Adam And The Ants – Do It Records 1982

Posted on January 12, 2008July 19, 2008 by Penguin

Held out for as long as I could, sure all the ‘Sex People’ out there would like to hear these again, and this is the only release I thought I could upload without getting into too much agg with ‘The Man’. All the other releases are generally available on other formats CD / ITunes etc. This record contains three tracks, previously unreleased from the original line up, that ended up as Bow Wow Wow, with the adorable Annabella (I can say that cos I was a year or so younger than her at the time, so it does not sound too dodgy, me admiring 14 year olds in 1980!)

It obviously was a blatant cash in, as it was released after Adam And The Ants had changed line ups a couple of years before and had became massive worldwide.

Adam And The Ants will forever (for me anyway) be linked with Kill Your Pet Puppy fanzine, no doubt Tony and the others will stick some stories on the comments if this is the case in their minds.

15 comments

Nic
January 12, 2008 at 2:46 pm

I was too late for the Ants really (I only saw them live on the ‘Frontier’ tour in 1980), but I love the Do It recordings: ‘Dirk Wears White Sox’ was my favourite album in 1979 (along with ‘Stations of the Crass’ 😉 )…

The passages in ‘Tabletalk’ where the voices spiral through delays and the guitar revolves around the rhythm section are superb…

I have a feeling this thread will be a magnet for people of a certain age…
😉
alistairliv
January 12, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Friends was the b side of Antmusic on CBS, Kick the b side of Cartrouble on Do It and Physical (your so) of Dog eat Dog on CBS. I used to buy the CBS singles at Small Wonder (much to Pete’s hilarity) and take them over to Puppy Mansions.

I think it was Val who spotted that the line

I want you hot in my arms
And soft on my matress

on the version of Physical here was changed to

I want you hot in my arms
And soft on my bed

for the CBS/ pop version.

Beat my Guest was the b side of Stand and Deliver

Got the sleeve of Kings of the Wild Frontier r (the single) but no record so don’t know what the b side was.

And my copy of ‘Whip in my Valise’ seems to have vanished.
Penguin • Post Author •
January 12, 2008 at 6:42 pm

Al, Do not think any of these tracks were released by CBS or recorded by the CBS Ants. Seem to remember a huge rift between this indie label and CBS at the time which went on and on through the courts.
These versions are from the line up that completed the ‘Dirk’ sessions. Pretty sure CBS would not give a two bob label like Do It the rights to release ‘CBS paid for’ studio outtakes or whatever esp after all the bother.
I do like the CBS Ants though, up to ‘Antmusic’ single…which I think was the third taken off the ‘Kings’ LP.
alistairliv
January 12, 2008 at 7:26 pm

Ooops – confusion. What I meant was that two [ Friends and Physical] of the the three Do It songs here are earlier versions of same songs later re- recorded by CBS era Ants and used as B sides for their pop singles.

So the CBS version of Physical ( B side of Antmusic) starts off ” Your.So .Physical… Eat your heart out Do It, you just can’t do it, can ya.. ”

I have the CBS singles, so I am getting info off the labels…
carlbe
January 12, 2008 at 9:35 pm

Alistair..

The B side of Kings was ” Press Darlings”…..sorry if someone else has already told you ..

I was 15 about the time the Ants broke and the one thing that does stick in my mind from the period was the Panache/Vague broken hearted stance as Adam moved from Punk underground rebel to mega star in a 6 month period.The interesting thing being is that he was the only person to break out of the punk underground in such a way.

If you use hindsight, its still breathtaking how fast he moved and to be honest no one else managed it in such breathtaking style.

A fascinating subject that is still flogged to death now 25+ years later
carlbe
January 12, 2008 at 9:37 pm

Penguin

I have a feeling that these were recorded at the same time as the Dirk album and were extra tracks that were not used
Tony Puppy
January 12, 2008 at 11:15 pm

I’m sure there’s a version of the song Dirk Wears White Sox out there somewhere. ; )

Great song, and not on the album of the same name!

The lyrics are printed on the back of KYPP4 (see the page in question in the ‘content’ page on this website.
carlbe
January 12, 2008 at 11:20 pm

Must admit, never heard anything but live versions of the song……

So I dunno…
alistairliv
January 13, 2008 at 1:58 am

At the end of a C-46 (?- thats what it says) TDK tape Bob gave me of Blood and Roses early demos plus B and R live at Centro Iberico I added the Ants song ‘Dirk Wears White Sox’. (but only half of it …bah!)

I must have taped this from the tape we used to decode the lyrics for KYPP 4.

Although the sound quality of my tape is poor, it is much better than live quality and was pretty certainly a studio session.

According to KYPP 4, ‘the three Antz lyrics are versions used on the decca demos and jubillee sessions 77 and 78, taken off b/legs (especially) ‘nachtgesprachen’.

The other song lyrics were ‘It Doesn’t Matter’ and ‘Hampstead’.

At the time (and now) I was really impressed – I never saw the original Antz and hadn’t realised just how damn good they were.
alistairliv
January 13, 2008 at 2:08 am

Gotcha! Found a very shaky video of early antz on youtube which has the version of Dirk Wears White Socks mentioned above as soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cGGiEo3qAc
alistairliv
January 13, 2008 at 2:15 am

Supplemental – in comments on above, turns out that Dirk was recorded (but not used) in a John Peel session.
Chris Low
January 13, 2008 at 2:32 am

what’s this ‘digital tenderness’ DVD all the cool Ants clips on youtube are taken from? and does anyone have a copy?
Nic
January 13, 2008 at 1:16 pm

Here you go Chris:
http://www.cartrouble.nl/dtdvd.html
Chris Low
January 13, 2008 at 3:34 pm

“If you use hindsight, its still breathtaking how fast he moved and to be honest no one else managed it in such breathtaking style.”

Toyah being the only competitor in these stakes one could say.

i remember on a visit to london with my folks around 79 or 80 going to rough trade (or small wonder – can’t quite remember which) and noticing the number of punks with the trinity of ‘adam and the antz’, ‘toyah’ and ‘crass’ pained on the back of their jackets, buying either ‘victims of the riddle’ or ‘sheep farming in barnet’ on the strength of it. and being MOST disappointed.

I can understand the Toyah/Antz ‘Jubilee’ connection but strange to see how Crass fitted into this axis. Or perhaps back then they were just regarded as the only sort of ‘edgy’ punk bands (this obviously being years before the memergence of ‘anarcho-punk’ as a genre-term).

Did Toyah go through an early phase of doing interesting/challenging stuff in the same way the Antz did? perhaps someone can illuminate? I still remember enjoying her appearance as the singer in a punk band on an episode of that ‘Shoestring’ cop show.
BJ
December 29, 2021 at 4:16 pm

Did Chris ever get a copy of Digital Tenderness DVD from Nic? Does anyone know where I can view it (seems the Copyright Cops have been pretty strict with this one!) Would LOVE to view more than just the Menus and Credits 🙂