Here's Adam & The Ants to kick start your week...literally, the opening song of today's selection is called Kick! (Adam's exclamation mark, not mine).
The first album I ever bought was Kings Of The Wild Frontier, £3.99 from Sound Seekers for the vinyl edition with free magazine. The latter blew my 9-year old mind as it revealed that not only had the band existed before Dog Eat Dog and Antmusic forcibly grabbed my attention, but that apart from Adam Ant, it was a completely different line up with a completely different look and sound.
A year or so later, after I'd bought follow up album Prince Charming and with no inkling that the end was nigh for the band (or that I would pretty much lose all interest in Adam's solo ventures, having moved on to synth pop), I got hold of Dirk Wears White Sox. My uncle, who I think lived near Shepherd's Bush at the time, used to borrow albums from his local library and dub them onto a C90 cassette. My brother and I were fascinated by this and as our parents had a turntable but not a fancy schmancy tape deck combo, we didn't have the means to make our own contribution to killing music with home taping.
So, a few requests and blank cassettes later and our uncle had a little cottage industry of supplying my brother and I with a bunch of albums we might otherwise not have access to. My main recollection was that my brother took the opportunity to catch up with the ouevre of E.L.O. and The Police. I was quite specific: I wanted Dirk Wears White Sox, with The Blue Meaning by Toyah on the flip side.
A while later, our package arrived. My uncle's exact comments haven't been recorded for posterity but he wasn't overly impressed by my choices, which I think pleased me at the time. He had a point: whilst some of the tunes are really great; I've always found Adam's lyrics so-so. For every Antmusic, there's Ant Rap; for every Stand And Deliver! there's The Idea. In a parallel universe, Adam Ant wrote Sex Farm and gave it away to Spinal Tap.
Despite all that, there's a real buzz listening to their music. My vinyl copy of Kings Of The Wild Frontier and magazine are long, long gone but I still play Adam & The Ants' music regularly. I've since dipped into Adam's solo stuff but it just doesn't resonate with me in the way that this music from my childhood does.
Today's selection is split into two vinyl-friendly sides, quite heavy on the Dirk Wears White Sox period, with a couple each from Kings Of The Wild Frontier and Prince Charming, as well as various B-sides, sessions and demos.
Enjoy!
Side One
1) Kick! (Remixed Version) (1982)
2) That Voodoo! (Album Version) (1981)
3) Deutscher Girls (Album Version) (1978)
4) Antmusic (Album Version) (1980)
5) The Human Beings (Demo Version) (1980)
6) Zerox (John Peel Session) (1978)
7) Never Trust A Man (With Egg On His Face) (Album Version) (1979)
8) Young Parisians (Demo) (1977)
Side Two
1) Beat My Guest (Single Version) (1981)
2) Animals & Men (Album Version) (1979)
3) Mile High Club (Album Version) (1981)
4) Christian D'Or (Single Version) (1981)
5) Tabletalk (Album Version) (1979)
6) Killer In The Home (Album Version) (1980)
1978: Jubilee OST: A3
1979: Dirk Wears White Sox: A7, B2, B5
1980: Kings Of The Wild Frontier: A4, B6
1981: Prince Charming: A2, B3
1981: Prince Charming EP: B4
1981: Stand & Deliver! EP: B1
1982: Antmusic EP: A1
1990: The Peel Sessions: A6
2000: Antbox: A8
2004: Kings Of The Wild Frontier (Expanded Edition): A5
