Connect the Dukes of Stratosphear Track To the Song It's Parodying

I'm still disgusted at how closely Col rips off I'm Only Sleeping for Shiny Cage.

Also she does that talky thing on like every third song.

talky things are betwen tracks, apart from "Have you seen jackie?"

Brainiac's Daughter is 67-68 McCartney (Hello Goodbye, banana fingers piano etc).
The long-lost, much-missed Strange Things Are Happening mag ran a piece on the Dukes back in 88-89, in which Andy & Colin went through both LPs commenting on their influences (maybe it's linked to somewhere here). We got most of 'em right.

Yes, both these LPs are better than most XTC LPs, and, as someone said upthread, better than many of the "originals". I still remember the first time I heard Moby Grape, thinking "This is nowhere near as good as Little Lighthouse"...

I've always assumed "Bike Ride to the Moon" = Syd-era Floyd's "Scream Thy Last Scream," give the chipmunk vocals.

giveN

Are we still doing this?

Aren't you record people sorry yet?

Go back to your cool New York dad and all of your money.

??

It was interesting to see in that Shindig article that Virgin swapped the LP sides on "Psonic Psunspot", so it should have started with "You're my drug". Somehow this doesn't sound right to me, 'cos "Pale and precious" is a perfect closer.

yeah, I saw/thought that.

Woah. Just last night I listened to the Dukes CD on repeat. Great fun.

"Pale and Precious" sounds to my two ears like Macca collab'ing with the Beach Boys, really.

cecelia is a treat

well, yeah! All I did was get up to wash my face!

Go back to your cool New York dad and all of your money.

What the fuck?

I think I read that the "Then came her..." middle section of "The Affiliated" is Unit 4 + 2's "Concrete and Clay."

The piano playing behind the chorus from "Your Gold Dress" is from the Rolling Stones' "She's a Rainbow."

"Shindig magazine recently ran a cover story about the Dukes of the Starosphear - cool to see they are still loved."

That article was actually a labour of love by my esteemed chum, the extremely talented and generally rather lovely Mr. Marco Rossi - who, in addition to his journalistic abilities, is also not only some, most or possibly all of Cheese, but also at least 25% of the mighty Gothic Chicken; either or both of whom, incidentally, may well appeal to anyone who is still waiting in vain for another Dukes Of Stratosphear album.

I'm rather hoping to be able to persuade him that the natural follow-up to his Dukes interview / article would be a similar piece about Naz Nomad & The Nightmares....

Stew: What you make of the "It comes to you in a brown paper bag" (re)release?

Curiously enough I hadn't heard about it before, which - if it was legitimate / had any real interest / value for the average total Beefheart obsessive - I'd rather have expected to have done by now.

Looking at it on Amazon now 'though...

Hmmmm. What part of Beefheart's catalgue have "Sundazed" raided before, and why is that name making me suspicious before I've got any further?

Next, where in hell's name are "Tarotplane", "25th Century Quaker", "Mirror Man" and "Kandy Korn" - the tracks that ended up on Mirror Man and which are generally believed to represent 2 sides / 50% of the double album as it was originally conceived (so really quite a substantial omission, as omissions go!)?!?

This looks to me more like a re-sequenced version of I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain't Weird but with 2 extra tracks ("Korn Ring Finger" - the only significant omission form the original - and a 2nd version of "Moody Liz") than a serious attempt at re-creating "It Comes To You....".

Furthermore, everthing here (apart from that second version of "Moody Liz") is already available - and with the best sound quality we're likely to get too - on the recent-ish Buddha (re-)issues of Safe As Milk and The Mirror Man Sessions.

Also, it's 30 bleedin' quid and, given that:
(a) I very much doubt that Sundazed have actually got access to the masters;
(b) I have serious doubts about their bona-fides in any case;
(c) at the end of the day all of these tracks are outtakes anyway;
I'd have to ask - can it really be worth it?!?

Digging a little deeper, it seems that I may have been slightly unfair to Sundazed, as they were responsible for a number of re-issues / re-releases / compilations by the ever-so-slightly-Beefheart connected Merrell & The Exiles, Mu and Rising Sons....

Otoh it is apparently being suggested (and again, in fairness, I'm not entirely clear where or by whom) that the sleeve of this latest release was designed by Cal Schenkel; who has been at pains to correct this somewhat misleading desription, explaining "...actually, I didn't design the cover. I did some doodles that are on the plain brown like slip cover thing that wraps the package. Someone else at Sundazed designed the album package.".

I must admit, I was all ooh, now I'm more 'oh'.

And as you say, at £30 and no CD version, seemed suspiciously like some sort of designer/bespoke project.

"I was all ooh, now I'm more 'oh'."

My missus says I have often that effect on her too.

My advice: if you haven't got 'em already, get Safe As Milk, The Mirror Man Sessions & Strictly Personal instead - and you should still have enough left over to buy both of the Cheese albums (Let It Brie and Enlarge Your Johnson) as well.

