All You Kids in Cardboard City, I Hope You're Having Fun...Martin Newell--The Greatest Living Englishman

Up in the misty minarets

Just picked up a copy of Martin Newell's The Greatest Living Englishman. I guess it's about time, after all, it only came out in 1993. But it is a terrifically good work of art, in the vein of what many before me have said; its reminiscent of Robyn Hitchcock, Syd Barrett, The Kinks, Fairfield Convention, XTC. If you enjoy those guys, you will have found a new kindred artist. It might be fairer to say that Newell has a foot in the Victorian Age, and another in our contemporary time. Which really means is that he has a historical background to being English, which is interesting to me because he brings something to the table that a band from Wichita or Sao Paolo would not bring; a sense of place, a context. It also helps that he really knows how to put a song together. Perhaps his comportment on this album as a 19th century top-hatted Dickensian character leads people to consider him to be an eccentric, but all I really focus on are the great songs and arrangements here. Lesser artists would kill to have a greatest hits collection this accomplished.



Originally helming the group The Cleaners From Venus, and performing in the Brotherhood of Lizards, The Greatest Living Englishman is Newell's first non-cassette solo release. Andy Partridge of XTC produced and engineered this album, and also played drums, and Captain Sensible has a cameo guitar solo on Green Gold Girl of the Summer. Probably my favorite song on here is She Rings the Changes, which sounds like a janglepop harmony overloaded classic from the 60's. I often wonder why current oldies radio stations stick to the script and don't play Robyn Hitchcock or Nick Drake--if it wasn't on hyper rotation 20 years ago you won't hear a peep. I know people have strong attachments to the music they listened to when they were young. I'm equally guilty of that. I hear great music like this and I wish there were more John Peels around. But I don't know, maybe great DJ's like that are only reborn again like the Dali Lama, with music fans forced to play "Teenage Kicks" to babies, searching for some recognition.

Where the good take on the Cloth
And the fallen join the Game

This album is full of gems, from the traditional folk of Home Counties Boy, the Kurt Weillish cabaret thumbnail slice of English life A Street Called Prospect. I was probably moved to post some thoughts on this album because as of this past Friday it is the Christmas season. We said our Thankgivings on Thursday--now its time to get the credit cards out. The eighth song on this collection is Bangle-y Christmas in Suburbia, and its one of the best original Christmas songs you could own. Every musician seems to have a Christmas album at some point, but most of these records wind up being throw away exercises, trading sales on their popularity. But a song like this, like Vibeke Saugestad's Christmas ep is a veritable needle in a bland vanilla haystack.



Another superb tune is Jangling Man, which is a beautiful criticism of injustice and poverty.

They're breaking glass and burning buildings
In the early greenhouse sun
The powers-that-be will blame extremists
And I may well be one
And all you kids in Cardboard City
I hope you're having fun
And all you voters everywhere
Will remember what you've done
Remember what you've done.


Great use of upper and lower case piano riffing on this tune. After The Hurricane is a string filled delight--the arrangement seems almost like a predecessor to XTC's Apple Venus recordings. The Greatest Living Englishman, the album's title track is another excellent track here, which no doubt effectively removed him from Sting's Christmas Card list. The Green Gold Girl of Summer is a lovely mildly psychedelic ballad with lots of cello. Straight to You Boy is a bitterly jazzy blues tune, with typically brilliant lyrics, referring to a beautiful woman as a perfumed stairwell, and a reckless engine, sparking madly. This is the real stuff.

So summing it all up, The Greatest Living Englishman is a fantastic album that probably most people are unaware of. Bearing in mind that I also believe Big Black's Atomizer or Primal Scream's Xtrmnatr or Foetus's albums are fantastic, so let me qualify my statement my adding that an album like this is has a more universal quality--an intelligent tuneful album that you could play in front of your granny. Martin Newell in addition to his musical career is also an author, poet, and journalist, having a regular column in the East Anglican Daily Times. He has written a memoir entitled This Little Ziggy, and a good number of poetry collections, including a best of published by Jardine Press. A number of Newell's albums have been released on the Cherry Red label, including Wayward Genius, which includes, solo, Brotherhood of Lizards, and Cleaners From Venus tracks. Definitely an artist worth your perusal. Basic economics dictates that incentives create positive outcomes, so if you want artists like this creating music, they need our support. A little Martin Newell would be a wonderful stocking stuffer for a music fan or anglophile you love!