Chalkhills Digest Volume 1, Issue 180
Date: Monday, 7 October 1991
Chalkhills, Number 180
Monday, 7 October 1991
Today's Topics:
Re: This is the End
New Guy
Re: Chalkhills #179
magazine reviews
XTC sighting in Q Magazine
French paper part 3 of 4
XTC sightings in Pulse! magazine
Minor XTC trivia
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 15:46:02 PDT From: "John M. Relph" <relph@presto.ig.com> Subject: Re: This is the End Joe Turner (aka lonely is an eyesore) <cutter@silver.lcs.mit.edu> asks: >What is "The is the End"? Where does it appear? Who? Hah? Wha? "This Is The End" is a song that never made it onto _Oranges and Lemons_. It was originally slated to close the album, but was later discarded in favour of "Chalkhills and Children", because the latter had a more upbeat feel, and XTC didn't feel that they should end the album on a down note. "This Is The End" was written and recorded as a demo by Andy Partridge, and was broadcast on a KFJC XTC Special in 1989 (and again in 1990). -- John
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: Treefrog@cup.portal.com Subject: New Guy Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 19:34:42 PDT Hello. I'm new (as will become obvious) to being at XTC fan. I will try not to be ashamed of this as I write. I've adored _Senses Working Overtime_ since the first time I hear it (9 or 10 years ago), but never looked further into the band. Now I am familiar with English Settlement, The Black Sea, Mummer, Skylarking (heart beating fast), and Oranges and Lemons. Recently, while reading Chalkhills, I discovered <blush> that _Making Plans for Nigel_ belonged to the band as well. I'm not looking for a *comprensive* discography (at least, not now). I'd like, though, a good chronological list of what's available on CD in the U.S. (*readily* available, I should say :-). Later I'll worry about the various bootlegs and what-have-you's. If there is something that's an absolute MUST HAVE for a beginner but is only available on vinyl or cassette, I guess I ought to know that too. I hope someone out there will be sympathetic to this newcomer's plight. If responding to this post is too pathetic for _Chalkhills_, please if you are willing to help me, e-mail a response. Thank you very much more than a lot. -TF treefrog@cup.portal.com
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 11:48:34 EDT From: dabl2@nlm.nih.gov (Don A.B. Lindbergh) Subject: Re: Chalkhills #179 Re: the french interview with A. Partridge > I hope it interests you and sorry for my poor english. > > Emmanuel. > No signature. Heck yes! This is the greatest, thanks mate! --Don
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 09:18:32 CDT From: rhb9805@usl.edu (Bird Rendell H) Subject: magazine reviews Previously, on Chalkhills -- >by the way Rendell, in which magazine and issue did you see this review? Oops. I guess I DID forget to put the name of magazine in my article. *blush*. The Goldmine was issue (August 23, 1991; Vol 17, #17; Issue 289) -- The ELVIS issue. The unmentioned magazine was the current issue (October) of CD Review (which I read more for the antics of Wayne Green, then for their CD Reviews). For those you us with weak memory chips -> Goldmine panned the recent reissues, saying they were of interest to fans only. CD Review said they were mostly wonderful (they were only faulted for poor sound quality). I wonder if any Chalkhillian(s) have sat down and listened to the British (originals) and the recent American (re-issues) side-by-side to see if there was any noticeable differences. Rendell
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Fri, 4 Oct 91 14:03:29 PDT From: John M. Relph <chalkhills-request@chalkhills.org> Subject: XTC sighting in Q Magazine Organisation: Chalkhills Anonymous In the latest issue of _Q_ magazine, XTC are reported to be "Topping off their studio tans." They are reported to be recording tracks for a new LP. Yes, we know it's true. -- John
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>
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 91 23:09:53 EDT
From: Emmanuel Marin <MARINP92@frecp12.bitnet>
Subject: French paper part 3 of 4
YOUR CARPET IS FANTASTIC
Q: The 76/77 movement, mixed a modern music with a return to some older
values, like the Rhythm'n'Blues. Some values that one does not detect in
your music. Was a record like "White Music" a kind of rebellion against
these values?
AP: Our values were not really the Rhythm'n'Blues, we were rather from
the 60's "guitar" generation. All three of us were much more influenced
by the "white beat" bands, the Kinks or the Small Faces, rather than by
Chuck Berry, or names like... Blind Boy, Deaf Grunting or Epileptic John
(laughs)...
Q: The American music seemed to have had no influence on you, unlike many
other English bands from the same period.
AP: It is true. I do not like the American music from the end of the
60's. I found it too political, at that time the USA were at war. If
you talked about drugs, they would answer heroin or coke, whereas in
England, we only had got to acid... We were not involved in any war, but
in USA, it was the enrollment under the colours. The American music had
a very dark side and I was at the age when so much darkness could not
interest me. Like most of people at that time in Great Britain, I was
attracted by lighter things, more eccentric and coloured, recalling
masquerades, parades... America was too heavy, too charged with police
connotations, with severely repressed riots. The atmosphere in England
was clearly more... musical, that is the only word that crossed my mind.
