Car, Car Car Trouble!!!

Coming very soon.........More Cartrouble and Kick mp3s and Marco's comments......

oh, ah! Where were you, 22nd March 1995?

oh
ah

Whip in my Valise

Here for today is chapter 17 of the James Maw Book.
And here also are 2 Whip in my Valise live mp3s:
Whip Ealing College 10th June 1978

Whip Electric Ballroom 31 Dec 1979

SEVENTEEN: ‘XEROX’

As soon as they were back from the gigs in Berlin, Adam decided they should go on tour again, playing nearly all the places they had covered on Parisians. The Xerox Tour was practically a carbon copy of the tour before. They had established a firm following in the North and West, which he wanted to keep. Dave Barbe’s wife, Mandy, had taken charge of the fan club, which had grown to two thousand, she invented the character of Brenda the secretary and wrote to everyone under this guise. The 1978 gig’s had been very ‘bitty’. This wasn’t going to happen any more. No longer would they support anybody, and if anyone supported them, they were to get better treatment than The Ants had frequently received. This was a decision Adam had taken way back in ‘77. They had supported Generation X at Kings College and had been kept waiting seven hours for a sound check, and they decided then that they would never treat a support band like that. No more. Adam went into Do It and said:
‘Right, let’s stop all this beating about the bush.’
He designed another hand out for the fans, printed off lyrics and information. He made a set of designs of what he was going to be wearing on stage.
The tour began with the release of the single Zerox/Whip In My Valise on July 6th, and then dates in Retford, Birmingham, Newport, Leeds, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bradford, York, Liverpool, Middlesborough, Jacksdale, Swansea, Exeter, Plymouth, Port Talbot, Newport and London. Seventeen dates in twenty-four days. Some of the places they played, however, were still the pits, places like Circles, Swansea and Plymouth Woods.
The worst gig of Adam’s life was the one on this tour when they played Plymouth Woods. He was wearing a new type of make-up, which was like a multi-coloured camouflage all over his face. It was the most gruesome of make-up schemes, which made him look as if he’d been mining in a greasepaint factory. The ceiling was very low over the stage with great vicious looking beams at angles. During the second number Adam’s head cracked against a beam and his head split open with a very deep cut. Adam continued to sing but the blood started to flow over his face. Everyone thought it was a stunt, all part of his shocking make-up. He turned round and looked at Andy Warren, Andy went completely white. Adam cupped his hands and they filled with blood, it would not stop, the lights were keeping the wound open. As soon as the gig was over they drove him off in the van to a little hospital in the middle of nowhere. He sat on a chair in casualty waiting for a doctor. When the doctor arrived he walked in to see a young man, covered in blood, with make-up all over his face and wearing a blue kilt.
He looked at Adam and said ‘Don’t tell me, the Martians have landed’.
Adam was losing consciousness a little. He heard a nurse say,‘What’s your name?’ and Dave Barbe replying:
‘His name is Mr. Ant’
As they laid him down he could hear them all laughing. They were whispering, thinking that he couldn’t hear, but as he lay looking up at the little Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck designs on the ceiling he heard the doctor say:
‘Nurse, I think this is a bit deep, a bit nasty, and I think we’re going to have to have a local anesthetic’, and the nurse replied:
‘We haven’t got any. ’
‘Well, Mr. Ant, this is going to hurt a bit’, said the doctor. Adam thought the whole thing so bizarre that he didn’t really feel anything. He just remembers the feeling of his ears moving upwards as they stitched the top of his head together.
After that, he had had enough of the ‘toilets’ - no more clubs, no more awful venues. In future everything was to be better organised.

I'm a Zerox Machine!!

How often have we felt like that?
Never? No, me either, though I've had days stuck in front of a Zerox Machine photocopying ad infinitum!!

Here for your pleasure are 2 mp3s of Zerox:

Zerox New Year's Eve 1979 Electric Ballroom London

Zerox 22nd May 1980 Electric Ballroom London

One's the old Ants on their last gig, and one is with the New Ants on their first date of the Ants Invasion Tour.

Enjoy!

I'm a Zerox Machine!!

Coming this week!

