Margie Clarke

Singer/songwriter who became famous for her role in the Letter to Breznhev film, written by her brother and screen writer Frank Clarke.
She started her career in 1978, as a co-presenter on the late-night entertainment magazine show What's On on Granada TV, with Tony Wilson (Factory Records) and Dick Witts (of Mancunians the Passage), where she appeared as Margox (allegedly from ballerina Dame Margeaux Fontaine’s christian name).
Her career as a performer includes a gig at Eric’s with actor Andrew Schofield on guitar (Scully and Mooey, Sid and Nancy, Boys from the Black Stuff). Another of her early gigs took place at Eric’s on Saturday 4 November 1978 on a bill with Ded Birds, Malchix. In the early eighties she was the lead singer of many punk and new wave bands in the then thriving Liverpool music scene, including Margox and the Zinc who played, among others, with Adam and the Ants.

Holly Johnson met the girl in the late Seventies. These are his recollections:

‘Another girl-about-town I remember was Margi Clarke. She had bright red hair and a penchant for green eye shadow. She had been a bit tied down by domestic life and was dying to break out on to the scene. `Breaking in' would be a better description. She made several attempts at forming a band, none of which were particularly fruitful for long. One of her bands later played Eric's - she called herself Margeaux (sic) (pronounced Ma-,gox). What she lacked in singing ability she made up for with a spunky attitude and uninhibited imagination. She wrote a couple of interesting songs, 'Jimmy's Grin' and `Angel Fish Dream', and her answer to the inevitable hecklers was, `Why don't ye go and take yer face fer a shit,' and other choice phrases.

The book England's Dreaming by John Savage touches briefly on the Liverpool scene of this period. lie quotes Margi saying that she wore an apple round her neck on a piece of string and carried a kettle for a handbag. I remember the apple but not the kettle. lie also quotes her as saying that I wore a Tampax for an earring and wore a chocolate box on my head as a hat. It's true I once wore one of my mothers Lillett's hanging from a sleeper in my ear. This was my reaction to the razor-blade earring trend of that time. If women could wear razor-blades in their ears then I could wear a jam rag.

I remember Margi coming round to my parent's house in January 1980 to try and write a song with me. Songwriting had always been a bit of an introspective thing for me. Not being a `Muso' (trained musician) in the typical sense made it difficult for me to respond to her in the way she needed. She came out with a string of weird and wonderful ideas for songs. `Abstract Ice' was one of them. She also told me the basic outline of A Letter To Brezhnev, which I presume Frank had told her, and which she tried to turn into lyrics. Sitting up in my bedroom with my acoustic guitar trying to strum along to Margi, however unfruitful it was as a songwriting exercise, is an amusing memory. She `charmed the boots' off Pat and Eric [Holly Johnson’s parents, ndr], who always liked it when girls came round to see me.’
(Holly Johnson, A Bone in My Flute, 117-118)

As a solo artist Margi Clarke recorded only a couple of numbers:

- Jimmy’s Grin (on Small Hits and Near Misses, 1984, as Margox)

The song, composed during the days of frequentation with Johnson and recorded in 1982, featured Dave Wibberley (ex Walkie Talkies, later Fire, Evad-Flab) on vocals and guitars.

- Lockets & Stars (on Letter to Breznhev OST, 1985, as Margie Clarke)

This song is co-credited to Alan Gill (Dalek I Love You, Teardrop Explodes, who also wrote the OST main theme) and Margi Clarke.

By the end of the Eighties, Margie (then married to Jamie Reid, artist and sleeve designer for the Sex Pistols) became a full-time actress and TV presenter. Only sporadically did she ever recorded anything, like, a cover of the Cole Porter standard Anything Goes with the Welsh punk band Anhrefn in 1987 (with whom she also performed as a second vocalist for a Peel Session in 1993, entering the charts with Clutter from the Gutter), and, in 1991, the single No Regrets with Half Man Hal Biscuit (a cover of the classic song, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, by Edith Piaf).

margi clarke

(see also http://www.myspace.com/margiclarke )