Chalkhills Digest Volume 1, Issue 201
Date: Tuesday, 25 February 1992
Chalkhills, Number 201
Tuesday, 25 February 1992
Today's Topics:
Re: Chalkhills #200
Notes From The Little Express Issue 33
XTC Tribute Tape
Re: Chalkhills #200
Three Minute Heroes
Re: XTC
XTC Japanese Connection
Bride of Andy talks to WFMU
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: jtl@sbcoc.com (Joe Lynn) Subject: Re: Chalkhills #200 Date: Tue, 18 Feb 92 8:48:57 CST In a previous message, I said: > If you get the chance, rent the video for _Urgh!_. > > And although "Respectable Street" is on the soundtrack LP/CD, XTC > actually sings "Generals and Majors" in the movie. Before anyone stands up to correct me, I should mention that I watched the video again and saw that XTC does, in fact, play "Respectable Street" in the movie. My mistake. By the way, in the last scene of the film (while the credits are rolling), the people on stage with the Police singing "So Lonely" include XTC, UB40, and Jim Skafish (a Chicago artist who had some modest success in the early 80s). While they're singing, Andy is pounding Sting on the head with a pineapple, and then whips it out into the audience. Wierd, wild stuff. Joe Lynn
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From: J Ross MacKay <ross@ray.grdl.noaa.gov>
Subject: Notes From The Little Express Issue 33
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 92 12:38:40 EST
The Winter 91-92 Little Express is Out!
As For The Who Wrote Which Contest
Mr. Moulding has 4 tunes on the album:
"Smartest Monkeys", "Bungalow", "My Bird Performs", & "Wardance"
To judge the contest I have devised the Colin Computation: +1 for each
correct guess, -1 for each incorrect guess of a Colin tune.
John Relph: +3 -3 = 0
Tony_Collins: +1 -3 = -2
Wes Wilson: +0 -5 = -5
Well there you have it, will the esteemed Mr. Relph please take a bow.
You have once again won The Respect And Admiration Of Your Peers!
Yet Another Producer?!?
After finishing the recording sessions, Gus Dudgeon vetoed the presence
of the band from the mixing stage. This made Andy and Co. a bit unhappy
so Gus was canned. The final mix was done by Nick Davies and Andy.
The Creative Cover Saga
The boys in the band wanted to have a fancy print on the album cover
which would require a silk-screening process. Virgin said OK, but
Geffen said No Way. The music's the same, but if you want the pretty
cover you'll have to get the U.K. release.
The Biography
Chris Twomey's "Chalkhills and Children" is due to be published in the
U.K. in April '92.
So Why Not Subscribe
The Little Express, PO Box 1072, Barrie, Ontario, LAM 5E1 Canada
Canada&USA - $10/4 Issues (3 issues per year), $3 Each.
Overseas - $15/4 Issues, $4 Each.
--
Internet: ross@ray.grdl.noaa.gov
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Thu, 20 Feb 92 17:30:45 PST From: Karen.Schipper@corp.sun.com (Karen Schipper) Subject: XTC Tribute Tape The deadline for submissions to the XTC Tribute tape should be easy for most of you to remember - April 15. Guess I could follow suit and make that, postmarked by April 15. I volunteered to work with Eric, after he made the offer to the alias to master the tape, so I'd like to say "you're welcome" to everyone who wrote and thanked me for organizing this, but Eric is the guy with all the fabulous equipment who will be the one putting all the contributions together. Thanks Eric! (still don't know your last name Eric) So far we have one suggestion for a title - _This_Is_NOT_ and so it will be unless someone else wants to take a stab. Again, if you haven't already, please let me know if you'll be interested in ordering a tape. Karen karen.schipper@Sun.COM or yaz@michi.Corp.Sun.COM
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Fri, 21 Feb 92 18:06:01 PST From: "John M. Relph" <relph@presto.ig.com> Subject: Re: Chalkhills #200 Trout.Complex <rescigja@calvin.camp.clarkson.edu> says: >I have a tape, called Ecstatic, of a live XTC performance. [ set list omitted for brevity ] >Does anyone know where or when this was recorded? I'd be very interested >to know. The closest setlist I can find for this is the January 30, 1980, concert at the Paradise Theatre in Boston. It would have been preceded by "Looking for Footprints" and followed up by "Complicated Game", "Nigel", and a few more tunes. > The recording isn't very good, but there is a fair amount of >raw power in it. If you can find it somewhere, I highly reccommend it. Good to know. Anybody else have any live shows? . . . Chap Godbey <cg47+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes About the Primus cover: >It's also on a promo disc (I found it in a used-CD store) for another Primus >song. It's a horrible cover, but that's because XTC owns the song too much >and it doesn't fit the singer's nose (not voice, nose.) Yes, but I still want a copy. Anybody see this disc, buy it. And then send it to me. . . . Ray Sherrod <rsherrod@ecst.csuchico.edu> asks about British Skylarking: > I have a vinyl U.K. copy of Skylarking which has Mermaid Smiled on it. >In the liner notes to Rag and Bone Buffet, Andy says that the first batches >of the U.S. Skylarking were pressed with Mermaid Smiled. Is this record >rare, or did the British substitute Dear God for Mermaid Smiled just like >the U.S. did? I believe that all the U.K. vinyl copies of _Skylarking_ have "Mermaid Smiled". I believe further that all U.K. CD copies of _Skylarking_ contain "Mermaid Smiled". An interesting point is that there were actually two different covers, one textured and one smooth. -- John
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Fri, 21 Feb 92 18:08:26 PST From: John M. Relph <chalkhills-request@chalkhills.org> Subject: Three Minute Heroes Organisation: Chalkhills Anonymous A weekly U.K music paper has noted that a new compilation from Virgin Records has been released as of February 17 called "Three Minute Heroes". The compilation contains a track from, you guessed it, XTC! If anybody sees this compilation, please note the details and send them in to Chalkhills (it's for the discography, of course). -- John
