New Wave icon Adam Ant had
numerous UK hit singles in the early 1980's with his band the Ants.
Among them “Ant Music”, “Stand & Deliver” and “Prince
Charming”. However the band initially had a significantly different
sound. Based in all things S&M, the original punk/post-punk Ants
were somewhat less colorful-sounding than the hit-laden Ants were.
The lone album this era of Adam And The Ants was Dirk Wears White Sox. Released in October of 1979 the album contained plenty of early Ant favorites such as “Car Trouble” (which would later be re-recorded and released as a single peaking at #33), “Cleopatra” and “Never Trust A Man (With Egg On His Face)”. The music is a fairly unique blend of post-punk. The album is comparable to XTC's Go 2, Gang Of Four's Entertainment, Magazine's Real Life and Siouxie & The Banshees' The Scream. Plenty of angular, atonal guitars and interesting rhythms ornamented with stark lyrical themes.
The album was finally issued in the US in 1983, after the success of “Goody Two Shoes”. The album contained different cover art (a still taken from the “Zerox” music video, a still was also used for the single-sleeve of “Cartrouble”). “Day I Met God” & Catholic Day” were dropped in favor of the singles of “Zerox” and Car Trouble” (and their B-Sides “Whip In My Valise” & “Kick”, respectively) .
It is this line-up of Adam Ant on vocals, Andre Warren on bass, Dave Barbarossa on drums and percussion, Matthew Ashman on guitar that band manager Malcolm Mclaren poached from Adam to subsequently form Bow Bow Wow.
Both versions of the album are worth hearing and dare I say the American Version is more crowd-pleasing of the two. But there is an integrity to original UK version that is possibly unmatched by the US version, as it was Adam's original version of the album in the first place.
Very
Most Highly Recommended for fans of post-punk, punk and new wave.
Here's the video review:
Photography: Janet Beckman
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