Marco’s interview has pink pages, Andi chose tartan. What’s your choice of background?

Something unsaturated, unpatterned - and legible? Ta.

We'll leave it as it is then.  You were a roadie for the Ants and the Monochrome Set. When was this?

I didn’t roadie for The Ants. I roadied for a post-Ants band John [Bivouac] Beckett and Mark [Kid] Ryan put together, round about 1981 ~ 83, and The Monochrome Set 1983 ~ 85. I should probably point out that The Monochrome Set would never have admitted to having anything as vulgar as a 'roadie'. I was their 'travelling companion'. I think they saw me as some kind of precariously tempered, shoddily turned-out 'batman'.

How did you become a roadie?

Early in ‘81 I was designing a poster for some theatre group or other and was recommended a printer in Covent Garden. I pitched up there and was discussing the job with the print shop owner, whom I thought looked vaguely familiar. I was pleased as he seemed to know his stuff, which was pretty useful - because I had very little idea of the technical side of print. The poster was quite funny - it had cherubs hurling atomic bombs about, I remember. For some reason talk turned to music and I mentioned that I had been quite into Adam And The Ants, a little-known art-punk outfit currently taking the pop world by storm after some personnel changes. The penny dropped. "Oh, yeah - I did a bit of guitar for The Ants". Of course he did. I was talking to Johnny Bivouac.

The thing that’s easy to forget about those times was that if you liked a band it wasn’t really like being a fan at all - you didn’t really take too much notice of who played what, whether the singer was pretty or not - all that mattered was the noise they made, how they came across. Whether or not they embodied some aspect of the Impending Apocalypse. Ha, ha. Of course, The Ants did.

I think John was pleased that someone remembered what he’d done - it’s always pleasant to have people appreciate your work. He said we should meet up later in the week for a beer. We did, and he brought along Mark Ryan with whom he was playing and writing occasionally ‘to keep our hands in’. We became quite mates, and when they started recording and gigging around a little more seriously, it was just obvious for me to roadie for them so we could just hang out, travel around together and get free beers. We just fell into it. I would make up intro tapes for them to come onstage to - Hindi film tunes segueing into ‘Wunderbar’, or the theme from ‘The Avengers’ slamming into something equally inappropriate. It got the audience’s attention.

When Andy Warren left The Ants in October ‘79, a lot of The Ants crew would turn out to see The Monochrome Set. Not only had Andy joined on bass - replacing Jeremy Harrington, but Spider [AKA ‘Longfellow’ or ‘Long’], who’d worked for The Ants during ‘78, was now roadying for them. So it was kind of like a home from home. Really violent gigs for such a well-mannered outfit, I remember. When I stopped going to see The Ants after the Invasion Tour in 1980, I’d still go to every London gig The Monochrome Set played. We knew people in common, and I fell into going backstage to say ‘Hello’ and drink their rider after each gig. Andy eyed me suspiciously for some months, but didn’t do anything other than nod a cursory acknowledgement whenever we met. It later transpired that he was fascinated by the fact that not only did we wear the same leather Luftwaffe gloves during cold weather, but also smoked the same white-tipped Ligget & Meyer cigarettes. Once he was sure this was coincidental shared taste and not some proto-stalking symbolism, he invited me to accompany The ‘Set - "You eat all the food and drink all our beer anyway - you may as well earn it". So I did. So followed a couple of years of getting paid to hang out with one of my favourite bands - until we returned from a UK tour in 1985, when I decided I’d had enough of roadying, they decided they’d had enough of each other, and disbanded - for a while.

What did it involve doing?

You know, roadie stuff. Humping gear about. Building and breaking down drum kits. Enforcing ever more strict and ludicrous riders. Making up numbers while attempting to forcibly extract the gelt from the local tightarse of a promoter. Keeping the van driver awake coming back from Dundee at three in the morning. Attempting to ‘pull’ ‘chicks’ while attempting not to appear to be attempting to ‘pull’ ‘chicks’ [not pulling them was easier, and had a near 100% success rate]. You know - these weren’t The Rolling Stones here, or even The Bay City Rollers. Let alone Adam And The Ants. People weren’t chopping bits off to meet them. Except freaks and nerds.

How long did you do this for?

On and off between 1981 and 1985.

How did those roles differ for each band?

Well, The Monochrome Set were a more successful act, so there’d be better hotels, better riders, more money and a slightly more attractive class of ligger, but other than that, roadying is roadying is roadying. I mean, we did some good stuff on the road - Channel 4’s ‘The Tube’ sticks out in my mind, meeting a tearful Dave Berry - so touched that we youngsters even knew who he was - in Sheffield’s Leadmill, and a VE night in Hull [don’t ask]. At times it could have been incredibly boring but I really quite liked most of the people involved, and - as I said earlier - it’s great to be a young guy getting paid to hang out with your favourite bands. It’s not work on that level. Kids don’t really seem to do it much these days. Maybe they’ve got better things to do.

