My questions are in blue, Marco's responses are in black (this time), and Ant Lady appears in her favourite purple occasionally. (Non-dialogue parts are in green)

C: Since we last spoke we've had all the Remasters and Redux. How do you look back on that now that it's apparently closed off?

M: Well I'm glad we did. It's put to bed and everything and I don't have to think about it anymore.

How has the response been from a sales perspective?  Are you pleased with it?

I think I'm pleased. I was pleased with the first set. With the box set I don't know what sales that has done yet.  It's something I'll have to check into this week.

Was Redux an after thought?

Yeah.

Because you had stuff left over?

We didn't want to just do six albums in a box. We wanted to think of something, so we had this stuff. Well, people say they want it, and here it is!

In my interview with Mark Alleyne he said that the packaging for Dirk, Kings and PC were being remade so that the booklets wouldn't fall out.

That's right because the slot's on the wrong side.

He said he'd have to wait until they had sold out of the first batch before the correct batch could hit the shops. Now, there are people waiting for these to be available.  Has that happened yet?

I think they have sold out. I think they've done the Dirk ones. I think the Kings ones have gone. I've actually just got a load from Sony, but I haven't opened them so I don't know if they are the new ones or the old ones.

So they could be out there.

Yes it could already have started.

When we spoke last year I brought up Manners & Physique, Persuasion and Wonderful and I got the impression that the intention was there to remaster those and make it a complete set. You'd said even though they were on different labels it could all be licensed through Sony.  But after Redux was announced that was it. It was all finished. So what happened?

It just got very complicated and time consuming and we wouldn't have got that box out in time.
It just takes fucking ages between corporations, particularly when it's stuff that's not readily to hand.
Because this whole thing with MCA is ridiculous. They don't even know they own it (Persuasion).

I can talk frankly and freely as I don't care anymore:  they (MCA) don't know they own it. We asked them years ago that we'd like to license this album and they'd say "But we don't own it!". You'd think that would be good, but in actual fact you just can't go ahead because *I* know they do. *WE* know they do.  And Sony said "That's all very well MCA saying they think they don't own it, but they really do! They'd just be shot". They will realise one day.

You have previously gone into details with me about all the red tape and legal shit that's involved in this.  In real terms do you think that we will see, putting Persuasion aside for now, do you think we will see remastered versions of Manners & Physique and Wonderful?

Well, there's this thing with EMI that I haven't actually checked out that has only happened in the last couple of weeks -  that we wanted to put the Wonderful EPK thing on the DVD.

The Wonderful video Electronic Press Kit (which appears on Ant Video)?

Yeah.  And we had to get clearance for it.  And they wouldn't give clearance.  And I was thinking "Why?" Because they can't use it for anything.  Well they are planning their own DVD project. Now what that could be I have no idea.

Because they've only got three singles to go on it?

Well they've got an album.

EMI said a DVD?

That's what it said in my email.  I think EMI don't really want to talk to me, because I was never really signed to EMI as an artist, so they can't really talk to me about it.  They'll have to talk to Adam, and he won't call them.

It was over ten years ago!

I remember reading somewhere that there were 25 songs recorded by you and Adam for Wonderful, so I'm led to believe.  I think it was something Adam said in an interview (turns to AL). Do you know?

What state of mind was he in when he said it?

No, I think it was some press pre-release thing and that there were 25 songs ready for the next album and it was just a case of narrowing it down to the last few.

Yeah, I think we did a lot more demos.  We suddenly had this thing about doing some demos.  We were going to buy a four track cassette recorder and we were going to do it here (in Marco's home). I'm going to play guitar and Adam is going to sing and that's going to be the demo. That's it. We're not going to do anything else.  It'll be the bog standard, world's roughest demo.  We could have done with one of them really (pointing to my Olympus digital voice recorder) but we didn't.

The sound on this is shit believe me.

We just wanted to get it on to something and then it was, "don't touch it until we take it to the studio". So then there's nothing to be lost, hopefully.

So, when you went through all that process, it was just a case of picking out the best songs and doing those properly in the studio. And that's what resulted in the album?

Yeah. I don't know what state they are in but there was a cassette I gave Andi (Vaughan) and it really is a drum machine, an acoustic guitar and a voice.

What about songs that were demo'd by yourselves at that time, when you were signed to EMI?  Is there a licensing problem if you ever wanted to release those demos?  Does it work like that?

There's never any licensing problem between companies. The only problem is how much people want to charge for them and how much people want to pay for them.  In this situation it's probably not worth Sony licensing them.  They would have to give EMI points and stuff like that.  It's better just to go directly to EMI and do it with them.

So if there was, say for example, a four track cassette demo of Vampires, and it was good enough to release, you'd go through EMI?

Yes, because they own all that material.

I want to ask you about a demo claimed to be after Wonderful and thought to be considered as a single by Adam, Call Me Sausage. There seems to be no information in the public domain about this and nobody knows anything about it. 

No, they wouldn't.

Well I need to know more about it basically. What do you know about that particular recording?

I know everything there is to know about it.

So what other recordings were done at that time?

We did one called Tough Blokes, Call Me Sausage (thinks...thinks more).  Did you ever hear anything about one called Picasso Meets Gary Cooper?

No.

Okay, there were six songs. I can't remember if we did them all in that day and in that session.  There was something about Picasso Meets Gary Cooper which we never finished.

I love the titles!

Well it wasn't called that, it was called something else. There's another one called Justine.

I wonder who that was about? 

What else did we do?  I can't bloody remember!  I think Andi's got them all.  I had them all on DAT. 

But you must have them here! (looking around)

I don't. I don't keep old stuff. I don't keep any old stuff.

Do you think any of this stuff will ever see the light of day?

They might do?

"Don't rule it out".  That's what you're saying?

Yeah.  I really like them.  Well SOME of them I really like.

And so that ends the third excerpt from the full interview.  Most of the above is taken from the early part of the interview from the section I used for Excerpt One.  I am still hoping all will be revealed when I get the ok to publish it.  Just look at these excerpts as a teaser to what is to come. And there is much more to come.

Carty Interviews Index
Excerpt One
Excerpt Two
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