XTC : Classic or Dud.

As we all know, the original Virgin deal was pretty Dickensian due to the old managers lack of experience so I guess it's PRS and MCPS that he mainly lives off, Dear God, Mayor, Senses, Nigel must get played out a fair amount.

I also don't wonder if he has a really good publisher.

I hope so!

i don't think he does

my impression is he scrapes by from project to project

AP did a book signing in Bath at the weekend and hung out in the pub afterwards with a guitar it seems.

"Here's an exhaustive list of the songs Andy ran through with the guitar last night in the pub in a room with a few of us fans! It was like a dream! I feel very lucky, and the room was full of love. We were singing along to Easter Theatre at the top of our lungs, some doing Colin's bit and some doing Andy's. Others too! I can't remember the order Andy played them in so I put them in chronological order. As compiled by myself and Darryl W Bullock.

Neon Shuffle
This Is Pop? (And A Hard Day's Night)
Millions
Roads Girdle The Globe
Day In Day Out
Scissor Man
Respectable Street
Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me)
Senses Working Overtime
Jason and the Argonauts
No Thugs In Our House
Melt The Guns
Love on a Farmboy’s Wages
Jump
Desert Island
Wake Up
All You Pretty Girls
This World Over
The Every Day Story of Smalltown
1000 Umbrellas
Dear God (and Rocky Raccoon)
Garden of Earthly Delights
Mayor of Simpleton
Scarecrow People
The Disappointed
Wrapped In Grey
The Ugly Underneath
Books Are Burning
I Drew A Lemon (from Terry Hall's "Home" album)
I'd Like That
Green Man
Easter Theatre
Stupidly Happy (and Midnight Rambler)
You and the Clouds Will Still Be Beautiful
The Wheel and the Maypole
Wonderfalls
A brand new song called ‘Bubble Pipe’ which sounded GREAT
Oh and the Munsters theme tune, as played by XTC when they watched Todd Rundgren walk towards the studio every morning while making Skylarking."

seems he was only playing bits here and there, explaining chords and the like - sadly that wasn't a mammoth impromptu solo concert

holy SHIT

This Is Pop? (And A Hard Day's Night)

Very interesting, now I'm doing a mashup in my head.

Oh and the Munsters theme tune, as played by XTC when they watched Todd Rundgren walk towards the studio every morning while making Skylarking."

laughed out loud at that

Audio of the book signing.

https://soundcloud.com/darryl-w-bullock/andy-partridge-at-topping-co-bath-june-25-2016

"Senses working overtime" was on the TOTP repeats last week, I'm guessing this was before the Paris walk-off, its a great performance and a real shame as this should have been the start of phenomenal success.

They did pretty well anyway, but.

Oh Snap

http://i67.tinypic.com/28h1o8x.jpg

LOL, at least they got his surname right.

hahaha well, he did ask for it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXu8M6q6v84

Exactly, we all know what Tod means in German.

That is the very first time I've listened to an entire Burzum track, does it all sound like standing close to a waterfall while somebody beside you listens to Xmal Deutschland loudly on earbuds?

http://stevenwilsonhq.com/sw/listen-to-xtcs-lets-make-a-den-from-skylarking-cdblu-ray/

hey that's different from the other (demo) version of this song I have...?!

god I love this band

I think this is the aborted studio recording from the Skylarking sessions. Rundgren wanted it to open side 2.

awesome! thanks for sharing. love the fuzzy warbles demo of this song

listened to that on the commute home, very impressed w the recording -- it sounds new, hardly like a 30 year old track.

I just received the new Skylarking, anybody dug into it yet?

I wonder if Wilson corrected Todd's bum note keyboard playing.

I know ol' Steve gets bashed a bit but I'm digging this new mix greatly.

And yeah he corrected Todd's two keys at once clanger in Earn Enough.. lol

man, do I really need to buy a 5th copy of this album

Yea, it depends on the depth and breadth of your need to have 5 different iterations of the original record and a mess of b'sides, demos etc:

It'd be my 4th copy, I think, so I'll pass. Curious to hear about the extras. Were they worth it in the previous deluxe versions?

so sometimes i go into a youtube hole of ppl covering XTC songs, specifically bass, and this one blew my mind. Colin's composition is just incredible. makes me want to get a copy of Music Theory for Dummies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIA0_kiFJkE

^^^one of the few XTC songs I figured out on guitar (okay I figured out a bunch of Dukes songs too). None of the chords are especially weird but the way he fits them together is p ingenious.

i just figured that out on guitar too! just the verse melody though- not sure about the chorus chords yet (Bb6 and Ab6?)

I've mentioned this before but I played bass, for a short time, in an XTC covers band and the amount of work figuring out Colin's steez was pretty high, but a lot of fun, I remember spending utterly ages on All of a Sudden, just for us to play it a couple of times and go, nah.

Back when I used to play a bit of bass, working out and playing XTC basslines was always fun.

Although Mayor of Simpleton is a cunt to play especially the second bar of the loop, you can tell it was probably written on a guitar.

http://podcast.tunetribe.com/?name=podcast_96_-_andy_partridge.mp3

This looks sweet, thanks for sharing!

I'm only 15 minutes in but he is, as always, a v entertaining interview

XTC: This Is Pop, the inevitable rockumentary, http://www.c21media.net/screenings/specialtreats/xtc-this-is-pop/10210

I don't know how much of Andy Partridge I can take tbh.

If That Wave had been on The Crow soundtrack.

http://bigtakeover.com/news/song-premiere-that-wave-xtc-cover-by-fassine

Simpleton bass line is one of my favorite moments in music

YES:

@xtcfans
Ideally, I would have wanted 4 teenage Japanese girls to play XTC, and it all take place in the Japanese equivalent of Swindon. Subtitles

really enjoyed watching that trailer

yeah, looks great

might've mentioned this upthread, but the Chalkhills & Children book is so sad, XTC got fucked six ways to sunday with the Liarbird manager, their label, AP's refusal to play live even after the band was offered a two-night stand at Madison Square Garden in 1989 that promoters were sure would sell out, Dave Gregory having to take day jobs in the studio years because he wasn't making any publishing money like AP and CM... and the fact that AP was such a thrilling live performer, a total ham, but coming off of Valium like he did will fuck you up for life... reminds me of Hüsker Dü a lot, that quote Mould had at the end of their chapter in Azerrad's book: "We could've done so much more." XTC was such an amazing live band, i'm sure i'm not the only one that would pay way too much just to see AP solo with an acoustic. argh

two-night stand at Madison Square Garden in 1989 that promoters were sure would sell out

really? I can't envision this myself

yeah me neither, even with the (moderate?) success of 'Dear God' and the O&L singles.

the book is a thoroughly depressing read, but a necessary cautionary tale, it should be required reading for anyone in a band or working in the music industry.

Books about rock bands are invariably depressing ime.

should we poll "Most Depressing Musician Bios"? "The One" about James Brown would top my list.

xp Generally they're depressing in a different way: huge success, drugs, inevitable fallout with or without death/overdose/breakup... really the feeling I got from Chalkhills & Children was frustration and anticlimax.