Category: XTC

I mentioned a while back that I was going to run into difficulties with the series due to the fact I had stopped buying XTC singles and albums after English Settlement. I did at least manage to hear the singles off Mummer back in 1983 but by the time of the release of The Big Express the following year and later on I was hardly listening to any radio outside of Kid Jensen and John Peel and so wasn’t remotely aware of what the band were up to. As a consequence, the next three singles in this series, and their b-sides, are all new to me.

September 1984 saw the pre-album single written by Andy Partridge:-

mp3 : XTC – All Your Pretty Girls

It was released on 7″ with this b-side written by Colin Moulding:-

mp3 : XTC – Washaway

While the 12″ had this extra Partridge composition:-

mp3 : XTC – Red Brick Dream

I’m listening to these while thinking back to the singers and bands who were making waves in 1984 and realising just how of kilter these are with all that was going on. The single isn’t very good and the b-side sounds like a demo tune written by the boys of Abba. The extra track on the 12″ is probably the best of a bad lot.

There was still enough of a fan base to take the single to #55 in the charts.

JC

Mummer, the sixth XTC album, had come out to a great deal of indifference in August 1983. For the first time, there was some negative press around the band in the weekly papers. It could be down to the sort of critical backlash that tends to come the way of most bands and singers when they get to this number of recordings although another factor was likely that thet were no longer playing live/touring which meant journalists were being fed only studio material and press releases.

Out of all this came an unlikely minor hit with the third single lifted from the album reaching #50 in the charts. It’s a superb piece of music – not the most obvious of singles – with a gentle almost folk-like tune that sounded as if it should be the background music to some sort of classic BBC TV children’s animation show like Camberwick Green or Trumpton.

mp3 : XTC – Love On A Farmboy’s Wages

It later transpired this song was the straw which broke the camel’s back as far as drummer Terry Chambers was concerned. He has been increasingly frustrated by the lack of live shows and perhaps he was hopeful that something would happen to promote the release of Mummer. It soon became clear that no such plans would be hatched and the record label wasn’t going to insist on it either. When he was asked to play in a jazz-style for this song he refused to do so and quit there and then, leading to Peter Phipps being drafted in to join the band. Who’d have thought that one of the former stickmen with The Glitter Band would end up in XTC? Not me….

The real irony in terms of the release of Love On A Farmboy’s Wages is that it was issued as a 2 x 7″ pack and in 12″ format; the former offered one b-side lifted from Mummer along with two new recordings while the latter was a reminder of XTC as a live force, with three songs from the gig at the Hammersmith Odeon, London back in May 1981.

mp3 : XTC – In Loving Memory Of A Name
mp3 : XTC – Desert Island
mp3 : XTC – Toys
mp3 : XTC – Burning With Optimism’s Flame (live)
mp3 : XTC – English Roundabout (live)
mp3 : XTC – Cut It Out (live)

All picked up for use in this series.  Second appearance for Cut It Out as a b-side in a 2 x 7″ release.   It’s actually an instrumental version of Scissor Man, as found on Drums and Wires and under which name the Peel Session version was issued in the Towers of London double-pack.

JC

The next single came out at the height of the summer of 1983 at a time when I was gearing up to move out of the parental home and into my own space within student accommodation. It was also when The Smiths, New Order, Aztec Camera, The The, Billy Bragg, The Style Council and The Go-Betweens were increasingly becoming the bands of choice.  XTC were old hat…..

I will however, say in defence of this Colin Moulding composition, is that I should have bought it back in the day as it would have fitted beautifully onto the compilation tapes that I was making at the time…it’s a gentle and lovely song that has dated fairly well.  But at the time, having only heard it once via radio, I dismissed it immediately and didn’t seek it out.

mp3 : XTC – Wonderland (single edit)

My first exposure to the b-side came as I put this posting together.  It’s certainly a big improvement on the tracks on the previous single and initially I thought it was nothing that I’d come back to all that often.  But three or four listens and it is growing on me.  It’s a good solid b-side.

mp3 : XTC – Jump

I think this was the first XTC single to be issued on Picture Disc.

JC

 

 

Now we get into the section of the series where I will struggle a bit.

You might recall a couple of weeks back my passing comment that I don’t own any XTC albums after English Settlement. This is partly down to the fact that 1983 saw me fall head over heels for so many other great bands and singers that there was no room for XTC anymore; it wasn’t helped by me being bitterly disappointed by the singles that were released to support their next album, and none more so than this from April 83:-

mp3 : XTC – Great Fire

I thought it limp and uninspiring on its release and I haven’t changed my mind since.