Q: A lot of people roughly connect you to the Beatles, especially since
the wink of the "O&L" record cover. Have you always had a particular
admiration for them?
AP: It came progressively. As I progress in songwriting, I realize that
I move around a particular style, which has quite obviously influenced me
a lot. I did not realize that, at the beginning, because I was at the
age when one is convinced one invents everything, I firmly believed I was
the first to write texts like mine. But the more I write, the more I
realize that I turn towards something more... how to say... not
"communicative", not popular, but... It is as it was for the Beatles,
their first numbers had nothing to do with those that they did at the
end. They have moved towards a songwriting style where you find people
like Burt Bacharach, a style you can describe as mythical, which would be
the "Kingdom of the Good Songs"... It is an outcome, a place you
approach progressively by working. The Kinks began in a totally
different way, with a very "snotty" Rhythm'n'Blues, which gradually
became better, which brought them in the suburbs of this Kingdom... What
we are doing now has nothing to do with what we have done at the
beginning, but we carry on in our own sweet way. If everything goes off
smoothly, we should approach this place reserved for the good songs.
Q: Are some shadows, like the Beatles'one, sometimes too heavy?
AP: There is some Beatles in our music, but also some Captain Beefheart,
some jazz bands, some others who were not necessarily musicians, like
Miro, Walt Disney... Everything, absolutely everything, I have seen,
heard, smelt, read, since I was born. If people see only some Beatles,
it is because they want to search only for some Fab Four... They could
find also some George Orwell, or everything they would search for.
Q: You were rather young during the great psychedelic period...
AP: I am afraid so! I was too young to be an hippy, my parents did not
agree (laughs)... In 1967, I was 14, a little too young, alas... I did
not work, I was broke, I could not afford all the records I wanted...
But those I bought with my pocket money, or with the money I earned by
carrying the newspapers each morning, were absolute treasures that I
cherished above all, that I listened continuously... The memories I have
of this period is a feeling of absolute freedom, as far as music is
concerned, a feeling that one could do all what he wanted to.
Q: Drugs, especially acid, were then an important way of creation. XTC's
madness seems more reasonable, more sober.
AP: I am against drugs. I simply cannot believe that you can create and
have hallucinations in the same time. It is a pack of lies. How can you
play guitar when you see your hands changing into the claws of a
crawfish? You do not hear music the same way if you are under drugs.
Creation is a personal affair and with drugs, you become a projection of
yourself, a puppet, which happens to be here by luck. You must remain in
control of yourself if you want to create. It is either one or the
other. I personally never had any real idea while getting high. The
only thing I can do while being drunk, is to stand, if that! Drugs
modify perception. You spend hours on all fours, finding your carpet
fantastic. The day after, you realize the carpet is still the same. The
only difference comes from the fact that the previous evening, your
conscience perceived the external in a creative way, but created nothing.
Q: You all three have released, incognito, two records of psychedelic
hallucinations, under the name of The Dukes Of Stratosphear. Could you
not let yourself go at all your deliriums inside the band? Were The
Dukes too monstrous to let them appear with XTC?
AP: The Dukes, or The Frankenstein's Monsters, were a good idea, but we
had to get rid of them. Or rather, The Dukes' spirit took possession of
our souls and hold us in its power... I feel like Linda Blair in "The
Exorcist", I am possessed by this demon who come to see me from the far
end of my childhood and talk to me in a curious language without vowels:
"Grrppphhhhfffftttcchc..."
Q: "O&L" is then the meeting between XTC and the Dukes...
AP: Yes, exactly, now we are seven members in the band (laughs)... We
could not do more with The Dukes, because they had already been used a
lot. After a certain number of times, you cannot keep on telling the
same jokes. But what these creatures inspired in us is still here, and
we all agree on letting it act, not suppressing it, and using it.
COMING SOON: MY GARDEN IS A BLACK HOLE
+ Bonus: My son or my penis?
Emmanuel Marin.
No signature.
'Emmanuel Marin xtc 10/04/91 French paper part 3 of 4
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Date: Sat, 5 Oct 91 0:59:39 PDT
From: "John M. Relph" <relph@presto.ig.com>
Subject: XTC sightings in Pulse! magazine
This month's issue of _Tower Records' Pulse!_ magazine contains
two XTC tidbits.
