Dan Martin: music journalist of 'passionate enthusiasms' dies aged 41
The former NME and Guardian journalist Daniel Martin has died aged 41 at his home in Salford on 25 July. The cause of death is unknown.
Martin – known to all as Dan – was a man of passionate enthusiasms ranging from Doctor Who to Biffy Clyro, with an urge to share them as widely as possible. Born in Birkenhead, he wrote for the Mancunion student paper at the University of Manchester, then quickly became one of the youngest writers at City Life, the arts and listings magazine.
From there he began freelancing for NME, and joined the weekly music magazine in 2003. A sharp and idiosyncratic writer, Dan brought a wide-eyed gonzo sensibility to the magazine. In 2005 he managed to gatecrash the stage at the finale of the Live8 charity show, where he sang Hey Jude with a massed group of stars including George Michael and Paul McCartney.
“Annie Lennox is in front of me, Bob Geldof to my left. I put my arm around him and he doesn’t seem to mind,” Dan noted in the following week’s NME. It was no one-off – the following year he stood in for Bez, who had missed his flight when the Happy Mondays played Coachella.
Dan was a legendary presence at music festivals, where his work-hardplay-hard attitude found its apotheosis. His attire alone made him stand out. He wore a pair of pink shorts to the Spanish festival Benicassim: when he crossed paths with Liam Gallagher backstage, the Oasis frontman yelled “Oi! Candy flip!” – a reference to the duo whose sole hit was a baggy cover of Strawberry Fields Forever.
Eschewing NME’s usual notions of cool, Dan’s tastes encompassed breakbeat, metal and Leona Lewis, whose Bleeding Love he once spent a night convincing a surprised friend was the best record ever made. He also loved TV. On Saturday, the writer Laura Barton tweeted: “One of the first times I met him was at some drivelly gig at
Koko when we stood at the back and he spent a good hour making a passionate case for me to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
Dan’s curiosity, kindness and empathy for the underdog went further than pop culture when in 2011 he became involved with Occupy London, whose leaders were attempting to set up a record label and gain NME’s attention.
As organiser Adam Jung remembered on social media: “He got to know many of us personally. He’d grab pints with us to celebrate victories or drown defeats. He did get a couple of stories in the NME about our work. They weren’t objective. He’d become a friend, and would be until his death.”
Dan’s enthusiasms were recognised by musicians including Courtney Love, with whom he had an ongoing friendship; she once called him in the middle of the night to ask him to find her new bandmates. The writer Steve Hill tweeted: “Did a few press trips with him and once spent the entire night in the Chateau Marmont listening to Ocean Rain [the Echo and the Bunnymen album] with Courtney Love.”
The Hole frontwoman once came to the rescue when Dan was stranded in the middle of California several hours’ drive from the airport.
Such scrapes were not uncommon. Dan’s former NME colleague Jenny Stevens said: “I remember him going to Vegas to interview Green Day, missing his flight home, the singer tweeting to ask if anyone had seen him, and him walking into the office two days later in a white golfing shirt and a trilby because he’d lost his suitcase and these were all the clothes he could find at the airport.”
At another festival at Wales in September, Stevens noted, he had come armed with only shorts and a pair of trainers. Nonetheless, Dan took pains never to miss a deadline even amidst such chaos.
After leaving NME, Dan worked as entertainment editor on BuzzFeed UK and also wrote for the Guardian, including episode recaps of his great love, Doctor Who. Kind and generous, Dan was always supportive to younger writers such as Matt Wilkinson, now a broadcaster.
On Saturday, as the news of his death prompted an overwhelming surge of grief, Dan’s all-time favourite band the Manic Street Preachers paid tribute: “Dan was so sweet, funny and talented – we spent a lot of time with him on the road in the UK and USA and at our studio in Cardiff – always a pleasure to be with. So shocked and so saddened.”