Chalkhills Digest, Volume 13, Number 35

                 Sunday, 9 September 2007

Topics:

              Never disrespect the odd tiple
       XTC, the musical? been there, done that :-)
                      XTC references
   "Summer's Cauldron" is the MySpace song of the week
                     "Steve McQueen"
          The Last Sting of That Monophonic Bee

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See the peaches in tins 'neath the headmaster's chair.

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Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:57:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ryan Anthony <hamsterranch@yahoo.com>
Subject: Never disrespect the odd tiple
Message-ID: <486647.23901.qm@web51409.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

I am not an XTC completist -- I will never own *The
Dub Experiments* on quadraphonic 8-track from Japan --
but I bought, and every Chalkhillian (Chalkhillan?)
should buy, Richard Pedretti-Allen's *King For A Day*,
which crams more than 140 XTC covers onto a single CD
for, last I heard, around $6 American, which is to
say, one medium-sized cup of designer coffee.

The quality of the tracks varies from professional to,
uh, you guys are my friends, but shall we say, as bad
as me performing "Leisure" a-capella in the shower
with a Mr. Microphone. No matter. Buy it, import it to
your iTunes library, and put it in your CD rack
alongside *A Testimonial Dinner*. Richard's email
address is rjpa1@tx.rr.com.

There's talk of a *King For A Day II*. Where's my Mr.
Microphone? Testing, testing ... "hey, doll, we'll be
back for you later!"

Thanks to Phil Corless for letting us know about the
XTC reference in a video by John Safran on YouTube.
The bit is a cringe-inducer -- Safran flies to Salt
Lake City and taunts stone-faced Mormons by quoting
from "Dear God" through their screen doors -- but,
hey, it's a reference to XTC. Too bad Safran commits
the anachronistic error of flashing a photo of the
Andy-and-Colin two-man band rather than doing a little
research and finding a picture which includes Dave
Gregory, who, after all, contributed "vocal, guitar,
piano, synthesizer, chamberlin, and the odd tiple" to
the *Skylarking* sessions.

Ryan Anthony
An independent Internet content provider

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:10:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Michael Myers <mmyers1446@yahoo.com>
Subject: XTC, the musical? been there, done that :-)
Message-ID: <360196.28648.qm@web61317.mail.yahoo.com>

Miles Tackett said:

  Hello,
  i am a longtime fan from los angeles.

  i simply would like to suggest an idea that i feel would make natural
  sense and would possibly preserve the brilliant music they have made
  for the last 20 years or so.

  An XTC musical!HUH?
  there are so many songs that could work to make up a really kool
  musical.
  i'm not even one for musicals myself but i can see this glaringly
   clear.

I went back and took a look cause I know I started a thread a long,
long time ago, and found this:

  Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 18:53:08 -0400
  From: "Michael D. Myers" <mmyers@telcordia.com>
  Subject: musicals
  Message-ID: <852568FE.007DC0DC.00@notes949.cc.telcordia.com>

  Chalksters and Chalkettes;

  Just a quick note on the recent "are musicals any good?" thread.

  XTC content: I have said it once, and I'll say it again: Andy should
  consider writing a musical so that he can have yet another outlet for
  his huge talent.  Listen to the closing 3 songs on AV1, and you will
  hear some music that is on a par (thematically and musically) with the
  very best in musical theatre that is being written/performed today.

see ya all,

Mike

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:05:32 +0100 (BST)
From: Paul Culnane <paulculnane@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: XTC references
Message-ID: <795072.5125.qm@web25908.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>

Hi from Paul-

may I make a comment?

  Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 22:48:58 -0700
  From: Phil Corless <phil@pkmeco.com>
  Subject: John Safran
  Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.2.20070824224450.02366200@mail.adelphia.net>

  XTC gets a mention in this video from comedian John
  Safran...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRmC0DaE6rE

No offence to you personally Phil, I admire you and your vibes, but I
found this highly offensive.  I switched it off before I got to the
XTC reference, and so what anyway?

For people who don't know (particularly non-Australians), John
Safran is a rather no-account piece of nothing.  He makes his
"humour" out of so-called clever slamming of minority groups and
I object to this method of trying to get cheap laughs, at the expense
of entities that some people hold special.

And anyone who clicked on the link supplied by Phil, did you find it
remotely funny?  Thought not, if you've got half a measure of
taste, compassion, and basic intelligence.

Hey, Phil, thanks for the alert about whatever XTC reference this was,
but XTC music keeps popping up regularly wherever one goes.  We
don't need reminding from a low life like friggin Safran.

I know this to be the truth.
Love, over & out
PAUL

How do you turn a duck into a soul singer?  Put it in the washing
machine and wait till its Bill Withers - [er, who'd own up to that?]

  Paul Culnane
ICE Productions Australia

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 10:13:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Todd Bernhardt <beat_town@yahoo.com>
Subject: "Summer's Cauldron" is the MySpace song of the week
Message-ID: <970521.57340.qm@web32013.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi:

To celebrate the end of the season (in the northern hemisphere,
anyway), the song of the week over at the XTCfans MySpace site
(http://www.myspace.com/xtcfans) is "Summer's Cauldron."

If you want to know about Andy's old "chauvinistic way of thinking,"
or what the band did to torture Todd Rundgren in the studio, check out
the XTCfans blog site at http://blog.myspace.com/xtcfans.

Please don't pull me out
This is how I would want to go

-Todd

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 07:28:20 -0400
From: Benjamin Gott <ben@loquaciousmusic.com>
Subject: "Steve McQueen"
Message-ID: <11D0D7A7-97E9-44A9-99DE-C887A20E6B2E@loquaciousmusic.com>

Hey, 'Hillians,

How nice it was to hear a review of the remastered "Steve McQueen" on
NPR's "All Things Considered" yesterday afternoon!

[ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14164968 ]

-Ben

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:16:17 -0400
From: Kevin <dancingweed@optonline.net>
Subject: The Last Sting of That Monophonic Bee
Message-ID: <000a01c7f265$e08c2c90$dd282d18@Kevin>

Hello.

We're just getting the tail end of summer's cauldron here in New York and I
log onto Todd's interviews with Andy Partridge, this time talking about the
song, "Summer's Cauldron".  Had to snicker at some interesting pop culture
references; so Andy is a fan of "SOUTH PARK", eh?  I've a kind of love/hate
relationship with that show, but maybe I just take too many things
seriously.  I need a new XTC album to lighten things up a bit!!

But I marveled at how Andy said that they recorded the tunes for SKYLARKING,
actually recording "Summer's Cauldron" and "Grass" together; I like that,
but I also like the idea of tossing the stuff in the air and seeing where it
all lands just to see how it would fit together different ways; I sometimes
got the feeling that this was the way Eddie Offord recorded some of his
productions--pain in the ass that way, but when the entire audio picture is
done, it can be very interesting!

I like some albums where the studio is like another member of the group,
although the groups who practice this get so antsy to finish, obviously,
because the ongoing process is so grueling.  It also doesn't help when the
group in question goes out on tour to play the stuff in a live context, but
Andy and Colin haven't toured around these albums, so the records remain
their audio paintings and, thus, always remain fresh to the listener.  Those
kinds of paintings, coupled with interesting cover art in the days of vinyl,
are what made collecting music so exciting for me throughout all of these
years.

Thanks, guys.  Please bring it back, someday.

Kevin

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End of Chalkhills Digest #13-35
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