It was released on 7″ and 12″ in two different but equally appalling sleeves (as you can see above). The 12″ enabled the continuation of the Homo Safari series that had begun back in 1979 on the flip side of Making Plans For Nigel. Nos 1-3 had been released previously so it begged the question about what happened to No.4 (it turns out this would eventually appear in 1987)

mp3 : XTC – Gold
mp3 : XTC – Frost Circus (No. 5 In The Homo Safari Series)
mp3 : XTC – Procession Towards Learning Land (No. 6 In The Homo Safari Series)

Crap single. A ‘trying too hard to fit in with contemporary pop’ B-side – complete with horns – that seemed so alien to the sound of XTC and two boring instrumentals. File under inessential recordings.

I’m sure at least one of my regulars, to whom I am both grateful and of whom I am always in awe of, will drop by with a wonderfully-worded and persuasive contribution that proves my opinion, in this instance, is wrong!

JC

The third and final single released from English Settlement didn’t get anywhere near the charts. It’s a song with a sound that harks back a little while to the  Black Sea era and was slightly at odds with the more acoustic and gentle material on the current album. But then again, its a tune totally befitting the tale of a nasty right-wing hooligan activist and a family who wouldn’t be out-of-place on Respectable Street:-

mp3 : XTC – No Thugs In Our House

Only released as a 7″ single, it came with elaborate packaging with the sleeve opening to form a theatre while you could utilise cartoon characters to re-enact the song lyrics which were re-produced in full on the reverse, along with to whom each line was attributed, in what was described as “No Thugs In Our House: A musical in three acts by XTC.”

You’ll also be able to make out from the back of the sleeve that three songs were made available on the b-side of the single:-

mp3 : XTC – Chain of Command
mp3 : XTC – Limelight
mp3 : XTC – Over Rusty Water

You’ll also see that the first two tracks were from the free single given away with the first pressings of Drums and Wires and therefore would already be well-known and likely owned by most long-standing fans.  The last track is an ambient instrumental lasting less than 90 seconds and is, again, very much for completists.

Maybe the fact that so little of the music was new contributed to the fact that the single sold poorly.

JC

In last week’s look at Senses Working Overtime, I made the suggestion that its parent double-album English Settlement had a little bit of filler, a line that led Echorich to, rightly, ask me to justify such a view.

What I would like to say at the outset is English Settlement is a wonderfully and occasionally eccentric record packed with great, idiosyncratic and beautifully crafted songs. All these years on, I reckon it’s the best of the first five albums released by XTC in terms of how it has really stood the test of time since its release back in 1982. Of its fifteen tracks, there are maybe four that I haven’t ever quite taken to – All Of A Sudden (It’s Too Late), Fly On The Wall, Down In The Cockpit and Snowman – but at the same time they’re not the sort of tracks that I ever skip on the few occasions I listen to the album these days (and it is one I have on vinyl and CD).

The reason that I suggest its the best of the first five albums and not the best ever XTC album is simply down to me not being in a position to express any opinion as, sad to say, I don’t actually own copies of any LPs they released after this…but that’s something I’ll come back to in a future point in this series.

The success of Senses Working Overtime removed any pressure to have a hit single which is probably just as well as not all that many of the rest of the songs on the album were really the poppy sing-a-long sort you’d expect to hear much on daytime radio stations; one of the exceptions was this catchy sounding ditty which castigated urban development:-

mp3 : XTC – Ball and Chain

Turned out to be the first real flop single attributed to Colin Moulding, only reaching #58 in March 1982. Unusually, the single version was no different from that on the album. It was released on 7″ and 12″ formats and these were your b-sides:-

mp3 : XTC – Punch and Judy
mp3 : XTC – Heaven Is Paved With Broken Glass
mp3 : XTC – Cockpit Dance Mixture

Neither of Punch and Judy and Heaven Is Paved With Broken Glass would have sounded out-of-place on the parent album but I’m guessing the thinking was that some new songs had to be kept back for b-sides….in this case very superior and enjoyable b-sides.

Cockpit Dance Mixture was the extra track on the 12″ and is an experimental take on the album track Down In The Cockpit. One for the curious and completists.

There’s a short postscript required today…..

It turned out that the folk at Virgin Records, having heard early versions of the new material had been really keen to have Ball and Chain, together with Punch and Judy, released as an advance double-A sided single but felt the band should work with uber-producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley for the optimum results. The group and producers entered into the studio in March 1981 but within a few minutes sparks began to fly and Langer walked out on the recording leaving Winstanley behind to try to salvage something.

The results were deemed more than acceptable but by the time they went into the studio with Hugh Padgham to record the other songs for English Settlement it was decided it wouldn’t make sense to have a one-off single with different producers standing out like a sore thumbs and so both tracks were re-recorded.

