In Session Tonight
The A-Z of Peel Sessions
August 6, 2007 at 10:26 pm · Filed under 1998, On The Podcast, Session Available
One session - 1998, plus one live appearance (as Papa M)
First session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Mike Robinson and engineered by Nick Fountain on 03/03/1998 - first broadcast 02/04/1998)
1. Vivea
2. Safeless
3. Skrag Theme
Band members: David Pajo (guitar, organ), Tim Furnish (guitar, piano), Cassie Marrett (bass) and Tony Bailey (drums).
David Pajo first played with bands in Louisville, Kentucky, starting out in 1983 as a fifteen year old as the guitarist for Maurice. He then joined Solution Unknown, before becoming one of the founding line-up of Slint in 1985. Slint released two LP’s to huge critical acclaim before splitting up in 1991, Good Morning, Captain from their second LP, Spiderland made #23 in the 1991 Festive Fifty. In February 2005, Pajo played a reunion tour with Slint, and he continues to play on their occasional live dates.
Pajo then passed through numerous bands, seldom staying for too long. He recorded with Will Oldham (featuring on a Palace Brothers Peel session in 1993), The For Carnation, Tortoise (for whom he recorded a Peel session in 1996 and clocked up another Festive Fifty appearance, on Djed #21 in 1996), Stereolab, Royal Trux, King Kong, Bush League, Zwan, and Peggy Honeywell.
From 1995, he started to release music using various band names, initially as M Is The Thirteenth Letter, then M, then Aerial M, then Papa M, and now as Pajo. His debut 7″ single was a version of the track Safeless, which appears in the Aerial M Peel session in elongated form. His debut LP, the eponymous Aerial M (also known as As Performed By) was released in 1997. The band’s only Peel session was recorded the following year. Of the other musicians involved, Cassie Marrett later played with Silver Jews (and indeed is married to David Berman), Tim Furnish and Tony Bailey played together in Crain, and Furnish now plays with Parlour.
In 1999, Pajo changed name to Papa M, releasing the LP Live From A Shark Cage. The following year, Papa M made a live appearance on the Peel show recorded at the All Tommorow’s Parties festival. A further LP, Whatever Mortal was released in 2001, followed by a collection of early singles, Hole Of Burning Alms in 2004.
In 2005, Pajo became a founder member of heavy metal band Dead Child, who feature drummer Tony Bailey who had played on the Aerial M Peel session. He also released his first eponymous LP, his most recent release as Pajo is the 2006 LP 1968.
Pajo’s official site
David Pajo’s myspace page
download the first session (1998-04-02 - aerial m)
July 31, 2007 at 2:50 pm · Filed under 2003, 2000, 2001, On The Podcast, Session Available
Three sessions - 2000, 2001 and 2003, plus two live appearances
First session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Jerry Smith and engineered by Jamie Hart on 02/04/2000 - first broadcast 04/05/00)
1. Fireworks
2. Outside
3. Motion
4. Zionist Timing
Second session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Mike Engles and engineered by Guy Worth on 07/10/2001 - first broadcast 07/11/2001)
1. Shouting For Joey
2. A Simple Process Of Elimination
3. Broken Horse
4. Victoria Segal’s Hairy Arse
Third session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Tony Wilson and engineered by Dave Dade on 29/01/2003 - first broadcast 19/02/2003)
1. Believe Me
2. Snake
3. Inhilation Blues
4. Thriller
Band members: Craig B (guitar and vocals), Campbell McNeil (bass), Martin Scott (drums), and Iain Cook (electronic noises).
Formed in 1997 by Craig B (formerly of Ganger), Aereogramme debuted with two singles, Translations and Hatred in 1999. The following year, they signed to Chemikal Underground Records, and made their first Peel show appearance with two tracks being broadcast from the label’s fifth birthday celebrations in March. In May 2000, the first of their three Peel sessions was aired. Two further EPs, Glam Cripple and White Paw apperaed before their debut full-length LP, A Story In White was released in 2001. The LP is a diverse collection, drawing on prog rock, death-metal, and post-rock, and proved the band to be particularly adept at switching between passages of quiet & extreme noise.
