NEW OUR RECOMMENDED HIT LONKS ON THE WERLD WIDE WOB
Martin on Carl Seager's MYSPACE ---- Big Al Davies Feztastic
All The Latest Newells 2008 & 2007
GOLDEN AFTERNOON 2008 21st September 2008 Colchester Arts Centre
|
Paula Webster's belated report on this year's Golden Afternoon can be read, heard and watched here.
Because I used to love her but it's...
I had a fabulous if too-short time in the city of Bilbao
which I really took a liking to. First of all, those gigs in full. Friday 3rd October/ Studio Theatre of the Grand Theatre in Blackpool. Poetry. This is me Steve Tasane and Will Holloway, billed as the Three Incredible Talking Men Wednesday 8th October/ Princes Theatre Clacton...more
poetry and a bit of music in a gig called Carry On Poetry with fellow
poets Polly Enfield and Jude Simpson.
Right now, I'm looking forward to finishing these last few October
dates and having a bit of a think. Oh and in case you wondered, I
never did finish that house-painting job...
The colours of tired summer hang listless on the trees,
a cool wind ruffles your bear and the inscrutable slate sky seems
to giggle at you: Isn't it time you stopped pouting at yourself in
the mirror and did some work? The answer to this is course, Well
possibly...but just let me try on one more dress? Oh,and d First things second: The Golden Arvo
is coming up in a scant few weeks on SEPTEMBER 21st to be precise. You
can get info from Colchester Arts Centre on www.colchesterartscentre.com
or ring to book on (0)1206-500900. We've got special guests Lee and Kimberley and hopefully a few other
people too.
There'll be cakes, tea, ale and a welter (whatever that is) of music and other stuff. BBC Radio Four's programme Coward the Poet ran a week early on Sunday 24th. They didn't bother telling me. You can catch it on Sat 30th Sept again at 11.30 I think. There's only a bit of me on it. Switch your kettle on too slowly and you'll miss me. Very good programme though. I'm supposed to be making another BBC Inside Out TV documentary this month for screening in October. But I don't believe anything that anyone working in broadcasting says any more. Then I'm off to do one or two music gigs in Spain, straight after The Golden Afternoon. October Gigs: BOOKS: I'm going to start work
again on the only-a quarter-written Prospect of Wivenhoe II very soon.
Not out till Christmas 09 though. THIS LITTLE ZIGGY, my rock memoir, which has been out of print for about 5 years now, will be back in print this November. It will be more or less as it was but in a brand new cover and published by Wivenbook, who brought out Prospect of Wivenhoe 1, so well. MUZIC: Yep, I've got a small brace of new songs. Carl Seager and I will, if nothing goes wrong, be recording in early spring of next year for a follow-up to A Summer Tamarind. No surprise changes of direction or anything. You like me jangly, a bit psychedelic, lots of vocal harmonies, a bit of wackiness, plenty of cunning chord changes, verses, choruses and not too much production? That's what you'll get. Unless Simon Cowell suddenly decides he likes me and give me loads of money to bring out some rubbish. That's it for now. Hope to see some of you at The Golden Afternoon...or at least in the locked ward afterwards. Look...it's been great. Let's do it again sometime. JULIE NEWSLETTER ...well, I only had the Salade Nicoise and some extra chips, which
comes to about eight quid in all, oh and the two Nazzuro Astra and about
half a carafe of house red with the double cointreau chaser so I can't
see how my bill will be any more than about thirty. Look, let's add it
up again shall we?
July
and August I also
have to write some new stage stuff and when James Dodds is back from his
sojourn in America, we have to think about re-servicing This Little Ziggy
in time to get it out for Christmas. Those awfully nice bookshop ladies
at WivenBooks will publish it Jardine will just help me with the makeover.
With copies on Amazon going at nearly forty quid a pop, somebody's making
money out of this and it ain't me. So yeah, it looks like I've got some
spare time on my hands at last.