The Langer/Winstanley versions eventually saw the light of day on a 4xCD compilation box set released in 2002 that pulled together demos, rarities and live tracks amlongside some band favorites.

mp3 : XTC – Ball and Chain (Langer/Winstanley version)
mp3 : XTC – Punch and Judy (Langer/Winstanley version)

Andy and Colin both feel these versions are superior to those which were released back in the day. It’s fair comment as they are punchier and more radio-friendly.

JC

I won’t dwell too much on today’s single as I’ve featured it before as part of my 45 45s at 45 series.

Senses Working Overtime was released in January 1982. It remains XTC‘s biggest hit, reaching #10 in the singles charts as well as helping parent double album, English Settlement, hit #5, again the highest chart position of any of their LPs.

It was released on 7″ and 12″ vinyl. The 7″ had a slightly shorter version (by about 15 seconds or so) of the lead song along with two tracks on the b-side. The 12″ had the longer album version of the song plus one extra track on the b-side. It’s a long way from the sound of Science Friction but for me, it is one of the finest pop songs ever committed to vinyl by anyone. An absolute masterpiece.

mp3 : XTC – Senses Working Overtime (edited version)
mp3 : XTC – Egyptian Solution
mp3 : XTC – Blame The Weather
mp3 : XTC – Tissue Tigers (The Arguers)

Egyptian Solution is an instrumental and was the third in the Homo Safari series (see earlier postings).

Blame The Weather is a very fine, if slightly melancholy number dependant more on piano than guitar, written by Colin Moulding that reminds me of later-period Madness.

I’m a fan of Tissue Tigers and feel it could easily have been included on English Settlement in place of one or two of what I feel are a bit filler, as you would expect when a band releases its first ever double LP

The b-side cuts today are taken from the original vinyl singles and are a bit scratchy and hissy in places. I could have gone for cleaner copies via other sources but I thought what the hell…..it’s about keeping with the spirit of the blog.

JC

One that I had to go and pick up from Discogs. And it wasn’t that cheap once I added P&P.

Respectable Street was and remains one of my favourites songs on Black Sea. It’s the opening song on Side A and it sets the tone for what turned out to be, at that point in time, the most tuneful, accessible and witty album by XTC. I loved the old-fashioned, crackly way that the song opened before bursting into a superb riff and, unusually, straight into the chorus before the first of the verses having its sly dig at behaviour in suburbia. But it had no chance of being a single thanks to a few ‘naughty’ words like contraception, sex-position and abortion, not to mention a couple of product placements for Cosmopolitan magazine and Sony.

Turns out the clever folk at Virgin Records had anticipated this and so had asked Andy Partridge to re-write some of the lyrics and replace some of the possibly offending words that could lead the BBC to refuse to air the song. The move turned out to be a waste of time and money as the different version still didn’t get played and the single flopped completely on its release in March 1981.  I still reckon much of that was down to forgetting to replace the product placement stuff:-

mp3 : XTC – Respectable Street (single version)

It wasn’t a 45 I bought at the time as, being of age when such things mattered, I hated the idea of the censored lyric. Turns out that it wasn’t included on the Waxworks compilation which is why I had to send off for it. The b-sides weren’t includes on Beeswax, the companion album to the compilation and so I never heard either of these songs until 36 years after their release:-

mp3 : XTC – Strange Tales, Strange Tails
mp3 : XTC – Officer Blue

The fact that this was the fourth single released from Black Sea and it managed to yield two new songs as b-sides when a previous single had relied on a live track should set alarm bells ringing. This was reaching down into the bottom of the barrel and scraping away. The band have publicly stated that they are among the worst things they have ever put down on vinyl.

The former sounds half-finished from a lyrical point of view and the tune veers all over the place as if it’s a jam gotten out of control. The latter is actually not all that bad in the grand scheme of things, but I suppose when you’ve been spoiling fans with the quality of the songs on the two most recent albums it will feel as if you’re now offering something a bit second-rate.

JC

The third single to be lifted from Black Sea turned out to be the one that, at this point in time, provided XTC with their biggest hit:-

mp3 : XTC – Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me)

Released in January 1981, this Andy Partridge number spent a total of nine weeks in the chart, getting to #16 in mid-February.  It was some thirty seconds shorteer than the album version.  It was just reward for both the band and songwriter after so many great efforts hadn’t captured the imagination of a wider audience. The initial copies of the single came with a comic book illustrating the lyrics:-

Nice bit of marketing given of course that Sgt. Rock is a comic book character dating back to the late 1950s.

