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The "XTC are really really good" thread

Started by Stoneage Dinosaurs, July 19, 2015, 12:48:13 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

daf

Ey up : New Andy platter - Floyd and Bonzo covers!

Limited edition (1,396 copies) 10 inch vinyl "double b-side" ep : Apples & Oranges / Humanoid Boogie

 

Quote"1967's Summer of Love has probably been written about, in retrospect, by more people than were directly affected by the original – assuming that something more than simply buying "A Whiter Shade of Pale" as a single is required to count as affected. The revolutionary fervour of 1968, the myriad demonstrations & upheavals in a variety of cities & countries probably had more enduring legacy – even if the political gains seemed few at the time. Irrespective of how history either lionises or demonises the years in question, it's undeniable that both years were gifted with enduring soundtracks of epochal importance in pop & rock's great firmament as the first era of psychedelic music blossomed in the UK, USA & beyond.

Given his musical history, it is perhaps no surprise to discover that Andy Partridge has a special affection for the music of that era or to find that it was the English bands with whom he feels a particular affinity – one would have been more likely, albeit only marginally, to encounter Dantalion's Chariot on the radio in Swindon than say, The Charlatans (San Francisco variety) or Os Mutantes.

So when it came to making initial recordings in his newly upgraded studio at the end of 2017/start of 2018, it was to favoured tunes of half a century ago to which Mr. Partridge returned, specifically: Syd Barrett's Apples & Oranges (originally the A side of the third Pink Floyd single issued in November 1967) & Neil Innes' Humanoid Boogie (originally the Side Two opener from "The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse",  the second album by The Bonzo Dog Band released in November 1968). Andy was one of those few who bought & loved the Floyd single & its equally fab B side Paintbox – it was their first not to chart in the UK, while The Bonzos, having featured in Magical Mystery Tour, went on to a regular, much watched TV slot on "Do Not Adjust Your Set" which was broadcast in 1968/69, making the album a 'must buy' when it appeared.
https://burningshed.com/store/ape/andy-partridge_apples-and-oranges_humanoid-boogie_vinyl

2 songs / 4 tracks (Mono and Stereo version on each side), comes with a signed postcard - £13.93 all in (£9.99 & the minimum pie and peas)

If you want it, here it is come and get it
But, according to Burning Shed's twitter, you better hurry cause it's going fast




Rich Uncle Skeleton

Cool! Bit weird not having both mono/stereo tracks together on each side though?

Sat listening to English Settlement in the pub after a few drinks feeling very very good! 
Its a pain in the ass the 2001 remaster was squeezed onto one CD with no room for the B-sides because, with Rag And Bone Buffet not on spotify, I've no way of listening to Heaven Is Paved With Broken Glass or Tissue Tigers which is a right pain in the ass

Brundle-Fly

Pre ordered my "10, Woo!

Here's another song to add to the song tributes to XTC pile (They Might Be Giants - XTC Vs Adam Ant, Easterling & Gildersleeve - My XTC, The Polysics - XCT )

This is luscious.

Blasting XTC by The Blue up?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd50ah0zSzw



daf

Quote from: Rich Uncle Skeleton on May 25, 2018, 05:14:20 PM
Cool! Bit weird not having both mono/stereo tracks together on each side though?

Eh? They are, aren't they - or do you mean one side should be all mono, and the other all stereo?

Rich Uncle Skeleton

Yeah beg your pardon I knew I wouldn't phrase it right

daf

No, no, your phrasing is good . . .

THIS is bad phrasing!

Head Gardener

the lovely new AP 10"arrived today + signed postcard



​​​​​​​

daf

Ooh yes, I'd ompletely forgot about this - so was a nice surprise this morning.

I wonder if the mono is a 'fold down' or a proper dedicated mix.
On first listen, they sound pretty similar (I was expecting a more 60's hard panned <WIDE> stereo mix here - to show off the differences).

Twitter hints a CD option may be available at some point in the future.

. . . And in other news, Terry and Colin might do a few live gigs.

Head Gardener

I had long conversations with T&C's management and hard as I tried couldn't persuade them to come in for a session, sigh...

Rich Uncle Skeleton

Ah shit, that's a shame. What was the issue if you don't mind the question?

Fingers crossed there's a few gigs and not just one or two tiny ones. And I STILL haven't heard the EP.

Still no word on the next 5.1 XTC album...

