Cleaners From Venus – "13" (Man At The Off Licence – 013) 1990
At last, we come to the last Cleaners from Venus 100% DIY release,the
post-RCA debacle "13".Its more of the same from Martin Newell and crew,
catchy melodious psychedelic pop,very strong lyrically and musically. In
fact this is surprisingly excellent for 1990, as most groups had got
'luvved up' on E's; a subject nicely documented on track two on side
one. A horrible time for pop music, where the white man was seen dancing
like a bit-part extra in a zombie movie, and every drummer played the
same ten second sample from a James Brown lp over,and over,and over
again! Where even good groups like The Telescopes were turned on to
tambourines and stripy tops.Fucking really crap stuff!Refreshingly, The
Cleaners never were ones to follow trends,as with Punk,the same attitude
was applied to Mad-fucking-chester and the Baggy Beat. They still
churned out endless numbers of great tunes,like all the tracks on this
swansong for the Man at the Off Licence cassette label.While I have been
posting all this stuff by The Cleaners from Venus,Martin Newell etc; I
have seen the number of hits on this blog plummet by at least 30%! It
seems that this stuff ain't too popular with my regular audience, even
though it is probably some of the most ideologically pure DIY stuff on
this site.And they remained so long after the majority of UK DIYers had
packed it in.So don't worry,I will be returning soon to the copious
amount of Industrial cassettes that I have waiting in the
wings.......even though they all sound exactly the same as each other.
Its probably some of the least adventurous and formulaic musick ever
made; but you kids love it.......and so do I really.But I do feel the
need to slag it off for the same reasons I'd slag off boy band muzak. It
follows a generic formula that ultimately suffocates it,and makes it
sadly pointless; except that I'd rather eat Louis Walsh's shit than
listen to the illuminati owned and inspired sexual propaganda of crap
like The Wanted and One Direction.
"No Record Companies Please!"
Tracklist:
A1
The Jangling Man
A2
No Go (For Louis
Macneice)
A3
Mariette
A4
A Man For Our Time
A5
Here She Crashes
B1
A Street Called Prospect
B2
Minesweeping Memory
Lane
B3
Germayne (Like A
Cathedral)
B4
Boy From
The Home Counties
B5
The Tear Collector
B6
Christmas In Suburbia
DOWNLOAD lucky 13 HERE!
Dear Mr Z,
ReplyDeletewhat I like about your blog is being introduced to various kinds of music, discovering rarities from old favourites like the Cabs or even be confronted with ones musical heritage (hilarious Amon Düül). So thanks a lot for posting the Cleaners! There is nothing wrong with uhm... melodies and musical craftmanship as you already mentioned before.
Thats the purpose of this blog, apart from giving me something to do,and to flex my critical writing muscles.
ReplyDeleteAmon Düül.....OMFG.....i struggled to put it into words how bad on all levels they were.But i enjoyed doing it.
When i am relaxing I only ever play song based music,contrary to popular opinion I never eat my lunch accompanied by my fav Whitehouse album.I think I've played all my noise albums maybe one each in thirty years;but i appreciate them greatly as art objects.Or i play them to shock and annoy idiot i don't like, which maybe is the true purpose of them after all?
Many thanks for your comment.
WOO, the Cleaners From Venus uploads are back.
ReplyDeleteThis tape is the one I still had not downloaded and listened to. When I heard the first few seconds of the first track, I was instantly hooked.
I've finished listening to the tape just a while ago, and I want to listen to it again.
Yup, the cleaners from venus are fucking excellent, and so is this tape. In fact i'm gonna play it again now!
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate all your posts and uploads. Especially the Martin Newell stuff. Please post more of his stuff
ReplyDeleteThanks for this :)
ReplyDelete