– Martha & The Muffins, live at Spize – Farmingdale, N.Y. – May 3,1983 – WLIR-FM Broadcast –
Taking a small detour to the 80s tonight with a concert by Canada’s very own Martha & The Muffins. Recorded live by WLIR-FM at the club Spize in Farmdale New York.
An interesting band with a number of hits in their native Canada, but only one big hit outside their home turf. Echo Beach came early in their careers, but it was enough to keep them going for a number of years.
This concert comes from the 1983 period, where they were about to drop Martha & the Muffins, in favor of M+M and go through a number of personnel and style changes.
After a long layoff from being an active performing entity, Martha and the Muffins released a video and downloadable song in May 2020 called “Stay Home and Dance”. A reworking of the 1984 M+M track “Come Out and Dance”, the new song and video was released in response to the stay-at-home orders surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021 they released the compilation Marthology: In and Outtakes, collecting rarities and demo versions of past songs. At the same time they indicated that they were working on a new album, tentatively slated for release in 2022.
In retrospect, they were an underrated band and really didn’t deserve the lack of success they got during this period. They were a tight ensemble with some good songs and strong singles, which unfortunately didn’t click with audiences, particularly in the U.S. – you could chalk it up to a number of factors, but I think the main culprit was just bad timing.
At any rate- if you’re familiar with Martha & The Muffins, this may refresh your memory and prove they were a lot better than you were lead to believe. If you’re not familiar with them, here’s another example of a band with a lot of talent who deserved more recognition than they got – a problem that certainly isn’t new and most likely will be around as long as people make music.