Worth mentioning too that of all the XTC songs he’s written over the years, this is the one that makes Andy Partridge squirm:-

“This song embarrasses the shit out of me. Of all the tunes that I’ve written, that made it to tape, this makes me cringe the worse. It’s not the music, that’s solid enough. All the instruments in the track mesh nicely enough, but the lyrical sentiment, oh dear. It was supposed to be ironic, you know, nerdy comic fan imagines two-dimensional hero can help him with his unsuccessful chat up technique. It did not work. It just came out limply crap. Virgin insisted it be included in this set, otherwise I’d gladly erase it from our history. We all make mistakes.”

No new songs were available on the b-side but there was a tremendous cut lifted from a live concert at the London Lyceum on 12 October 1980 featuring two of the tracks from Black Sea running together:-

mp3 : XTC – Living Through Another Cuba/Generals and Majors (live)

Listening to that live track only heightens the loss from the understandable decision of the band to withdraw from playing live from early 1982 onwards with Andy Partridge suffering from crippling stage fright.  And by crippling, I mean it literally.

It all began when he had a mental breakdown on stage in Paris in March 1982.  It has been said that this was the result of him suddenly, and without warning, being separated from his ever-present Valium tablets. He had first been prescribed the drug as a teenager but had never been taken off it. His wife, increasingly concerned about the dependency with the band reaching new heights of popularity, threw his tablets away — without seeking medical advice — just before the Paris concert. Partridge particularly needed Valium to cope with what he saw as the grinding monotony of concert touring which he hated but took part in for the good of the band.

A few weeks later,  XTC were scheduled to play at a sold-out show in Los Angeles but the audience was told that the show would not take place due to the illness of one of the band members.  It was revealed some time later that Partridge’s ongoing stage fright was manifesting itself as leg paralysis.  In the end, the rest of the American tour was cancelled as were all scheduled future dates in the UK and Europe.  However, nothing could be done to resolve the problem and so XTC became exclusively a studio band other than occasional live-to-air performances from radio stations, and a handful of TV appearances.

JC

Black Sea had been released to high critical acclaim at the same time as Generals and Majors was denting the charts. Virgin Records decided to strike while the iron was hot by quickly releasing a second single from the album. It was a slight gamble in that it was going to have to be an Andy Partridge composition as he was responsible for nine of the ten tracks that were still a possibility; after all, none of his previously penned 45s had made the charts. It turned out to be sixth time lucky….

mp3 : XTC – Towers of London (single version)

As with many of the other singles, it was a slightly abridged version compared to the LP, this one being about 50 seconds shorter.

It later transpired that the band’s first stab at the song was a much slower, more acoustic and mournful take appropriate to the subject matter of the tens of thousands of unsung heroes whose blood, sweat and toil had shaped London in the Victorian and Edwardian era when so much of its infrastructure was laid and so many of its landmark buildings had been erected. It’s a version that would surface on Coat of Many Cupboards, a compilation LP of unreleased tracks and demos issued in 2002.

The b-side of the single was a live version of a song from the band’s debut LP White Music as captured by the BBC for an In Concert broadcast from The Rainbow Theatre in London in September 1979:-

mp3 : XTC – Set Myself On Fire (live)

The initial copies of the single came with a free 7″. One of the tracks on the free single was a live version of Battery Brides, a track on the band’s sophomore album Go2, and again recorded at the gig at The Rainbow. Sadly, I don’t have a copy of the free single and so can’t provide that particular song.

The other track was a Peel Session version of a track on the band’s third album Drums and Wires. The modern miracle of file sharing and the fact that so many folk do like to put Peel Session versions of songs out there means I have been able to track it down:-

mp3 : XTC – Scissor Man (Peel Session)

For my money, this faster and more frantic version is superior to that recorded for the album.

JC

And so we come to the era that most casual fans of XTC will be most familiar with – the singles that were lifted from the 1980 LP Black Sea. There were four in total in the UK between August 1980 and March 1981. There was also a further single, not on the album, which was released in November 1980 – but all of that will be covered in due course.

General and Majors predated the release of the LP by around five weeks. As we would later discover, there were loads of options for decent 45s but given that Colin Moulding had supplied the only two previous chart hits it was no surprise that Virgin Records went for one of his to lead things off.

mp3 : XTC – Generals and Majors

An anti-military establishment rather than an anti-war song, it is one of those incredibly simple but effective tunes made memorable from a combination of catchy chorus (which Colin has always been quick to say was really a fine-tuning, by Andy Partridge, of a half-finished lyrical idea), fantastically fast and furious guitar work, whistling and humming. It had smash hit written all over it….but stalled at #32 despite a marketing campaign that saw the first 15,000 copies of the record be a double-single with tracks that would be unavailable on the parent LP.

mp3 : XTC – Don’t Lose Your Temper
mp3 : XTC – Smokeless Zone
mp3 : XTC – The Somnambulist

The first is a rockin’ n’ rollin’ two and a half minutes of music that really got up hopes for the forthcoming LP. If something as fine sounding at this hadn’t made the cut then something special had to be coming down the line.