2003 saw the release of their second LP, Sleep And Release. Two tracks from the Seclusion EP made it into the 2004 Festive Fifty, The Unravelling at #15, and Dream and Bridges at #4. A final LP, My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go, appeared earlier this year, and was another eclectic, if less visceral mix. It certainly features less in the way of full-throated screaming from Craig B, after he lost his singing voice for six months, “I went to see a throat doctor and he told me to eat yoghurt which I did and it did absolutely nothing. The only thing that made any difference was time ‘cause I’d spent the previous couple of years screaming every single night and whisky and smoking and that was just a horrible combination… There’s nothing like a good, guttural, frustrated, angsty scream! But it also damages your voice”.
In May 2007, Aereogramme announced that they were to split, saying “reasons are multiple and complex. It is however fair to say that the never ending financial struggle coupled with an almost superhuman ability to dodge the zeitgeist have taken their toll, ensuring that we just don’t have any fight left in us. We are immensely proud of the four albums that we made over the past seven years”. They are due to play their last live dates at the end of August.
Motion is on the podcast, and a video for Zionist Timing is in the vodpod
the band’s official site
the band’s myspace page
download the second session (2001-11-07 - aereogramme)
July 26, 2007 at 11:31 pm · Filed under 1977, 1978, On The Podcast, Session Available, 1979
Four sessions - Two in 1977, 1978 and 1979
First session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Tony Wilson and engineered by Bill Aitken on 25/04/1977 - first broadcast 29/04/1977)
1. Quickstep
2. Looking Through Gary Gilmore’s Eyes
3. One Chord Wonders
4. New Boys
5. Bored Teenagers
Second session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Malcolm Brown and engineered by Mike Robinson on 23/08/1977 - first broadcast 30/08/1977)
1. We Who Wait
2. New Church
3. Safety In Numbers
4. The Great British Mistake
Third session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Tony Wilson and engineered by Dave Dade on 21/08/1978 - first broadcast 11/09/1978)
1. Fate Of Criminals
2. Television’s Over
3. Love Songs
4. Back From The Dead
5. I Surrender
Fourth session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Malcolm Brown and engineered by Mike Robionson on 16/10/1979 - first broadcast 12/11/1979)
1. The Adverts
2. I Looked At The Sun
3. Cast Of Thousands
4. I Will Walk You Home
Band members: TV Smith (vocals), Gaye Advert (bass and backing vocals), Howard Pickup (guitar and backing vocals on first three sessions), Laurie Driver (drums on first two sessions), Rod Latter (drums on third session), Paul Martinez (guitar on fourth session), Tim Cross (keyboards and vocals on fourth session) and Rick Martinez (drums on fourth session).
The Adverts formed in 1976, initially comprising Torquay Art College friends Tim Smith and Gaye Black. The pair moved to London in the early summer of 1976, attracted by the burgeoning punk scene and the desire to get away from Devon. Smith had already fronted a band, Sleaze, only to be kicked out as they wanted to focus on cover versions, rather than play Smith’s own material. On arriving in London, Smith and Black recruited Howard Boak (aka Howard Pickup), Smith recalling that Boak “seemed to know chords. When I showed him how to do something, he could play it straight away. That was a big bonus”. It took a couple of months to find a drummer, before Laurie Muscat “stumbled into rehearsals one day and pretended to play drums; he was totally untalented, so he was obviously the right person for the band”.
The Adverts made their live debut on 15th January 1977 at The Roxy in Covent Garden, supporting Generation X, and they would become regulars at the club in the early months of the year, attracting the attention of Stiff Records, with whom they signed a one single deal. In April 1977, they released their debut single, the self-deprecating One Chord Wonders (which made Sounds single of the week), and made their first appearance in session on the Peel show. From May onwards, they went out on well promoted national tour with Stiff Records labelmates The Damned, under the motto, “The Adverts can play one chord, The Damned can play three. Come and hear all four…”
By their second single, the band had moved on to the major label Anchor Records, Gary Gilmore’s Eyes reached #18 in the singles chart, achieiving a degree of tabloid notoriety for its subject matter, Gilmore being the first person to be executed in the US after the death penalty was reinstated after a four-year suspension in 1976. Gilmore donated his corneas for transplant after he was executed.
They achieved a second minor chart hit in January 1978 with No Time To Be 21, and their debut LP Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts followed shortly thereafter. However, around the same time, drummer Laurie Driver left (after a falling out with Gaye) and was replaced first by John Towe (who had played drums on a Peel session for Generation X in 1977, as well as being a member of Alternative TV) and then by Rod Latter.
