Carty grills Marco Pirroni

Indeed the interviews are back.  But why did they go away?

In London, October 2008, at the Family Of Noise‘s Family Reunion event, I made an announcement.  It came right at the end of the Never Mind The Ant Box quiz.  I’d had enough of the Ant world in general, and was quitting my rather popular Ant site (which was then hosted at cartrouble.nl)

In fact, I wanted to close the site down.  This was mainly due to the apparent lack of regard Adam Ant had with his loyal online fan base at the time.  It was going to be goodbye to all those Ant gig listings, the discography, the news, the mixes…you get the picture. Besides, adam-ant.net had undergone a refreshing change of ownership, not to mention the excellent Family Of Noise fan site (sadly now gone).

Although I didn’t realise it at the time, I was sulking like a big baby.  I had shared his plan with my then long term friend (and now, my wife) Texi.  I was in for a shock, as she wiped the floor with me and convinced me to at least archive the site and not be so selfish. I crumbled!

So when I left The Netherlands, a new site location (this one) was born.  Transfering all of that old content to this new look is some undertaking.  Most of the pages in the Audio section (Carty Mixes, WTF mixes, etc.) have been re-launched.

So now it’s the turn of those Carty Interviews to move into their new home.  All eleven interviews are there, two of which are BBC Radio 2 interviews with Adam Ant, and one is me being interviewed!  The remainder are interviews I did with both of The Wolfmen (Chris Constantinou and Marco Pirroni – there are TWO from him), and the people behind the Antmusic Remastered project from 2004 and 2005.  A few others get grilled as well, although one interview I did with Tibetan singer, Namgyal Lhamo has never appeared online as I never transcribed it. And I did so much research for her interview, as she was recording with The Wolfmen at the time.  Such a beautifully pure voice too.  Maybe one day…

Next up, will be the Ant Gigs listings.  But before that I have a Carty FM podcast to knock out.  And more on that soon.  In the meantime, you can find all the interviews here.

WTF Mixes

Not only can each of the tracks on the WTF compilations be stream via the embedded music player, it is now possible to download each of the tracks as well. Furthermore, the notes accompanying each mix have been updated, to give a brief insight in the history behind each of the mixes (where remembered!).

To download the mixes, just look out for the  symbol to the right of the mix titles. Then right click and select “Save Target As” (for IE users) or “Save Link As” (for Firefox users).  Having finally updated all pages for the four of the WTF volumes, AND  the 11 Carty Mixes volumes, next inline is to update the Blue Carrot mixes, the new Under The Hood compilations plus other side projects.

To view each of the four WTF volumes just visit the WTF Mixes index page here.

Carty Mixes

A while back it was announced that a music player had been added to each of the audio pages so that the mixes could be listened to.  It is now possible to download each of the tracks featured on the Carty Mixes volumes. Also, due to popular demand, the notes accompanying each mix have been updated, to give a brief insight in the history behind each of the mixes.

To download the mixes, just look out for the symbol to the right of the mix titles.  Then right click and select “Save Target As” (for IE users) or “Save Link As” (for Firefox users).   Having finally updated all of the 11 volumes with download links, next on the agenda is to add similar links for the WTF volumes, the Blue Carrot mixes, the new Under The Hood compilations plus other side projects.

To view each of the eleven Carty Mixes volumes just visit the Ant Mixes index page here.

The tough part has been trying to locate all of my video mixes on my external hard drives, as some seem to be missing.  Once they have all been located, I can upload them all to the new YouTube channel.

In the meantime, here’s the first of my productions which also features mixed video as well as audio.  A mash-up of Adam & The Ants vs Ultravøx entitled Kings Of Vienna [Carty Mix].  The original  audio for this mix is featured on Carty Mixes Volume 9 and the video is of much better quality than the one on the old channel.

The collection is entitled Original Album Classics and is the latest in over 200 such collections from the Sony and Warner/Rhino labels.  The compilation is due to be released on September 26th 2011, however no track listing has yet been released.  Judging by the album sleeves displayed on the cover (above) we are free to assume what will appear for now.

1983 US Dirk

This collection uses the American sleeve for the 1983 release of Dirk Wears White Søx, so therefore, we could be looking at the same track listing used on that edition. That would indicate the absence of gems such as Catholic Day, Day I Met God and Cartrouble (Parts 1 & 2), but including Zerøx, Whip In My Valise, Cartrouble (single version) and Kick!. Of course, there’s always the chance that they could just use the 2004 remastered track list, but that seems unlikely. The last time the US version was released on CD was in 1990.

