laugh and shout and scream and moan

One of my all time very favourite LPs is Adam and the Ants' Dirk Wears White Sox. Recorded in 1979 when the Ants were the three guys who later formed Bow Wow Wow. Much artier and punkier than the next album, Kings of the Wild Frontier. As a kid, I was mad for the Ants and drooled over the $10 import copies in stores that carried such things, but never actually saved to buy a new one. No matter, I eventually found it at Rhino. Yeah, the used record store with a vanity label side project that later became just the label and a subsidiary of Warner at that. Back when I attended Emerson Junior High in West LA, Rhino was just around the corner on Westwood Blvd and I spent many free afternoons there. And yeah, one day I found it for $1.99. The cover was thrashed, but the vinyl was in good enough shape at the time. Mind you, I played it until the grooves wore thin.

The subject matter on this album ranged far wider than it did on any of Adam's subsequent albums and includes automotive issues, cleopatra's taste for fellatio, JFK, and what happens when one meets God.

And the Futurists. Now, I never actually got down and read anything much about the Futurists at the time, being pretty sure that the line "Marinetti Boccioni Carra Balla Palasecci" that opens "Animals and Men" didn't refer to actual people, but was just a mish mash of Italian syllables. Much later, I did read dribs and drabs and learned that all of the above were members of the Futurist movement which did in fact advocate the uses of noise in music. Perhaps some day very soon I will post this song, but for the moment I'll point you to Luigi Russolo's essay The Art of Noises which refers to his fellow Futurists and to Marinetti's Zang Tuum Tum, later the name of Trevor Horn's record label the first artist on which was, The Art of Noise (and later Frankie Goes to Hollywood, apropos of nothing in particular).

Animals and Men (from the Peel Sessions) (RS)