XTC : Classic or Dud.

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.

* Two separate sets of demo and work tape sessions showing the evolution of the album and associated recordings; one set of pre-recording rehearsals, promos and ID links for radio stations and record companies; a collection of single mixes and XTC's version of Captain Beefheart’s Ella Guru.

* Promo films for The Mayor of Simpleton (3 versions), King for a Day and a Road to Oranges & Lemons, a rarely seen home-made film by the band explaining the album (and themselves!) to Geffen Records USA.

People can say what they like about Andy Partridge, he sure as hell knows how to treat his back catalogue with the care and attention it deserves.

I've still got my 3 mini CD box set of this

Pretty interested - despite myself - in the new mix of Oranges & Lemons, as it's always sounded a bit thin compared to most of their albums. Anyone want to weigh in on the remixes of D&W/Nonsuch?

The virtual box set stuff sounds interesting but I know i'd never listen to any of it more than once. As big a fan as I am, I feel like I've already bought their catalogue enough times already.

The production on Oranges & Lemons has grown on me over time. Granted, I don't think it's the best XTC album in terms of production, and I'm still not sure that the approach they took on Oranges & Lemons works for every song, but it mostly sounds fine to me now. It's one of two XTC records where I had to get used to the production style before I could begin to enjoy the record, the other was The Big Express.

(I like The Big Express more, though.)

Oranges & Lemons has been pushed back 2 weeks, boo.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Wilson has done with the extravagances of the original production, I wonder also if AP has allowed him to take out any layers, there's a lot of extraneous percussion and drum machine that could do with being cut.

Wilson's doing XTC now? haha he's like the remaster man

He's done Nonsuch and Drums & Wires already, he and Jakko Jakszyk have cornered the market in this sort of thing

ooh i'd be interested in hearing both of those

The instrumental Complicated Game remix is weirdly spooky.

god, imagine how bizarre an acapella version would be

I'd like to hear the vocal on 'Complicated Game' completely dry, just 'cos.

I bought myself a liarbird

http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/Bath-man-ran-Belgrave-Place-brothel-famous-music/story-27767149-detail/story.html#drMrAI67tCDj0q5T.01

David Lord, 70, pictured in Belgrave Place after confessing to running a brothel in the street

He ran a brothel in the street?

Oh, btw lawyers: The song "liarbird" is not about David Lord, okthxbye.

haha

Hahahahaha! Oh god, what the actual fuck!?

Blimey.

Y'know, when you listen to the demo of 'Wake Up' and then hear what David Lord helped the band turn it into on The Big Express, the difference is like night and day. The demo is this relatively subdued, dinky thing and it's hard to hear the potential in it beyond the slashing guitar riff which is already in place ... but somehow David Lord managed to help the band realise the potential in the song and thus the studio version is something else - completely widescreen, intricately arranged and pumped full of steroids. When I think about things like that, and what happened to the guy that helped achieve that, it's just... fucking mental.

Okay, the Wilson stereo remix is really nice so far, the percussion and snare samples are still a bit WAHEY EIGHTIES! but that's unavoidable, King For A Day has really came to life so far.

Although Merely A Man cannot be revived on the operating table and is still a clanking piece of nonsense.

Happily the swirly end of Across This Antheap is even more delirious than before, yay!

And Miniature Sun is 10x better too, despite the keyboard trumpets

Has anyone heard the 5.1 yet?

So I was doing some cataloguing of records on Discogs & I noticed 2 versions of the Ape House reissue of Skylarking listed: one with a "misprint" (listing "Supergirl" on side 2 instead of side 1) which sells for up to $300... and one without, which is reliably well under $100. Except they're exactly the same record, tracklisting error and all.