#157
April 1980
The Monochrome Set
Strange Boutique
Genre: A missing piece in this genre (to me)
3.75 out of 5
Highlights:
The Monochrome Set
Expresso
Martians Go Home
While Adam and his Ants and Bow Wow Wow got all the (Trouser) press, it seems that The Monochrome Set was there first. Later in our archeological dig we will talk about the connection to Adam via guitarist Andy Warren who started this band, while the other Ants dropped Adam and became BWW.
What listening to this has me thinking is about how both the other bands sound NOTHING like the music on that first Adam record, Dirk Wears White Sox, while this first offering from Monochrome Set absolutely sounds like that bizarre experimental New Wave classic. So, how important was Warren to the Ants first sound? The drumming on “The Lighter Side of Dating” could have been lifted from “Cartrouble”. And, while I have always had a fondness for that first Ant record (which I bought as an import, spalling my father. “$15 for a record!?!?!), it was the next incarnation of Antmusic that had me in its thrall.
However, this record builds on that first, maintaining the wide distancing between instruments, at the same time sucking all the air from those spaces, amping up the herkiness of the jerk and even anticipating that Afro-percussive sound.
One thing that all of these bands had was a sense of humor. They never took themselves TOO seriously. They had fun. Which is strange, to me, as they all sprung from that Sex Pistols punk pool. Oh, wait, maybe that was all a gag to begin with…hey….
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