Barking at the buffoon...

January 24th – Career moves are always a bit tricksy in the music business. You never know if the fire will be as hot as the frying pan, the move a better thing than sliced bread, the fit as snug as a bug in a rug or whether you've just been sold a pup…or after two failed singles, you see your fellow band members desert you like rats leaving a sinking ship; like Adam Ant did. Do you know, I do believe, if I concentrated, I could probably write this whole thing in clichés…but at the end of the day maybe another time, when push comes to shove... For now, consider the career move of ‘The Ants’, Adam’s backing band as, on this day in 1980 they left Mr. Ant as one and joined up with Malcolm McLaren’s band, ‘Bow Wow Wow’.

Now, throwing your lot in with what can only be charitably described as a chancer of Mr. McLaren’s stature would, on the face of it, seem sufficient cause to relegate you to the hell that is ‘told you so’. Renowned for his collaborations with Vivienne Westwood (never did get her) and ‘The Sex Pistols’ (no lights under bushels with that band name…I don’t know about you but that sort of lack of subtlety would ring warning bells with me particularly if I was being asked to deduce the level of trustworthiness in a future fellow business partner from his choice of epithets)…anyhow, sorry, off topic again… A glance at the respective successes of these two bands is a useful pointer as to how we should all conduct decisions of a delicate nature (horse – stable door – bolted, come to mind). The C.V.'s

Adam Ant: - 

Nominated for a Grammy and won a BRIT and an Ivor Novello award and also had a couple of number 1’s and several charting pieces as well as having some influence on fashion. He has had and still has an on-going career (whatever you think of him) that has lasted for 30+ years. I know the recent photos of him performing in 2012 aren't exactly…flattering, but then, whose are? The photos of me taken in the 1970’s when I looked like a taut, Greek God, contrast sharply with the partially deflated space-hopper who stares back at me from the mirror these days, so what do I know? 

Bow Wow Wow: - 

Had a couple of minor hits and some influence on fashion before fading into obscurity…erm…that’s it…

It has been said (not by me you understand but by someone far less sensitive) that a bad career move in the music business is just being female, but that aside for further discussion, given those two choices above which would you say has turned out to be the better career move? Would it be: -

1) Joining a band that has the name of ‘Bow Wow Wow’, is fronted by Mr. McLaren and remembered most for a wholly unoriginal song, ‘I Want Candy’ which, like nearly all of Tarentino’s films uses the word ‘referencing’ as its legitimacy…(that reads very pissily of me; wasn’t meant to. I’m not a massive Tarentino fan but do admire some of his set pieces, and anyone undertaking any artistic enterprise cannot but help be affected by what’s gone before, what’s floated their particular boat. It’s when the central tenet of the work is flaunted as a ‘reference’, which is probably coded speak for, “We couldn't be arsed to create our own so we stole this one” that I get…well, pissy actually)…sorry, off topic again… sorry…back onto Bow Wow Wow and their wholly unoriginal song, ‘I Want Candy’. It featured as ‘referencing the Bo Diddley beat’ (although, I have to say, it reminds me more of Cliff Richard’s single ‘Willie and the Hand Jive’, the title of which sounds suspiciously like the result of an overuse of one-handed literature and was in fact also a Johnny Otis retread)

Or: -

2) Staying with a band that has the name of ‘Adam Ant’ and that rose to stardom.
From the preceding it would seem an easy choice. Well, not so fast there, pardner; let’s just re-consider ‘Bow Wow Wow’ and ‘Adam Ant’… 

You see, in the pop world, it’s all about perception, personal perception; people’s personal perception; of your style, of your cool rating. It’s the building blocks of a career in the pop/sleb world. It’s what ‘OK’ and ‘Hello’ magazines have based their whole existence on. They love to feature the stars as they expose their blubber, hirsute pubic arrangements, liver contamination levels, underarm grizzly bear look-alike status, off-the-bedroom-floor fashion choices and illogical ‘situation appraisal’ abilities (and we love to read about it). Of course, that level of personal press intrusion wasn't around back in 1980, but that's no excuse. There were sufficient signs and signals surrounding the perception of cool to make any normal buyer beware. Things you pick up by default through living a normal, everyday life BEFORE you become famous; being able to spot the booby-traps BEFORE they blow your knackers off; relying on your own judgement and being able to make your own decisions BEFORE you hand that responsibility on to someone else…and yet in spite of all that supposed knowledge and street awareness you think it’s super-cool to name your band ‘Adam Ant’…?

Now you may say, 

“Peter, you've got it all wrong. ‘Adam Ant’ is an adaptation, a reference if you like, of ‘Adam Adamant’, a 60’s TV series revolving around a swashbuckling, sword slinging, cloak wearing handsome devil of a creation that was as suave as a really suave thing…”

Or you may say, 

“If you were as left-field and as hep as you obviously think you are, Peter, you boring old curmudgeon, you’d know he/it is a nod to the Ant People, a reference if you like to the Hopi legend about the Sky God Sotuknang destroying the homes of the benevolent Ant People by fire…”
Or: -

“What have you been doing these past sixty years, Peter; hibernating? It’s a hat’s off, a reference if you like, to Henry Pym, the scientist-come-super-hero out of the Marvel comics.”

But, you see, all the cleverness, arty objectifying or recognition of an iconic past (or ‘referencing’ as some like to call it) in the world can be individually misread; personal perception, mark me on it, personal perception. 

Bow Wow Wow, to me, is the sound a dog makes; demanding, playful, teasing, fun. No disrespect but, to me, Adamant is and always will be the name on a porcelain urinal…honest.