I shall also put up the NME and Sounds reviews of Young Parisians later tonight, by Julie Burchill and Gary Bushell no less! (I'm not sure if Melody Maker reviewed Young Parisians, couldn't find it in my notes but I'll have another looky later). I'll also add a few live reviews from 77 and 78 too.

Here for today is the first Ants feature by Jane Suck from Sounds 1977!

Whip In My Valise: Adam and the Ants
Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 10 December 1977

The angel Gabriel sent me to give you a little bit of sympathy...’('Plastic Surgery')
THE ANTS, like my other perversion the Banshees, are what it must be like at the world’s edge when they’ve just give the four minute warning and fall out’s imminent: everybody else in sight fornicating their way to oblivion and "these geeks in make-up and fancy threads" (Do you know what Jordan is wearing these days? Soft woolies and a tweed skirt. Oh yeah!! Does Seditionaries sell handbags yet? No, no, no) picking their way through the bones and rubble for a gig. Aw, the audience are dead anyway, fiction or non-fiction.
The Ants introduced their greatest fan, he follows them everywhere and dresses in Roxy binliner circa January ’77 (remember 1977) style. But my heart broke when I saw the jerk banging his head against thin air... he never looked at the stage once, only waiting for the moment when he could jump up on the stage and obscure Adam Ant (bet that moniker gave you a laugh, sweetie) from view and be a marionette for five minutes.
YES, I AM SITTING on the Berlin Wall but I believe in rock ‘n’ roll in its natural environment should be 75% visual and 25% heart-wrenching music. Clue: when I crawled into town at the beginning of the year I’d seen — count ’em — three gigs. I was into reading the music papers, album sleeves and catching the odd gem (Bowie, Roxy Music) on TV. Within a month I’d seen every "hip" punk (punk? spunk) band in existence and I was so bored I developed nasty habits just in the hope the audience would go away and let the film begin!
Then I saw the Banshees and, well, you old voyeur... logical conclusion was to check out their favourite support band, the Ants. More "obviously" manic than Sioux and boys, the Ants two front runners, Adam and Jordan, went to exhaustive lengths to ensure that you got that fact out of the drink and their way: Adam with his rippling muscles and tattoos was a welcome departure from the wasted punies littering the circuit.
Adam was also very good-looking and knew it. I like natural-self-love; you just got to learn how to manipulate it without ending up in a corner making pretty faces at yourself. Jordan — now, here was the original "shocker": up in the train from Sussex to ‘Sex’ every day in fish-net stockings, black leather and bee-hive hair, when you were still hiding your stack heels in the wardrobe. Anyway, Jordan got me out of the drunk’s closet... er, bog at the Nashville with one ear-shattering yelp. So many goldfish in their bowls...couldn’t even hate the band. I stared then — later (the ####), I’d be poking the jerk’s eyes out and generally making their lives a misery. "You’re so violent!" I screamed at Adam.
Want me to stop jiving and lay the esoteric stuff on you? It’s easy but it isn’t the Ants. Articles in the music press don’t change minds — look at all the nothing bands we’ve laid on you this year along. Hardly number one with a bullet, and outside London it’s mostly ‘So what?’ not ‘Who taught you to torture?’ (‘Whip In My Valise’). I mean, the other side of "rock" can be dangerous, hon, if you forget it’s surrogate celluloid and soundtrack and attempt to live it — you won’t be walking those streets too long. Where else could a guy like Adam say:
One day, girlI’m gonna straightenyou outgonna stopyour mealsMaybe I’ll sew up yourmouth...’('Fat Fun')
or let’s really get the bile flowing, uh?
Want to describemy special punishment roomover my garage.There’s a whipping post and a vertical beamyou have to be in charge...('Whip In My Valise')
Did that get you off? What would you do if Adam jumped out of his cage at the high school hop and demanded with bared teeth that you hit him? Go home with the boyfriend and think what you’re going to have to surrender this time — Life can be made much better for you:
...miracles do notcome cheepGonna take you downto Harley Street
('Whip In My Valise')
Freaked out, darling? I doubt it. Would you rather hear Jordan talk about her pet subject armadilloes and how the ants will be the last remaining life force on earth? Who wants a private party?
DID I forget to tell you what the band SOUNDED like? (Wired up).
Did I forget to let them speak? Actually Adam did his definitive interview in Ripped and Torn explaining his influences and motivation (sexual of course) behind all those "nasty" little songs like 'Deutscher Girls':
Remember the curlsOf the Deutscher GirlsCamp 49way down on the Rhine
and the neo-classic ‘Whip In My Valise’ (cut my right hand off for not thinking of a title like that — sulk):
I’m just a bundle of misery since you kicked my cheekbones in...
oh, oh, oh...love to see the vicious ‘Plastic Surgery’ as a single. But hold on, here comes Adam himself with his posters (collages of S/M photographs and juicy extracts) and ‘Meet The Ants’ — how sweet. Whip it on ’em, Jim:
WINKLEANDWATSON (BASSANT) — 5’ 7"/ dark greasy hair. Likes: Maxine/armpits/Dirk Bogarde/Velvets. Dislikes: everybody else except the Banshees.
DAVE ‘BARBE’ BRILLIANT (DRUMMERANT) — 5’ 8"/black hair. Likes: a new drumkit/The Ants/Bowie’s snare. Dislikes: everybody else except the Banshees.
JOHNNY BIVOUAC (GUITARANT) — 6’ 1" blonde hair. Likes: Dislikes: everybody else except the banshees.
ADAMANT (ANTVOICE) — 5’ 7"/Brown hair. Likes: Dirk Bogarde/short black things/sex. Dislikes: everybody else except the Banshees.
JORDAN (MANAGER) — 5’ 2" /silver hair 6 with brown grey/black). Likes: Glen Campbell/The Ants/rhinoes/spotty-dog/doing Aqua-Marinas on tables: Dislikes: everybody else except the Banshees and especially the new Lou Reed and his games (as can be heard on the Ants’ opus ‘Lou’).
Finally, words of encouragement for future fans: "As long as the music’s loud enough they won’t hear the world falling apart..."
© Vivien Goldman, 1977

