I sat with a two-litre bottle of cider in one hand and a roll-up in the other, watching the video screen in my landlord Steve's living room. Roger Maynard, then a news presenter at BBC East in Norwich, was interviewing a young man. The young man, in his twenties, was dressed almost entirely in black, his thin face appearing more gaunt for a surfeit of smeared mascara. He lurched uneasily in his seat as he fielded the interviewer's questions. Did he think, asked Roger Maynard,

July 1979 - age 26 - a small residency on an American Air Base Having lost my home and my girlfriend, then rejected the idea of going to university, I was in a pretty nihilistic frame of mind. First, though, there were a number of gig obligations to complete. One problem which we faced was the financial hangover from our ill-fated EP Yaaah! from the previous summer.  Quite apart from the fact that in my mind at least, the NME had publicly laughed it out of town, we'd not even

The Cleaners From Venus will be performing this Autumn in London. Martin Newell will be on guitar and piano, joined by Nelson Surfquake Nice - an original member of Cleaners back in the 80s, and half of The Brotherhood of Lizards alongside Martin. The group will be performing some classic Cleaners songs, with a Brotherhood of Lizards cameo-set thrown in! Tickets here: https://link.dice.fm/Jeae6ca73fca