The Cleaners From Venus - A Picture Of Emmiline (2021)

If there's one band that I've wanted to post on the blog since ever I started it, it's The Cleaners From Venus, but they don't release singles and so I couldn't do a b-sides collection, and they release regular best of's and rarities collections themselves. Recently, after a few years away, they are back, and they've been issuing EP's and albums through Bandcamp since 2014, so I can finally post something from them. The Cleaners From Venus started in Wivenhoe, Essex,  in November 1980, recording their music on minimal equipment, using cheap or sometimes home-made instruments. Lol Elliott and Martin Newell, both in their 20s at that time, didn't expect much to come of their chaotic endeavours and weren't particularly concerned about the matter, but a year or so later, equipped with a new 4-track Portastudio, their second cassette album received minor attention in the music press of the time. In 1983 Elliott moved to Bath in the west of England, leaving Newell to continue on his own, with guest members dropping in occasionally to play on recordings. Despite primitive production methods, The Cleaners from Venus gradually became known for high-quality song-writing, which leaned towards mid-1960's pop influences, driven by punk energy. 

Newell realised at this time that even when given access to better studio facilities, he actually preferred recording on 4-track machinery, and this discovery became an important factor in the Cleaners musical style. In 1985, a German record label, Modell, persuaded Newell to let them release the Cleaners fifth cassette album, 'Under Wartime Conditions' as a vinyl record, and it became something of an indie hit in Germany, even receiving a couple of good reviews in the UK. The band, now joined by a young keyboard player, Giles Smith,  made a promotional video and began recording their sixth cassette album, 'Living With Victoria Grey'. In spring of 1986, because of an earlier association, Newell became lyricist for Captain Sensible, ex-guitarist for The Damned, who at that time was enjoying a solo pop career. This collaboration led to a deal with a London record company, Ammunition, for whom The Cleaners From Venus made two albums. In 1988, The Cleaners From Venus Mk 2 broke up, with Smith becoming a newspaper journalist, and Newell returning to work as a gardener in his home town. Within a few months, however, he'd formed an acoustic rock duo, The Brotherhood Of Lizards,  with another former Cleaner From Venus, Nelson 'Surfquake' Nice. 

The pair soon secured a record deal with a new indie label, Deltic, releasing an album, 'Lizardland', and famously, in autumn of 1989, they toured England by bicycle to promote the record, gaining much media attention in the process. In early 1990, after Nelson accepted an offer to join the band New Model Army, Newell left music for a while to become a performance poet and writer, and he was soon regularly contributing his work to national newspapers, as well as appearing on TV and radio shows. For the next few years, with several books of his poetry published, he toured as a spoken-word artist, performing at theatres, arts centres and literary festivals, and during one of these tours he visited my hometown of Norwich, and because Martin knew me from our correspondence when I was buying his tapes, he crashed at my flat after the gig. He hadn't abandoned music entirely, however, and between 1993 and 2007, Newell also made six solo albums: two for Humbug Records and four for Cherry Red. The best known of these, 1993's 'The Greatest Living Englishman', was produced by XTC's Andy Partridge, and was well-reviewed, especially in the USA, and is now regarded as something of a rock classic. In 2010, he was about to settle down to writing another book, when once again, the unexpected happened. 

Somewhat to his surprise, Newell learned that the old Cleaners From Venus cassette albums he'd made almost thirty years earlier had become cult items. Over many years, fans of his music had copied and then circulated the imperfect recordings among themselves, sometimes posting them on the internet, in order to keep the band's name alive. I was one of those who have championed the band for the last 40 years, and still have every cassette tape that they recorded, mentioning Newell's name as an undiscovered genius whenever I could. By now,  small record labels on both sides of the Atlantic were taking an interest in these recordings, and with the bemused Newell's permission, began reissuing the records in small runs; sometimes in their original cassette format. Within a couple of years, nearly the whole Cleaners From Venus 1980's catalogue had been re-released on vinyl and CD by a New York label, Captured Tracks, whom Newell had appointed as licensees. In 2012, he acquired a small 4-track digital recorder and returned to making Lo-fi recordings, with these new offerings being released by a UK micro-label, Soft Bodies. 

Eight years and eight albums later, The Cleaners From Venus are better-known globally than they've ever been. In August 2019, 'Upstairs Planet', a film made by Graham Bendel about Newell's life, enjoyed its premiere in London's West End at the Regent Street Cinema. It was well-received, and a new documentary, 'The Jangling Man', was planned for a later release. Newell has been releasing albums and EP's through Bandcamp since 2014, and currently has 58 records for sale on the site. Some of these are EP's, featuring one or two tracks from an album, with a couple of unreleased songs filling them out, so this post collects the non-album songs from six of these EP's, spanning 2019 to 2021. A few of them are Christmas-themed, so it's perfect timing, and if you enjoy this music then I urge you to check out their back-catalogue, and discover one of the indie music scene's best-kept secrets of the past 40 years.   

Track listing

01 Clarendon Lane
02 Rudy Moon
03 A Picture Of Emmiline
04 Springtown
05 Could Be Christmas Eve
06 She's Mad About You
07 Queen Of The Green

08 Autumn's Doorstep
09 Flowers Of December (Down River Mix)
10 A Kitchen Porter's Tale
11 King Inglorious
12 Christabel's Party
13 Symphony In Cellophane
14 Love Shine A Light