Head Gardener

"they don't do radio sessions" tsk, I would be more than happy with a cd of demo's to be honest

daf

Ooh - just spotted one of those rich bespoke "Andy chords"* in the middle of 'Apples and Oranges' which I'm sure isn't quite as fruity in the Floyd version - aprox a minute and a half under the "see you, seeee you" middle bit. 

* Mmmmm - Thems boys is tasty!

Brundle-Fly

Finally blasting these out the stereo now. Top versions and Humanoid Boogie strangely evokes Beck

daf

It's got a really funky groove.

Can't wait for Andy's shed full of demos to be uncorked!

Artie Fufkin

Apologies if this has already been said; I watched the new adaptation of Stephen King's 'It', and 'Dear God' was used in it. Nice.

Brundle-Fly

I wonder how much that has put in AP's coffers? It was a massively successful film but I don't think people were queing up to buy the soundtrack a'la The Bodyguard. Hopefully, DVD sales will have given him some well desrved bunce.

daf

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on July 16, 2018, 01:24:07 PM
I don't think people were queing up to buy the soundtrack a'la The Bodyguard.

Wasn't that the one where Nick Lowe * made a million lovely quid off Peace Love & Understanding - which I think only actually appeared somewhere down among the wines and spirits on the end credits.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* Happy Birthday Nick Lowe!

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: daf on July 16, 2018, 01:52:08 PM
Wasn't that the one where Nick Lowe * made a million lovely quid off Peace Love & Understanding - which I think only actually appeared somewhere down among the wines and spirits on the end credits.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* Happy Birthday Nick Lowe!

Yeah, I like stories like that. Rather like all those fading punk rockers (and Charles Manson though) getting their payday when Guns 'N'Roses released their covers album, The Spaghetti Incident?

daf

Quote from: daf on June 28, 2018, 01:46:49 PM
Twitter hints a CD option may be available at some point in the future.

I took the strangely glowing vinyl from the giant crane fly and turned to get on the train.

"Hurry!" he hissed, and then before my very eyes changed into a splendid compact disc!

https://burningshed.com/andy-partridge_apples-and-oranges_humanoid-boogie_cd

dallasman

That's a quote from "Your Gold Dress" in the intro for "Apples And Oranges", right? And the last part of the guitar solo is vaguely reminiscent of the guitar lick from "Visions Of The Night" by The Police, though that's probably a coincidence. I can see why Andy inserted his own riff into a Syd Barrett song; don't quite see why he would put Sting in there as well. Also, I had to think for a couple of minutes before I could place the melody, and I suspect I was thinking of another song initially. The basic shape is probably used in a bunch of places, but I thought I could hear a similar guitar sound, a vaguely anthemic track, and a vocal coming in right after that final phrase. Maybe one of those call-and-response deals where the guitar punctuates every line with a little doodle. Wherever it's from, that's probably just a coincidence too, but I'm almost positive I've heard something very similar somewhere. Any ideas?

daf

Quote from: dallasman on July 23, 2018, 10:59:42 PM
That's a quote from "Your Gold Dress" in the intro for "Apples And Oranges", right?

Hadn't spotted that, but yes, I think it's there.

QuoteAnd the last part of the guitar solo is vaguely reminiscent of the guitar lick from "Visions Of The Night" by The Police, though that's probably a coincidence. I can see why Andy inserted his own riff into a Syd Barrett song; don't quite see why he would put Sting in there as well.

I think that's a coincidence - But if not, it's more likely to be a nod to Andy Summers than Sting - as Andy would have played the Police riff, and was in Dantalian's Chariot back in 1967 (listen to all that lovely crackle!)

dallasman

Quote from: daf on July 24, 2018, 12:27:56 PM
I think that's a coincidence - But if not, it's more likely to be a nod to Andy Summers than Sting - as Andy would have played the Police riff, and was in Dantalian's Chariot back in 1967 (listen to all that lovely crackle!)

Andy's not credited on "Visions", so that seems even less likely, but Dantalion's Chariot are possibly the most "Dukesy" band of them all, judging by the handful of tracks I've heard. The one you linked is great; a real shopping trolley of '67 sounds, and the crackle adds crucial period ambience.

daf

#592
Back in 1987, I was TOTALLY taken in by the Dukes story!