Their second LP Cast Of Thousands was released in October 1979, after the band blew the original budget and in Smith’s words “spent the next year scraping around to find spare days in the cheapest studios in town”. The LP was produced by Tom Newman who had previously worked with Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells, and heavily featured the keyboards of Tim Cross, who had also worked with Oldfield. The LP moved the band further away from its original sound and subsequently received a critical panning, Paul Morley savaged it in the NME, “a bit of depth, and lots of derelict piano have been added to the original sound, which has been severely sandpapered by producer Tom Newman (of Mike Oldfield fame), yet can’t escape the clutches of the ever-earnest Gaye Advert’s plodding bass”. Smith’s take is that “we didn’t know that punk rock meant having to make the same record over and over again…We could hardly hear ourselves recording Cast Of Thousands over the sound of the critics sharpening their knives, but it still felt the right direction to go in”. The band split shortly after the release of the LP, Smith continued to record as TV Smith’s Explorers and Cheap (both of which recorded one Peel session apiece in 1981 and 1988 respectively), and he still plays live both in a solo capacity and as TV Smith & The Bored Teenagers.
Quickstep is on the podcast, and a live version of Bored Teenagers from the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1978 is in the vodpod.
download the second session (1977-08-30 - the adverts)
TV Smith’s official site
July 24, 2007 at 4:01 pm · Filed under About
The second podcast is going up as I type (details here), somewhat delayed by not getting it finished before the birth of our second child, a bewilderingly fantastic daughter, which has meant that the chances of getting the house to be quiet enough to record my links rather disappered (not that I’m complaining at all).
Thankfully, she’s doing tremendously well (as is her mother), and thus far she’s expressing a strong preference for the new Chainsaw Paws LP and the Sandy Denny boxset (her views on AFT are though unprintable…)
July 10, 2007 at 10:14 am · Filed under 1997, On The Podcast
First session (recorded at Glasgow G6, produced by Stewart Cruickshank and engineered by Dave Kinnaird on 11/02/1997 - first broadcast 20/02/1997)
1. A Brand New Day
2. When You’re Gone
3. Down In The Traffic
4. Said You Said
5. Goodbye
Band Members: James Beattie (Guitar), Judith Boyle (Vocals), Gayle Harrison (Guitar and Keyboards), Brian Doherty (Bass) and David Mccluskey (Percussion).
Adventures in Stereo formed in 1996, compromising Simon Dine, James Beattie and Judith Boyle. Beattie had previously recorded two superb Peel sessions as a founding member of Primal Scream, before quitting the band aftre their debut LP Sonic Flower Groove. Beattie’s guitar is probably the defining factor in terms of their early Byrds-in-minature sound, captured perfectly on the two-minute classics, It Happens and Velocity Girl.
Subsequently, Beattie formed Spirea-X, whose line-up also included Boyle, whilst Dine managed and co-produced the band. They split in 1995, Beattie claims that this was down to the fact that “the rest of the band wanted all the glory without any work, and I just hate laziness. So I disbanded them”.
Dine, Beattie and Boyle continued to work together, forming Adventures In Stereo. Dine was largely responsible for the band’s early sound, heavily reliant on sampled loops. Dine claims that after the demise of Spirea-X, “I started making music at home just for fun and in time amassed loads of backing tracks. I played these to Jim – who I had kept in touch with – and he wrote some lyrics and Judith sung on top of them”.
After issuing two EPs, the band fragmented, with Dine splitting from Beattie and Boyle. Dine’s take is that “Jim & Judith agreed deals with labels called Marina & Creeping Bent to release Adventures In Stereo records without telling me. I went mental at Jim and haven’t spoke to them since”. This led to the bizarre situation in 1997 of two eponymous LP’s being released in nigh-on identical covers, one blue, one yellow. Beattie and Boyle collected the early EP’s as the blue LP on the Creeping Bent label, whilst Dine released the yellow LP on Underground Sounds. Beattie refers to the yellow LP as a bootleg, “our ex-manager brought that out. It’s actually Spirea-X demos, I would not have released those tracks at all”.
