We Love the Beatles: "Victoria Grey" by Cleaners from Venus

Illustration from Famous Artists Course Lesson 3: How to Make Pictures, 1960

Part Four in our continuing exposé on artists who have shamelessly flouted the legacy of the Beatles finds Martin Newell in its cross hairs. Newell was the mastermind behind several underground pop projects in the '80s, including the Brotherhood of Lizards, Stray Trolleys, and Cleaners from Venus. A charming eccentric from Wivenhoe, England, Newell is often compared to other like-minded charming English eccentrics. Cleaners from Venus may be his most well-known group, composed primarily of just Newell and Giles Smith on piano. Their recordings are hard to find now, originally released only on cassette, but they are worth tracking down if you are interested in second-hand Beatlemania.

It's impossible to deny John Lennon's influence on Martin Newell's music, but it's also hard to isolate. Cleaners from Venus don't trade in early-Beatles Merseybeat or late-Beatles psychedelia - the sound is both more pastoral (a la the Kinks) and more modern (the synths are very New Wave). The sound of "Victoria Grey" is equal parts Soft Boys and Echo and the Bunnymen at first blush, but that's all in the arrangement. The lyric is pretty clearly about Margaret Thatcher, but the melody is classic British Invasion stuff. This Beatles influence really comes through if you listen to a collection of Cleaners of Venus stuff gleaned from their various cassette releases. I think the only one in print now is Living with Victoria Grey: The Very Best of Cleaners from Venus (only available as an import), but I would recommend it to people who generally like this sort of thing.

"Victoria Grey" by Cleaners from Venus