The second was a bit more experimental albeit it kept up the frantic face of the two songs that made up the standard 7″. It was about now that I began to think of XTC not simply as a new wave band but more in keeping with the tradition of greatly talented but occasionally eccentric English bands who made music that you couldn’t ever pigeon-hole.

The third song is the only one on the double-pack not produced by Steve Lillywhite; instead it is attributed to Andy Partridge. It’s a very strange and eerie piece of music that was totally unlike anything else the band had done before – it was almost as experimental as the sounds of the likes of Ultravox, Human League, Tubeway Army or those other weird synth-based groups who were never going to amount to anything.

I had no idea back then what a somnambulist was…I had to look it up. That it was an ode to a trance-like state for sleepwalkers sort of made sense with the tune. Truth be told, I hated it back in 1980 Far too refined for my 17 year old tastes. Nowadays, I think it’s a masterpiece. Oh and I’ve since learned, thanks to researching for this series that it pre-dated much of the Black Sea material as it was recorded as part of spare time left over in a BBC studio while making a Peel Session in March 1980.

Oh, also worth mentioning that the single version of Generals and Majors is about thirty seconds shorter than would appear on the subsequent LP.

JC

It was something of a strange decision not to follow-up ‘Nigel’ with any other track from the LP Drums and Wires. This was partly down to XTC, like many of their peers, wanting to minimise the number of singles associated with any album, but it was also linked to something mentioned in a previous post, namely that loads of new material was being written at a fantastically quick rate thanks in part to the band now having, in effect, two principal songwriters.

This led to the a non-album single being the next UK release in March 1980.

mp3 : XTC – Wait Till Your Boat Goes Down

Despite being a decent enough track, albeit at more than four minutes in length a bit of an epic as far as the singles went, this latest effort failed to trouble the charts, thus becoming the fifth successive Andy Partridge composed 45 to suffer such a fate. It’s another fine and clever lyric in which the protagonist is offering sage advice to a female of the species predicting that while her looks, wit and charm have her currently floating in exalted circles within a new and upmarket social gathering, there will inevitably come a time when she will have to rely on old friends. The tune though is a wee bit clunky and that made it less than ideal for radio play and thus difficult to pick up on.

In contrast, the single came with a quality b-side:-

mp3 : XTC – Ten Feet Tall

The original version of Ten Feet Tall was, and still is, one of the best tracks on Drums and Wires. It was the first mid-tempo love song that the band had recorded and was a pointer to where they could go in the future once the fad for new-wave had worn off (as it was already threatening to do).

The label thought that a re-recorded version with more electric rather than acoustic guitars would work as a single, primarily for an American market. And so the band re-cut the song and it was released in the USA where it sunk without trace but made available for UK fans as the b-side. If more had been made of the fact that it was a new recording – perhaps indeed going as far as making it a double-A side with the likelihood of airplay – then maybe it wouldn’t have been a flop.

I say this with a bit of conviction in that I didn’t buy Wait Till Your Boat Comes Down at the immediate time of release – I had seen copies in the shop but was, at a time when value had to be sought from any purchases, shied away as the b-side looked like it was the album version. Nothing on the sleeve indicated otherwise unless you looked closely a the name of the producer in small print. A wasted opportunity but then again, a bargain bin copy at half-price just a few weeks later was a personal consolation of sorts.

JC

At last, at last, at last. A hit single in September 1979. It reached #17.

mp3 : XTC – Making Plans For Nigel

Jonny the Friendly Lawyer said this when he included it within an XTC ICA a while back:-

One of the band’s best known and loved songs, but what is it about, exactly? Parents planning their child’s future? A comment on English society’s emphasis on steady employment? Never been able to work that out, but I do love this number.

Colin Moulding has said it is semi-autobiographical in that his parents weren’t sure about his efforts to pursue a career as a musician and tried to persuade him to remain at school and get enough qualifications to go to university.

Lyrically, it was a brilliantly timed song. The British Steel Corporation (BSC), for so long a cornerstone of the UK economy at a national and many local levels, was now in deep financial trouble and making huge losses, largely from the fact that the more modern plants elsewhere in Europe and further afield could easily supply the products to manufacturers much more cheaply. Nigel, or indeed anyone, didn’t appear to have too much of a future,and indeed there soon followed a high number of plant closures in the early 80s that put tens of thousands of men out of work and with few prospects.

But having said all that it is the tune that was responsible for the single getting loads of airtime and leading to enough sales to finally propel the band into the charts. I think that has a lot to do with the sound of the drums which were quite unusual for the time in question as well as the nagging riff that once heard isn’t easy to forget….in a good way!!  Oh,  and it’s worth mentioning that the single edit is some 20 seconds shorter than that which would appear later on Drums And Wires.