Jap Kings CD 2009

The Kings Of The Wild Frontier CD in this compilation is a little tougher to guess.  If the Dirk CD is indeed the US track listing, then it is fair apply the same rule to the Kings one.  The US version of Kings replaced Making History with Physical (You’re So), and also added Press Darlings.  However the CD sleeve to the US version has a horrid yellow border around the album cover, which is not shown on this compilation’s cover.  A further possibility is that they could be using the superb Japanese mini-LP CD release from 2009.  Probably THE best CD sleeve for Kings ever (left).  It’s cardboard, but if the image was used for this new release as well, then full marks to them.  The Japanese release uses the standard 12 tracks from the original 1980 UK LP, but remastered.

Jap 2009 CD

As for Prince Charming, well the track listings for the original CDs have always played the same 10 tracks, even though the sleeve listings have been erroneous. It will be interesting to see if this is corrected on this release.  It’s also worth mentioning that the Japanese 2009 mini LP CD features a high quality gate-fold sleeve, mimicking the original UK LP, even down to the track listing.  The down side is, the CD plays not 10 tracks, but the 16 tracks from the expanded 2004 release.  So it is possible this new release may contain the same error.  All will be revealed in the coming weeks.

While we wait for Amazon and Play.com to list the details, let’s all take a peek inside that Japanese Prince Charming CD sleeve:

Japanese 2009 gatefold CD

It’s a little sad that the WTF series only lasted four volumes, as the covers are truly awesome, and a lot of fun was had researching the images used.  Many thanks to Ant Lady once again for her first class graphic designing.

WTF Vol 1

WTF Vol 2

WTF Vol 3

WTF Vol 4

You can listen to all of the tracks by visiting each volume’s respective web page, linked below:

• WTF Volume 1
• WTF Volume 2
• WTF Volume 3
• WTF Volume 4

Time has since moved on and the Carty Mixes and the WTF Mixes will now be replaced with the Blue Carrot Mixes.  More news on that to follow…

The Carty Mixes began back in 2002 with a very simple remix of Adam Ant‘s Wonderful, which is the opening track on Volume 1.  Ironically, an updated version now appears on the final edition, Volume 11.  And now, all the tracks have been added to each volume’s respective page in the Audio section of the site.  Each page has its own media player so that visitors can listening to the mixes (including the dodgy old ones).

To celebrate this, brand new artwork of the first 5 volumes has been unveiled for the first time, re-designed by Ant Lady, who also produced the original artwork.

Vol 1 new

Vol 1 - old

You can see the old vs new designs which follow a similar colour scheme to volumes 5 to 11. Just click here to see a much larger new one. The Post-it note adds a cool finishing touch. Many thanks to her for designing all of the covers designed for the individual mixes as well as the volumes.

Volume 11 is the last one in the series, and if you visit the page, you’ll see the media player with the 7 mixes loaded.  You’ll also notice no artwork.  Well, it has been created, but with no track listing available at the time, it couldn’t be completed. Hopefully Ant Lady can be persuaded to utilise her magic one more time.  The track listing closing off this series is:

1. Adam & The Ants vs a-ha – Stand & Deliver vs Take On Me [Carty Mix]
2. Adam And The Ants – Lou Reed (Dance) [Demo 9 Remix]
3. Carty – Ants 4 Justin 2009
4. Jason Mraz – I’m Yours [Ant Lub Remix]
5. Adam Ant – Wonderful Dream
6. Adam And The Ants – The Family Of Noise [Dot Com Remix]
7. Monster Ant Mix [Carty Mix]

Selection CD 1

Two additional compilations have also been added to the Ant Mixes section of the website, which are the Carty Ant Mixes Selection CD 1 and CD 2. These were produced for Sony Music in 2005 under the advice of Marco Pirroni. Tracks were selected from the (then) available 8 volumes, for possible inclusion in movie soundtracks.  Alas, nothing ever came of it.

Next for the website is to create pages for the 4 WTF volumes along with media players.  Then we can publish details of Carty’s Other Projects, such as collaborations with The Wolfmen (Marco Pirroni and Chris Constantinou), Ciaron Marlow, remixes of the Lavender Pill Mob (Kevin Mooney), producing an album for Mantra II (Terry Lee Miall) and not forgetting solo projects, such as the classic Makes Me Proud… (featuring unheard remixes by Simon Clarke and Ciaron Marlow) and Manic In The Boulengerie (the Carty solo album project).

The intro begins with a very rare, unreleased, 2004 recording of a very gentle Dog Eat Dog by Marco Pirroni, followed by the live “Hey you up there!” intro to Physical from which this footage in taken from.  The remainder consists of the CBS B-side version of the song, syncronised to Adam‘s live performance at Manchester on the early 1980s.

There have been some instances of people still ordering goods at the Carty Store on the Dutch site. Orders which cannot be fulfilled, unfortunately. So now I have redirected the Dutch site to this one. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Carty