Daniel C. Larsen sends in his 10 Desert Island Discs:
1. Fade Out -- Loop
2. Black Sea -- XTC
3. Smile/Nowhere -- Ride
4. El Kabong -- Trotsky Icepick
5. Spellbound -- soundtrack
6. Birdbrain -- Buffalo Tom
7. For The Country -- Dumptruck
8. December -- For Against
9. Up In It -- Afghan Whigs
10. Easy Pieces -- Lloyd Cole & The Commotions
And here are some extracts from an article entitled "How Many Tribute
Albums Does It Take to Exhaust a Fad?" by Brett Milano:
The other problem with tribute records is inconsistency --
you have to sit through (and pay for) indifferent performances
by bands you've never heard of to get to the gems. (At least
XTC did its fans a favor by putting its Beefheart track, "Ella
Guru", on the back of one of its own singles, "Mayor of
Simpleton".) . . .
Many of the true collectibles on tribute albums are hidden
behind pseudonyms. The Go-Betweens appeared on _Shangri-La_
in disguise, and Nigel & the Crosses, who did a lovely "Wild
Mountain Thyme" on _Time Between_, were actually Robyn
Hitchcock and Peter Buck (the name was a salute to English
rockcrit Nigel Cross). Likewise, nobody was likely to buy
Communion's _If Six Was Nine -- A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix_ to
get tracks by David Dreams or Obsequious Cheesecake -- unless
they know that the former was XTC (doing "Third Stone From the
Sun" with an acoustic guitar solo!) and the latter was a
one-time power trio of Glenn Phillips, Bob Weir and Henry
Kaiser, jamming way out-there on "If 6 Was 9". . .
Truly great tribute albums only happen when somebody thinks
carefully about the album as a whole -- if the tracks will
flow together, if they're all up to scratch, and if somebody's
going to want to sit through the whole thing. . . Finally,
musician/social worker David Greenberger knew he'd discovered
a poetic genius when he recruited a nursing home patient named
Ernest Noyes Brookings to start writing. So far he's
convinced enough bands to fill two albums, and the two volumes
of _Lyrics by Ernest Noyes Brookings_ (the first on
Shimmy-Disc; the just-released sequel, _Place of General
Happiness_, on East Side Digital; the third due next year) are
two of the giddiest listening experiences you're likely to find.
The Five Best Tribute Albums
1. _Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye -- A Tribute to Roky
Erickson_. . .
2. _Till Things Get Brighter -- A Tribute to Johnny Cash_. . .
3. _The Last Temptation of Elvis_. . .
4. _Smiles, Vibes & Harmony -- A Tribute to Brian Wilson_. . .
5. _Place of General Happiness -- Lyrics by Ernest Noyes
Brookings, Vol. 2_ (East Side Digital): The only way to
explain the late Ernest Noyes Brookings, who began writing
poetry at age 80, is to randomly quote a few of his lines:
"Skin covers flesh of animals and humans / The former covered
with fur and the latter on the head has hair / The skin could
be reminiscent of Harry Truman / Animals covered with fur,
humans generally bare." I swear, it's all like that. The
wonder and weirdness is perfectly captured in these pop
settings, and the second volume boasts more diversity than the
first. It's a real kick to hear those lyrics set to ska (Bim
Skala Bim), avant-rock (No Man's Band), funk (Michael Gregory)
and pure pop (Young Fresh Fellows) tunes. "Rocket", credited
to XTC, is predictably a highlight, though it's actually an
Andy Partridge solo track. . .
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Date: Sun, 6 Oct 91 18:33:56 PDT
Subject: Minor XTC trivia
From: John Relph <relph@presto.ig.com>
I went shopping this weekend and was able to locate two slightly
hard-to-find US-only XTC releases.
The first is the DJ promotional issue of _Rag & Bone Buffet_ on Geffen,
which has a sticker on the front which reads:
"...the tunes these guys throw away are worth more than some
bands careers." -- Musician
"Frankly, this album has some of the best work we've ever
done -- and some of the worst." -- Andy Partridge
GEFD-24417-dj
The CD itself, as previously reported, has the word "PROMOTIONAL"
printed over the regular issue label, and the catalog number is listed
as GEFD-24417DJ.
The second item is the promotional _Rag & Bone Buffet 4-Song Sampler_,
which, as previously reported by Jon Drukman, has "Extrovert, Heaven Is
Paved With Broken Glass, Blame The Weather and Respectable Street". The
catalog number is PRO-CD-4251.
For you San Francisco Bay Area readers, I'll recommend checking out
Amoeba records in Berkeley. They have a large selection of XTC stuff,
including an original _Go 2/GO+_ package for around $10.
-- John
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] An XtaTiC welcome to new subscribers Jeff Melton and Ray Sherrod and to returning subscriber Liz Bailey! For all administrative issues, such as change of address, withdrawal from the list, fan club addresses, discography requests (last update 7 October), back issues, etc., send a message to the following address: <chalkhills-request@chalkhills.org> All views expressed in Chalkhills are those of the individual contributors only. This is the end.
Go back to Volume 1.
7 October 1991 / Feedback