Martha and the Muffins

Martha and the Muffins are a Canadian New Wave band whose only major international hit single was "Echo Beach". They had a number of hits in their native Canada.

The group's initial line-up featured guitarists David Millar and Mark Gane with vocalist and keyboardist Martha Johnson, bassist Carl Finkle and Gane's brother Tim as the drummer. Millar would leave the band in 1978 to work as the band's sound engineer for live shows. He was replaced by Martha Ladly, who became the group's second keyboardist/vocalist.

In 1978, they released their first independent single, "Insect Love". Their first album, Metro Music, was released in 1980. The album gave Martha and the Muffins a major international hit single with "Echo Beach" along with "Paint by Number Heart".

In October 1980, the band released their second album, Trance and Dance. Ladly left the band after the album was recorded, followed by Finkle in 1981 who was replaced by Jocelyne Lanois.

Martha and the Muffins' 1981 album This is the Ice Age, gained significant Canadian radio airplay from the singles "Women Around the World at Work" and "Swimming". Shortly after the album's release, Tim Gane decided he did not want to tour and left the band and he was replaced by new drummer Nick Kent.

Danseparc was released in 1983 and it was proposed that the group be now called "M + M". As a compromise, both names were used for a time, and the Danseparc album cover had both "M + M" and "Martha and the Muffins" printed on it. The album's title track was another top 40 single in Canada

Gane and Johnson decided they wanted to branch out in new directions by using new collaborators and decided that "M + M" was now Martha + Mark, along with studio musicians and sidemen.

The duo's 1984 album Mystery Walk featured a large sticker crediting the band as "M + M o/k/a Martha and The Muffins". The album gave M + M/Martha and the Muffins their biggest hit in years with "Black Stations/White Stations". "Black Stations/White Stations" was a hit in Canada and in the United States where it reached No. 2 on the dance music charts. "Cooling the Medium", the second single, was also a significant hit in Canada.

The World is a Ball was released in 1986 with the lead single, "Song in My Head".

In 1992, they released the album Modern Lullaby and the duo revived the name "Martha and the Muffins". The lead single "Rainbow Sign" made RPM's "CanCon To Watch" chart. The same year, Martha and the Muffins contributed a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Shades of Scarlett Conquering" for the Mitchell tribute album Back to the Garden.

In 1995, Johnson released an album of children's music entitled Songs from the Tree House. Credited simply to "Martha", the album was an M+M/Martha and the Muffins project in all but name, as the record was written, arranged and produced by Gane and Johnson. Songs from the Tree House won a 1996 Juno Award for best children's album.

In 1998, Johnson and Gane recorded a single new bonus track, "Resurrection", for the 1998 Martha and the Muffins/M+M compilation album Then Again: A Retrospective. The following year, another new Martha and the Muffins recording, "Do You Ever Wonder?", appeared on a various-artists compilation called The World According to Popguru.

In 2007 and 2008, Martha and the Muffins had both This Is The Ice Age and Danseparc reissued on CD.

In December 2009, the first single from the album Mess was available on YouTube. The album was released in February 2010, on their own label Muffin Music. It was Martha and the Muffins' first album of new material in 18 years.