With Dine forming a new band Noonday Underground, Beattie and Boyle recruited a full band to continue as Adventures In Stereo, and in February 1997 they recorded their one and only Peel Session. In 1998, they released the Alternative Stereo Sounds LP. Their final LP, Monomania was released in 2000. As with his work with Primal Scream, Beattie proved a master of brevity, most songs clocking in at around the two-minute mark (if that). Interviewed at the time of Alternative Stereo Sounds release, Beattie explained his desire for succinctness, “when you listen to someone like Oasis or Ocean Colour Scene, there’s these huge introductions, then they do a huge middle-eight, and then a huge outro. It’s so unnecessary. Really, all that’s missing in my songs is an intro, a middle-eight, and an outro. So it’s just the song, and nothing else”. Substitute the word huge for shite, and that quote makes even more sense.
Down In The Traffic from Alternative Stereo Sounds features in the podcast.
July 2, 2007 at 9:50 pm · Filed under On The Podcast, Session Available, 1979
One session - 1979
First session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by John Sparrow and engineered by Mike Robinson on 20/11/1979 - first broadcast 05/12/1979)
1. Get Addicted
2. Distortion
3. Numbers
4. Sensitive
Band members: Monkey (lead vocals), Mel Ellis (guitar, vocals), Pete Davidson (guitar, vocals), Kid Dee (drums, vocals), and Tim Hocking (bass, vocals).
The members of The Adicts have been together since their original incarnation as Afterbirth & The Pinz, before becoming The Addicts and then finally dropping a ‘d’ to arrive at the name they still play as. Monkey (aka Keith Warren) is unsure exactly when they got together, “I think I have a flyer from March ’76, but before that we had played our first show in a scout hut in Aldburgh, Suffolk…We strung a rope across the room to keep the ‘crowd’ back and had a motor bike for a lighting rig”. They played their first London gig in 1979 at the Brecknock in Camden, and subsequently released their debut single Lunch With The Adicts. Their one and only Peel session followed shortly thereafter. The band adopted a distinct image around this time based on the Droogs from A Clockwork Orange, which they’ve retained to this day.
They self-released their debut LP, Songs Of Praise, in October 1981, which sold relatively well. By 1982, they were flirting with commercial success, their second LP The Sound Of Music made #2 on the indie charts and even grazed the national album charts (albeit at #99). The following year, the single Bad Boy reached #75 on the singles chart (the band playing Cheggers Plays Pop as The Fun Adicts to promote it). In 1984, they signed to Sire and managed yet another name change, this time to ADX. Monkey recalls “that was bit of a dodgy period for us. There was some perception that Adicts had negative connotations for radio and TV. We had signed to Sire who where going to make us big, and we were taken in by it. They did nothing for us and we were left to pick up the pieces”.
The band continued to regularly record and release new material until the late 80’s, since when they’ve largely concentrated on live performances, with sporadic forays into the recording studio, most recently with 2004’s Rollercoaster LP.
Numbers is on the podcast, and Sensitive is in the vodpod.
download the first session (1979-11-20 - the adicts)
the band’s official site
June 28, 2007 at 11:08 pm · Filed under 2000, 2003, 1997, 2001, On The Podcast, Session Available
Four sessions - 1997, 2000, 2001 and 2003, also made one live appearance
First session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Mike Engels and engineered by Kevin Rumble on 23/11/1997 - first broadcast 26/11/1997)
1. The Black Regent
2. Hit Me
3. Sir Ape
4. Warm Jag
Second session (recorded at Maida Vale 3, produced by Mike Engels and engineered by Kevin Rumble on 21/11/1999 - first broadcast 01/02/2000)
1. Metal fingers In My Body
2. Robot N.Y.
3. King Wasp
4. Mathematical War
Third session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Simon Askew and engineered by George Thomas on 31/01/2001 - first broadcast 20/02/2001)
1. Superstar
2. Brothel Charge
3. Kingdom
4. The Poker Roll
5. I Wanna Be Your Dog
Fourth session (recorded at Maida Vale 3, produced by Louise Kattenhorn and engineered by Simon Askew on 19/12/2002 - first broadcast 14/01/2003)
1. All Night Lazy
2. Total All Out Water
3. Large Number
4. Sir Ape
Band members: Barry Smith (Keyboards), Ann Shenton (Keyboards), Steve Claydon (Keyboards) and John Russell (Drums on first session).
