Still insanely exciting, as sound and as sight
And at the time, I bought into the whole thing, I was just young enough then to plunge fully into it without reservation.
Hand-painted the Antz regalia on various garments... there are pictures of me with the white stripe and an attempt at the look.
This is a neckerchief scarf thingy I made - I think I wore it tied at the waist though
How did I do that? Indian ink? Felt tips? Can't remember.
The little faded self-made badge says "Elimination Dancing" - a Bow Wow Wow song. In the middle, those are meant to be shoe movements as in a diagram of steps in a guide to dancing. But that must be from later on, as the debut album, on which "Elimination" appeared, didn't come out for quite a while after Kings of the Wild Frontier.
I was totally into Bow Wow Wow as well - even more so really. The whole McLaren-inspired caboodle. Even bought my girlfriend a Westwood frock from World's End which had found its way to an Oxford shop - cost a fortune it did (for a student-grant recipient). She never wore it once! But she did come with me to see Bow Wow Wow in St Albans - and conceded afterwards "there's something to be said for the primitive". (She was more into classical music, Mahler, that kind of thing).
Of course nowadays these appropriations by Adam and crew - the Burundi drums, the Apache whoops, the stripe across the nose, the reference to lost tribal potencies and red skin under the white skin held down by centuries of taming - these would be shamed out of its existence. And not without reason I suppose....
From Jim Morrison and his dead Indian souls scattered on dawn's highway bleeding (then jumping inside his fragile eggshell mind), through to Adam and The (Southern Death) Cult, to Ke$ha's head-dresses, and probably a dozen other examples, there is a stern dissertation to be written about exoticist / primalist projections towards the Native American / First Nations.
Even Kate Bush with her "The Dreaming" might get a scowl.
In the case of Bow Wow Wow, some of the guitar parts and vocal melodies were directly stolen from Soweto songs.
Talking about Adam Ant and the image/sound makeover that McLaren as conceptualist-for-hire came up for him, that turned him into a pop star...
One of my favoritest stories in all of rock'n'roll is about Darby Crash from the Germs.
Like the whole LA punk scene really, his thing was massively based on English punk. (As opposed to NYCBGBs). Indeed I believe before punk Crash and that lot were Anglophile glam fans, Bowie-ites who went down to Rodney's English Disco etc. Always looking to the UK. It's an LA thing.
Anyway, Darby Crash is hurtling down the Vicious nihilistic death trip path.
Then he goes to England and sees the Antz just after the McLaren make-over.
Comes back to LA with a white stripe across his nose, telling everyone "this is the new thing", urging anyone who'll listen to get with the new program that he's brought back word like Moses with the tablets of stone.
I think I like the story because I'm never convinced there's anything there, with the Germs.
Still at least he inspired one of my top 5 pieces of music of 21 C so far.
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