Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Echo Beach (1980)
The transition from the '70s to the '80s was exciting for those of us who were around at the time. It felt like we were moving into a more futuristic decade, although a lot of that was built up by science fiction and movies like Star Wars. Another shift was in music, where the rock dinosaurs of the '70s were losing some (not all) traction to new wave and post-punk acts. Keyboards and synths were in vogue, guitar solos not so much.
In Toronto, where I was a 12-year-old voraciously listening to top 40 radio, some of these new sounds were becoming popular: The B-52s, Gary Numan, Devo, Madness. And then a local act came out of left field with a catchy little song that caught fire around the world (if not the U.S.).
Martha and the Muffins was formed in 1977 when Ontario College of Art students David Millar and Mark Gane decided to start a band. They got Martha Johnson as lead vocalist and keyboardist, Carl Finkle on bass and Gane's brother Tim on drums. The band was chosen as a counterpoint to the aggro names of many of the Toronto punk bands at the time, with plans to come up with a better name at some point. Millar left the band in 1978 and was replaced by Martha Ladly, who played keyboards and sang backup vocals.
After independently releasing a single, they scored a record deal with Dindisc, a U.K.-based imprint of Virgin Records. The band traveled to England in 1979 and recorded their debut album Metro Music, which was released in February 1980.
The first single was "Echo Beach," a song written by Mark Gane about his experiences working at a boring job (in his case, in a wallpaper factory after his first summer at art school) and dreaming of being somewhere else. The song starts with a circular guitar riff before Johnson comes in on the Ace Tone organ; Gane said he was very influenced by Roxy Music, both lyrically and musically.
"I know it's out of fashion, and a trifle uncool/But I can't help it, I'm a romantic fool/It's a habit of mine, to watch the sun go down/On Echo Beach, I watch the sun go down/From 9 to 5, I have to spend my time at work/My job is very boring, I'm an office clerk/The only thing that helps me pass the time away/Is know I'll be back at Echo Beach someday."
Gane came up with the second verse when hanging out on the shore of Lake Ontario and seeing the city skyline at night.
"On a silent summer evening, the sky's alive with lights/A building in the distance, surrealistic sight/On Echo Beach, waves make the only sound/On Echo Beach, there's not a soul around/From 9 to 5, I have to spend my time at work/My job is very boring, I'm an office clerk/The only thing that helps me pass the time away/Is knowing I'll be back at Echo Beach someday."
Sax player Andy Haas provided the solo before the extended end section. Johnson has said she had a cold when the song was recorded, and the final line "Echo Beach, far away in time" (which was repeated many times) made her voice sound a little deeper than it actually was.
While there are many Echo Beaches in the world (including in Saskatchewan and Australia), Gane has said he just made up the name.
The song never clicked in the U.S., but it hit #5 in Canada, #6 in Australia and #10 in the U.K. and it won the Juno award for Single of the Year (the Canuck equivalent of the Grammy Awards). Martha and the Muffins ended up opening for Roxy Music that year at Wembley Arena and in Glasgow, but then Bryan Ferry got sick and the rest of the tour was cancelled.
The band released their second album, Trance and Dance, in October 1980, but it didn't have any hit singles. Ladly left the band, followed by Finkle, who was replaced on bass by Jocelyne Lanois; her brother was then-unknown producer Daniel Lanois, who ended up producing the group's next three albums. In 1983, the group changed its name to M + M because Gane was sick of the original name; they stuck with M + M for three years before going back. The group's 1984 album Mystery Walk scored a hit with "Black Stations/White Stations"; it was a hit in Canada and got to #2 on the U.S. dance music charts but many stations refused to play it because it was about stations refusing to play a song about mixed-race romance.
In 1987, British singer Toyah Wilcox covered "Echo Beach"; the song hit #54 on the U.K. Singles Chart. Wilcox is now married to Robert Fripp, who was in attendance at the band's first show in New York City in the late '70s.
Johnson and Gane kept the group going as a duo, releasing an album in 1992 that didn't sell well. That year, the couple had a baby and shut the band down. They released a children's album in 1995 (credited to "Martha"), and played occasional reunion performances over the next decade. In 2010, a new Martha and the Muffins album was released, and in 2013, Johnson crowdfunded a solo album. The band released an odds-and-sods compilation in 2021 and said at the time they were working on a new album, but nothing has come out as of yet.
"Echo Beach" still sounds fresh to me all these years later, even as it reminds me of being 12 years old in the Toronto burbs and not relating to being bored at a job yet. But it was catchy as hell and remains so.
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