Add N To (X) formed in 1994 comprising vintage synthesizer buffs Ann Shenton and Barry Smith (aka Barry 7). Ann Shenton says her love of antique kit stems from finding “an ms20 synth in the rubbish behind Charing Cross Road in London, seriously. Everyone thinks this is a myth but it really happened, took it home, plugged it in, got electrocuted and fell in love”. Shenton and Smith were joined by Andrew Aveling for the band’s debut mini-LP, Vero Electronics, in 1996. Aveling was replaced by Steven Claydon for subsequent releases, with Stereolab’s Andy Ramsay and the High Llamas‘ Rob Allum providing double drums live. They recorded their first Peel session in 1997, and recorded four sessions in total, as well as featuring in a live broadcast from the 1998 Peel curated Meltdown festival.
Their 1998 LP On The Wires Of Our Nerves LP, welded the beginnings of a more overt rock sensibility onto the band’s experimental tendencies, and includes two NME Singles Of The Week (The Black Regent and King Wasp, a skewed take on Slim Harpo’s I’m A Kingbee). If their early work was somewhat cerebral, the title of 1999’s Avant Hard LP indicated that the band had moved on. The video for Metal Fingers in My Body, with its female protagonist making vigorous use of the services of Love Robots Inc demonstrated an altogether more basic intent. The NME described the LP as “The sound of robots with trouble on their mind and a worryingly lustful glint in their eye”.
The following year, they released Add Insult To Injury, lead single Plug Me In was genuinely chart-friendly, but garnered more interest in a Smith-directed video that featured two female porn stars, a bag of sex toys and the (ahem) Add N To (X) fucking machine. The final LP was 2002’s Loud Like Nature. The band recorded it seperately to one another, with Smith in Sheffield, Claydon in London and Shenton in Idaho. This dislocated recording process, foreshadwoed the end of the band. Shenton left the group therefater, and while Smith and Claydon continued touring the US for a time, that was that. Since the split, Shenton formed a new group, Large Number, Claydon has focused on developing his career as an artist, being included in a group show at Tate Modern in 2006, and Smith runs New York record label, Horseglue.
The video for The Poker Roll is in the vodpod, and Sir Ape is on the podcast.
download the third session (2001-02-20 - add n to (x))
large number’s myspace page
add n to (x) fanpage
June 24, 2007 at 10:33 pm · Filed under 1993, On The Podcast
One session - 1993
First session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Ted De Bono and engineered by Steve Bridges on 07/09/1993 - first broadcast 22/10/1993)
1. Spooky
2. Hunters And Collectors/Vernal Equinox
3. The Snowball Effect/2001
Band members: Barry Adamson (Programming, Guitar, Vocals), Unknown (Programming), Monty Messex (Guitar), Shamus Beaghen (Keyboards) and Ivor Guest (Additional programming).
Some fifteen years after his Peel session debut, Barry Adamson recorded his ninth BBC session, but his first and only under his own name. Adamson (on bass guitar) had been part of the original line-up of Magazine (led by ex-Buzzcock Howard Devoto), playing bass guitar on their three Peel sessions in 1978 and 1979. When the band split, he went on to play with Visage, appearing on their first two albums, as well as working with another ex-Buzzcock Pete Shelley (for whom he played on four BBC sessions for Kid Jensen and Janice Long between 1981 and 1984). After this Adamson became one of the founding line-up of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, having previously played live with The Birthday Party. He stayed with The Bad Seeds for two prolific years in which the band released four LPs and recorded one Peel session.
After leaving The Bad Seeds in 1987, Adamson embarked on a solo career. His debut single in 1988 was a reworking of Elmer Bernstein’s theme to The Man With The Golden Arm, giving expression to a fascination with film soundtracks that has defined his subsequent work. Interviwed in The Wire in 1996, Adamson said that soundtracks were where he “first really discovered the emotional value of music. My sister was playing a lot of rock music in the 60’s. I liked it, but then going to see a movie and hearing music as well as seeing what was going on and feeling the music move me left a real thing that I chose to stick with in some way”. His 1989 debut LP Moss Side Story was an film noir soundtrack to an imagined movie, albeit whereas most soundtracks exist to underscore the visual content, Adamson’s work is essentially about creating the whole package.
