Chalkhills, Number 37

                  Wednesday, 5 July 1989
Today's Topics:
                  XTC on Late Night w/DL
                    Ray Davies / Kinks
                   The Ubiquitous Andy
                       Andy on MTV

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Date: Tue, 4 Jul 89 17:45:12 EDT
From: glickman%hustat@harvard.harvard.edu (Mark Glickman)
Subject: XTC on Late Night w/DL

I was lucky enough to find out about this a few hours before the
show began.
All in all, it was very exciting to see them perform, only having
seen them in non-concert settings (i.e., in videos).  I did get the
sense that David Letterman didn't quite realize the significance
of the event.  It was upsetting that there was no interview
after they played the one song "King for a Day".  Instead, DL
spent the last fifteen minutes of the show with the National
Marbles Champion (who was 10 years old, if I remember correctly).
What a waste!  Anyway, I certainly hope this is either (a) what the
band expected to have happen on the show, or (b) not what the band
expected, but what they were hoping for.  In either case, I hope they
weren't discouraged from playing live again.  Maybe this
is truly the beginning of XTC finally coming out from hiding!

For those who didn't see the performance, they played
"King for a Day" with the help of the late night band (and Paul
Schaeffer).  Unlike the radio shows, this performance was *NOT*
an acoustic version of the song.  Instead, they played the song
just as it is recorded on O&L.  Colin (lead vocals on this one)
was the recipient of most of the camera's attention, displaying
lots of shiny teeth, probably the result of proper oral hygiene.
It certainly would've been more interesting (to me,
anyway) to put more attention on Andy Partridge, who was wearing
a tall white top hat.  From what I could tell, he did seem to get
into it, but I couldn't help notice that on occasion he did stumble,
not remembering small portions of the song (this was noticeable
upon playback of the video-tape I made of the segment).  I suppose
he did look like he was having fun.  He definitely didn't look
like he possessed stage-fright.

Does anyone know the background on how they ended up on Late Night?
I'm very curious!

                - Mark

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Date: Tue, 4 Jul 1989 21:03:29 PDT
From: John M. Relph <relph@presto.ig.com>
Subject: Ray Davies / Kinks

>From the March/April 1988 _The Little Express_:

    The same chap, Alan Duffy, who does these [Captain
    Beefheart and Syd Barrett] tributes is now doing the
    songs of Ray Davies, and knowing what big Kinks' fans
    XTC are, has asked them to contribute to this album as
    well.  The band's reply is a potential yes, except for
    the fact that they didn't want to appear on two albums
    concurrently as they felt it might take the shine off
    one or the other.  So, as a tentative solution "The
    Dukes" may step in to do the Ray Davies/Kinks number.
    "The last death rattle of the Dukes, the last dying
    gasp," comments Sir John Johns.

Well, I saw a copy of this album at the local import record store, and
there are no tracks by either The Dukes or XTC, so I guess it just didn't
work out.  Too bad.

	-- John

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Date: Wed, 5 Jul 89 08:18:08 CDT
From: oconnor!keaton!jtl@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Joe Lynn)
Subject: The Ubiquitous Andy

     Hot on the heels of the short-notice announcement of XTC on
     "Late Night with David Letterman".....

     Andy is hosting "Post Modern MTV" all this week (July 3-7)!
     I discovered this when my wife called me into the room saying,
     "One of your buddies is on MTV right now..."

     Monday night, A.P. was just goofing around in between songs by
     bands like The Dead Milkmen, but Tuesday night he showed the
     videos for "King For A Day" and "Senses Working Overtime."
     (Note:  The 'record label' line on "Senses'" video still says
     "Virgin/CBS")  He is supposedly going to be playing more XTC
     the rest of the week.

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Date: Wed,  5 Jul 89 17:40:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Glenn Platt <gp0o+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Andy on MTV

I turned on so-called "post-modern MTV" yesterday to find that Andy Partridge
and his acoustic guitar are hosting the show all week. I'm not sure about the
times. I know its on twice a day, I THINK at 7:30 and 12:30 in the evening. Be
sure to chick it out, he says he'll be showing alot of XTC videos.

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