MARTIN GORDON - selected biographyBassist / songwriter / record producer / Berlin-resident Martin Gordon began his career with eccentric Californian pop band Sparks, after they ditched their fellow countrymen and moved to London to acquire some musical muscle and a little Englishness. Their treacherous move paid off handsomely with the monster success of the album 'Kimono My House' and singles 'This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us' and 'Amateur Hour'. Martin played bass, provided most of the arrangements and was dismissed shortly thereafter for obstreperousness. No matter - he picked himself up, dusted himself off and climbed aboard the 'sparkly bandwagon of glam-rock just before the wheels fell off and deposited the occupants in the cosmic ditch'. Less cynical observers today describe the band Jet, his vehicle of the time, as the seminal oompah-glam supergroup; Jet's sole (Roy Thomas Baker-produced) LP is today available on CD and has been hoisted into the musical firmament as 'a near-perfect slice of fun', to quote one enamoured listener. Following a disagreement with the record company of the time (over Martin's proposal to record all the songs on the second LP as a single continuous piece of music, admittedly not the most sensible idea), the band were shown the door. Pausing at the threshold for the briefest of moments to change their name to Radio Stars, they found a home at Chiswick Records and found instant acclaim: 'Radio Stars stick out from the fetid morass of garage bands like Nureyev's whatsit through his leotard. Jeez, not only do these guys play real good'n'snappy bop-a-long rock, they've got a fistful of ace tunes and there's not a whiff of pretension about them. Their synthesis of all that was right and proper in the T.Rex / Lennon-McCartney / Neil Innes scale of things makes for laudable and laughable (as in loveable) listening'. Two years of intense touring and recording took their inevitable toll and various parties fell out. As the songwriter and producer of the band, Radio Stars did not survive Martin's enforced departure, despite (or rather because of) the attempts of the lead singer to turn the band into a third-rate heavy metal pastiche. Martin embarked for Paris, where he worked as house producer with Barclay Records, and sat in with the Rolling Stones on a few occasions when their bassist was otherwise engaged. Upon his return to the UK, he released 'Pop Sensibility' as the Blue Meanies and then hit upon the considerable more lucrative concept of working for other people. Among those who used Martin's services as keyboard player, programmer, producer, co-writer, arranger and washer-up are Kylie Minogue, George Michael, Boy George, Blur, Primal Scream, Robert Palmer, S'Express... the list continues. In the early Nineties, Martin was invited to Bombay to work with Boy George, a plate of blancmange and assorted queens on a project recorded in the music studios of Bollywood. And so he found himself working with such stellar figures as Asha Bhosle and Sultan Khan. Their status was unbeknown to him at the time however, coming as he did from the closeted, mono-cultural world of European rock'n'roll. Bombay opened his eyes and ears to a wider musical world, and he and his career took a turn towards 'world music'. Since that time, he has worked with a dazzling array of talented musicians from around the globe (not least his own world/pop project Mira). A recent high point was a stint with Turkey's iconic Sezen Aksu, with whom he made the CD 'Sarki Soylemek Lazim'; he then played bass on her European tour. Live performance was not something he had entirely left behind, both with English proto-punks John's Children (who, in their reincarnated '90s form, enlisted his bass-playing skills) and with an astonishing 21st century revival of Jet, who briefly toured Europe and recorded the live CD 'Music for the Herd of Herring'. Not to be outdone, John's Children still emerge once a year for a quick retirement gig, whether it be in San Diego in the US, Cattolica in Italy or London's Camden Town. When lengthier periods of performance with Sezen Aksu proved to be an enjoyable and evocative experience, Martin decided to dive nose-first back into the stinking morass of rock'n'roll. His first solo CD The Baboon in the Basement was released in 2003, The Joy of More Hogwash in 2004 and God's on His Lunchbreak in 2005. 2006 saw these three combined as a box set (The Mammal Trilogy), as well as a best-of (How Am I Doing So Far?). The fourth part of the trilogy was released on September 1st 2007, following his solo debut on Boston MA.It only took thorty years. Well, one doesn't want to flood the market, you see. Keep 'em wanting more. |
MARTIN GORDON JOHN'S CHILDREN JET 2000 MIRA BLUE MEANIES RADIO STARS JET SPARKS  |