Two tracks on the b-side, one being the second in the Homo Safari set of tunes referred to last time out:-

mp3 : XTC – Bushman President

The other is a short 90-second track that has a catchy, infectious riff but sort of feels a bit like a demo that never really developed much:-

mp3 : XTC – Pulsing, Pulsing

JC

A few things worth noting.

This April 1979 release was the first A-side that was written by Colin Moulding.

It was the first song on which Dave Gregory played having come in as replacement guitarist for founder member Barry Andrews who had left after the release of Go2.

It was the first XTC single to make the charts, reaching #44.

mp3 : XTC – Life Begins At The Hop

It’s an autobiographical number, telling the story of the bass player’s teenage years where the highlight of his week was getting along to the dance that was held every Saturday night in a local church hall.

Funnily enough, although this isn’t an XTC song that I’m all that fond of, I too have great memories as a 14-16 year old going along with my mates from school to a local church hall for a weekly disco on Sunday evenings (7-10pm). Not too many of the songs I was listening to and subsequently buying would get played at the disco but it was something to do in a crowd in a safe environment and going along sort of helped to increase confidence around girls. Sort of.

My issue with the song is probably that it veered too much on the poppy side of things and didn’t feel nearly as worthy as the earlier flops. Still, it did raise their profile a bit further, including a debut appearance on Top of The Pops and helped pave the way for what would happen next.

The b-side was a very strange affair:-

mp3 : XTC – Homo Safari

It was the first of what proved eventually to be a series of six experimental instrumentals, composed by Andy Partridge, that would appear on singles over the coming years.

JC

For a band that had suffered a series of hard-to-justify flops, the title and cover of the fourth XTC single is just genius.

XTC were ridiculously prolific in 1978, recording and releasing the album Go2 a mere six months after the debut. The album quickly became noted for the distinctive and unusual sleeve which consisted of a lengthy and witty essay printed in white text against a very black background. You get the gist from the opening few sentences:-

This is a RECORD COVER. This writing is the DESIGN upon the record cover. The DESIGN is to help SELL the record. We hope to draw your attention to it and encourage you to pick it up. When you have done that maybe you’ll be persuaded to listen to the music – in this case XTC’s Go 2 album. Then we want you to BUY it. The idea being that the more of you that buy this record the more money Virgin Records, the manager Ian Reid and XTC themselves will make. To the aforementioned this is known as PLEASURE.

The press release to accompany the album was designed in a similar style to the cover. The opening few sentences are superb:-

This is a record company biography which, unlike a real biography, tells you only what is convenient for you to know. Its style and appearance, which will be applauded by some as iconoclastic and dismissed by others as pretentious, corresponds closely to that on the cover of XTC’s new album ‘Go 2’. Its function is to provide information about the group for the recipient, usually a journalist, to employ when writing about them. Often, a biography exceeds that function by expressing carefully programmed opinions in persuasively vacuous biz-speak. This provides the company representative with some vague sense of purpose and the journalist with an opportunity to paraphrase the results without recourse to such tiresome activities as thought, the eventual intention being that the public should view the band exactly as wished by their record company.

It ends with the information that the 13 new songs on Go2 will be followed by an additional two songs as a single, before helpfully stating:-

Adjectives employed most frequently when describing XTC are ‘attractive’, ‘energetic’, ‘unique’, ‘bizarre’, ‘addictive’, ‘intelligent’, and ‘inventive’.

So here we go with the attractive, energetic, unique, bizarre, addictive, intelligent and inventive tale of unrequited love that was the 4th single, along with its b-side:-

mp3 : XTC – Are You Receiving Me?
mp3 : XTC – Instant Tunes

It flopped….but it did get decent reviews!

JC

Two monumentally good bits of music had failed to provoke any interest in the record buying public. Nor had the debut LP, White Music, exactly set the heather alight.

The good news from the band’s perspective is that they had a record label who believed in their abilities and a number of champions within the music press consistently praising the records and giving positive reviews to the live shows.

It was the record company bosses who suggested that one of the tracks off the debut LP should be re-recorded for release as the third single. The band was teamed up with a different producer – RJ (Mutt) Lange – who at the time was relatively unknown but had some new wave credentials thanks to his work with The Boomtown Rats. As an aside, Lange would in later years become something of an uber-producer and make a fortune from his efforts with the likes of Billy Ocean, Bryan Adams and Shania Twain – but that probably don’t impress you much.

It has to be admitted however, that the results of what proved to be a one-off collaboration with XTC did result in one of the best non-hit singles of the era.

mp3 : XTC – This Is Pop?