1987 Fan Club appearance

In 1987 Adam made his only appearance so far at a Convention/ Disco. He turned up with a guitar and played 3 songs. Here is an mp3 of all 3 songs he played (Juanito the Bandito, Young Parisians and Never Trust a Man (with Egg on his Face)). I'm afraid that it's a big file and also not THAT good quality, I am seeking out better, but this will have to do for now!

Anyway, enjoy!

Just a small post for now about this "blog"

I've slowly come to realise that this blog site is the book I keep saying I want to write about the Ants. It's a way for me to get out of my system all the little things I want to say about Adam and the Ants. I could still write a book, but it seems to me that that needs a LOT of spare time that I just don't have. This however takes minutes to do, and is easy. I have lots of bits of research stuck away on an A4 pad, I've been researching the music press, and have a fair old collection of stuff myself bought off the evil ebay!
So think of this as reading my book in progress!
At the moment on here I am focussing on each single as it was written and posting live/ alternate versions of those (with the occasional tangent of a new remix as they appear simply because for me remixes of Ant tunes are a new way of hearing the song. I'd do my own remixes if i had the patience, but alas I do not, to sit for hours putting them together like Carty does (and others) would drive me to distraction. Writing is my thing. So I shall keep posting away on here bits and bobs, and write about the Ants and the music I love, and also include Marco's thoughts when he has them and if I'm lucky who knows, I may even get another Ant or two to speak to me.
At the moment I am playing AntBox for the first time in ages, and I love it! I was unhappy that a few of the B Sides had been missed off when I first got it, and to be honest I still think that it misses out on those gems, Beat My Guest, Christian Dior, Friends, Fall In, Red Scab, Juanito the Bandito, Press Darlings, Greta X- those are an important part of the Ants early history and the re-done versions with Marco on feedbacking guitar are FANTASTIC! But never mind, it just means you HAVE to go buy B Side Babies (or have all the singles like a real Ant Fan does!*)

Anyway, I am having a lot of fun with this! And I have a LOT of very cool stuff to scan and post up on the webspace I bought- the Fantastic Adventures of Adam Ant from TOP comic, the many poster magazines, Look In articles and pics, and a TON of cuttings and pics. So I hope that you all enjoy seeing and reading and hearing all this stuff. Welcome to my Antbook online!!