Otoh , if you want more Beefheart and less Brian-Wilson-meets-the-Dukes-Of-Stratosphear, then plot a course instead for Benjamin Horrendous and his mighty Fourfathers.

So, it seems (according to CDUniverse), the reissues of "25 o clock" and "psonic psunspot" will be available 3rd March.

this is the most obsceeeeeeeeeeene.... abomination of a thread, it is trash, it is filth, it is dirt. what made you start such a disgusting degeneratized thread as that? And I'm complimenting you guys by calling it a thread

(I tried, but cecelia pwned this thread the best so far)

Also, just one mention of "My Love Explodes", which is probably my favorite Dukes song ever. Granted, it's their most raucous song... it's like giving the Stones and Floyd some Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde potion, given the resulting ogres instruments and letting them at it.

Are the reissues gonna be 'hotly mastered'? cuz the early '00s Chips from the Chocolate Fireball remaster sounds like ass.

The 2001 Caroline reissue sounds great, but the original run of XTC CDs sounded better than most other 80s CD issues. None of this stuff was mastered badly. Also, expecting 2000 quality mastering from a band homaging (lol, I had to use the word) early and occasionally spuriously recorded psych nuggets seems slightly silly, IMHO.

sorry, bad phrasing. "expecting 2000s style mastering (i.e. brick wall normazilation, heavily remixed, etc.)"

Hmm, maybe I'm just remembering the Caroline CD in an unfavorable light, because I get the impression that it's way loud and compressed and not at all what you'd expect from a late '80s release. But I haven't listened to in ages, and I've never actually heard the original release, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

YMMV, but I've listened to both CDS, and while both CDs never sounded like shit, the 2001 reissue punched it up a little without making it this brick wall abomination that is the standard.

However, I don't know if I want 60s psych homages to be "newly remastered" in a rhetorical way, which was my original point, but just worded badly.

On a parallel note, I'm really sad XTC's 90s proposal for new alter egos making 60s bubblegum music never made it. That would have been amazing.

Andy chats with producer John Leckie on making the albums

http://apehouse.prevuz.com/2009/03/31/andy-partridge-chats-with-john-leckie-part-one/
http://apehouse.prevuz.com/2009/04/15/andy-partridge-chats-with-john-leckie-part-two/
http://apehouse.prevuz.com/2009/05/26/andy-partridge-chats-wit/

thanks.

Is there anything at all that wasn't already included on "Chips From The Chocolate Fireball"?

In which case I don't see the point in remastering and re-releasing those separately.

Yes, there's lots of unreleased stuff

25 Oclock (APECD023)
1. 25 Oclock
2. Bike Ride To The Moon
3. My Love Explodes
4. What In The World ??..
5. Your Gold Dress
6. The Mole From The Ministry
DEMOS
7. 25 Oclock
8. Bike Ride To The Moon
9. My Love Explodes
10. What In The World??..
11. Nicely Nicely Jane
12. Susan Revolving
EXTRA RECORDINGS
13. Black Jewelled Serpent Of Sound (Radio Caroline Edit)
14. Open A Can Of Human Beans
15. Tin Toy Clockwork Train

Psonic Psunspot (APECD024)
1. Vanishing Girl
2. Have You Seen Jackie?
3. Little Lighthouse
4. Your A Good Man Albert Brown (Curse You Red Barrel)
5. Collideascope
6. You're My Drug
7. Shiny Cage
8. Brainiacs Daughter
9. The Affiliated
10. Pale & Precious
DEMOS
11. No One At Home (Vanishing Girl)
12. Little Lighthouse
13. Colliedeascape
14. Shiny Cage
15. Brainiac's Daughter
16. The Affiliated

OK. Alternative versions of the same song has no interest for me though. Only new songs that had never been released before (preferrably in more or less finished and polished version) are interesting.

Well, APartridge's demos are like other people's finished stuff.

I was gonna say! The other Partridge demos I've heard are fascinating enough in their own right.

yeah but a bunch of them are on Fuzzy Warbles

The Affiliated - Kinks, Bacharach and Love?

this has come up on Captured Tracks facebook page. Your Gold Dress has a lot of Yardbirds. Still I'm Sad i.e.

"Tin Toy Clokwork Train" off the reissue is frickin' brilliant.

Andy's such a great interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN0R450zJVw

I just listened to this whole thing... brilliant stuff! Has John Leckie ever written a book about his career or the albums that he's worked on over the years? The guy has had a phenomenal career.

not that I know of, but yeah would definitely be worth reading

Just now listening to "My Love Explodes" was the first time in ~10 years of owning the album that I've really paid attention to the gnarly gtr solo in that "disgusting, degeneratized song" -- in the past, I was always 'taken out of the moment' by the bridge immediately preceding it, which sounds too much like straight XTC for my liking.