XTC : Classic or Dud.

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.

Would it be unscrupulous to gouge for my copy, knowing full well there's nothing special about it (other than general unavailability)? Well, yes. But does it matter?

(I did some good vinyl karma stuff this week by refusing to gouge the artist when he tried to buy something from me, so maybe it'd cancel out?)

http://i67.tinypic.com/6nv7s2.jpg

Andy was tweeting about some double vinyl XTC thing coming off the press...? what's that for? I assume there's no point in a 5.1 version of O&L on vinyl...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5LrRlR2Epo

listening to these dudes again after... 20 years? 22? more? i always knew (even in my teen years) that they were essentially arty, but i guess i didn't appreciate the range of influences that pops up in their early work. there are a few beefheart-esque moments in those early albums (listen e.g. to the last minute of "day in day out").

i guess since they eventually went all-in for "song craft" and (to a slightly lesser extent) a kind of cynical pastoralism, i forgot that they were very much on the post-punk continuum.

basically agree w/ this tho

'Dear God' is, like, the worst song of all time
― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, June 21, 2004 9:17 AM (11 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agree, agree. The track that got bumped from Skylarking for it — "Mermaid Smiled" — is a real nice early late period tune though.

I've been rocking Black Sea lately. Paper and Iron.

I was lucky enough to have the Mermaid Smiled version of Skylarking growing up, never heard Dear God until I bought the single, and yeah John otm.

cosign to that^

Didn't even know it was on the album! Not on my copy anyway.

Maybe the US issue had "Dear God" on it?

No the US had mermaid smiled when the album first came out.

yeah "Mermaid Smiled" >>>> "Dear God" but the latter seems to fit into the album a bit better in my opinion, I kinda like how Skylarking gets dark in the second half

Proud owner of Mermaid Smiled on wax. Interesting point, though, about the record getting darker at the end. You are definitely right.

That'd be the winter season of the album.

I like 'Dear God', but prefer 'Mermaid Smiled' - I just think it's a really beautiful piece of music.

Skylarking is meant to get darker as it goes along, Todd Rundgren deliberately sequenced the songs that way - from youth to death.

Is it just the lyrics people don't like? I think it's a pretty good tune.

nah

I'm fine with both "Dear God" and "Mermaid Smiled", the tuning/chords in the latter are so odd. They do really different things. I almost never listen to "Dear God" though, since (like most others here apparently) I have the vinyl version with "Mermaid Smiled" on it.

in other news - apparently a song Andy wrote for the Monkees is going to be the single from their new 50th anniversary album