(* If you're a REAL Antfan, you have EVERYTHING! And if you're a magpie like me and my Babe Aimee then you have everything else too!)

ps thanks go to Caroline Richards and Gordon Moss for being kind enough to lend me articles and other stuff that I don't yet have, Carty for the great website that is an inspiration and what a good Ant website shound be, and also special mention to Adam Ant Net and Ant Lib websites which both in their day were bloody good sites too. I like to think that I and Carty at least are carrying on some of their good work and doing perhaps what they may have intended to do but for one reason or another didn't get round to doing. Antlib is being overhauled so let's hope we see it as good as it was before soon! Remember, it's all about the passion for the music imo.

More Parisians live

Young Parisians 1981

Young Parisians/ Strip San Juan 1993

Here as promised are 2 more live mp3s, one is the Marco era Ants performing Young Parisians, and the other is the little tease I mentioned Adam performing at San Juan in 1993.
Enjoy!

Young Berliners

Once again we have Marco Pirroni's thoughts, here on Young Parisians, Lady, Zerox and Whip in my Valise. Marco wasn't part of the Ants when these were released, but seeing as we can't ask Adam (And I would LOVE to ask Adam!), this is the next best thing! Enjoy!

I'm not sure what to say about Young Parisians, I never really liked it, it's not very funny and it's not very good. I don't know why Adam wanted to release it or why Decca let him (I have my own theories but i won't go into them now).

Lady's ok but I never wanted to play it.

I thought Xerox sounded great but it isn't that great a song, though it's fun to play live.

As for "whip" I thought it was dated S+M punk imagery when it came out and a bit naff really.
I don't dislike it but I never wanted to play that either.

I'm generally ambivalent to the Ants recorded output before I joined, on the few occasions that Adam mentioned Young Parisians he just said "what was I thinking?
If he doesn't know then there's not much chance of the rest of us understanding it!

"The Deal"

This is from Chapter 13 of the James Maw Adam Ant Official Biography from 1981, which until now has been the only biography of Adam and the Ants. I will add more Young Parisians Reviews later.

