XTC : Classic or Dud.

I recently compiled a digital complete singles compilation - very tasty until you get to "Nonsuch" as they no longer made fully formed b-sides or even had interesting outtakes. Well, they had the latter but Andy horded them until "Fuzzy Warbles" came out.

Mercy! Just got this CD/Blu Ray of Drums and Wires, there's like seven sessions worth of demos and rehearsal versions and worktapes, mental.

- a 5.1 Mix of the album in 96/24 LPCM.
- original mix, and a new album mix by Steven Wilson, both in high resolution 96/24 LPCM stereo
- new stereo and 5.1* mixes of 11 additional tracks from the period, originally released as singles or bonus tracks
- exclusive instrumental versions of all new mixes in 96/24 LPCM stereo
- exclusive Andy Partridge home demos and Colin Moulding work tapes for songs written for the album
- 5 separate sessions marking the complete evolution of the album & associated recordings.
- promo videos for Making Plans for Nigel and Life Begins at the Hop

11 bonus tracks remixed into stereo and 5.1:

1. Life Begins at the Hop*
2. Homo Safari
(A+B side to Life Begins at the Hop single, UK release April 1979)
3. Chain of Command
4. Limelight
(A+B side to free single included with initial pressing of Drums and Wires, UK release August 1979)
5. Bushman President
6. Pulsing Pulsing
(B-sides to Making Plans for Nigel single, UK release Sep 1979)
7. Wait Til Your Boat Goes Down
8. Ten Feet Tall – electric version
(A+B side to Wait Til Your Boat Goes Down single, UK release March 1980)
9. Officer Blue
(Drums and Wires out-take – B-side to Respectable Street single, UK release March 1981)
10. Over Rusty Water
(Drums and Wires out-take – B-side to No Thugs in Our House single, UK release May 1982)
11. Sleepyheads
(Drums and Wires out-take, first released on Coat of Many Cupboards box set, UK release 2002)
* (Life Begins at the Hop is the original stereo master due to multitrack tapes being unavailable, the 5.1 version is a Penteo upmix)

As a mega fan, I'm still not sure I want this much. I love the demos but 5 Sessions?? You'll have to report back after you've gone through it all as to what's critical vs merely interesting.

Had a very quick go around the 2014 mix and on first listen it's pretty strong, of course the original record sounds just fine. Oh, also the instrumental version of Complicated Game, quite something actually!

Came cross this today, XTC by way of Bagpuss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyB-iaC5Xzc

I wonder if the demo/rehearsal tapes on the "Drums and Wires" blu-ray are the ones from the place they used to use in Swindon?

If so, a mate of mine might be interested, hmmm...

There are recordings from a demo studio in Swindon and from the rehearsal space they used iirc.

Ah, so it will be the sessions he helped out on, then.

Swindon Town Hall & Toot's Garage it says Mark, only Steve Warren is thanked in the notes, he was their sound guy.

Town hall it was.

There were a few bods there, yep. The demo version of Nigel has already been out..

http://www.kindakinks.net/misc/articles/almanac.html

I remember that issue of Musician, there were a bunch of songwriters all touting their favorite song. Robyn Hitchcock wrote about "Visions of Johanna". I can't remember any of the others...

Listening to Go 2, man forget how wound up these dudes were

Search Youtube for XTC Live on Chorus (1978.) Great footage, it's pretty much the wound-uppest thing ever.

It will always amaze me how the bulk of the early wound-up XTC material was written by a guy addicted to benzodiazepines, and that when he came off the stuff their music got much less twitchy.

Listening to Go 2, man forget how wound up these dudes were.

White Music possibly even more wound up.

Let's not forget Take Away/The Lure of Salvage

Yeah, they were definitely a smoking live band. Bootlegs from the touring era (esp. around the time of Black Sea) show a really tight, powerful live unit.

Having said that, I love it that even though the music became more "produced" and less wound-up in their later years, Partridge never shied away from dissonant chords and unique chord progressions. Even if the music is more thought-out and more "produced", there's still an exciting sense that the songs at their core are written by a guy just blundering around without any idea of what chords he's playing or how it all works out theoretically. From what I've heard, Dave Gregory was the chap in XTC that used to take Partridge's songs and notate them up in an analytical "wow, how does this work?" kind of way.

eh give Andy some credit

I give Andy Partridge credit for being a fantastic songwriter!

even though Partridge kinda disowns the early period of the band I think the songs on White Music are pretty well constructed - not exactly a lot of Zolo pop out there like it is there?

