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Bio
At approximately 7900 (with over 7000 appearing in his books), Martin has unofficially written more record reviews than anybody in the history of music writing across all genres. Additionally, Martin has penned approximately 135 books on hard rock, heavy metal, classic rock, prog, punk and record collecting. He was Editor-in-Chief of the now retired Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, Canada’s foremost heavy metal publication for 14 years, and has also contributed to Revolver, Guitar World, Goldmine, Record Collector, bravewords.com, lollipop.com and hardradio.com, with many record label band bios and liner notes to his credit as well.
Contact
My email address is martinp@inforamp.net
You can PayPal to that address as well.
In Canada, you can eTransfer to that address.
If you want to support my endeavors at Ko-fi, it’s https://ko-fi.com/martinpopoff
To see my art shenanigans, go to https://www.martinpopoff.ca and https://www.artpal.com/martinp
Ebooks
NEWSFLASH
New short-format Ye Olde Metal essays added for Holocaust – The Nightcomers, Krokus – One Vice at a Time, Krokus – Headhunter and Pat Travers Band – Crash and Burn, I haven’t done dedicated entries at the page, however. They are at zunior.com.
These join long essays on the making of albums by Angel City, Angel Witch, April Wine, Bad Company, Badlands, Blackfoot, Dokken, Fastway, Foreigner, Gamma, Gillan, Guns N’ Roses, Hawkwind, Hanoi Rocks, Manowar, Mercyful Fate, Motörhead, Mountain, Quartz, Savatage, Saxon, Stooges, Sweet, Triumph, Trouble, Van Halen, Witchfinder General, Y&T and ZZ Top, plus special catalogue re-packs for Dictators, MC5, Ram Jam, Rex, Starz Sweet and Lone Star.
Midnight Mover: Accept ’79-’96
German heavy metal heroes Accept have been headbanging their way around the world since 1979, creating along the way three of the finest metal albums of all time in Restless and Wild, Balls to the Wall and Metal Heart, with 1981’s Breaker even serving as a cult favourite of those in the know.
Fronted by diminutive shrieker Udo Dirkschneider, the band crafted an intelligent and professional sound somewhere along the axis from AC/DC to Judas Priest, which found Accept going gold on the strength of their superlative Balls to the Wall record of 1983.
Paintings
NEWSFLASH!
Besides the below, I now have my coloured pencil-on-black rock star illustrations for sale in print form at www.artpal.com.
Plus you can see all of those plus my imagined record ads AND the illustrations I did for the Flaming Telepaths book at www.martinpopoff.ca.
Artist Comment
Below you will find my proper artist statement, the one that galleries and shows have asked for, sometimes a little more abbreviated than what’s below, but ha ha… always as pretentious. So first, a little general comment, a little more informally. Sorry for the lousy scans, but I’m new at this stuff. There seems to be some white in there, dust specks on or in the scanner? Apologies, but yes, those aren’t on the paintings.
About half of these have been sold years ago, a half dozen I would never sell, and the others, I could let go. Most are quite large, my biggest size being about three feet by five feet, more than half being above two and a half feet by four feet.
Materials/methods used – I stretch my own canvas, with a first layer of gesso being thick or thin or rough or smooth or not there at all, i.e. holes. The rest is a mix of oil and acrylic, mainly black acrylic with numerous layers of gesso added as well, minutes, hours, days for drying spent between applications. Oxide red is big with me as well as thalo blue. Big bottles of Liquin are used liberally as both a thinner and a final two layer glaze/sealant. Water is used for a drip/decay technique. Rags and paper towel are used for rubbing away wet or semi dry areas, any and all manner of brush and scraper are used… it can get up to 20 layers of paint and they actually get heavy. They end up very shiny and very rough and stubbly and tough, very waterproof.
Artist Statement
Paintings are abstract landscapes, a continual bridging the two concepts, ranging from landscape with a slight abstract feel, anti-gravitational or illogically sized elements, to abstract with only a slight landscaped, nature-based focal point, surrounded or dominated by multiple abstract elements.
All attempt to depict worlds either a) untouched and unvisited by man, i.e. merely imagined; b) slightly altered or touched by man, specifically ancient man, in the form of deliberate, heavy ritual pattern, stones, monoliths, obelisks, cairns, totems, smaller left articles; or c) slightly altered or touched or modified by some unseen, unknown, spiritual force, or a material force simply of unknown origin. In all cases, the terrain variously evokes autumn, the north, the desert, the moon, or the jungle, always isolation, with the idea that someone or something has tread or left a mark largely, heavily but simply.
Paintings attempt to portray the pseudo-science of alchemy as a rare, but natural atmospheric occurrence, thus a blurring between what is rock, earth, wood, ceramic and metal, including a blurring between sky, water body, strata of earth, and often man-made structure of ambiguous material origin. Events are set in motion by apocalyptic temperature extremes. This alchemy exercised as dramatic weather may have paranormal, spiritual or extraterrestrial cause.
Smaller formations depicted are often artifacts of unknown origin and material. In all cases, detail is wiped away, in demonstration of decay, erosion and an obscuring of identity.
Large formations are often totems, crumbling ruins, stone circles, cairns or obelisks. Again detail is eroded, eroded by time, extreme atmospheric upheaval, or this idea of naturally occurring alchemy. In any event there’s splintering, scarring and damage.
Still larger formations: moons, planets or unnamable spheres, which can also interact with ground, atmosphere or artifacts. Tidal, cyclonic, godly, apocalyptic and/or geographical upheaval. Thus black and dark blue moons, dark green skies, copper ground - volcanic, ashen, sulfurous, mercurial, alchemical. Ritualistic figures disintegrating in chunks or blending with sky. Swirling gases becoming liquid or solid. Where formations meet the ground, there is a melting, slashing, chemical reaction, burning and melding between earth and what has been fashioned on top of it.
Summary: an invented universe demonstrating natural alchemy, suspension of time and suggestions of a terrestrial, extraterrestrial or spiritual ordering force on a desolate, unfamiliar but clearly traumatized landscape, whether the trauma is long-gone, recently occurred, or caught in action, all trauma occurring with transformational or alchemical effects. A handful of normal earthly rules suspended and replaced. Reality as a dream within a dream, living in the head, imagination as valid creation.
Podcast
Welcome to History in Five Songs with Martin Popoff!
As the show notes explain…
This is the show that aims to make grand and often oddball hard rock and heavy metal points through a narrative built upon the tiny idea of a quintet of songs. Buttressed with illustrative clips, Martin argues quickly and succinctly why these songs—and the specific sections of these tracks—support his mad professor premise, from the wobbly invention of an “American” heavy metal, to the influence of Led Zeppelin in hair metal or to more succinct topics like tapping and twin leads. The songs serve as bricks, but Martin slathers plenty of mortar. At the end, hopefully he has sturdy house in which this week’s theory can reside unbothered by the elements.
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