If you take a Southern Region train to Victoria you will pass over one of the largest railway stations in the world. Clapham Junction.
It’s a maze of old tracks and dead railway buildings, and right in the midst of it is an enormous crescent-shaped place that looks abandoned. In large letters on the side it says DECCA. It is not an inspiring recommendation for their label; rather, it expresses in brick and steel the image that most people had of the company in 1978.
The Decca record company had been for some time in decline, they didn’t even have an A & R department: that worthy body of company men that actually go out and see new bands, and can always be seen at forty-five degree angles to the bar being abetted by the music press. But in 1978 they started up a department under the leadership of two men, Mike Smith and Frank Hodges.
One of their first ports of call was The Marquee where the ‘Ants’ were doing their Thursday night residency. They were immediately impressed. They thought The Ants were a more appealing version of The Banshees and, moreover that they were the absolute best of the new crop of bands.
They approached The Ants manager at Megalovision, Howard Malin, and offered him the standard contract of two singles and an album.
Adam was very dubious. Decca was a unknown quantity, it was run by two men both in their eighties called Bill Townsley and Sir Edward Lewis. Adam decided that they should sign but because he didn’t trust them he had a clause built into the contract, which meant all the demo time would be his and he would own the tapes. (Bands do not just go into a company and record one single at a time; they are made to spend a long time in the studio recording all their material as demo tapes for the company)
There were only five people in the company who liked the band; everyone else thought it a waste of time to have signed them. So Howard Maplin had the idea of organizing a trip for all the Decca executives to see the band play live. This was bound to do the trick, since the concerts were electric and the audiences enthusiastic. They had a strong following at this time and Adam was often up all night replying personally to every fan letter he received.
The executives were bought to see them during a gig underneath the arches in Battersea, just a few yards up the track from the cataleptic Decca building: ‘Three thousand punks crushed to death in a rush of wheelchairs leaving.’ It was a bizarre night, which only increased the gulf between the young and the old.
Adam decided upon the single that they would record. The release of Young Parisians caused quite a lot of fuss. It was hated by the press and many of the fans and associates of the band alike. The choice of their first single is a crucial decision for a band, because as soon as you are on record it can be one step further away from your fans. The friends of a band, naturally, get very excited about the first pressing, seeing their band ‘ Make It’, so it becomes a kind of fulfillment of a promise. Much has been said about the release of Young Parisians, the simple fact is this: Adam intended it to be a double A side with Lady. ‘But they did the dirty on me and they made Parisians the A side.’
Adam found the whole experience of Decca a bit strange. He found it ridiculous that every cheque and pound note had to be passed by an old man upstairs. The last band that they’d really worked with was in the sixties. He found it an archaic company in which not much happened. They wouldn’t ‘get in behind the band’. That’s partly the reason why he gave them ‘Parisians’ because he didn’t really trust them with any of his other work.
This he came to regret, the fact that he didn’t put out his strongest product at the time, because ‘Parisians’ was obviously a joke. Adam was concerned that people thought of them as a ‘four-four kind of crash, bang, wallop band’. He thought ‘Parisians’ was the last thing people expected, which was the most important thing at that stage for him. People were making their minds up about The Ants too much and too regularly.
Together, ‘Parisians’ and Lady could be called songs for voyeurs. A great many of Adam’s lyrics have to do with watching or looking, or one image being copied by another, as in Zerox. This was obviously part of the legacy of having been a designer, the fascination with isolated images, or one image upon another. ‘Parisians’ is a fairly subversive song that is posed as a ballad. Voyeurism is the theme of decadence, of Berlin, of dark clubs and atmospheres. The theme of Lady is that Adam is being sexually assaulted through his eyes by an unmoving naked lady whom he has discovered by chance, in a very surreal way, in a corridor somewhere, perhaps in a dream. It’s a vision of life that is always expectant of sudden sexual encounter. It’s the type of song which is likely to be raped in the foyer of a respectable banking company. The lyrics of someone molested in the photocopying room by a very ordinary, straight-laced secretary. In Lady Adam is the one doing the watching. The whole plot is tantalisingly perverse.
The reviewers of the music press however were not really prepared to listen at all. Sounds printed a review, which ran:
‘Laugh? I nearly split my bondage trousers. Good old Adam. He’s at last dumped all that punk outrage and gone onto punk singalongs extolling the virtues of Paris. Maybe it’s his way of conning a French promoter into bringing his band over.’

Young Parisians

Young Parisians are so French
They love Patti Smith
Young Parisians are so French
At the Champs d'elysee

I want to go to Paris with you
Just to see what the French boys do
Why don't you come to Paris with me?
And see the Young Parisians

Young Parisians are so French
They sit on the metro
Young Parisians are so French
Not like me and you

I want to go to Paris with you
Just to see what the French boys do
Why don't you come to Paris with me?
And see the Young Parisians

Alors... et maintenant:

I want to go to Paris with you
Just to see what the French boys do to you
Why don't you come to Paris with me?
And see the Young Parisians

Young Parisians are so French
They're always called Dubois
Young Parisians are so French
Talk nothing but French

I want to go to Paris with you
Just to see what the French boys do
Why don't you come to Paris with me?
And see the Young Parisians

They're so French
They're so French
They're so French
Ah-ooh

Young Parisians

Young Parisians Ealing College 10th June 1978

Lady Ealing College 10th June 1978

Perhaps showing how much of a joke Adam thought Young Parisians was (He said he gave it to Decca to be released as a first single to test them, to see how they handled it) it was never played very much live. I have found this great little recording of it from the Rock Against Racism gig played in June 1978, where Lady also comes from. Lady (Adam meant this to be a double A side with Young Parisians but Decca made it simply the B side) was played quite a few times until the Marco Era Ants, and it has as far as I can tell never been played by that incarnation.

