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| The
story of England's first true electronic pop group begins
in the industrial South Yorkshire city of Sheffield, in
the early 1970s. |
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Ian Craig Marsh (pictured right, born 11th November 1956)
joined the local civic youth theatre group, Meatwhistle.
Here, he met Mark Civico, with whom he would form a satirical
'theatre-rock' group named Musical Vomit. |
| They
played just two shows together, Ian accompanying Mark's
vocals by coaxing noise from his cheap Woolworths guitar,
before Ian was expelled from his school halfway through
his A-level studies, having been branded 'an undesirable
subversive element'. |
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At this point, Ian left Musical Vomit and Meatwhistle
in search of work, though Mark kept the band going in
various forms, recruiting other Meatwhistle friends such
as Paul Bowers, Haydn Bowes-Weston, Adolph 'Adi' Newton,
Glenn Gregory and newcomer Martyn Ware.
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| Martyn
(pictured below, born 19th May 1956): "I'd been working
as trainee manager at Sheffield and Ecclesall Co-op, when
a friend took me down to Meatwhistle. I walked in wearing
white flares, white t-shirt, silver platform boots with
five inch heels and a diamante cat collar. We're talking
heavy Kiss now, that was the image. Gary Glitter, T-Rex."
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Glenn: "I remember it vividly. I knew immediately we'd
get along well. I was wearing jeans with 24 inch bottoms
and gold baseball shoes." Around this time, Martyn bought
his first musical instrument - a Stylophone. Not just
any Stylophone, but the deluxe dual-stylus Stylophone.
This purchase was a direct result of Martyn trying to
play guitar and finding it made his fingers sore; the
Stylophone (as used and advertised by David Bowie around
the time of Space Oddity) seemed a much more civilised
route towards music-making. |
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Before long, he was onstage at the Bath Arts Festival
with a new line-up of Musical Vomit, performing numbers
such as Denim Mind and Whip King Of Mars
to an audience of bemused hippies. Glenn: "We lasted all
of two minutes before the hippies started showering us
with bottles and cans." |
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| Meanwhile,
Ian had found work and was able to afford the do-it-yourself
synthesizer kit he'd seen in the local library's copy
of Practical Electronics magazine. Having bought
and constructed the primitive synthesizer, he struggled
to get it to work particularly well, though "it made
very good motorbike noises". |
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afterwards, he returned to Meatwhistle, taking his synthesizer
with him, and was persuaded to play the instrument with
the ever-changing line-up of Musical Vomit. |
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| Various
other bands would emerge from the Meatwhistle group, all
with 'colourful' names, such as The Dead Daughters, The
Underpants, Dick Velcro & The Space Kidettes, Androids
Don't Bleed, Totem Pole, The Hari Willey Krishna Band
and Arthur Craven's Tent Band. Each of these bands played
together at least once, usually on Sundays in a small
room known as Simon Scott's Kit Kat Club. |
| However,
Musical Vomit seems to have been the primary musical collective
from this scene, as in 1976, they were booked to appear
at the famous Reading rock festival. Here they were spotted
by future X-Ray Spex leader Poly Styrene, who would later
claim Musical Vomit were the very first punk band. |
| Martyn:
"Sheffield engendered a certain desperation to get
on with something different and creative, 'cause really
there wasn't a lot happening. It was a place of great
depression at the time, 'cause of all the factory closures. |
| "I
was desperate not to replicate my father's life, 'cause
he worked in a steel works for fifty years... my father
had to retire early through ill health, probably through
inhaling metal filings through most of his life, and got
a gold watch and no pension.... so I was going, 'This
is outrageous, I am never going to be in this position
again'. This was my motivation." |
| By
1977, both Ian and Martyn were working as computer operators
(for tool manufacturers Spear & Jackson plc and auto
parts distributor Lucas Service respectively). Martyn:
"I'd just started working in a well-paid job and
I've got some spare cash for the first time in my life...
what shall I spend it on? The first commercial synthesizers
- cheap ones - were just coming onto the market, and so
I went and bought one." |
| Martyn's
first synthesizer was a Korg 770S and it was quickly put
to use when he, Ian, Adi and other Meatwhistle members
formed a one-off band to play at a friend's 21st birthday
party. |
| Ian:
"We played under the name of The Dead Daughters or
something. Very strange. There was a guitar, a drummer,
my synthesizer and loads of tape loops, all being put
through various effects units. We did things like the
Doctor Who theme tune and Louie Louie." |
| Adi,
Martyn and Ian enjoyed the experience and decided to form
a new band together - The Future. |
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