Tony Martin
Sizzletown - Get This - A Quiet Word - The Joy Of Sets - Shut up! SIZZLETOWN
An interview for early 2023 that I did with Tony Martin ahead of a live show he was to do at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Here is is for archival context.
I just wanted to collect some links to Tonys fantastic work in tv and radio in this one place.
For the last four or five years Tony - aided by production wiz Matt Dower- has been crafting and building the audio universe of characters that is the “late night phone in podcast” called SIZZLETOWN. I highly recommend this show. We love to listen to it in the car on long drives.
https://www.sizzletownpodcast.com/
One of my favourite recurring events was whenever film director William Friedkin would call in. (Then he passed away but somehow managed to call in after a respectful while…)
Tony famously knows nothing of sport but Barry Football is a SIZZLETOWN regular. (I keep telling Tony that any football fan would know this voice immediately)
Tony Martin and Mick Molloy were a radio phenomenon in 90s Australia. Part of a loose collective that began as the D Generation , again on commercial (FM) radio in Melbourne. They also created a much loved tv show for the ABC called the Late Show.
Tony and Mick would invite me onto their high rating afternoon show in the mid to late 90s and would always be most embarrassed that they could never play any of my music on the uptightly playlisted station. They tried their best for a lot of us who existed in that other grey area of Australian entertainment - the largest part of it - which existed and still exists outside of Commercial Radio playlists.
They were a high rating show , nationally, and released several albums of their comedic skits.
One of my favourite tv pieces. A bio of mythical film maker Warren Perso.
Australian tv and radio people are still terrified of mentioning anything out loud that their precious audience may not have heard of. Thats why the only rock performer ever brought onto mainstream airtime is Jimmy Barnes. Thats it. Lucky guy!
Just today I turned on a classic rock radio station in my car and a man called Higgo was berating his audience for the “weird” tracks they had voted for in the “top 100 countdown”. There was apparently nothing by Queen or Pink Floyd. The audience had voted for 100 songs and he was busting their balls for being wrong about it all! Thats commercial radio for you. Following but controlling.
Anyway, Tony has somehow worked in this environment for decades and has often made it the very subject of his comedic work. Its a Kafkaesque world. (Though you could never mention Kafka on air of course).
The ABC was harder for people like Tony to work in as they are really terrified of both their audience and also the Murdoch press and the Liberal and National Parties. Everything is decided by trembling committees there.
The show Get This, which was on air in the early 2000s and still has a Facebook group and online community devoted to it was on commercial radio.
I remember listening to the incredible last episode in the car as the three on air people trudged off into a howling blizzard. The sound of the wind and snow (broadcast on a sunny afternoon) went on for seemingly ages as the following shows presenter seemed to be nervous about disturbing the strange atmosphere the Get This Crew had created.
Tony is a fantastic archivist and has uploaded a lot of Get This to Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAK8b_ewtKS49F00rU-_6viqafAIu2vo9
Tony is also a fantastic archivist of other peoples ephemera and was often reaching into his bag to drag out an old show flyer from one of his guests earliest shows on his great tv show of 2011, A Quiet Word. This was just comedians talking with a comedian. Title music by Clare Moore
The Joy Of Sets was also in 2011 and featured Tony Martin and ED Kavalee (also from Get This) talking of all things tv related.
In 2003 Tony wrote and directed the movie Bad Eggs and asked Clare Moore and myself to compose the score. A feature film. It was an incredible experience for us to work on this movie. Tony is very musical and worked closely with us for each piece of music. Clare pretty much wrote all the themes for the villains - cool and complex keyboard driven pieces - and I wrote the loose, feel good, guitar driven motifs for all the nice characters.
We played some of the music live with a band on Shaun Micallefs tonight style show. (I got to talk Flying V’s with Michael McKean from Spinal Tap).
Then there are Tonys two brilliant books, Lolly Scramble ( 2007) and A Nest Of Occasionals (2009).
The Covid Lockdown years were a very creative time for a lot of people. Tony worked on this show, SHUT UP, written by his partner Sarina Rowell. As usual, very high quality writing, directing and production. Unique. Six episodes.
Shut Up followed Sarina and Tonys 2018 stage show and podcast (of a sitcom they spent a couple of years writing and which they couldn’t get made) , CHILDPROOF.
I hope you enjoy some of this work!