Young Parisians was given 2 airings by the Marco era Ants in 1981 at the Dominion Theatre London on the Stand and Deliver Tour, then in 1993 at the San Juan gig on the Persuasion Tour, Adam played the first few bars before singing part of Strip instead. I doubt many casual Ants fans know of Young Parisians (and it sounds like the audience at San Juan didn't know it either!) though it appears rather bizarrely on quite a few Punk Compilations! Adam also performed Young Parisians as part of his 3 song set at the fan club gig in 1986. Later in the week I will post the San Juan "performance" and the fan club gig too!

Anyway, ENJOY!!

PANZER MADCHEN!

In September 2004 Marco Pirroni and Carty collaborated on their first song together- Panzer Madchen. It's the Deutscher Girls riff as played by Marco and edited and put together by Carty, with some remixing and cutting up and pasting and all that clever stuff that remixers do! It also features bass by Chris Constantinou (Ex De Niro, who is also part of The Wolfmen with Marco).

Carty talking about Panzer can be found here

I asked Marco for his take on Panzer, and this is what he said:

The story of Panzer Machden isn't very interesting, but if you really wanna know, I'll tell ya.

I was sitting around having a bit of writers block playing Adam's guitar, and whenever I play one of Adam's Telecasters I start playing the Deutcher Girls riff which I have never played live and I don't even know how the rest of the song goes, but I like that bit.

So out of sheer boredom I turned it into this track, but I didn't know how to finish it or even what to do with it, so I thought I know I'll send it to Chris Carty, he's good with things like this so I cut it all up and uploaded the files to him and he re-assembled it and added more stuff then sent it back and I added more stuff and sent it back to him and so on and so forth.

This was the first time I had ever worked with somebody who wasn't in the same room or even in the same country, but its not as strange as you might think, I didn't know it was the first time he had ever worked with live instuments and apart from a franky awful bassline that he actually played, he did rather well.
It was intended to be the first of "Ant tracks" that I have never played before but as yet we haven't done another one . I'd like to as it's fun and I can't think of any other way of playing this stuff now. So I'm just waiting for Carty to have an idea.

It's quite frankly yet another tasteless, immature, irresponsible, offensive and silly flirtation with Nazi Imagery, I cannot justify it in any way at all, except to say that I don't it think glorifies Nazism anymore than Freddie Star's impersonation of Hitler does.
It's about as political as an episode of Hogans Heros.
If you would like to debate whether watching "Cabaret" is the same as condoning industrialized mass murder then I would suggest you do it amongst yourselves and leave me out of it, coz I don't really care what you think anyway.

So, if you haven't been and downloaded it yet, here is the link to mix 1.

Panzer Madchen mix 1

There are 2 more remixes, if you go to Carty's page above, you will find links to those too.

Enjoy!

Desperate But Not Serious (Delirious remix)

Hot off the press, ANOTHER Carty remix!
This is the last track of volume 8 of Carty's remixes.

Desperate But Not Serious Delirious Remix






Coming later this week

EXCLUSIVE TO THIS BLOG SITE!

Remixer extraordinare Carty has donated a brand new EXCLUSIVE remix of The Lavender Pill Mob's "It Dosn't Matter" to this site It Dosn't Matter Alpha Remix

Over to Carty:

For those who don't know already, the Lavender Pill Mob consist of ex-Adam And The Ants bassist Kevin Mooney and ex-Renegade Soundwave person Gary Asquith. They have just released their second album, Mikes Bikes on their own label, www.lecoqmusique.com. The stand out track on that album for me is "It Dosn't Matter". It has no connection to the Ant track with a similar title. In fact, it is spelt slightly differently! But I felt it lacked in the production department and had a lot more to offer, so I suggested to Gary that I'd like to try my hand at remixing it. He seemed interested in hearing it, so I set about ripping it apart, bit by bit. I created three remixes and this is the first and main one which I've called the Alpha Remix. It still retains the fantastic opening riff, but I've programmed some brand new funky drums, added some new deeper bass and a mellow string section to accompany the "ahhhs".There's a also a slight acid groove in there and a slight hint at some scratching too. But this is close to how I would have liked the track to sound, even if it is a little longer. But what's new eh?

Remember the curls.........

