Howling At The Moon...Or Letting The Moon Howl At Us?

If you are a confirmed One Buck Head with some history of visiting here, you might remember that the point where power pop and New Wave intersect is a sweet spot of mine, as evidenced by OBG-compiled anthologies on Martin Briley and Randy VanWarmer that cover these guys' New Wave adventures. So it would seem surprising to you, that until a year and a half or so ago I was relatively unaware of Moon Martin. Probably heard the name, and I knew of course "Bad Case Of Loving You" via Robert Palmer and "Cadillac Walk" via Mink De Ville, but other than that...not much. So give a virtual hand to your music blog buddy and mine, Jonder, who mentioned Martin repeatedly in comments here, until I got my butt in motion to check out Mr. Martin. He also provided the albums of Martin's latter years over at Jonky's. Good job, J-Man, because Moon Martin does indeed rock, and the One Buck Record of the day is out to prove it.

Since the One Buck Guy is not one for doing things half-assedly, today's offering is another two disc proposition, with two drastically different listening experiences. Disc One, Crescent, is - as the subtitle suggests - presenting a Moon on the rise and focuses on Martin's heydays in the late 70s and early 80s. Crescent mainly draws on the first three albums he issued for Capitol, which arguably present his best work. 1982's Mystery Ticket and 1985's Mixed Emotions get a representative selection each - the former's clear highlight "Don't You Double (Cross Me Baby)" and the latter's "Short Skirts - but were decidedly weaker stuff. After Mixed Emotions Martin was dropped by Capitol and took a big break before a low-key return in the early 90s. 

Selections from those very low-key comeback efforts on small and mini labels throughout the 90s make up the second disc, Decrescent, which, well, show a moon (arguably) in decline. While I was happy to comb through those recordings from the 90s courtesy of Jonky's, and there's quite a bit to like here, they were also a step down and a step away from Martin's imperial phase. One thing that jumped out was that Martin would take the same songs - sometimes in exactly the same recordings - from mini-label to mini-label, so the overlap of songs is, uh, overkill. Do we really need three almost entirely same-sounding versions of Dylan's "Stuck In Mobile (With The Memphis Blues Again)" from Mr. Martin? I don't think so, so I picked what were the best-sounding versions to my ears and left it at that.

Another thing about those llatter-day recordings was that Martin, like many aging artists, discovered or redisvovered his love for the Blues, which I personally don't think is his strong suit, so I really only picked songs I liked and came up with a lean 12 song less-than-an-hour sequence that gives you a good overview of what Mr. Martin was up to in the 90s, far away from prevailing music trends or the public eye. Just to give you an idea of how low-key that 90s return was: His comeback record Dreams On File was issued by FNAC Music, FNAC being a French electronics store chain with, at least at the time, a huge music selection, and FNAC Music being their in-store label. Anyway, for those keeping records, Decrescent's track list breaks down as follows: Tracks 3, 5, 6, 9 and 11 come from Dreams On File; 1 and 4 from Cement Monkey; 2, 7 and 12 from Louisiana Jukebox, and 8 and 10 from Lunar Samples.  

So, that's a lot of Moon Martin coming your way. I'm glad to have discovered Mr. Martin, and so will you, if you don't know him yet. Even if you know him and are a fan, Full Moon will serve as a handy primer either way. So let's howl at the moon have the Moon howl at us...