Golden
Afternoon (6)is on in about two or so months and although
we're not doing a new album till next year, I reckon it's about time I
started writing new stuff don't you? Shortly after the Golden Arvo, I've
got one or two gigs in Spain, it says here. More about that later. I pledged
to not work so hard this year and it's been the most workingest year for
years of years, so I obviously got that wrong. Date for BBC Radio 4 Noel
Coward programe about his poetry is 31st August about 3.00 pm.. I talked
loads but I don't know how much of it they'll use. A BBC TV programme about
culture in my region is being filmed in September.
One last
question I want to throw open to the panel: I recently had my long autumnal
curtains dry-cleaned and they look great. But they do smell a bit funny.
Any idea what that is, anybody? Does it eventually fade? Because it's driving
me nuts. Anyone else had this experience or worked in a dry cleaners before?
All replies treated in confidence.
NEW for Summer 2008 Cherry Red TV presents The Nartin Mewell Story June
and probberly a bit of July Newellsbetter
GIGULAR
MATTERS: Evening of July
5th, I'm on at St Albans Maltings Arts Centre.
THE GOLDEN
AFTERNOON (6) Colchester Arts Centre. (0)1206-500900
TV and
RADIO
BOOKS
CLEANERS
FROM VENUS ANTIQUES FAIR
Sorry
there's been scant bloggery lately. I really have been busy. I need to
let the well fill up again.
The Roy "Rojo" Jordan design for the Martin "Newell" model acoustic guitar
Merry May Mid-Period Newsletter type of thing.
After all the launchings and performances of the last two weeks, the book Selected Poems is finally out and can be ordered from james@jardinepress.co.uk . Or ring (0)1206-827798. Hurry up now, he's waiting for your call...quivering slightly, in a gingham-check babydoll nightie, under a four-poster, in the end bedroom off the main gallery. Gigular matters
PARIS IN JUNE: I'm not going. There is a perfectly good reason for this. Although my song On Lighthouse Way has been nominated for an award, you can't really hear it very well in the film. In fact you can hear the gasps and rustlings of the couple making love louder than the radio which the track jangles out of, while they're going it like badgers. Having said that, Primrose Hill is a stunning film. I'm not hurts about this, it's just that I'd feel a bit of a fraud going to the awards. How do I network that? " My track. Oh...yeah. It's that jangle coming out of the radio during the money-shot." And anyway... awards ceremonies? Come on. Not really me is it? Can I get on with my work now, please? I'm looking forward to a summer doing a few gigs, writing some music, finishing part two of A Prospect of Wivenhoe and making a couple more television programmes, they tell me. Hell, it's a living of sorts. But you never know what's round the corner, do you? www.martinnewell.co.uk is proud to associate itself with the YouTube channel Youmatico. Active content removed Active content removed More of Martin's videos can be found there.
Spring Newellsletter It's mid April, it's a bit cloudy, no it's a bit sunny, it's a bit warm,
it's raining again, oh no, wait a minute, it's stopped, no...it's nearly
sunny, it's cloudy, bugger, it's really pouring down, now it's cleared..oh
no, it's got really cold again etc etc etc. Ms B. is doing stuff to her
house, including ripping out that MC Escher-designed staircase that the
previous idiots put in. "It's simply hopeless, Binky," she wails: "I go
downstairs to the attic and find that I'm only halfway up to the top bedroom,
before I find myself on another flight going upstairs to the basement."
BOOK: A new poetry collection Selected Poems, the absolute worst of twenty
years of my work is due out round about 6th May. This is being published
by the great Jardine Press and has a helluvva foreword from femme doyenne
and all-round top woman of Essex, Professor Germaine Greer. I'm not kidding,
this is a hell of a bill. I even had to look up one or two of the words
she'd written, so copious were her notes. The book will have two launches.
TELEVISION: Shortly before all this happens, BBC TV East, Inside Out who brought you the Rock ferry documentary will be showing Miners, another slightly weightier documentary we made, which is about the 1984 Miners Strike and its effects on my town. I don't have a date for this yet but I think Fri 25th April BBC 1 about 7.30 is a likely date and time. We will keep you posted about this. Later this year it looks like we'll be making another programme too, for next autumn. MORE GIGS: I'm definitely performing at the Bath Fringe this year. Two gigs so
far...for Monday 2nd June and Tuesday 3rd of June. Venues and times as
they come in. Bath gigs are always fun. As some of you will know, that
was where I lived for 6 months, when I made the Englishman album, and we
also stayed there during the Brotherhood of Lizards Tour, so it's a bit
of a pilgrimage really.
