Whilst lapping up the sun on a Greek island my books of choice was the memoirs of Duncan Bannatyne, that Scots fella off of the telly and Adam Ant’s autobiography, Stand and Deliver. Bot quite enjoyable in their own way, Bannatyne and my thoughts on the man are perhaps best left away from here, Stand and Deliver though, let me press on.
A little background to Adam Ant in my life, he didn’t figure massively, it was a person that my sister adored, as did my friend Jon and also the current Mrs D. People around me liked him and his ever rotating band, me, well it wasn’t someone I disliked but during his golden period I was distracted with Abba, and not too put too fine a point on it, Agnetha and Anna Frid in particular. A highwayman, dandy or otherwise, did not float my boat.
This book chronicles Ant’s child hood and youth in detail, perhaps a little too much time is spent dwelling on this period, although it is needed, as it outlines how Goddard became Ant, but it is by no means the period that is the most of interest.
Adam Ants role in the punk movement is covered well and as someone that the first wave of punk almost passed by, its good to see his perception, and his view on that idiot McLarens chicanery and dodgy dealings, and his perception before the chicanery occurred.
Of course we get all the details of Adam Ants life around his 2 glorious albums, and his relationship with Marco Perroni.
What surprised me was Adam believed that his performance at Live Aid was a good performance, I personally believe the very poor performance that he gave was part of the reason that his career tanked so badly shortly after.
I couldn’t work out at the end if I liked him or not, mental illness is documented well and truthfully, I commend him for that as it’s a difficult situation to talk about, however his attitude towards fidelity is pretty bad, as it was with the Ants, when he had enough he discarded them and moved on. He was very blasé or so it seemed about changing lovers or musicians and these were the situations that maybe made me like him a little less.
Don’t get me wrong Adam Ant is a likeable fella and after all he didn’t kill anyone, but when you have someone like Merrick, Miall and Tibbs all contributing to his success and they were all let go when an album was finished being promoted, and this was the case for pretty much all material prior to this album, you just wonder is Adam Ant reall as nice as he makes out?
Who knows, but an enjoyable read if you have an interest in 80’s pop. Adam Ant : Stand And Deliver
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