Well, we have just returned from a most interesting and pleasant trip to Berlin, where we met with Martin Gordon Esq. to sign the license agreement for the exclusive cd release of the legendary Jet album, originally released in 1975 on CBS records. A large part of the trip was dedicated to the final digital mastering of the original recordings in Martin's studio, where we were indulged by quite a number of demos, outtakes and live rehearsal from Martin's private collection.
Most of these recordings will be included on the forthcoming Fan Mael Records release, which will be made available around X-mas time. With us, we took a comprehensive and most fascinating DAT tape containing 23 songs that we will process into a unique cd release, with the assumption that all tracks will be made accessible to everybody interested.
Those of you who are wondering what this release has to do with Sparks in the first place, will be pleased to know that we will shortly publish a full and detailed family tree, connecting Jet with the Mael brothers.
Martin turned out to be an extremely pleasant and interesting personality, not to mention quite charming indeed. Martin has never really left the music scene. After his recording career with Sparks, Jet, Radio Stars and the Blue Meanies, Martin dedicated his musical talents to a wide variety of artists, such as Robert Palmer, Kim Appleby, Rolling Stones and Chris de Burgh. Apart from that, he has been producing many artists recording Asian-orientated and World Music and more recently, the British indie band Tiger Lillies approached him to produce their currently available "Bad Blood Blasphemy" album, which should be very interesting to Sparks fans, according to Martin. He claims that this project was his best work as a producer so far.
Martin and Stef (pretending to ...) in the studio
For those of you wondering whether Martin still picks up his bass guitar every now and again, we can mention that only a few weeks ago he played a live gig in San diego with the infamous reformed John's Children. The current line-up of this legendary sixties band, which once included Marc Bolan on guitar, consists of original members Andy Ellison (also the Jet vocalist), Chris Townsen (drums, also in Jet), Boz Boorer on guitar (of Morrissey fame) and of course Martin on bass guitar. Ironically, Martin replaces former Sparks manager John Hewlett, the very one who was kind enough to leave him a subtle note informing him that his contributions to the further carreer of Sparks in 1974, were no longer required.
Between the time spent in the studio, Martin joined us every evening for dinner and frequent visits to the local Beer Gartens and Irish Pub, and we were even introduced to his lovely and very charming girl friend Anke, who was absolutely unaware of his impressive musical past.
We even persuaded him to bring his bass guitar to the studio to play a new version of Sparks' classic "Barbecutie" with the three of us but most unfortunately, time was against us and we never made it this far. However, we were promised that a next meeting will certainly include such highly original effort. We did however manage to shoot about an hour's worth of video footage on the weekend and numerous photographs, some of which will certainly appear on your local pc.
More specifics on the definite track list and release date of this second Fan Mael Records release can be found on our website shortly. The extensive booklet of the cd will most certainly include many snap shots from Martin's private collection, the largest biography on Jet ever published and a staggering version of the John's Children classic, Desdemona. It goes without saying, that the cd will also feature the infamous track that Martin once proposed to be included on the "Kimono My House" album, which almost certainly caused the unexpected and sad removal of Martin from Sparks.
To end with Martin's words: "The Jet file can finally be put to rest as the guilty ones have been named".
Carl, Ruud, Stef.
Martin begging that this was the last time anyone confronted him with his past