Deutscher Girls Dec 31st 1979 Electric Ballroom London

We'll do the tango
We'll try the foxtrot
I'll eat a mango
You'll drink a straight scotch
You know I told you
You could be classy
So why did you have
to be so nasty

Remember the curls
Of the Deutscher girls
Lover of mine
From down the Rhine

I'll fill your bath with
The finest champagne
I'll lick your skin dry
I cherish your name
The stakes get higher
As your dress sparsely
So why did you have
to be so nasty

Remember the curls
Of the Deutscher girls
Lover of mine
From down the Rhine

I love your blonde hair
I kiss your pigtails
And I could not share
The scratch of your nails
And though you mock me
Your eyes so glassy
Oh why did you have
to be so nasty

Remember the curls
Of the Deutscher girls
Lover of mine
From down the Rhine
I said Remember the curls
Of the Deutscher girls
Lover of mine
From down the Rhine

THE WORLD'S FORGOTTEN BOY And IT WAS MORE ABOUT THE TROUSERS!!

In September 2004 Richard Cabut interviewed Kevin Mooney about the punk days, Adam & The Ants and his current project, Lavender Pill Mob for the 3am website (http://www.3ammagazine.com/musicarchives/2004/sep/interview_kevin_mooney.html)
Here is the link to that, and also in January the same year George Berger did a 2 part interview with Marco Pirroni (http://www.3ammagazine.com/musicarchives/2004/jan/interview_marco_pirroni.html)
Both are very good and worth a read!

Some choice quotes: "I used to go to college in the morning and just sit there and look at someone wearing Brutus jeans and hate them -- consumed with hate about these jeans. It was more about trousers than anything else!"

3AM: What were you trying to do?
MP: I was trying to put off getting a job for as long as possible.
3AM: You've done pretty well so far!
MP: Yeah, I think so! Still haven't got one!

"I remember one time in Middlesbrough. The skins were throwing sharpened up 50ps and kung fu stars, so I said, tactfully: 'If they dropped an atomic bomb on this town it would do £5 worth of damage. I've travelled all over England, I've seen every skinhead in the country and you, standing at the back, you've got the ugliest girlfriend around'. And then this big riot broke out."

Marco Pirroni on 'Plastic Surgery'

I asked Marco Pirroni about Plastic Surgery. Adam and the Ants pre- Marco used to open the shows with it during 1977 and 78, and then they stopped playing it. In 1980 on the Ants Invasion Tour the new Ants played it as an encore. This only lasted for this short tour before they were signed, and it hasn't been played since. I asked why and what he thought of the song.

Marco:
"I always liked it,which is why we kept doing it,we didn't think it worked at the beginning of our set coz we wanted to have a big start to our show,and the moody intro wasn't right for us. I liked doing it and thought we did a fuck off version once we got into the main part of the song but the clipped stark 3 chord intro didn't suit us, I alway thought it sounded too much when the band came in over the bass intro and the orginal band did that bit better(I can't belive I just said that) I remember rehersing it for the first time with Adam and when it came to the guitar solo I did it note for note as it used to be,this really pissed Adam off for some reason,"that was what John used to play,I expect a lot better from you!" I thought "yeah you're right I'm being lazy" unfortunetly nothing else seem to fit so in the end I did it like Jason Voorhees would have played it,on the verge of getting out of control and being totally wrong,turning this little rinky dink solo into a screaming microphonic feedback ampethamine overdose( thats what I thought anyway) We dropped it later coz most of our audience didnt even know what it was, I wanted to do it for the shepherd bush shows as it is an part of the history of the band,but we never got round to it."

Plastic Surgery January 1978 Marquee, London

Plastic Surgery 22nd May 1980 Electric Ballroom, London

Plastic Surgery

Coming next, 2 live mp3s of Plastic Surgery, one from 1978 and one from 1980 with Marco on guitar. I'm gonna go through each single in order of recording and post versions of the songs. So Plastic Surgery first, then next will be Deutscher Girls and then Young Parisians. etc......

Watch this space fuckers!

