Introducing MARTIN POTTLE!!!
At Bishop Otter College in Chichester I met Rod Paton (see I.Ds on this BandCamp) and also… Martin Pottle (the Tinram) of “the Ministry of Lungs”; bad shepherd of the “Shagnasty Nerris Sheep” and presenter to the college canteen the squashed hedgehog sandwich. Martin hails from Gosport, where there must be weird stuff in the waters for his friends have a secret Medivada society with it’s own language, strange names such as “The Shelf” and “The Human Nail”, and endless (?fictitious) band names such as “Ellis Banunu’s Large Trouser Orchestra”…
Martin played double bass, bass guitar, and guitar and is an accomplished church organist (he played in Rod’s monumental “The Jazz Mass”). He is also an absolute outsider genius for spontaneous lyrics made up on the spot (as you can hear on “The Shoe Song” for example). He is also full of genuinely surreal ideas: the “Corpse Organ” was a concept born out of an alcohol fuelled discussion regarding the possibility of “music after death” and other posthumous sound production possibilities.
Madness begets madness and Martin and myself machine-gun each other with barrages of bizarre ideas aplenty and thus this music came about. In this music toys, car horns and guttural noises are as important as the main instruments. I would go as far as to say we might have invented our own genre: “Folk in Opposition”, “Da Da Freak-Skiffle”, or perhaps the “Very Outsider’s Knob and Jugs Band”.
Some references- “Kate Bush’s bra”: this stuff was recorded in my bedroom at my parents’ place in Ranelagh Villas in Hove and her poster was on my wall. “Speak you deaf mute! This baby is broken: send it back!”: my nephew Julian (then a toddler) came in the room; he was in danger of being played as an instrument. “Wendy Thruggrift, Aaaagh!!!”: Martin’s muse…
The album features my Veena (bass-guitar equivalent for the sitar) which also appears at the end of Captain Sensible’s “Mad Cows and Englishmen” album. On spotting that Martin suggested a “tribute” to Ravi Shankar (I can only apologise to the great man!)
Most of the tracks are led by Martin apart from 1, 11, 13, 16 and 19 by me. The medley also features Alasdair Willis of the Vitamin B12. Also at the end of “Griddle 1” comes the “wind quartet” that used to be the ring tone on my mobile.
Warning: this music is seriously hard-core mania, by this warning I absolve myself of any responsibility for any cognitive disorder that might ensue (or laughing yourself to death), ENJOY!!!