Looking back, Wasp Star was probably as good an indication as any that XTC had to stop. One more album might really have been quite embarrassing.
― Interests: eating my cookie (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:11 (thirteen years ago) link
"Easter Theater" came up, too, and its lyrics had always slipped by me. "chocolate nipple brown"! Best song on the album tho, imo.
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:14 (thirteen years ago) link
Kind of wish I hadn't looked up the lyrics just now, though – think I like "we don't need a new life" better (which is how it sounded to me).
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:15 (thirteen years ago) link
I really wanted to like WS but it was scuppered by Gregory's absence (nlike AV oddly) and I'm guessing Moulding had all but lost interest judging by his descent into brown jumper MOR piffle.
― let's all go down the strand.....galifianaaakis (MaresNest), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:16 (thirteen years ago) link
aw I like the Easter Theater lyrics, the adult-reflecting-on-childhood-romance angle
― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:16 (thirteen years ago) link
Easter Theatre is awesome, and has one of his best middle eights.
oh wait I'm thinking of Harvest Festival
yeah the Easter Theater lyrics are sorta stupid
― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:17 (thirteen years ago) link
I'd say about half of Wasp Star is great, altho it would've been improved by Gregory's presence, no doubt. The stuff that's bad is REALLY bad tho.
― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:18 (thirteen years ago) link
"We'd applaud a new life" makes more sense. I just liked the weird outlierness of "we don't want a new life" in this pastoral fertility orgy. It's like finding out the person you're married to doesn't like peanut butter. you still love them, but you have to think about it for a moment.
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:18 (thirteen years ago) link
I could never get what that line really was "we'd have bought a new wife"? what?
― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:19 (thirteen years ago) link
XP - Shakey, just realised so am I! Ha!
― let's all go down the strand.....galifianaaakis (MaresNest), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Easter Theatre sounds like one of those puppet pantos staged with a paper stage and paper puppets. I don't know what you call them.
xxxp ahaha I thought it was 'we uphold her new life'
― Nmutua Canamla (Schlafsack), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh and Harvest Festival is lovely.
Oh man, another thing I wanted to bring up – XTC has to have the most instances, for me, of needing a Britishes to Americans dictionary. So, what means the line in "Respectable Street" about "the caravans that never move from their front gardens"?
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:21 (thirteen years ago) link
That moment at the start with the chair sounds..
― let's all go down the strand.....galifianaaakis (MaresNest), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:21 (thirteen years ago) link
Abbbottt, just a dig at families buying a mobile home then never getting around to using it.
― let's all go down the strand.....galifianaaakis (MaresNest), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:23 (thirteen years ago) link
XTC has to have the most instances, for me, of needing a Britishes to Americans dictionary.
That's weird and slightly annoying, because AP confuses everything by singing in an American accent. You can't do pastoral Englishtry with a US accent.
― Nmutua Canamla (Schlafsack), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:25 (thirteen years ago) link
Respectable Street is a genius song in retrospect. All about those sorts of people with a completely unfounded sense of entitlement. My parents are a lower-class version of that, complete with the expensive but dormant caravan in the backyard.
― Nmutua Canamla (Schlafsack), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:28 (thirteen years ago) link
A Cmaj7/G Fmaj7 (addB)And what a year when the exams and crops all failedF# /E# E C# BOf course you passed and you were never seen againA Cmaj7/G Fmaj7We all grew and we got screwed and cut and nailedF# /E# E C#Then out of nowhere invitation in gold pen
― let's all go down the strand.....galifianaaakis (MaresNest), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:28 (thirteen years ago) link
So the "caravan" is more like a Winnebago than one of the things that Mr. Toad hung out in?
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:47 (thirteen years ago) link
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:wUPCMVFelgnFJM:http://www.ibspro.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/caravan.jpg&t=1
Basically one of these.
― let's all go down the strand.....galifianaaakis (MaresNest), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:50 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, motorless, towed by something.
― Nmutua Canamla (Schlafsack), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:51 (thirteen years ago) link
Maybe 'Mobile Home' isn't the right phrase, more Mr Toad than RV :)
― let's all go down the strand.....galifianaaakis (MaresNest), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:52 (thirteen years ago) link
I was imagining someone squeezing through a yard full of these
http://gypsywaggons.co.uk/ukvardos/wooden/wd75.jpg
which always made me think 'wtf?"
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:53 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^Andy Partridge's house
― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 December 2010 23:57 (thirteen years ago) link
Dukes of Stratosphear HQ tbh
― Nmutua Canamla (Schlafsack), Friday, 3 December 2010 00:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Check yo headz email. You will have to rename file 2 from .zig to .zip coz gmail thought it contained a terrorist (it does not contain a terrorist).
― one-time Perrier winner Frank Woodley plays a loveable dad (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 3 December 2010 20:52 (thirteen years ago) link
btw chipping in to say that Harvest Festival is one of Partridge's 5 greatest-ever lyrics
― gospermaban sim gishel (acoleuthic), Friday, 3 December 2010 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
weird I haven't received anything yet...?
was looking forward to receiving a terrorist
― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 December 2010 23:15 (thirteen years ago) link
I got it, thx so much AA!
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Friday, 3 December 2010 23:18 (thirteen years ago) link
whoa, what is the story behind "Candymine"?