The firing squad or Mark's Robin Of Sherwood motif?

You designed the motif that appeared on the Clannad ‘Legend’ album in 1984. It’s similar to Adam’s Strip logo from around the same time. Is that just coincidence?

Yes. By that time I had no interest in what Adam was doing. I was a 23 year old ex-punker and ‘Strip’ was aimed at, and intended for, 13 year old girls. I wasn’t meant to be interested. And I wasn’t. I probably didn’t even see the album until it had been out for six months. My copy is a promo copy found in Notting Hill Record And Tape Exchange for fifty pence, bought at the time out of some kind of residual-knee-jerk-reflex-dumb-consumer-loyalty. It came in handy though - the sleeve was the source of the Remaster cover, as the original photograph by Allan Ballard had evidently long gone walkies.

So no, the Clannad motif had nothing to do with ‘Strip’. While I was roadying, I was also pursuing a proper job as a graphic artist. I trained for a while under Rob O’Connor [who subsequently art directed ‘Vive Le Rock’] and I did the ‘Robin Of Sherwood’ woodcut motif for him.

Was the Clannad motif made for the group, or was it connected to the ‘Robin Of Sherwood’ TV series, which the album was the soundtrack for?

Rob was designing the packaging for the TV soundtrack album, and I created the motif under his direction. As far as I can recall, Rob was commissioned by the record label who were coordinating the approvals and permissions of both the TV production company and Clannad themselves. For what it’s worth.

JC gets run over by a train, as captured by Mark Alleyne

You designed the sleeve for The Monochrome Set’s ‘Trinity Road’ (1995). How did that come about?

Andy Warren came to see me and said "We’ve just recorded an album for Cherry Red. Would you like to do the cover?" Normally their guitarist Thomas Hardy [Lester Square] took care of their design requirements, particularly after the band reconvened in 1989 or 1990, but this time, for whatever reason, they wanted me to do the sleeve.

What inspired you?

After I agreed, Andy and I got down to the serious business of discussing what exactly the album was about. Having drunk several bottles of Italian red, as was our wont, and having got no further than the album title [which was by no means finalised at this point] referring to a long-time disused London Underground station near where Andy and Bid [The Monochrome Set’s singer/guitarist] grew up, I decided to go my own way with it. Having spent most of my life in and around central London, and from my early teens travelling on ‘the tube’, I was used to catching rare glimpses of these derelict underground train stations up some unused spur of track - with advertising posters from the ‘thirties or ‘forties still discernable on the walls - when the train I was on stopped for some reason or other between stations. It was amazing to know there were these time bubbles under the city - unused since The Blitz, perhaps - that were just tantalisingly beyond an outstretched arm, hand, finger - but visible, when the light was right.

I’ve always enjoyed modern art. Usually the ideas are more exciting than the physical manifestations, but you can’t have everything. I’d always loved the idea of an abstract painting, for instance, being used as a blueprint by an engineer. What version of reality could be reverse-engineered from an abstract painting? The Trinity Road sleeve is based on Charles Demuth’s 1928 work ‘I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold’ - which in turn was derived from the artist’s impression of a utility train grinding and thundering through a New York subway station in the early hours of the morning. I used this as a template for the 3D model which is the core of the image. Right up to the eleventh hour, however, it still looked, well - incomplete. It wasn’t until a postcard from a friend holidaying in Brazil dropped through my letterbox that it came together. When I saw Jesus’ outstretched arms I laughed out loud. It tied the lights, the perspective and the symbolism of the image together in a way I couldn’t have planned. The band’s name on the sleeve was designed to be printed in metallic ink, but we’re dealing with Cherry Red Records here...ha, ha. The back was quite funny, too - I used the London Underground track schematic with song titles where the station names would be, way before that guy nominated for the Turner Prize used the same idea. Ha ha. I would gladly revisit this job and do it properly. But then again, that’s often the way.

What’s the significance of the #9? Was it their 9th album?

It was their 9th studio album.

Did you do any other work for that band? If so, what?

Yes. I’d already artworked and furnished elements for [but not designed] their earlier 1985 single ‘Wallflower’.

What other work did you do for Rank Amateurs?

Shedloads. But ‘Rank Amateurs’ was simply a name under which I operated from time to time. Some clients feel more comfortable working with entities, rather than individuals, so ‘RA’ was simply a flag of convenience I used when dealing with people like that.

You were blessed with a thank you on ‘AntBox’. What was your involvement?

Marco called me and said that they couldn’t find certain master tapes of some of the songs he and Adam wanted to use for the set. Did I have any decent copies of them? Yes, I did. "Thank you" he said. You’ll be relieved to know that the masters I refer to have turned up in the meantime - ready for the Demo Box.

I didn't have masters. I became a kind of unofficial Ants archivist during the eighties - rather than risk losing demos or writing tapes - they'd be given to me for safekeeping. The tapes I had in this instance were first generation copies of the ¼" mix tapes on metal cassette.