By the early ’90s, Adamson was being offered work on real film soundtracks including Gas Food Lodging, Lost Highway and The Beach, as well as scoring the music for the BBC television drama series City Central. His solo recorded output continued through to 2006’s Stranger On The Sofa.
His Peel session coincided with the release of The Negro Inside Me EP in 1993, from which The Snowball Effect features on the podcast. A brief interview from Granada Television in 1988 is in the vodpod.
Barry Adamson’s official website
June 21, 2007 at 9:59 pm · Filed under 1990, On The Podcast
One session - 1990
First session (recorded at Maida Vale 3, produced by Dale Griffin and engineered by Miti Adhikari on 02/02/1990 - first broadcast 20/02/1990)
1. Something Is Happening
2. Genetic NRG
3. Rap You In The Sound
Band members: Adamski (keyboards and programming).
Adam Tinley became Adamski in 1988, having already had a somewhat chaotic musical career. He had made his recording debut aged 11 in 1978, as a member of The Stupid Babies (a pre-teen punk band also featuring his then five year old brother Dominic) on a compliation EP, Earcom 3. In 1986, he formed hip-hop/punk-disco band Diskord Datkord with another brother Mark (who had played guitar on the 1984 Peel session by Dormannu) and Jonny Slut. They released one single, a cover of X-Ray Spex Identity.
In 1988, having adopted the Adamski name in tribute to the Ufologist, George Adamski, he met Jimi Polo, who taught him how to use a sequencer and 909 drum machine. Very much caught up by the positivity of the burgeoning club scene, Adamski said at the time that he “liked the energy and the visual side of punk, but it was all just saying ‘no, no, no, no’, whereas now everyones saying ‘yes, yes, yes’”.
In early 1989, he started to give live rave performances at house clubs all over Britain including Shoom, Heaven and The Hacienda as well as appearing at raves and warehouse parties such as Sunrise and Biology. In January 1990, he reached #12 in the UK charts with N-R-G, and recorded his only Peel session the following month.
The subsequent single, Killer (featuring Seal), was the sound of the summer of 1990, staying at #1 on the UK charts for a month, and securing him a prime slot on the main stage at Glastonbury. The follow-up, The Space Jungle, though was a bizarre rave cover of All Shook Up, which more than adequately demonstrated the common sense involved in getting someone else to sing on his records and immediately managed to shake off any wider audience. Simon Reynolds describes him as degenerating into “raves very own Captain Sensible“, and he didn’t trouble the charts again.
In 2000, he rechristened himself Adam Sky and continues to record and remix other artists, his most recent releases being the World Domination vs Adam Sky single, Galactic Lover in January 2007 on the rather wonderful Kitsuné record label, and a remix of Riot In Belgium’s La Musique.
A version of Rap You In Sound taken from 1989’s debut LP, Liveanddirect is on the podcast.
Adam Sky’s myspace page
June 17, 2007 at 11:35 am · Filed under 1978, On The Podcast, Session Available, 1979
Three sessions - Two in 1978, One in 1979
First session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Tony Wilson and engineered by Dave Dade on 23/01/1978 - first broadcast 30/01/1978)
1. Deutscher Girls
2. Puerto-Rican
3. It Doesn’t Matter
4. Lou
Second session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Tony Wilson and engineered by Dave Dade on 10/07/1978 - first broadcast 17/07/1978)
1. You’re So Physical
2. Cleopatra
3. Friends
4. Zerox
Third session (recorded at Maida Vale 4, produced by Tony Wilson and engineered by Bill Aitken and Martyn Parker on 26/03/1979 - first broadcast 02/04/1979)
1. Tabletalk
2. Liggotage
3. Animals And Men
4. Never Trust A Man With Egg On His Face
Band members: Adam Ant (lead vocals, guitar on first session and stylophone on second session), Johnny Bivouac (guitar on first session), Matthew Ashman (guitar on second and third session), Kurt Van Den Bogarde (bass), Dave Barbe (drums) and Jordan (vocals on Lou).
Adam And The Ants formed in early 1977 from the embers of the B-Sides (who had featured Adam and Andy Warren, aka Kurt Van Den Bogarde, as well as Bid and Lester Square, later to record three Peel sessions as members of The Monochrome Set).
