New Interview with Ant re: STRINGS OF LIGHT

  • Part One, apparently! Some interesting insights from Ant...

    CM :)

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  • And on a side note, now we know Ant has a girlfriend ;)

    Hmm... it would be interesting to know more about her!


    On another note, Ant almost looks older than he really is. Maybe he needs to do something different with his hair...

    Little known fact: Before the crowbar was invented...


    ...crows simply drank at home.

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    well, he is approaching 70 .... so?

  • Let me put that a different way (since I've already foolishly failed to keep my mouth shut): At his age, his longtime hairstyle doesn't seem to suit him anymore. It gives him the appearance of not having aged well.


    Sorry if that sounds bad...

    Little known fact: Before the crowbar was invented...


    ...crows simply drank at home.

    Edited once, last by DecomposingMan ().

  • Let me put that a different way (since I've already foolishly failed to keep my mouth shut): At his age, his longtime hairstyle doesn't seem to suit him anymore. It gives him the appearance of not having aged well.


    Sorry if that sounds bad...

    It doesn't, because in my opinion the hairstyle didn't suit him even when he was younger. It's his hair & he can do what he likes, of course.

  • It's his hair & he can do what he likes, of course.

    And apparently it's fine with his girlfriend, which is what really matters!


    Seriously, though, is this really the first time Genesis fans have ever heard of Ant having a significant romantic relationship?

    Little known fact: Before the crowbar was invented...


    ...crows simply drank at home.

  • He had his teenage girlfriend Lucy, it is commonly known she left him back then which caused him great heartache and a whole bunch of songs about her (Lucy Will, Lucy: An Illusion, Beside The Water's Edge, and possibly I Saw You Today, most likely more obscure references in other songs). Since then, however, there was never any news about a woman in his life and it seemed he stayed single for a very long time. Then again it's all speculation, he never revealed much about his love life. Except he did now. I'm happy for him :)

  • Let’s leave the poor guy alone about his hair. It’s enough that he seems well and healthy and making music. I wish I had enough hair to have a bad hair day and I’m nowhere near his age. With Tony making noises about producing more music it means that all the gang are still productive one way or another and we couldn’t have counted on that in 2019. It’s great that he’s produced new music and is feeling like promoting it. Good luck to him.

  • Part Two - here - some interesting thoughts on Genesis' hits etc...

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  • And now Part 3 - some cool stuff re: Ant's work with CAMEL...


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  • So we learn that Ant's official discography as a session musician (http://anthonyphillips.co.uk/discography/sessions.htm) is incomplete and the following early session (1963) should be added (Ant on handclaps, together with Rivers Jobe - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_Jobe):

    Hippy Hippy Shake by The Swinging Blue Jeans (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippy_Hippy_Shake)

    ;)

  • The sessions section of Ant's discography only includes those tracks where he is officially credited as having played on and/or produced one or more of the tracks and where they were actually issued on a commercially released LP, CD or download. I'm afraid that the Swinging Blue Jeans session does not count in this respect for a number of reasons.


    Whilst there is no doubt that Ant and Rivers attended the Swinging Blue Jeans session at Abbey Road - Ant still has the photo that the band members signed for him that day - and got to do the handclaps on a recording of the song, there is no definite proof that the take(s) of the song on which they clapped was actually released on record.


    As Ant mentions in the video, the Swinging Blue Jeans were performing later the same day at the NME Poll Winners Concert, which took place at the Empire Pool Wembley. That would date the session at Abbey Road to a Sunday in April 1964 - but Hippy Hippy Shake was released as a single (and became a chart hit) in the UK in December 1963 and there are no handclaps to be heard on it.


    Given this, it seems likely that the version of Hippy Hippy Shake recorded at the session that Ant and Rivers attended was a re-recording, which if it did see the light of day came out on a 1964 release. There was a 7" EP ('Shake with the Swinging Blue Jeans') which includes the song and seems to match in terms of the date it was released and there appears to be a different recording of the song (with a count-in at the start) which if you listen closely does appear to have some handclaps on it at one point - but all of this is too tenuous in my view to include it as an actual session appearance. It's a great story though!

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    Thanks Jon for sharing these great background stories with us!