MORE BOOKS: Work has begun on A Prospect of Wivenhoe (2). Out in November we hope. It's been going slowly but will get underway properly soon. I seem to spend all my time working. Is this what writers are supposed to do? SPOKE'N'WORD 2008: When summer finally gets here we'll be rejuvenating some sort of Spoke'n'Word tours. This year we'll be doing town tours and walks from pub to pub, because we think it might be more popular than the country walks and the 16 mile cycle rides in the pouring English rain. Meanwhile I continue to write weekly poems for The Sunday Express and
a column for The East Anglian Daily Times (p.10 every Saturday, 900 words
on life here in Essex, please Martin.) I really enjoy this stuff. And I've
even found time to start writing The Wildman blog again. Merry spring everybody.
Call anytime. We never clothes.
Beware the Newsletter of...MARCH It's March, the sun is getting stronger, the days are getting longer and the glistening banners and burnished shields of the enemy's serried ranks are only just over the hill in Frating, so let's get this great big underwired brassiere of a newsletter hauled off and get ourselves go-go dancing into the cage of all our trembling tomorrows. Yassuh! GIGS COMING UP SOON:
We've got Wivenhoe Librararary on the 26th of March for Essex Book Festival
GIGS IN THE MIDDLE DISTANCE: May 10th: Essex University Lakeside Theatre. Spoken word. June? BATH FRINGE FESTIVAL this will be a special gig to be announced, connected with the showing of the film IF.... I'll be doing a talk and telling some gags. There might be other stuff too, because it's my old friends at the Bath Fringe. More later on dates and times. July 5th : St Albans Maltings Arts Centre. Solo gig. I'm doing two sets. July 12th Rock in the Garden (tbc) This is a great little charity gig over the river in east Colchester which helps to raise money for an African village. And I've always wanted my own African village, so give generously, the shipping costs won't be cheap you know. August 2nd Rudry Village Hall. A whole evening of me in lovely south Wales. Big Al Davies is putting this one together for me. Yaay! .........................................................................................................................................
My own Selected Works is due out in spring on Jardine Press . We're
just waiting on foreword, proofs etc. More info when we have it.
Despite me trying to have a bit of peace and quiet, the phone keeps ringing, the mail still arrives and Ms B. keeps bringing new footwear into the house. So don't expect it to be too quiet for long. The blog's been raked out, re-set with kindling wood and is blazing nicely again. Not only that,our local estimable organ of truth and justice The East Anglian Daily Times, after a trial period, have decided they like me, so they're having me wrapped and taken home. My column size has been increased ( something Viagra never succeeded with) and I'm thriving on the work. So merry March to you all and see you on the massage board. Hep hep!. February Newell'sletter Hi Everyone,
GIGS:
Writing:
Musicals.
Merriage: Ms B and I are to marry. Probably not till spring of 2009. So don't
go out buying those flimsy provocative dresses yet, Paul and Steve.
TV: The Rock Ferry programme's BBC 1 broadcast date will be upon us soon and I start filming the Miners Strike documentary this week. In fact I have to work on it now, so goodbye. Blogs will start again soon Mwah! Love you. January
Newsletter and AGM
Gigs:
For some reason there are two coming up in Poole in Dorset. One on Thursday
14th Feb at Poole Yacht Club and another on the 19th Feb at The Lighthouse,
which is the Arts Centre. More about them in the next newsletter, when
I find out what the hell's going on.
Discs: A
Summer Tamarind seems to be selling steadily in its small way. Those reviews
we've had... and there weren't many in print.. have been very good. The
internet reviews have been mostly very good except for one guy in Australia
who hated the album and told us so. I don't think we've had any airplay.