They quickly established a reputation for a stage show based on S&M and fetish gear, which helped to establish a cult following, but also seems to have had the effect of leaving them as critically derided, labelled as bandwagoneers. Gary Bushell writing in Sounds said “I don’t know how to say this but everyone hates Adam And The Ants….but I saw them on Tuesday and quite enjoyed it. He reminded me of a hammier version of Siouxsie, coming on all drama school, shoulder hugging cracked actor, face coated in thick white makeup, eyes staring, body jerking and all that. He takes himself seriously but he’s quite fun in a campy caricature of Bowie’s darkest moments sort of way”. The band had also attracted criticism for for lyrics that at best can be considered provocative, the first Peel session includes Deutscher Girls (”…so why did you have to be so Nazi?”) and Puerto-Rican (”A chick like you is oh so rare, You get off on his greasy hair, You’ve got a smart apartment, You’ve got central heating, Why go and waste it on a Puerto-Rican?”). Adam explained Puerto-Rican’s contentious lyrics as being “about a white woman who has reduced a human being to dog status - because I thought that was a damn sight more powerful in a lyric than saying look at those poor Puerto Ricans. I’ve sung that song to Puerto Ricans from New York, and they loved it man. Because it was singing about Puerto Ricans, and they just don’t get sung about”, however the song was never recorded again after that first session.
Adam had worked hard to get the band taken under the wing of Jordan, a punk icon working in Malcolm McLaren & Vivianne Westwood’s SEX boutique, and about to take a leading role in Derek Jarman’s film, Jubilee - in which the Ants also featured playing two songs). She describes her first impressions of the band as them being “overwhelmingly dreadful except for the fact that Adam was oozing charisma”, and it was this star quality that led her to agree to manage them. In December 1977, it was Jordan’s presence that secured The Ants their first Peel session. John Walters had gone to see the band play at the Royal College of Art, and was largely underwhelmed, dismissing Adam as “a bit art-school for my taste”. However, Jordan’s appearance to sing Lou was much more exciting for Walters and the offer of the first session was conditional on it including that song.
Their debut single Young Parisians was released in 1978 on Decca to little success, and they were dropped soon after. The band though continued to attract a substantial live following, selling out the Lyceum in April 1979. Their debut LP Dirk Wears White Sox, was released on Do It Records in December 1979, and immediately made #1 on the indie LP chart. Around the same time Adam paid Malcolm McLaren £1,000 to makeover the band. This he did by combining a hybrid pseudo-American Indian-pirate look and appropriating African rhythms from a 1971 track called Burundi Black. The original source of this being a field recording of 25 drummers, made in a village in the east African nation of Burundi by a team of French anthropologists, subsequently parts of this field recording had an arrangement for guitars and keyboards grafted on to become Burundi Black.
The third element in the re-shaping was rather more dramatic for Adam, as it involved persuading the Ants (by now consisting of Matthew Ashman, Leigh Gorman and Dave Barbe) to ditch their singer and become Bow Wow Wow (who would record one Peel session in 1980). It appeared to be the end of the road for Adam.
Adam finding himself short of a grand and a band, recruited new Ants including Marco Pirroni and Terry Lee Miall (aka Terry Day), who had previosuly recorded a Peel session as members of The Models in 1977. Taking some of McLaren’s ideas on board the new Ants has a sound based on hyper-kinetic double drums, and a flamboyant new image. The first release by the new Ants, Kings Of The Wild Frontier, fell just short of the top 40 on original release in July 1980, but the follow-up, Dog Eat Dog was a substantial hit, reaching #4 in September. Both made the 1980 Festive Fifty (that year a Feative Sixty-Five) reaching #30 and #53 respectively. November 1980 saw the release of the Kings Of The Wild Frontier LP, which made #1 on the LP chart proper. In January 1981, another Peel session veteran, Garry Tibbs (ex-Vibrators) joined.
Britain was gripped by Antfever, and there was a string of massive hit singles throughout 1981 and 1982, and whilst the pace of this initial success couldn’t be maintained, Adam had hits on a semi-regualar basis into the 90’s.
Lou is will be on the 2nd podcast, and a video for Tabletalk is in the vodpod.
All the sessions have had a commercial release, most recently as The Complete Radio One Recordings, which is currently out-of-print, although a couple of session tracks are available on Antbox.
download the first session (1978-01-30 - adam and the ants)
the official adam ant news service
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