It’s a fantastic lyric in which the point is made that, no matter the genre anyone ever tries to shoehorn a song into, if it becomes well-liked and celebrated (as was increasingly happening with punk and new wave) then by definition is has to be pop music being made by a pop band. It’s also a killer tune that somehow, once again, was ignored by mainstream radio on its release in April 1978.

Proof that Mutt Lange helped the band realise their potential can also be found in the two-minute ditty that was recorded for the b-side:-

mp3 : XTC – Heatwave

It’s not a cover of the Martha & the Vandellas song (as would be done by The Jam for the Setting Sons LP in 1979) but a Colin Moulding original which is far too catchy to have been wasted as a b-side. I don’t think I’m alone in reckoning it is similar in places to a big hit single from Elvis Costello & the Attractions.

JC

In early 1978, there was a fair bit of excitement in the music press around XTC with some journalists boldly claiming that they were the sort of band that would have a future beyond that of many of their peers thanks to their ability to knock out the sort of catchy, upbeat tunes that had been evidenced on their debut single and which were very much to the fore on the follow-up.

Only problem though, was that the BBC Radio 1 refused to play it for reasons that, 40 years on, seem ridiculously petty, especially given the lyrics that freely get aired nowadays.

As Andy Partridge later observed, “A certain radio station banned it for its ‘risqué’ line ‘I sailed beneath your skirt’, whilst they played ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ in which Lou Reed’s characters are busy shaving their legs, changing their sex and giving each other head.”

Indeed.

mp3 : XTC – Statue of Liberty (single edit)
mp3 : XTC – Hang On to the Night

The single is about 30 seconds shorter than the version later included on the debut LP White Music. The b-side is another very fine new-wave number that would have got any audience all hot and sweaty as they pogoed away down the front. The two tracks between them barely scrape four and a half minutes.

JC

I hummed and hawed about who to follow-up The Undertones with. Your offered suggestions of Joy Division/New Order, Big Dynamite, REM and The Cure were all very tempting but I felt would take forever to do…and when I had a look at the James singles a while back I did get a wee bit bored towards the end and I’d hate for that to happen again. But it may well be that I’ll have a look at all of said suggestions in due course.

So, as you’ll see, I’ve plumped for XTC. I have a number of their 45s in the collection as well as a pristine vinyl copy of a Singles/B-side compilation from the early 80s that offered some that I didn’t have. I’ve also been on to Discogs to fill in a few gaps.

One of the things that most attracted me to featuring XTC is that some of the 45s were non-album tracks or were different versions of songs on parent LPs along with the fact that a lot of the b-sides are quality offerings. I hope you’ll enjoy the ride.

The debut EP appeared in 1977. Think about that. Fully 40 years ago. Hell, I feel ancient.

Two of the tracks had initially appeared as a 7″ single on Virgin Records but the decision was taken to withdraw it not long after it went into the shops and instead issue them along with a further track on a 12″ EP. Anyone who has the original single is sitting on a fairly rare and therefore valuable piece of vinyl.

The EP, like so many of the early recordings, didn’t ignite with the record buying public and failed to trouble the charts. It’s hard to see why lead track Science Friction was a flop as it’s a fantastic early example of what we would come to file under ‘New Wave’ – it bounces along at a frantic pace with a catchy tune and lyric. It was far from being a punk song but it had all the energy, enthusiasm, freshness and DIY-sounding values of the movement that had made it connect with so many:-

mp3 : XTC – Science Friction

The two other songs are hugely enjoyable if not quite as immediate:-

mp3 : XTC – She’s So Square
mp3 : XTC – Dance Band

The former has a tune that is reminiscent of early Squeeze while the latter, with its bass intro and weird keyboards always brings to mind a more pop-orientated version of The Stranglers. What all three songs did tell was that XTC sounded as if they could be great fun to listen to and keep an eye on.

All three versions are lifted from the Waxworks/Beeswax compilation LPs.

This, however, was lifted from elsewhere.  It’s a secret track on the 3D EP.  It’s not listed on the sleeve nor the label

mp3 : XTC – Goodnight Sucker

It’s less than ten seconds in length.  The creepy whisper is provided by Terry Chambers.

JC

Absolutely chuffed that Johnny the Friendly Lawyer has again popped up with this particular contribution. It’s a follow-up to ICA 26…..

Greetings JC.

I suspect you’re probably inundated with proposed ICA’s these days, but this one was meant as a companion to the one posted about Colin Moulding’s XTC songs last year (ICA #26). On the one hand I was really happy to pay tribute to the under-acknowledged bassist–a true musical hero to me. On the other hand it was a bit cowardly to avoid an ICA drawn from all of XTC‘s material. So many great songs to choose from over so many years! In other words, I had a Clash problem on my hands. (It’s awesome, by the way, that ‘Clash problem’ has entered the ‘net vernacular.)