I used to produce a comic with my brother in the 80's (The pinnacle was when David Gedge sent me a 35p postal order for a copy!), and had got into the fanzine world - one of which was  'Sudden Apathy' - which had a couple of pages dedicated to The Dukes of Stratosphear, and an interview with Andy . . . or rather, with an in-character 'Sir John Johns' - as the fanzine was playing with a totally straight bat, and didn't let the cat out of the bag at all :

The Dukes were a pre XTC band that Andy had been in the late 60's - And Virgin had found a crate of these unsold albums at the back of their warehouse, and were putting them out - with no internet to cross check the facts, well . . . I bought it L. S. & B!

It was a wild and woozy treasure hunt getting to hear those two records. My brother brought home a bootleg copy of 25 O Clock taped upstairs during a house party (one side of a clear TDK C60 - other side had a mix of Funkadelic's 'Maggot Brain', Rolling Stones 'We Love You' & The Kinks 'Big Sky').

A few months later a tape of Psonic Psunspot turned up (one side of an opaque dark blue TDK C90) - two psychedelic treasures that had somehow slipped though a 60's wormhole from 'Swinging Swindon', and ended up in my hands.

I blasted those two all through the hot summer of 1988 - sheer BLISS!



I wonder if Ian Brown and the rest of The Stone Roses were similarly taken in, and thought it was a genuine 60's record :
QuoteI wasn't in Manchester so I wasn't aware of The Stone Roses at all. The Dukes of Stratosphear album was almost three years before it in 1985, '86. When I met them they were aware of it, they asked if I was the one who had done that album and I said 'Yeah!'
http://thequietus.com/articles/02579-stone-roses-radiohead-producer-john-leckie-on-that-album-the-trouble-with-kids-these-days

dallasman

Quote from: daf on July 24, 2018, 03:25:19 PM
The Dukes were a pre XTC band that Andy had been in the late 60's

Hang on, was that part of the cover story? I though they were supposed to be of that earlier generation, totally unrelated to XTC?

daf

#594
No, you're right - the story was that XTC had nothing to do with it :

QuoteReleased exclusively in Britain on April Fool's Day 1985, the mini-album was presented as a long-lost collection of recordings by a late 1960s group. Partridge designed its cover art on his kitchen table using colored pens and photocopied 19th-century lettering. Virgin Records publicised the Dukes as a mysterious new act, and when asked about the album in interviews, XTC initially denied having any involvement.

Breaking this down :
a) Real Psychedelic band from the 60's (Virgin cover story)
b) XTC spoof albums recorded in the 80's (real story)

But I didn't know any of this - and the interview in Sudden Apathy twisted by head towards a third option that it was XTC (as I could tell it was Andy in the photos), but SOMEHOW they'd recorded the albums in the 1960's as The Dukes :
c) Real Psychedelic band later to become XTC

It was only 20 years earlier - so could it . . maybe . .  just about . . . possibly . . . be true?

A proto XTC band did exist almost as early as that - Star Park started in 1972 featuring both Andy and Colin - and an even earlier Andy one was called 'Stiff Beach' in 1970 (as mentioned in the etching on the run out groove of side A of PP -
QuoteLOOSELY FROM THE STIFF BEACH
side B had
QuoteWITH PINK WARMTH
which was one of Dave's earlier Bands :
QuoteThe Four Aces were short-lived, and Dave - inspired by an early exposure to Jimi Hendrix - in 1968 formed Target, a loose collection of like-minded friends. Target changed their name to Pink Warmth in 1968, around the same time that Dave first met another young guitar player, Andy "Rocky" Partridge, at St. Peter's Church youth club in the Penhill district of Swindon.

So that's what was going on in my head at the time - all glorious cobblers of course!

dallasman

My head's like that a lot of the time, too. Full of dust and guitars :-)

daf

Just found that the 'Sudden Apathy' Interview was reprinted in Limelight #7 (July 1988) and included on page 195 & 196 of 'The XTC Bumper Book of Fun For Girls and Boys' reprint - if you want to see how much of a gullible chump I was!


PaulTMA


Brundle-Fly

Forty years I've been waiting for this!

non capisco

Good lord, I imagine the receptions for those hometown gigs are going to be absolutely rapturous. Will this tempt old sourpuss out of his shed to guest on the closing night? (Course not, entirely fair enough but you'd hope he'd be in the audience.)

In another news I've been absolutely hammering 'Great Fire' the last couple of days and I think the key change at the end is sublime. And "No round of drinks could extinguish this/Feeling of love and engulfing bliss", that bit. Andy doesn't particularly rate this song, the mad wazzock.