Chalkhills, Number 89

                 Thursday, 12 April 1990
Today's Topics:
         "Skylarking's" Theme...XTC on WBCN Tape
                    Re: Chalkhills #88
                     XTC videos, etc.
                    "DEAR GOD" CD e.p.
                  sheet music request...
                    In response to...

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Date: Tue, 3 Apr 90 04:49:16 PDT
From: "Wes Wilson, ESDP Technical Editor, PKO3-2/T12, 223-4891" <wilson@pneuma.enet.dec.com>
Subject: "Skylarking's" Theme...XTC on WBCN Tape

In Chalkhills #88, Will Stoner asks about the theme of the "Skylarking"
album.

According to my dictionary, "skylark" refers to a bird "noted for its song"
and it also is a verb meaning to "frolic, sport."

I had the album a day when I realized that most of the songs on the album
have as their theme a sort of joy in being alive, the first side being
the "lighter" side, with simple tales of frolicking around in the grass
with a special someone, lying around in the sun, meeting someone for a tryst,
finding a kind of joy in life even when it's pouring rain outside...

Side 2 continues this "feeling" (I think that the skylarking _spirit_ is
ultimately the theme of the album) with "Season Cycle," but the songs
turn darker, don't they? I have never heard "Mermaid Smiled"; maybe
this song is a reprieve from the darker side and thus a return to the
joyful feel of the first side - I don't know. Basically, I think "Sky-
larking" represents the mood of a good part of the album.

[By the way, I'd be happy to supply a tape to someone if they'd be willing
to record "Mermaid Smiled" for me...send me E-MAIL on PNEUMA::WILSON
to negotiate!]

...

Just yesterday I discovered that I taped XTC's radio show at WBCN in Boston
last year in its entirety. The tape is not the best sound quality, but
it certainly is listenable. One of the best lines in it is when Andy
says that he "bought some 'pre-tuned' guitar strings in Boston"!

Wes

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Date: Wed,  4 Apr 90 13:08:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chap Godbey <cg47+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Chalkhills #88

I have those My Paint Heroes etc.-- trhey're CD3 imports.  Anybody
looking for trades send neat stuff to:
	Chap Godbey
	5830 Alder Street
	Apt. 5
	Pittsburgh, PA 15232
 and I'll send what I can of b-sides.
 ________________________________________________________
|                                                        |
|        Chap Godbey (WACK@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU)       |
|                    (cg47+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU)              |
|========================================================|
|                                                        |
|                 Un! Znqr lbh ybbx!                     |
|________________________________________________________|

<FLAME ON>
What? The letter is finished? Darn..
<fizzle>

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Date: Fri, 6 Apr 90 11:08:46 CDT
From: oakhill!bushwood!phillip@cs.utexas.edu (Mike Phillip)
Subject: XTC videos, etc.

    If anyone is interested in obtaining/swapping/etc. some XTC videos,
I can put you in touch with a very good source...  Unfortunately, he
does not have access to the network (he writes for a newspaper in
Muncie, Indiana by day, and plays in a band called the "Casual Guise"
by night).

Here's a partial list of available footage:

Videos:
-------
    Dear God
    King For a Day
    Mayor of Simpleton
    The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul
    Grass
    The Meeting Place
    Wonderland
    All You Pretty Girls
    Beating of Herts
    Love on a Farmboy's Wages
    Funk Pop A Roll
    Scarecrow People (Live, MTV - June 1989)
    King For a Day (Live, accoustic - MTV 5/22/89)
    Neon Shuffle (Live, outdoors - 1977)
    Respectable Street (Live, from the movie "Urggh")
    Yacht Dance (Live on "Old Grey Whistle Test")
    No Thugs in OUr House (Live on "Old Grey Whistle Test")

Interviews:
-----------
    Andy Partridge on "London Calling"
    Andy on MTV's "Now Hear This" (1989)
    Interview on "Much Music" - talk about Nigel
    Interview on "Much Music" - talk about Dear God
    Interview on "Much Music" - talk about Skylarking, Todd Rundgren
    Interview and recording of Mayor of Simpleton from MTV's X-Ray Spex (1988)

Miscellaneous:
--------------

    "Sights and Sounds" - Live TV performances of:
	(All with Barry Andrews)

	Radios in Motion
	Crosswires
	Statue of LIberty
	Set Myself on Fire
	New Town Animal
	This Is Pop

    "Play at Home" - BBC feature on XTC in Swindon, featuring extensive
        interviews and videos for:  (50 minutes)

	Love on a Farmboy's Wages
	In Loving Memory of a Name
	Human Alchemy
	Beating of Hearts
	Funk Pop A Roll
	Also, an accoustic version of "Train Running Low on Soul Coal"

    Andy Partridge on stage with the Police (and others) doing "So Lonely"

    "XTC at the Manor" - BBC documentary of XTC recording "Towers of London"
	with Steve Lillywhite at Virgin's Manor Studios. (60 min. - 1980)

    "The Oxford Road Show" - Live performances of:  (20 min.)
	Snowman
	Ball & Chain
	Jason and the Argonauts

    "Ligne Rock" (Belgian TV)
    "Popelectron" (Dutch TV)
	Interviews and music clips. (40 min.)

