Music Review: Martha And The Muffins - Danseparc

There was a bad, and slightly disparaging, joke that circulated in the late 1970s early 1980s that asked how you could tell the difference between someone who was into punk and someone who was into new wave. The answer was that punks stuck safety pins in their flesh and new wavers wore pins of their favourite band's name pinned to their clothes. As an attempt at humour, it was pretty lame, but it was typical of the attitude, a sort of inverse snobbery, expressed by those who thought that learning to actually play your instrument, and not being willing to impale yourself with rusty metal, diminished your alternative credentials.

While it's true that by the mid to late eighties the commercialization of new wave and punk resulted in abominations like Duran Duran and other things. Like every other independent or rebellious trend in popular music in the latter half of the twentieth century, it wasn't long before the industry succeeded in packaging a homogenized version of punk/new wave that they could sell on the commercial air space. However that shouldn't blind people to the fact that many of the early new wave bands created music that was just as exciting and provocative in their own way as the punks. Blaming them for things like George Michael is like blaming Little Richard for Neil Sedaka or Grand Master Flash for Vanilla Ice. Creativity and originality have always been, and always will be, anathema to the music industry, and they will always find a way to eradicate and replace it with their own pale imitations.

Like the other metropolitan areas where punk and new wave music first reared their heads, the focal point in Toronto Ontario was an art collage. In Toronto's case it was students at the Ontario Collage of Arts (OAC) who formed the nucleus of many of the city's most innovative and exciting bands. While it seemed like almost everybody you knew in those days was getting caught up in the enthusiasm generated by punk and forming a band, (there were at least two in the high school I went to, one of which actually survived long enough to play gigs for a year at most of the local venues) very few achieved much more then gaining some local notoriety. One who was conspicuous by their success was the ingenuously named Martha And The Muffins

While, according to the band's web site, the name was only supposed to be a temporary measure for their first gig, it lasted for a number of years until being shortened to the M+M they currently go by. Their first year was typical of many bands of the era in that they went through a number of personnel changes before settling on the line up that appeared on their first release Metro Music which contained the international hit "Echo Beach". Ironically the album was recorded in England and initially the only way Canadian fans of the band were able to purchase it was as an import. Unfortunately, it also marked the beginning of the end for that version of the band, and in the space of a year, 1980, they had released their second album Trance and Dance, opened for Roxy Music on their UK tour, and, by December, lost two members of the band.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and The Unofficial Heroes Of Olympus Companion, both published by Ulysses Press. He has had his work published in print and online all over the world including the German edition of Rolling Stone Magazine and www.Qantara.de. …

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