Q&A with designer Andy Martin

Central Saint Martins PhD Researcher and member of the Post-Grad Interest Group Subcultures Kevin Quinn interviews the graphic designer Andy Martin (also known as On-U Sound's art director) whose retro collage-style aesthetic has been seen on album sleeves in the 80s and 90s.

What links art school, bottle tops, the 1960s pop boom and counterculture press, punk, the British music press and wider media, audio cassettes and the personal stereo, surrealist poetry, neo-expressionist artist and spray-can empigrammer Jean-Michel-Basquiat and the anti-art movement DADA?

It’s not a ‘what’, it’s a ‘who.’  That ‘who’ is none other than Andy Martin.

Questions for Andy Martin

Hello Andy, who are you? What’s your background/education etc.?

What were your cultural influences growing up? What did you consume/what consumed you?

Having creative parents meant I was exposed to the idea of making art/music from an early age. I began collecting interesting litter at age 10, bottle tops, tickets, beermats, stamps etc. I would be the one getting up from the TV to make tea DURING the programmes. The ads fascinated me.

Being born in 1953 meant I was in pole position regarding the ’60s boom so I developed an almost unhealthy dalliance with all things ‘The Beatles’ ‘The Kinks’ ‘The Rolling Stones’ et al. I combined this interest with that of drawing and would try to capture by ‘drawing’ a song after catching one listen on the radio.

I was in London fully by 1977.  I joined mates squatting in Finsbury Park. Streets all squatted like some small independent state, co-operative concepts, cafe, music venue, nascent housing association and a great traditional Irish pub with swirly carpets and a lovely middle-aged landlady unfazed by her new clientele. I got casual work at the Rainbow theatre just down the road, cash in hand, painting the corridors high above the theatre with small workrooms turning out cheap fashion goods, the manager’s side hustle, I think. One girl pointed me towards the offices of Felix Dennis, Magazine publisher (of OZ fame). Her sister worked in the design studio, and I got a meeting set up where I failed to mention I had no experience but secured a trial gig. Felix took a punt on me, and we sealed the deal with swigs from a bottle of whisky he had in his desk.

I worked there for a year or so until my chaotic personal situation (unreliability, housing problems, candle burning both ends) resulted in Felix giving me £100, a drawing board and telling me ‘Now fuck off’.

This was a major kick up the arse and I’ll be forever grateful to Felix,

By 1979/80, I was again working for Felix as a freelancer and was there when he launched his stopgap music title New Music News (to fill a gap left by striking NME and Melody Maker offices). Edited by Mark Williams and staffed by various music journalists such as Mark ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ Ellen and Tom Hibbert, the paper only ran for a few months and never really found the right tone. However, I gained hands-on design experience and occasionally dabbled in wordplay, which sort of set me up for what was to come later.

The above image (r) produced pre-NME days for New Music News, Felix Dennis’ short-lived opportunistic strike-busting music title. This piece led directly to my meeting with Adrian Sherwood and the subsequent New Age Steppers sleeve commission (on-U Sound first release).

You went by the pseudonym ‘Bill Bell’, inspired by the counterculture artist ‘Barney Bubbles’.  What does working under an alias grant you?

The pseudonym came about because I was signing on at the same time I was doing bits of freelance work. Looking back, I can see the Barney Bubbles connection. Moses-like Barney held up the tablets for me personally; he was a huge influence on a whole swathe of designers and illustrators. Most shared a love of his influences, but only a few could match his output. Anyway, pseudonyms were all the rage and tied in neatly with that whole idea of conceptual reinvention, I saw my output as a part of ‘the wave’ almost like a band member and felt I should identify myself in the style befitting. It also gave me the opportunity to devise a logo of which there were many, one involving B’s made from rotated McDonald's logos.  I chose Bill Bell firstly because it made me laugh - it has a nice ring to it’ I would quip to anyone who’d listen.

Yes, after the occasional job assisting Caramel Crunch (Pauline Kennedy), whom I’d met through Mark Williams and an extended period covering for her, I was offered the permanent gig. I kept refusing, as my design practice was gaining traction, but I capitulated on the third time of asking, as I imagined I might regret not doing it one day. The money wasn’t great, but the fact that it was regular after the nightmare of freelance payments made up for it. I was only dimly aware of the shifting media landscape at that time; it was a slow creep of developments.

