Ghost Trains on a Track Down Memory Lane
Martha-Standing Where It All Began - Singles and B-Sides: 2012-2025 (Specialist Subject Records)
It took a fraction over an hour and forty minutes to get from the front door of the house I lived in Shrewsbury in the early 2010's to the bar of The Victoria in Birmingham. I know this because it's a journey I made dozens of times. Brum was the nearest city putting on indiepop gigs, it wouldn't be long before I was going to shows all over Britain and promoting the occasional gig in Shrewsbury myself (the panic of trying to find bits of drum kit, amps and kettle leads and shitting yourself in fear that no-one would turn up was both physically draining and righteously addictive) but for now the Vic, Ort Cafe and the ubiquitous Hare and Hounds were my source of live indiepop action. I could watch the gig and have enough time to buy a t-shirt and, depending on the venue, treat myself to three slow or two very quick pints of Guinness in the Crown on Station Street before going up the pissy steps to platform 4A of New Street for the last train home*. The train, the notorious 'stopper', would more likely than not have carriages full of happy, sweaty and pissed people clutching tour posters from various gigs around the Midlands. The noise from the drunken shouting would be absolutely deafening, but would normally settle down around Codsall allowing a swift nap before getting back to Salop and about 5 hours sleep before work the next day. It was a genuinely idyllic time.
From attending so many Birmingham gigs it was impossible not to cross paths with locals Ace Bushy Striptease, who I got to see loads of times and loved them a little bit more after each show. They were a brilliant band and incredibly lovely people who would happily have a quick chat pre show or between sets to recommend bands, TV show, comics and vegan chocolate bars. It was during one of these chats that I first heard the name Martha. It was far from unusual for them to advocate for small up and coming groups ('I saw them supporting XXXX, I think you'd really like them') and I don't think I ever heard them slag off a band unless the musicians were being wankers (and even then it was about the people and not the music) but Martha were talked about in hushed tones of reverence and awe.
When I did finally see them (in Birmingham of course, at a queer indiepop night called Goldman Dancing), I thought they were OK. I can't remember if they had run out on the merch stall or I had run out of time to buy one, but I had to send off for a copy of their first EP via the Discount Horse mail order. I put it in the CD player expecting a similar tepid response to the gig. The CD didn't leave the player for about six months. I played it again and again and again until every chord, lyric and note had entered my soul via osmosis. I absolutely and unashamedly loved the EP. OK indeed! What an idiot I had been.
So yes, if I wasn't there for the very start, I was somewhere damn near. And I say that not as a poseur or as proof of indiepop provenance, but to reassure the new generation (and Martha seem to have this lovely thing were the couple of years between releases seem to garner a new following of 20 something queer misfits. It's a joyful situation, one you can imagine Kurt Cobain wanted instead of his gigs being attended by rows of bro's with backward baseball caps and bottles of Bud) they have not missed the glory days, and they will hear no sucking of teeth and 'Well, they are great but man you should have seen them in 2013'.**
Back in the day it seemed absolutely unthinkable that they would write a song as good as Smiling Politely and it seemed rather cheeky to expect them to do so, but of course they have, over the years Martha have produced banger after banger, songs to fall in love with, songs to reassure and sympathise, songs to soundtrack your very existence and lyrics powerful and beautiful and moving enough to tattoo onto your arm. Truly, these are the songs that saved your life. For a small but mighty corner of the musical universe the line 'You lost your lucky purple lighter/on the Megabus to Brighton' means more to them than 'There is a light that never goes out' or 'Love will tear us apart' ever did.
Specialist Subject records have released Standing Where It All Began (2012-2025), a very beautiful and incredibly handy collection that includes the first EP in it's entirety, the Sycamore single and B-side as well as host of B-sides, deep cuts and covers. It's a blessing really, as Martha's early material is getting increasingly hard to track down. You can hear pretty much everything via the bands Bandcamp but actually owning in it is proving more difficult. The original Discount Horse CD EP is going for silly money on Discogs, and the 10” reissue on Tuff Enuff (released three years after the CD and an absolute god send to DJ's) goes for even sillier prices. But every home should have these songs.
The Martha EP was pretty much immediately taken to the bosom of the indiepop community. On the surface, this seemed something of a mismatch-the stripy-topped Walter the Softies aligning themselves with the Durham Menaces-, but Martha and indiepop really do compliment each other. Both thrive on inclusive, friendly, and cheap venues and tiny, day dreamy record labels. And, of course, a mutual adoration of the first Housemartin’s LP.
