
This album also gave us the chance to - more fully develop an ongoing
relationship with David Piltch and Mike Sloski, our Toronto rhythm section
whose diversity worked very well with our eclectic songwriting style. We
were always somewhat concerned that the fact that we explored many
styles made it hard for the music industry machine to get a good grip on
who we were and how to promote us. Because we weren't pigeon-holed, we
seemed to always remain a fringe or cult band. Our writing we thought
was more European in flavour than North American and maybe we were
always a little ahead of the mainstream trends of the time.
This period also found us working on two inventive videos for "Black Stations/White Stations" and "Cooling the Medium" with director Bob Fresco. To this day people still remember and compliment us on these videos which after all is probably the best reward of all. We put a live show together for a very brief time. Opening for Eurythmics in N.Y.C. was great as Black Stations/White Stations had achieved such dance club success in that city.
Our next move was one that took us back to the English countryside to
record. After laying down the bed tracks at Le;Studio in Quebec with our
two Mystery Walk rhythm sections and our friend Dick Smith on
percussion, co-producer David Lord took us to Bath, England to his own
Crescent Studios where we worked for much of the summer of 1985 on
"The World Is a Ball". We were able to draw upon several wonderful
musicians working in Bath at the time, including Tony Levin, Ruby Turner
and Stuart Gordon. Other artists and producers. were living and working in
the area Including Tears for Fears, The Stranglers, Yan Morrison and of
course Peter Gabriel who happened to be working with Dan Lanois at the
time on his So album. No wonder Mark and I decided to ship our studio
over to Both a few years later and write our last album "Modern Lullaby"
there. We' ended up staying for almost three years. It was often hard to
confine ourselves to a small home studio when that beautiful city and its
surrounding landscape lay waiting for us to explore just outside our door.
Although we made great efforts to find a release for "Modern Lullaby" while living in England and subsequently in Los Angeles for the spring of 1989, it was towards the end of that year we decided to come home to Toronto to finish off the project. In one way this was a good move as we came back in time to do a film score for a Canadian feature-length movie and started to get some soundtrack Work In film and television. Mark also started doing some production on other projects.
We were happy for this new development in our careers because the release Modern Lullaby finally got was a disaster. Intrepid Records, a small Canadian independent label, released "Modern Lullabye" while, unknown to us, the label was in a state of financial collapse. Few people heard about the album, even in Canada, and after five years of working on the project, it was quickly a dead lssue. We produced three videos to support it in an attempt to gain some media attention but it wasn't in the cards. We still hope it may have another life up ahead as a lot of time and heartfelt effort went into it. At the time of this writing, we are still attempting to get possession of the remaining copies so that we can offer them for sale to our fans.
It's hard to say what lies ahead for Mark and me as Martha and the Muffins. Our attempts over six years to get our back catalogue released on CD has fallen on unsgmpathetic ears at BMG Canada and although we were pleased to see Virgin put out a compllation CD called "Faraway in Time", it was done without any input from us and from our polnt of view is an uneven overview of the first two albums while barely acknowledging "This Is The Ice Age". A new idea of ours is to re-record some of our best known and best liked songs for a Muffins album that would be both nostalgic and innovative at the same time.
A very important project of mine which I have been working on over the last few years is an album of childrens' songs called "Songs From the Tree House". It will be released shortly on our own Muffin Music label. my aim was to make music children and adults could enjoy together. It was lots of fun to do and I'm hoping it will make some people happy.
In parting, Mark and I want to take this opportunity to warmly thank all those supporters of Martha and the Muffins over the years. To those of you who wrote to us and still write, passing on your feelings of appreciation of our music and encouraging us to continue to write and record, particularily in these difficult times, please be aware that we have been and always will be greatly moved by your loyalty.
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