    "Rockpalast" - German TV show featuring live performance from
	English Settlement Tour (50 min. - 1982)

    "Vara Pop Karavan" - German TV show featuring live performance
	from Black Sea Tour (20 min. - 8/8/80)

    "Le Palace" - French TV show featuring XTC soundchecking and
	an interview with Andy.  XTC then begins the show with
        "Respectable Street", but cuts it short when Andy walks off
	stage.  (40 min. - 3/18/82)

    "Saturday Superstore" - BBC show with Andy and Colin answering
	phone-in questions and rating videos.  Features lip-sync
	versions of "All You Pretty Girls" and "This World Over".
	(40 min. - 1985)

    CASBY Awards - Canadian music awards featuring XTC lip-syncing "Dear God"

If you are interested, send me E-mail or give me a call, and I'll put
you in touch with the source of some amazing XTC videos....

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Phillip
Motorola
Austin, Tx

E-mail: oakhill!phillip@cs.utexas.edu  -or-  cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!phillip

Phone: (512) 891-3656 (Work)

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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 90 00:52:38 PDT
From: "Usually in the right place....at the wrong time" <drobb@ayov27.enet.dec.com>
Subject: "DEAR GOD" CD e.p.

                Folks, being fairly new to the world of XTC,
                I don't really know all that much about which
                releases of theirs are collectable.  However,
                I do believe that the "Dear God" e.p. on CD
                is now becoming pretty scarce, and as I've by
                chance stumbled upon a store in London which
                has a copy for $20, I was thinking that it
                might be a good idea to offer it up to
                someone in here.

                I've reserved this item with the store in
                question, so please let me know a.s.a.p. if
                any of you would like me to go ahead and get
                it for you (no money needs to change hands -
                I'm sure that some kind of swap can be worked
                out!).

                Cheers for now....Dougie Robb, Ayr, Scotland.

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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 90 10:46 EDT
From: "Lyle A. Brenner" <HRVY@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Subject: sheet music request...

I'm posting this for a friend.  Respond to blal07wy@uiamvs.

----------------------
Message to XTC-heads:
   Does anyone out there know of any collections of XTC sheet music and
where they'd be available if they do exist?  Several years ago I read
about a sort of greatest hits collection (with comments by Dave Gregory?)
called "Eleven Different Animals" but I was never able to find it.
Really I just want to learn how to play my favorite XTC songs, so even
if you just have a xerox of something, or you figured it out yourself,
let me know.
                                                    Sincerely,
                                                    Doug Downing
						    blal07wy@uiamvs

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Date: Thu, 12 Apr 1990 22:14:09 PDT
From: John M. Relph <relph@presto.ig.com>
Subject: In response to...

Andre de Koning <hvlpb!dhgpa!dhtpa!adkoning@ihlpb.att.com> says:

>But, as to follow-up the question: if the CD also has the editted version,
>what IS there editted?

Ok, so I listened to the single and the CD version of "Are You
Receiving Me?" and they are indeed the same.  Thank you for bringing
this error in the discography to my attention.

Ben Zimmer <ZIMBENG@yalevm.bitnet> says:

>Watching the video to Respectable Street, I noticed the lyrics were cleaned
>up a bit, I suppose to satisfy some censors.  Instead of "sex positions" it's
>"propositions," and instead of "retching" it's "stretching."  Anyone know why
>they had to make the changes?  Pretty ironic that they had to make the song
>more "respectable."  Have they had to bowdlerize any other songs?

No others have been bowdlerized, but a number of songs were shortened
for radio airplay (and in some cases, butchered and lengthened, for
example, the remixes of "King for a Day").  The songs that were
shortened for radio airplay are listed in the discography.

bilbo <william_stoner@cis.ohio-state.edu> says:

>What is the supposed theme to Skylarking?  I've been trying to figure it out
>but have gotten nowhere.  It seems to deal with relationships, but other
>than that there seems to be no cohesive theme.  What have I missed?

Here's a quote from Andy taken from the Spring 1990 issue of
_Contrast_ magazine (reproduced without permission):

    [Todd Rundgren] picked the quieter ones.  He had this idea
    as this sort of day going by, or a life going by, or some
    sort of experience from start to finish.

As for my own interpretation, I always see _Skylarking_ as a lifetime.
It starts out in childhood or early adolescence, the wonderful long
days of play in the summer sun, and then graduates to the days of lust
and illicit meetings of later adolescence.  Then the young man suffers
his first breakup and starts appreciating the myriad colours of life.
And then his girlfriend gets pregnant, he has to get married, starts
to really grow up.  There's the intrusion of another lover.  He
reaches middle age, noticing that he's grown up and his child is now
the child he once was.  He reaches a sort of peace with himself and
all those things he had been looking for, at the end of "The Man Who
Sailed Around His Soul".  And there's coming to terms with the
undeniable reality of death, and accepting it.

	-- John

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individual contributors only.  But none are.

---

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13 April 1990 / Feedback