Adam And The Ants - Beat My Guest (1978)

In my previous post for Adam And The Ants' 'Madam Stan' album I mentioned that the band had recorded quite a few demos around 1977 and 1978, before they eventually signed to Do It Records and released their 'Dirk Wears White Sox' debut album. 'Madam Stan' included a number of these demos, but there were others that were omitted, and so this second album from the group pulls them all together. In 1977 the line-up of  Mark Ryan (guitar), Andy Warren (bass guitar), Paul Flannagan (drums) and Ant himself on vocals recorded 'Plastic Surgery' (along with seven other unreleased demos later dubbed the 'Jubilee Demos' by bootleggers), and after Ryan was replaced by Johnny Bivouac in October 1977 the band finally adopted the name of Adam And The Ants, under which they re-recorded 'Deutscher Girls', and overdubbed a guitar solo onto the above-mentioned version of 'Plastic Surgery' for inclusion on the 'Jubilee' film soundtrack album. After signing to Decca Records and releasing the 'Young Parisians' single, more line-up changes resulted in the band now consisting of  Adam Ant (vocals and guitar), Matthew Ashman (guitar), Andy Warren (bass guitar) and Dave Barbe (drums), and they recorded a total of 19 demo recordings at Decca's studio in West Hampstead. This post collects together the 'Jubilee Demos' which were not included on the 'Madam Stan' album, plus the rest of the Decca demos from 1978, for a nostalgic look back at the nascent punk scene of the late 70's. 

Track listing 

01 Plastic Surgery
02 Beat My Guest
03 Deutscher Girls
04 Dirk Wears White Socks
05 Fat Fun
06 Hampstead
07 It Doesn't Matter
08 Puerto Rican

09 Fall In
10 Juanito The Bandito
11 Never Trust A Man (With Egg On HIs Face)

12 Young Parisians
13 Lady/Catch A Falling Star/Lady (Outro)
14 Whip In My Valise

Adam Ant - Persuasion (1993)

'Persuasion' was to be the fifth studio solo album by Adam Ant, planned for 1992-3, but never released. It featured a collaboration between the Adam Ant/Marco Pirroni partnership and Bernard Edwards, longtime bass player with the disco group Chic. Edwards' Chic bandmate Tony Thompson played drums on most of the album, except for 'Headgear', 'Survival Of The Fetish', and the title track, which utilised Dave Ruffy, who had previously worked with Pirroni on Sinéad O'Connor's 1990 'The Year Of The Horse' concert. Cameo guitarist Larry Blackmon featured on the track 'Little Devil', and former Adam and the Ants bassist Leigh Gorman also helped out. Despite the US Top 20 success of the single 'Room At The Top' from previous MCA album 'Manners & Physique', the label rejected the album and dropped Ant, as they felt that 'Manners & Physique' had not performed as well as they'd hoped, and had failed to achieve gold status in the US. Following the rejection of the album by MCA, Ant formed a new band with Pirroni and Ruffy, and embarked on the 1993 Persuasion Tour to try to attract a new label for the album. Although he managed to persuade Capitol Records to sign him up in the US and EMI for the UK, MCA refused to let go of the 'Persuasion' master tapes, and so Ant and the band had to record a brand new album for the new labels, releasing 'Wonderful' in 1995. Here's 'Persuasion' for you to decide if you think that MCA made the right decision.  

Track listing

01 Persuasion
02 Headgear
03 All Girl Action
04 Brain Candy
05 Obsession
06 Little Devil
07 Sexatise You
08 Survival Of The Fetish
09 Charge Of The Heavy Brigade
10 Don't Knock It ('Til You Got It) 
11 Seems To Me