The main external elements, as I recall, were ex-NME editor Nick Logan launching The Face, and this meant suddenly the NME became slightly more style-conscious. Smash Hits setting up shop literally across the road (Carnaby Street) also meant endless soul searching around the ‘Meaning of Pop.’

Below 3 images, "Three NME special projects. Cassette compilations put together by Roy Carr and designed by me.”

The Sony Walkman also brought its own shift in the nature of how music was consumed, so cue Roy Carr’s NME Cassette projects (a high point for me design-wise). Broadcast media was onto it too, so gone were the two weekly music slots. MTV totally changed the landscape and gave prominence to the more consumer-friendly acts; in fact, for a period, MTV aesthetic threatened to take over the world. I made some idents with animator George Snow after I left the paper.

What did the NME excel and succeed at in your opinion?

The NME was changing. When I was a reader, the better writers could open doors to places we’d never had access to or had scant knowledge about. Humour was a big part of the appeal: Mick Farren, musical knowledge: Charles Shaar Murray. At the time, living in the provinces, live reviews were essential reading and conjured a very attractive world.  A good group of stringers also meant that ideas from outta town also got a look in. The letters page worked like a kind of forum, and even the crossword was worth a punt.

The birth of punk was in the hands of some of the best wordsmiths around. By the time I was working there the paper and the country had gone through major changes, Editor Neil Spencer navigated an increasingly complex scene with great skill, championing black music, supporting women, including and indeed emphasising Jazz (John Coltrane on the front cover - that must’ve been a struggle) and incorporating other cultural forms, Video reviews, Book reviews, environmental issues. All noticeably absent say four years previously.

Straight No Chaser: What was the ethos or energies behind that publication?

Straight No Chaser was the brainchild of Paul Bradshaw, NME contributor on all things Reggae/Jazz based. He had a rigorous knowledge of these matters - a youth worker with his ear firmly on the street where the NME feared to tread. I think Paul identified this gap in the cultural landscape, probably informed by the knowledge that the white media wasn’t talking to everyone. Witness the annual NME Readers Poll = Morrissey/Weller/Bono.

Your work with On-U Sound man and (d)ub(er) producer Adrian Sherwood and the New Age Steppers.

I was introduced to Adrian Sherwood in Felix Dennis’ offices. It transpired he had enjoyed one of my early collages produced for a Mothmen feature in New Music News. He asked me to produce the sleeve of his first On-U sound release, The New Age Steppers and handed me a demo cassette. I loved the whole sound of this immediately - I was up and down to Devon as I was in a band down there, so the design was put together there and sent up to London. I heard nothing back and feared the worse, but eventually I was sent ONE (1) vinyl copy and paid £100. Recently, On-U Sound has reissued it with extra tracks as part of their heritage releases. I follow Matthew Jones on Instagram he looks after all On-U releases and when he posted news of the repackaging I (cheekily) INSISTED that I be involved. It was a dream job revisiting this way of working and I produced what I consider to be a ‘bookend’ design to the reissue of Avant Gardening.

Your collaboration with the poet Ian MacMillan.  How did that come about and what propels it?

Ian occasionally filed live gig reviews from Barnsley, but it was through writer Andy Gill that short pieces began to be commissioned. I clipped one of these contributions and saved it for almost 20 years before tracking the man down and arranging a meeting in which we immediately struck up a bond. We share a common practice of repurposing material, Ian with text and me with imagery. Once a month, I send him five images, which he captions and returns with his five short captions, which I must then interpret graphically (which is often mind-bending). The original NME piece appears reimagined on page 83 of our book IDEAS HAVE LEGS. We have also produced two short films and continue to exist with an X/Instagram Everlasting Collaboration, words vs images. Sense vs Nonsense.

Your work is  included in an exhibition in Brighton coming up, please wax lyrically!

Ok, so Jonny Hannah is a leading UK illustrator and eccentric, we shared the same agent for many years. He’s having a show of his work The Darktown Film Club at Atelier Beside The Sea gallery in Brighton. He has also asked over 30 artists to contribute a reimagined film poster of their favourite movies. I have produced two collage works depicting one of my all-time favourite DADA films, Fernand Léger’s Ballet Mécanique. Made in 1923 it is an early of experimental filming with a mix of collage/ montage and live action with cinematography by Man Ray.

For details on the exhibition.

The Internet: equalising force or tranquilising farce? Discuss.

Both. The end.

Thanks, Andy!