So hardly any reviews and not much airplay. I'm obviously doing something
right, staying true to form, writing the wrong sorts of tunes, tackling
unpopular subjects and generally being me. If, after I'm dead, they all
start saying that they were fans all along, they're lying, alright? There
are times when I wonder why I bother doing any music at all. But mostly
I carry on, because I like it and I can't not do it. Anyway, this record,
in its few months of shelf-life, has already outsold the last one after
4 years of its shelf-life. Though that doesn't mean we've sold a lot. Carl
Seager and I may start another album next summer or autumn if Cherry Red
give us the go-ahead.
Books: Carrying
on my 'staying local' stance, my book A Prospect of Wivenhoe blithely shifted
over 600 copies in the 4 weeks up to Chritsmas from one local shop.
During this time A Big Book Chain, having been initially uninterested in
the book, ordered 20 and then two days later another 70. We haven't bothered
sending any review copies out to anyone in London yet, cos we couldn't
be arsed. But we possibly will do now. It's done very well. I'll probably
write a part two now for release in late autumn, but I don't want to thrash
myself as hard as I did last year so I'll take this one slower.
TV Stuff:There
is, as I mentioned, one TV documentary in the can, slotted for broadcast
sometime in spring and I start filming another in February ( this one about
the Miners' Strike). More stuff is in the offing. All of this for BBC TV
1 by the way.
M Francois Ribac has his new opera premiered in France quite soon. I have written some of the libretto. More info on this, when he sends me some. Happy New Year to Francois and Eva and Cathal by the way. Meanwhile, I find today, that my old book about the ghost dog Black Shuck is to be converted to a children's opera for 5 schools in Norfolk. Very excited about this. I'm waiting to see what they want me to do next, since it's being performed first week of May at Great Yarmouth Hippodrome ( a really amazing old venue.) Work continues for the Sunday Express and for the good old East Anglian Daily Times, where I'm now a columnist at large in Essex. Spoke'n'Word: I'm considering changing the nature of these guided summer tours. We'll probably try and run it out of the bookshop and do more general tours of this small town. These will be aimed at people who ain't necessarily as fit as a marine commando. We feel that the all-weather cycle and walking trips which we've done up until now, have a limited market, being slightly too strenuous for some folk and people would really rather have a shorter stroll starting with a pub and ending with one. But we'll still have a few site-specific poems and load of old chat from me. We're shirt-sleeving ideas around soon. Conclusion: I've made enough to continue being alive for another few months and I can still house Ms B's many shoes and my daughter's collection of plastic bags full of sparkly tops and Nintendo rechargers. Apart from my old man kicking off last November it was quite a good year. So I'm going to blow up a large balloon, have a sweet (probably an After Eight) and shout 'Hooray for Modern Life!' Now where are those 17th century death masks and my Sooty pyjamas? Celery.
December 2007 (not quite Christmas yet) Newsletter Hello then,
Gigs:
Spoke'n'Word CD.
Paul and I will try and get a special Christmas newsletter up er...near Christmas. I must fly... Martin
|
|---|
|
The... NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER GIGS
Christmas With Johnny Claarke, Martin and Young Married Luke Wright is on Friday 21st December 2007 at Colchester Arts Centre. To avoid disappointment don't ring 01206-500900 or check out www.colchesterartscentre.com Writery
I begin work soon as Essex columnist for the East Anglian Daily Times. The column is to be broadly humorous and about my home county. It is to be called The Joy Of Essex and will, I am told be featured in the Saturday East Anglian in all editions. Expect something not quite as rabid as the The Wildman of Wivenhoe blog, but something similar, if rather more carefully-written. In December, if all goes well, The newly-formed
Wiven Books will publish my book
Recordings
That's all. Merry 7 or
8 weeks before Christmas, Readers!
October October! and
get that musty old Ronettes go-go wig straight, we are gonna be doing a
formation hitch-hike routine all the way down those autumn days to winterland.
Hep hep...wowee! The Golden Arvo's over, Steve's gone back to Cologne...in
fact he's probably wearing those fetching lederhosen and treading grapes
in a big pine bathtub on the slopes of the River Mosel right now. |