I mean the only band out there like it that I can think of is early P-Model. I remember hearing that XTC did a tour with P-Model way back in the day but I couldn't find any record of such a thing. So I asked Partridge himself on Twitter, he didn't answer the question, but he did say he that this song by P-Model was great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT1LclWLtjE

Yeah, they were definitely a smoking live band. Bootlegs from the touring era (esp. around the time of Black Sea) show a really tight, powerful live unit.

I used to have a tape of a 1980 show (radio broadcast from Cleveland, iirc) and yeah, they were amazing. Also, supposedly, they were among the loudest bands of their era; like, KISS-loud, but in clubs/small theaters.

would you guys say that XTC sort of invented math rock?

Rush

or some other prog band

Crimson, rush, remain in light era TH, beefheart, + ny minimalists. Definitely not XTC

Yeah, that makes sense that it came out of prog, but I can't resist calling their stuff (esp before 1983) mathy. I mean, listen to those guitar lines. Who else sounds like that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTUA4dMzqn0

Don't sleep on Bill Nelson's Red Noise, their one album is almost more- early XTC-than-XTC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROD91OW01p0

^^^ yeah, was just gonna post that one. Pretty sure Nelson was listening to Partridge.

I wonder if Beefheart worked it's way into the melting pot too.

iirc, XTC (or maybe just Andy?) had a track on a Beefheart tribute record.

I think it was Andy & Colin

But not Dave, unsurprisingly

https://twitter.com/xtcfans/status/446213024832307200

Speaking of Dave, his website is a treasure trove of guitar nerdery (though it hasn't been updated in a while):
http://www.guitargonauts.info/

Andy definitely into Beefheart from early on. It's funny charting when he was exposed to stuff - iirc he said somewhere that he didn't hear any of the Kinks' late 60s albums until the late 80s? Beach Boys were also a later discovery for him.

I don't know how that could be true given the Dukes albums.

as far as the Kinks go I think the implication was he knew the singles but not the albums

Yeah I mean he listed 'Autumn Almanac' as his all time favorite song and I doubt that happened to him in the late 80s

found it:
http://chalkhills.org/articles/XTCFans20090614.html

Somebody once said to me about this song, "Oh, weren't you just copying Ray Davies' 'Last of the Steam-Powered Trains'?" No, because I hadn't at that point heard that song. The only Kinks songs that I'd heard on the radio as a youngster were singles, and I didn't hear any Kinks albums until the late '80s or so.

Around then, [laughs] Dave went and bought Holly, for either birthday or Christmas, a couple of Kinks albums, with a note saying, "These are probably the best albums you'll ever hear in your life." I thought, "That's a weird thing to buy a young kid!" But of course I'd borrow them and play them. I don't think I heard Village Green Preservation Society until the '90s! I don't remember hearing it, anyway. I remember hearing certain tracks off of it, but not that one.

June 1st 2016!?

http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Shed-Inside-Songs-XTC/dp/1908279788/

ooh, this looks interesting.

Also, that is str8 up the worst picture of AP

I'm guessing that it's an expanded version of the 'XTC Fans' interviews (that can be found on Chalkhills)

lol @ pic

Eh, I'll stick with the excellent "Song Stories".

The lack of shoes imo really seals it

somehow xtc songs have never seemed that enigmatic to me. I would be new interested in the technical aspects of them

XTC ‏@xtcfans 41m41 minutes ago
The ORANGES AND LEMONS 5.1 discs are being 'authored' {composed/built} as we speak. Not long now folks.

CD:

1. Garden of Earthly Delights
2. The Mayor of Simpleton
3. King for a Day
4. Here Comes President Kill Again
5. The Loving
6. Poor Skeleton Steps Out
7. One of the Millions
8. Scarecrow People
9. Merely a Man
10. Cynical Days
11. Across This Antheap
12. Hold Me My Daddy
13. Pink Thing
14. Miniature Sun
15. Chalkhills and Children

Blu-Ray (Region 0, NTSC):

Presented in LPCM Audio
- Album mixed in 5.1 Surround
- New Stereo Album mix
- Original Stereo Album mix
+ Blu-Ray extra material including:
new stereo album instrumental mixes,
multiple demo sessions, rehearsals, mixes & promo films for the singles.