The main reason people fell in love with the Martha EP is simply because the music is so brilliant. They were initially (fairly lazily) compared to Big Star/Buzzcocks with their amalgam of pop and punk. But actually the songs are based on an almost Motown formula-No messing around rhythms, a chorus to shout along to and a heart that is almost defiantly joyful. So far so pop, but This IS a political band, presenting their politics in stories about the everyday. These are tales about the crushed, and those who kick back, sometimes the same person in the same song.
The fore mentioned 1978, Smiling Politely, which on my CD player sounded like a gum chewing, dusty, sun dappled anthem or a paranoid ode to a road trip which pushes the pedal to the floor in the hope the velocity of the car will keep a relationships flame alight. But it's in fact a tribute to the incredibly inspirational poet /activist Audre Lorde. Lorde gained as many critics as supporters by confronting racism within the feminist movement.
"What you hear in my voice is fury, not suffering. Anger, not moral authority" she told her critics. Throughout her life, and after her death in 1992, she has inspired and educated through her essays and poetry. (Anyone who has had their interest piqued by Martha name checking of this artist should start with Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches)
And Gretna Green. Is that simply a song about wistfully looking back on lost love and chilly regret? Not quite. Gretna Green (the place) is just over an hour away from the scene of the Quintinshill rail disaster. In May 1915, two signal men were due to overlap their day and night shift. However, George Meakin and James Tinsley had come to an arrangement. There was a train going from Carlisle to Beattock that would go from Gretna to Qunitinshill, thus saving the man doing the early shift the mile and a bit walk. However, this would have the man arriving for work at 6.30am and and not 6. As the men rotated shifts, the came to an arrangement where the men would fiddle the records and get an extra hour in bed.
Tinsley and Meakin were discussing the war with two brakemen in the signal box when a local train fireman signed the train register without carrying out his duty by reminding the signalmen that his train was on the Up main line. Three minutes later, the first two of five trains would collide on the same junction. The collision and resulting fire injured 246 people and killed a further 226, mainly soldiers of the Leith Battalion of the Royal Scots.
Seemingly, the song is about someone waiting for their lover to arrive so together they could wed at the nearby Blacksmiths Shop (where young couples had wed since 1754) or at the very least eloping together. But tragically one half of the couple had died in the rail disaster, leaving the other half eternally waiting. The line calling marriage a patriarchal scam and the fact most of the fatalities where young men in the armed services it would appear the song was written from the point of view of a young woman. It's hard not to wonder what she did with the rest of her life.
The wonderful Sycamore is represented too, originally pressed by Oddbox records and repressed on Discount Horse. Also represented is it's wonderful B-side Lost Without You with it's telling last line 'Those Four Tops said it best/”I can't help myself'. The Smiths and Motown were major influences on Nathan at this time, which may account for happy music/sad lyrics dynamic to Martha, as it's something all three share. Also worth having as the ace 'Standing Where it all Began', possibly the centre piece to the album, with it's 'I want to tell you how I feel, but I don't want you to know’ refrain and last dusted off on the 2018 Love Keeps Kicking tour, introduced as 'A really, really old song'.
It's also lovely to see the wonderful Clatty Harriet get an airing. Released on the Spoonboy split and on the Nobody's Business compilation. The latter released by Candy Twist is an interesting snap shot of 2014 indiepop and contains tracks from Hobbes Fanclub, Felt Tips and the Discount Horse oppo's Colour Me Wednesday. It was compiled by Dennis Greeuw, whose Candy Twist fanzine offered a slightly more philosophical view on indiepop. I wrote for a couple of issues, but it was always an absolute thrill to have a copy land on your mat.
There's also a host of covers from everyone from Jimmy Eat World to Allo Darlin and a Lemonheads cover I'd never heard before.
Simply put this as an absolutely essential purchase, Martha's Hatful of Hollow that will thrill the Martha newbies and older heads in equal measures. The creaking train home may be emptier these days, but this record will make sure our hearts remain full.
***
*The pissy steps, perhaps thankfully, are long gone, lost to the multi million pound overhaul of New Street Station in 2015. The Crown is still there, just. It was due to be demolished, but saved via a grade two listing due to it being a kind of Brummy Cavern, hosting early gigs by Black Sabbath and Robert Plant. It currently sits vacant and boarded up while people decide what to with it.
** Noel Gallagher (a man I've tried desperately hard to stay neutral about because his mere existence seems to cause hernias in the elderly indiepop community) said in a fairly recent interview that if your saw his band towards the end then you haven't seen the real band, which strikes me as a particularly shitty and tactless thing to say to people who have spent hard earned money on seeing you perform.