The 1980 Listening Post - The Monochrome Set - Love Zombies

 The Monochrome Set - Love Zombies

#386

October 17 1980

The Monochrome Set

Love Zombies

Genre: Post-Rock

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Adeste Fidelis

405 Lines

R.S.V.P.

There are Pub Bands/Bar Bands  and then there’s this: A band who’s repertoire seems perfectly suited to another type of drink hall. This is Rock music for Cabarets. 

Fully approachable and dynamically listenable yet impossible to pigeonhole. 

The ex-Ants are all doing something more artistically rewarding even if they don’t seem to have their sights set on the $$$ as much as Adam would. 

Instead of “Antmusic for Sexpeople” this is Smart Pop for Thinking People. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/love-zombies/1477335221

The 1980 Listening Post - The Monochrome Set - Strange Boutique

The Monochrome Set - Strange Boutique

#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….

https://music.apple.com/us/album/strange-boutique/1477331740

The 1985 Listening Post - The Monochrome Set - The Lost Weekend

The Monochrome Set - The Lost Weekend

#282/916 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

July 1985

The Monochrome Set

The Lost Weekend

Genre: Post-Mod 

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Jacob’s Ladder

Wallflower

Boom Boom

I never ever ever listened to The Monochrome Set. And I really don’t know why. One of the original members was Andy Warren, an original Ant from Adam and the Ants, he was the bassist on Dirk Wears White Sox. How did I not travel with him to his other band? 

Dang. I missed out. 

From the opening Gospel tinged “Jacob’s Ladder”, to the Paisley 70s “Sugarplum” (And later, “Wallflower”) all the way through to “Don’t Touch” and the Post-Mod “The Twitch”, this collection could easily fall into cliche or pap and yet it never does. it pops and crackles. (And there’s nothing in here to suggest that Warren was involved with the people who gave us bubblegum of the Ants or Bow Wow Wow)

The Monochrome Set could easily fall into the traps of BES or Mod but this album saves itself each time and I really don’t know why. It’s like an earnest Madness. But, stripping away the obvious lunacy doesn’t remove any of the charm. And, for my money the only thing missing from “Boom Boom” is Jools Holland’s controlled piano mayhem. (He had nothing to do with this band but they would have benefitted from him)

https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-lost-weekend-expanded-edition/1153771442