Also on ‘AntBox’, there’s a demo of USSA, recorded in 1987. You’re credited to contributing additional vocals. What additional vocals?

"Waaaarrrrgggghhhhhhhh! Aye, aye, aye HEEYYHHHHH! Oh. Aye-a-HEY! Yew - Ess, Ess! HOOOOO-ha!!! HEY.

If it’s the chanting vocals, how come you didn’t end up being credited on the final version, which appeared on Manners & Physique?

Because it was a demo. It was re-recorded for the album.

How did this singing session come about?

On the last Monochrome Set tour, I was going a little stir-crazy. Andy Warren and I would dream up things to do to break up the boredom. Whenever Bid went to change a guitar between songs, Andy would start playing bass-lines to Dave Berry songs and I’d run out on stage - leather-clad - and begin gyrating about, mimicking Dave Berry [from whom Alvin Stardust learnt everything he knows] and generally disrupting the solemnity of the occasion. By the time we got to Hull we’d all had enough. It was VE night, and - when Bid went to execute his first guitar-change, I ran up and broke into Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’. "Topical", I thought. Have you ever seen a lead balloon go down? The gig continued. But I wasn’t going to be beaten by a bunch of Hullians [or whatever they call themselves in those parts]. There was another pause. I ran onstage. "Bearing in mind" I said into the mic "that every Fritz was some fraulein’s Leather Lover - let us not tonight forget the other side - this is defeat in Europe night, for some" and broke into ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’ from ‘Cabaret’. Seemingly everyone in the place knew all the words [an unnerving and scarifying experience. That’ll teach me] and it may as well have been Berlin, 1933. I legged it offstage and realised I needed the bathroom, sharpish. So there I am, answering the call when a wild-eyed ‘Set fan runs in: "What a roadie! What a roadie!" he gushes, extending his hand. I am having a waz, cock in relevant hand - not really a good look - so I just smile distractedly as he runs out again.

Mayfair Charm School ft Victor Armarda (aka Mark) - "Montague Terrace (In Blue)"

My ‘performance’ hadn’t gone unnoticed by others, either. Dave Harper, the band’s road manager [now manager of Goldfrapp], who occasionally would get up and do ‘The ABC of Medicine’ with the band, suggested to Mike Alway of Cherry Red sister label ‘él’, that I was a raw, unrefined talent-in-the-rough, that he should ‘snap up immediately’. Alway suggested I record a cover of Scott Walker’s ‘Montague Terrace (In Blue)’. We’ll need a B-side too, so I bang out a cautionary anti-romantic ditty called ‘Little Black Dresses’. I call Andy Warren and head over to Marco’s place near Baker Street to demo the songs. Paul Stahl [long term Marco associate - The Weekend Swingers, El Trains] doubled up with Marco on acoustic guitar, Andy played bass through a pig-nose amp and I emoted mournfully over the top. Bang, crash - demo done. Of course él go for this and we’re booked into Rooster II studios in West Kensington. We’re in the studio with Richard Preston at the controls. He’s a little lost with all Marco’s electric gear - he’s really known for his work producing strings and acoustic material - he engineered the soundtrack to Derek Jarman’s ‘Caravaggio’. But we muddle through. Andy plays bass, Marco all guitars and I’ve got Christine [singer in Pink Parts, the band who regularly supported The Ants during some of their earlier 1977 gigs] along to do BVs. We do ‘Montague Terrace...’ like ‘Are Friends Electric’ - all moody, desolate and emotive. Heavy, maaan. ‘Little Black Dresses’ is vaguely hilarious - lifted by one of Marco’s brilliantly funny guitar solos. Various subsequent events make me decide that él won’t be troubled by my musical output any more. The single comes out in December 1986 [credited to the ‘Mayfair Charm School featuring Victor Armada’ - my nom de guerre for this project], garners generally favourable reviews, and then disappears from sight without troubling the most alternative of alternative charts. For some unfathomable reason it sells 5,000 copies in Brazil. The A-side turns up on CD a year or so later, as part of the ‘London Pavillion’ compilation. Because the rest of the tracks on the album are largely whispered, acoustic ramblings, ‘Montague...’ is EQ’d down to nothing during mastering to avoid blowing everything else on the record away. Very disappointing. Bye, bye él.

1987 : Adam’s living in L.A., and he and Marco exchange tapes of songs and ideas by post while they’re working up the songs that would turn into ‘Manners & Physique’. I’m living in West Kensington now, and Marco decides he wants to finish these songs he’s been working on in a different studio. "What’s the name of that little place we did ‘Montague...’ in?" I tell him, and he books some time. I’ve forgotten all about it until the phone goes. Can I come round and do some vocals on this demo? It’s only round the corner. Do I have to? Oh, alright then . . .

What other tracks were you involved in?

None.

Part 2 continues here>>>