Hey, you got a face like a labrador
I don't mind, that's what I'm here for
The angel Gabriel sent me
To give you a little bit of sympathy

Ooh, I'm gonna take you down to Harley Street

Such a shame you had that crash
That will teach you to drive flash
And that lorry, hit you at full power
Your blood gushing like a shower

Gonna take you down to Harley Street

Plastic surgery, it's so plastic
Plastic surgery, fantastic

Well, you might have to sell you car
And your parents brand new house
You lie awake and you lose your sleep, baby
Miracles do not come cheap

Gonna take you down to Harley Street

Well, you can have a brand new nose
Light blue eyes or even hazel
Little ears will be much better
When you are a real go-getter

Gonna take you down to Harley Street

Plastic surgery, it's so plastic (alright now)
Plastic surgery, fantastic (and you'd better take me away)

Well don't go sitting in the sun
Your new face might start to run
Just forget your make-up scheme
Clean your face with Mr Sheen

Ooh I'm gonna take you down to Harley Street

Plastic surgery, it's so plastic (okay)
Plastic surgery, fantastic

Gonna take you down
Take you Gonna take you down there
Take you Take you down to Harley
Gonna take you down I'm gonna take you down there

Hear Marco on Scottish BBC radio
Here

Ant 3

A cool pic of Adam and a Bass Guitar

This pic and some more and info about them can be found
Here

Ant 2

Today I am posting the original song that Black Pirates is a cover? reworking? of. It's by Kevin Mooney's band that he formed after the Ants (Wide Boy Awake).
I prefer this version.

Chicken Outlaw

You can read Lavender Pill Mob's other half Gary Asquith's reaction to some criticism of Black Pirates
Here (Scroll down the page a bit).

Ant 1

Hi, welcome to the Adam and the Ants/ Adam Ant MP3 blog!

Here you will find odd bits of Ant news, links to Ant sites and News, and some mp3s.

The first mp3s will be added shortly!

I will rotate the mp3s a few each week, so grab them fast!

I will also try and keep them to rare live versions or remixes, demos, etc, rather than the ones readily available on cd (so you won't see Goody Two Shoes here!). The odd official track will appear now and then, but with the intent on making you GO BUY THE CD! A link will be given where available for you to do so.

Antmusic for Sexpeople!

Ok, first mp3: Black Pirates

02 - Black Pirates:
Love to Marco, Adam, Terry, Chris + all the Crew of the Stellamaris. ♥
[03:07]

Carty - Mooney once said in a 3am interview that Adam sings this version of "Chicken Outlaw" better than he did when Wide Boy Awake performed it back in the 80's. He must have been taking the piss. This was recorded in 2003 and has to be Adam's worst vocal performance ever released ("Wannabe" and "Save The Gorilla" remain unreleased). It's ironic that Mooney wrote this about Adam, and it does question what state of mind he was in when this was (poorly) recorded. The hardest part for me is after Adam sings "clever, clever, clever, fucker". The "oh" that follows is, to put it bluntly, sad.

Steve - Oh dear. It features Adam Ant on vocals. I want to be nice because overall I like this album. But this song really does not fit. The album has some odd moments, but this is more than odd, it sounds like a mess about in the studio one day. It is of course a re-recording of a Wide Boy Awake song, "Chicken Outlaw", re-named "Black Pirates". But it's not even a re-recording, it sounds like Kev said to Adam one day "'Ere I wrote this song about you ages ago when I left the Ants", played it to him and Adam said "hehehe that's great, pass me another beer, 'ere, 'ere, let's have a mess about, let's tape it!" The results really ought to have been left off as a curio, something they did one day for a laugh. because apart from the fact that with Adam on it it becomes an ADAM song (and it is way below what Adam can do - even the covers on the "Gorillas" single were better than this, even "Gorillas" itself was better), it doesn't sound complete. It's too messy, it's all over the place and sounds unfinished. In a word it's awful and really should have been left off the otherwise fantastic album. When I first heard it I thought well ok
if the rest of the CD is like this then at least it fits and it will take some getting used to, but as my review shows, the rest of the album ISN'T like this. So it's just a shame that this is in there. And being an Ant fan I tried hard there to be kind, but really it ruins the CD, and is skipped, sorry.

Taken from http://www.cartrouble.nl/news/mikesbikesreview.html

Mikes Bikes is available to buy from www.LeCoqMusique.com for £9.99