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Friday, 3 December 2010 23:27 (thirteen years ago) link
that's on Fuzzy Warbles. it was part of Andy's half-baked "sequel" idea for the Dukes (ie, a bubblegum glam record with lots of stupidly obvious sexual innuendos. Other songs included "Visit to the Doctor" and I think one other...?)
― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 December 2010 23:35 (thirteen years ago) link
"Cherry in your Tree" I think?
great songs obviously
haha I wish that whole thing happened. I want to get the Fuzzy Warbles "stamp box" so bad!
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Friday, 3 December 2010 23:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Sorry for Candymine fail. Shakey, do you have an incoming email limit? They're all under 10Mb so
― one-time Perrier winner Frank Woodley plays a loveable dad (Autumn Almanac), Saturday, 4 December 2010 00:14 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh and I have the stamp box. It's ace but sits on a shelf unloved along with every other interesting CD pack I've ever bought.
I don't have a mail limit, I'm wondering if it went to my junk folder or something tho
― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Saturday, 4 December 2010 00:25 (thirteen years ago) link
I shall wait for you to check your etc etc
― one-time Perrier winner Frank Woodley plays a loveable dad (Autumn Almanac), Saturday, 4 December 2010 00:28 (thirteen years ago) link
"Candymine" not a fail imo insofar as I had no idea this song existed until today + it is nutso.
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Saturday, 4 December 2010 01:25 (thirteen years ago) link
Trivia: "Candymine" plus "Prince of Orange," "It's Snowing Angels" and "My Brown Guitar" (here called "Some Lovely (My Brown Guitar)") were originally released in 1994 as an EP through John Flansburgh's Hello CD of the Month Club subscription series. The first 3 songs were rereleased on Fuzzy Warbles; "My Brown Guitar" was later recorded by XTC for Wasp Star but the demo has never been rereleased.
Drums & Wireless is a good album to have, too – more BBC sessions. I can't remember whether there's overlap between the two but I don't think there is.― Nmutua Canamla (Schlafsack), Thursday, December 2, 2010 10:51 PM (2 days ago)
― Nmutua Canamla (Schlafsack), Thursday, December 2, 2010 10:51 PM (2 days ago)
I just cross-referenced the two, and every track first released on Drums & Wireless is included in the Transistor Blast box.
― Hideous Lump, Saturday, 4 December 2010 03:52 (thirteen years ago) link
Ah, thanks.
― one-time Perrier winner Frank Woodley plays a loveable dad (Autumn Almanac), Saturday, 4 December 2010 04:48 (thirteen years ago) link
"My Brown Guitar" was later recorded by XTC for Wasp Star but the demo has never been rereleased.
Correction: It was rereleased on the Homegrown demos collection. (Gads, a shameful mistake! Strip me of my XTC completist credentials!)
― Hideous Lump, Saturday, 4 December 2010 06:37 (thirteen years ago) link
I agree that Wasp Star is probably one of their worst. To be fair though, it's probably their most immediate and accessible. There are some really catchy riffs on there but I kind of feel as though Moulding didn't really care anymore and Partridge was kind of losing his mind a bit. On the other hand Apple Venus is brilliant. It's not a fistpump five star album but the best parts of it are some of the most lush and beautiful music I've ever heard. I cannot believe that the same guy who was dicking around with "Statue of Liberty" would write something as amazing as "Greenman" two decades later. I mean "Statue" rules but that's quite a change of pace.
― frogbs, Wednesday, 8 December 2010 17:14 (thirteen years ago) link
My first time hearing this too! Like XTC doing 1910 Fruitgum Company, and therefore fabulous!!
― The animal magnetism of Tim Pawlenty (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 8 December 2010 17:38 (thirteen years ago) link
I got divorced last week and forgot to listen to 'your dictionary' - correcting that now and forgot how awesome 'Apple Venus' is as a complete rekkid...
― BlackIronPrison, Wednesday, 8 December 2010 17:52 (thirteen years ago) link
YES, that is the best post-break-up-catharsis song ever. Sorry/pleased (pick one) to hear about your divorce btw.
frogbs: Wasp Star ends with 'The Wheel and the Maypole' which almost completely redeems it imo, but yeah, Moulding absolutely phoning it in by then.
― unintentional boob pic (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 8 December 2010 20:35 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah the one-two punch of Church of Women/Wheel and Maypole is a very "whoah" moment given the rest of the album
― "Information by surprise" is even legal in Sweden (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 December 2010 20:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Moulding's creepy song themes, married couples flirting/sex/talk with added swinger overtones applied to his brown music was a real let down on WS.
― Pottery Owls (MaresNest), Wednesday, 8 December 2010 20:40 (thirteen years ago) link
Agreed on the Wheel/Maypole. A great way to end their career if nothing else. Actually I found "You and the Clouds Will Still be Beautiful" to be pretty good as well (if a little dopey).
I wonder what Partridge is up to these days...is he doing production work now, or has he been recording at all over the last decade? I remember hearing he had writer's block, but somehow I don't think someone with his talent would go dry an entire decade...
― frogbs, Wednesday, 8 December 2010 20:50 (thirteen years ago) link
Shakey, did you ever get those emails?
― unintentional boob pic (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 8 December 2010 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link