The Story Of Martin Hazard Posted 7th April 2014 by gareth

Too often the folks behind the scenes don’t get the recognition they feel they deserve, so I thought I would use this second blog to tell the story of Martin Hazard.

Martin has been our press officer for the last 12 years, and despite the lack of press coverage he has managed to obtain us, he would say he’s done a pretty good job. He always meets his press release deadlines, and once we’ve gone through them and corrected his spelling and grammar, they are pretty much legible.

I first met Martin in the early noughts. He would come to some of our early London shows and proclaim we were “quite good”. Already in his mid to late thirties, his demeanour portrayed a life lived. Then for some inexplicable reason, he decided to set up his own PR company, Hazard and sons. Martin hasn’t actually got any children, but he told me the name would imply he’d had sex more than once. Sadly this new venture took a downward turn very early on when his campaign for Germolene (featuring the jingle “Germy it’s Germolene”) led to Germolene being sued by Maybelline. He was blacklisted, and out of misplaced pity we told him he could be our press officer.

I’ll now look back at some of Martin’s most notable achievements. He got us blacklisted by 6 music for five years. When we toured with 60’s psychedelic legend Brute Force he sent out a press release with the title “Some bloke you’ve never heard of comes and plays some gigs in pubs”. And most memorably he had a minor on air meltdown representing me at a Resonance FM session. I had managed to get myself lost in Soho on the hunt for some Jazz magazines, and he gallantly went on the show in my place. Unfortunately as it became apparent I wasn’t going to turn up at all, Martin began to get irritable, insulting not only me, but the DJ’s, the radio station and finally London.

Which brings us to the present day. He recently annoyed the owners of Bandcamp when he suggested they should change their name to Bandcampf. But if nothing else it shows how nice we are to have tolerated him for all these years. So thanks Martin. Thanks a lot.
Grandmaster Gareth