For more info, visit The Official Martin Newell Web Site run by the splendid Paul Wilkinson

Martin Newell spent 10 years as the main creative force behind the Cleaners from Venus before going solo. His first solo album to be released on CD, "The Greatest Living Englishman", was produced by Andy Partridge of XTC, who also played on the album. However, Martin has been creating home-produced albums on cassette for some time, and, unusually in these times of greed, actively encourages people to copy them from somebody else if they can't afford to buy them. His second solo CD, "The Off-White Album", also has some XTC influence in the form of Dave Gregory who plays guitar on most of the tracks. Martin release a new album October 2000 entitled "The Spirit Cage", and is rumoured to be working on more new songs. Watch this space...

Martin also embarked on a second career in recent years by becoming a poet, and you are as likely to find him on stage with a book in his hand as a guitar. His poems are regularly published in The Independent newspaper, and he has released several volumes of his poetry entitled "I Hank Marvinned", "Under Milk Float", "Illegible Bachelor", "Poetic Licence",  "Wild Man of Wivenhoe", and "New".

Martin enjoys a relatively small but dedicated following, and JARMusic has become the central source for obtaining his material. All of the original tapes are available (these are also available on CD), as are special vinyl versions of all his recent albums with exclusive extra tracks included. JARMusic has also released several special versions of work by Martin and The Cleaners from Venus as limited edition E.P.s, boxed sets, booklets, etc.

If you are new to Martin's work, then a good starting point is "The Greatest Living Englishman", the CD version of which has recently been re-released with two of the tracks which appear on the vinyl version. To sample the delight of The Cleaners from Venus, try the "Golden Cleaners" compilation CD.

The photographs above are taken from the "Don't Step On My Rainbow" boxed E.P. set.

Martin Newell, Cleaners from Venus, Home, Address