So I sat on it. But now, with the popularity of the imaginary comp series and everyone finding reasonable justifications for their selections, I’m finally sending this one along. It’s not a representative survey of Andy Partridge‘s XTC songs or a chronology or anything like that. Nope, this is just a good old fashioned list of favorites. I’m sure a few tunes would be found in a lot of XTC fans’ top picks, but surely not all of them as half are album tracks. And, I skipped right by several LP’s without a backward glance (my apologies to everyone with favorites on White Music, Go 2, Mummer, The Big Express, Nonsuch and Wasp Star.). So, without any fanfare, here are my personal favorite XTC songs by Andy Partridge, in no particular order:

1. Respectable Street.

As good a lead-off track as any, this one from 1980’s Black Sea. Also released as the 4th single from that LP.

2. Real by Reel.

Album side off 1979’s Drums and Wires. I wrote in the Moulding comp that the band really came into their own on this album after two previous LPs. (That’s why this ICA doesn’t include earlier Partridge standouts like ‘Are you Receiving?‘ and ‘Statue of Liberty’). XTC were excellent musicians but the introduction of guitarist Dave Gregory game them a legit virtuoso. His brief solo on this song, at about the 2:30 mark, is just perfect.

1979 was a banner year for post-punk guitarists; the likes of Magazine’s John McGeoch, PiL’s Keith Levene and Gang of Four’s Andy Gill served up stellar work on Secondhand Daylight, Metal Box and Entertainment!, respectively. Gregory never got their level of recognition, but his fretwork was equally significant. ‘Real by Reel’ is also noteworthy in that Moulding played the bassline somewhere in between ska and reggae time, thereby inventing skeggae.

3. I’d Like That.

XTC released the sub par Nonsuch in 1992 and then went silent. For seven years. Then they returned with Apple Venus, a so-called ‘pastoral’ album that sounded (to me) as a sequel to Partridge’s 1986 masterpiece, ‘Skylarking’. Older, mellower, sophisticated and acoustic, the group still sounded relevant after more than 20 years on the job.

4. Season Cycle.

Speaking of Skylarking, here’s an album track from that LP. Producer Todd Rundgren gave Partridge a lot of stick for rhyming ‘cycle’ with ‘umbilical’, but it’s just the sort of silly, unusual couplet that I always found endearing rather than ridiculous.

5. Senses Working Overtime.

Sings for itself. One of best, if not the very best, of all XTC songs. Released as a single from 1982’s English Settlement LP. Unbelievably, it is the band’s only top 10 single (reaching number 10).

6. The Mayor of Simpleton.

Another single, this one from 1989’s Oranges and Lemons, perhaps the group’s last great LP. This one features terrific basslines from man of the match Mr. Moulding, who also provides solid backing vocals. As a rule, the songwriters usually sang lead on their songs, but Moulding’s voice was always present in the mix, much like how The Jam’s Bruce Foxton co-sang along with Paul Weller on the majority of that band’s songs. (Let’s add Foxton to the list of under-appreciated musicians from the era, while we’re at it.)

7. Yacht Dance.

More evidence of Dave Gregory’s talent. The modest guitarist had this to say about his beautiful nylon-string acoustic work: “It sounds difficult but it wasn’t. I just worked out these little phrases that sounded like what the song needed.” Simple as that! An album track from English Settlement.

8. No Thugs In Our House.

A rocker, as it were, with agitated lyrics snarled by Mr. Partridge. I wonder if Partridge’s unorthodox vocal delivery might have factored into XTC’s lack of success over here in the States? He’s often described as a ‘quirky’ singer, which can translate to ‘oddly irritating’. Not sure about that, but I do love this gem, another single and album track from English Settlement. Note the variety of the 3 songs on this ICA from that one LP.

9. Merely a Man.

An album side from Oranges and Lemons. Love the brass section competing with Gregory’s Hendrixish wah-wah soloing throughout.

10. Earn Enough For Us.

Saved the best for last. Another album side from Skylarking and my all-time favorite XTC song. If I could have written only one of their tunes, this is the one.

Amazing that most of these songs are well over 30 years old…

Bonus Tracks:

Partridge recorded (as Sir John Johns) in XTC’s psychedelic side-project The Dukes of Stratosphear. Two of his best tracks are found on 1987’s Psonic Psunspot LP:

Brainiac’s Daughter – Meant to sound like a Sgt. Pepper outtake.
Pale and Precious – Kind of a lost Beach Boys track, but from Swindon instead of LA–right down to the ‘Good Vibrations’ background vocals and theremin!

Enjoy!!!!

JTFL