XTC : Classic or Dud.

"Human Alchemy" totally gives my brain a meltdown.

listening now

I don't see how someone could like "Ladybird" more than "Love on a Farmboy's Wages".

okok I'll rescreen the whole album

There's a couple of Fuzzy Warbles tracks that never got through the Mummur selection process (or maybe they were rejected outright by Virgin) that I would love to have heard on the record, but annoyingly their names escape me :)

"Mummer" is great IMO, but it was more the beginning of even better things to come. It was probably the first album where they tried out the more pastoral style they'd perfect on "Skylarking" and the next two albums. Which for me represents XTC at their best. Their pinnacle remains "Skylarking".

Out of "Mummer"'s tracks, I particularly love "Wonderland". Yet another example of how Moulding is dwarfed by Partridge in quantity yet often trashes him in quality.

Human Alchemy will take a few listens to sink in properly, I think. Ladybird is an instant bolt of sunshine into the snowy scenery I see before me

Wonderland is good, aye - remember that one well off the Compact XTC collection (ditto Great Fire)

Geir, I have heard a demo of a bunch of Col's rejected songs, we were given second refusal on. We didn't like any of them (If Wonderland had been one of them, we'd have had that).

And before anyone asks, no I wasn't allowed to keep a copy.

Mummur>Mummer...tsk

Putting them side by side, I think the reason I'd take Ladybird over LOAFW has a lot to do with the sound of the recording, it's slightly gauzy and opaque and has this great repetitive piano which you don't notice till the fade.

LOAFW is a more akin to pastoral English Settlement style pop, which they were already adept at writing. Ladybird was something new and the sound of the band turning a corner.

Mark, in what capacity did you hear them if you don't mind me asking, did you work for Virgin>

No, a friend of mine worked at their rehearsal studio in Swindon (he's assistant producer on that demo version of "Making Plans" off Coat), and colin had gone in one day to demo a bunch of songs so used him and a bunch of his mates to add drums/bass/bvocals in a 'live to tape' situation.

Ah right, very cool!

That's so true! In the same year as Skylarking, no less a band than Cardiacs removed the splendid 'I'm Eating In Bed' from their debut wide-release record and stuck the kinda commercialised 'Is This The Life' on instead - it's easily the album's low-point

Dear LJ, "I'm Eating In Bed" is rad but once you have a job you will understand the joys of a Cardiacs song about hating yr job

please return to your regularly scheduled XTC chat now - think I shall look into this Transistor Blast box, if it is still available, because a more rocking, less fussy "At The Hop" sounds like something I need to hear ASAP

a Cardiacs song about hating yr job

That's, like, the rest of the album! At least the first track. Probably some of the others.

also I have a job ffs

I owe you at least two apologies because a) sorry / congrats re job and b) for some reason I was thinking of the lyrics to the first track and not Is This The Life anyway, and now I've realised that I can think of no reason to disagree that it's the weakest track

duh

hahaha PWN sorry I mean yeah it's ok :)

My version of A Little Man and a House has them both. "Eating in Bed" is track 3 and "Is This the Life?" track 4. I had no idea it was ever any different. Great album. Nice to see them mentioned in this thread.

For Skylarking; I still can't get over how god-awful that new cover is. I mean the old cover was bad but this is just grotesque. And I don't even think it's meant as a joke. Anyway I've always had the one with "Dear God" and to me it fit the album well. But it's not a really good song at all and I always found the lyrics kind of silly. "Mermaid Smiled" is amazing. Just a ridiculously great groove and a zillion hooks in about two minutes. Love it.

Re Ladybird: The last two seconds of that track is amazing. The song fades to silence, then you get a very very quiet vibrato organ chord. It wraps up the track beautifully.

SO many great songs on Mummer.

Anyone have MP3s of these oddities:
Beatown (live 7/20/79 @ Marconi Club)
Roads Girdle the Globe (live 7/20/79 @ Marconi Club)

I think they were on a compilation or maybe a foreign single.

Or how about the BBC sessions that didn't make it onto "Transistor Blast", anyone have those?

I have a pile of studio demos that didn't make it onto anything (Rip van Ruben, Raising a Family in a House Full of Mice &c.).

Gerald, I have that Marconi Club concert, if you mail me your deets I can send you a copy.

Got quite a nice Aus radio concert from the year after that too iirc.

I have a pile of studio demos that didn't make it onto anything (Rip van Ruben, Raising a Family in a House Full of Mice &c.).

gimme

um please

I listened to XTC on shuffle to & from work thx to this thread. "I Need Protection" came on and I don't feel like I'd ever really listened to it. A weird little song it is, but neat! It sounds vulnerable and invulnerable at the same time.

also second Shakey's request

I Need Protection is pretty cool, I like the way it goes boing.

k shakey & abbbb plz send me ilxmail (me = AA + working email addr), I will dispatch within 48 hrs

there are roughly 10 btw, may require a few emails

you have the same stuff Autumn Almanac has...?

(me = AA + working email addr)

Transistor Blast is indeed great btw. Beautifully packaged, too, with each disc in its own coloured jewel case, all in a cardboard sleeve that looks a bit like an old radio.

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.

btw I've just taken Abbbottt's lead and have chucked my XTC collection (354 tracks, excluding Dukes) on shuffle. I've not heard this stuff properly in years so having a ball iirc.

I really should grab Transistor BLast.

Webmailed you SchlAAfsack!

Got 'em.

sorry I am easily confused by the internets

[chucked my XTC collection (354 tracks, excluding Dukes) on shuffle

lol so I guess we are having a lil online XTC listening party eh

I am being reminded that Andy Partridge has written a fair amount of songs I actually find painful to listen to fwiw (Stinking Rich, That Wave)

ya me too. I don't know how email will work but will try that first off.

xp yeah, a few stinkbombs in there, although to be fair Stinking Rich was aimed at tiny kids so sucking was sort of a prerequisite.

ha, rip van ruben didnt make it onto any of the warbles? great tune! definitely one of the most maddening examples of songs that didn't make it onto a proper album when "wounded horse" and "standing in for joe" did

Most of Wasp Star too sadly....

xp I know, weird eh? It's a stonking Red Rocking Horse-style gallumping bouncefest, completely successful but totally forgotten. I don't get that either.

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.

"Easter Theater" came up, too, and its lyrics had always slipped by me. "chocolate nipple brown"! Best song on the album tho, imo.

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).

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.

aw I like the Easter Theater lyrics, the adult-reflecting-on-childhood-romance angle

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

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.

"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.