XTC : Classic or Dud.

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.

* 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.