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Mon, 24 Feb 92 16:27:59 EST From: david bregande <dbregand@darwin.cc.nd.edu> Subject: Re: XTC Allright! It is a big shock to have finally gotten through to you guys (and perhaps gals). I have been trying to get through for a good few months, but have been told that there is no such address. That is why my letter said nothing. I am so psyched to get in touch with some XTC fans like myself at last. Nobody here cares that on March 17 "Nonesuch" will be released. I have already reserved that day for class skipping to listen and relax. I haven't gotten a thing from L.E. since June, so I am totally in the dark about goings on of Andy, Dave, and Colin. When I refer to "here" I mean the University of Notre Dame, the most artistically repressed society in America. Don't get me wrong, there are some great artists/musicians here, in fact I myself am a graphic artist, but the problem is that no one, including administration, seem to notice that we exist. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of "The Perfect Word", my brother Joe's band from Buffalo who come in this week to enlighten the campus. He is a sound Engineer at Fredonia State, and his band has released one and is working on another demo release(the first was mastered by the great Bob Ludwig). Joe is a huge XTC fan, and hopes to be successful enough to meet the band someday for a jam session. Talk to you later. Later, David M. Bregande
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: wilson@psylo.enet.dec.com Date: Tue, 25 Feb 92 09:40:22 PST Subject: XTC Japanese Connection Interesting to read in the last issue of CHALKHILLS about the XTC Japanese connection. Can anyone tell me how it is that Andy happened to team up with various Japanese performers for their albums? (For example, Hiroyasu Yaguchi's GASTRONOMIC...) Did he go to Japan, or were these performers in England recording for Virgin Records? 'til Nonsuch moment arrives... Wes
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Tue, 25 Feb 92 11:02:07 PST From: John M. Relph <chalkhills-request@chalkhills.org> Subject: Bride of Andy talks to WFMU Organisation: Chalkhills Anonymous 29 June 1991 WFMU, Uppsala College, East Orange Jim Price speaks to Andy Partridge Phone interview, edited for broadcast Recording courtesy of Woj Transcribed by John Relph Part Five . . . WFMU: Here's a funny question. You're not in this category, maybe two decades from now you might be. We've got a lot of old grey men jumping the stage now, the Stones, McCartney, a lot of artists who have been around for decades that are still up there. Do you have any feeling about, would you want to be there? Andy: Not particularly shaking myself around on stage because it would take a very physical person to be able to do that. I don't mind if they want to play on stage, that's fine. My sort of big overview of aging rockers is that if they still write good songs then there's no reason on earth why they don't have value. The Stones, for me, occasionally would put out something that was stunning, at whatever point in their career. Obviously the more stuff they put out the more chances of good stuff being in there. But they occasionally still put out something that's as good as anything they ever did, so they still have a value. Just like McCartney, he still writes one song in twenty that -- one song in forty rather -- that's as good as anything he ever did, so there's every reason why he should still be making records. But I'm all for more and more people making records. I think it would be really age-ist, I don't know what the word is, why can't people still make wonderful music right up to their day of death? WFMU: I agree. It is a question that I see too often in music magazines. A: I know what it is. Rock'n'roll / guitar music, whatever, it's because it's because it's relatively new in the musical spectrum, over the last forty years or something. People are still kind of gauche about it and blushing, "Oh, it's real teenage music, isn't it embarrassing, my dad does that." It's got this thing where they have this idea that it's teenage music and that's what it should be forever more and that's where it should end. Why keep it in this stupid acne-ridden ghetto? It's been music for everybody. It's crazy. Just because it's made on a guitar or because somebody stands there bucking a synthesiser around. People have some funny screwed up ideas. Music is music. Why keep it in this kind of age ghetto? WFMU: That's perfect. Since you mentioned "live", you did the radio tour last time around. When "Oranges and Lemons" came out you did an acoustic show from radio stations. A: Yeah, some of that was fun. It was incredibly hard work actually. Like three or four a day up to like half an hour or more at each station playing. But it was good fun because there was no expectation of wonderfulness involved. We could be as crap as the mood took us or as good as things clicking just right and there was no pressure to be fabulous. It was just us being loose and real. And I quite enjoyed it. It ended up tremendous hard work. WFMU: Did you catch the bug? Did you feel anything about playing live? It wasn't quite live but did you feel like you . . . ? A: Some of them were pretty damn near it. You'd turn up at some radio stations and they'd put out like a hundred chairs and they'd put up a little P.A. for you. Suddenly you've turned in to Peter, Paul and Mary, and you were doing some gig in some club somewhere. WFMU: That's enough for you? A: I never got suddenly . . . My playing live bone never got massively erect at the thought of it. I'm just not a physical person, I've never been a physical person and playing live was just killing me, and as a by-product of that it was killing me mentally as well and was giving me all sorts of bizarre illnesses that were either psychosomatic or physical exhaustion-related stuff. I thought, now why am I killing myself? I don't even enjoy playing live that much. I'd much rather sit at home and think this stuff up and then go into a studio and make it for real instead of reproducing it time after time. And I don't see any reason why we have to behave like everyone else. They do this puppet thing, "They made an album, you'd better get them out touring." I thought it was kind of a needless treadmill that if you don't want to be on it you shouldn't have to be on. WFMU: Well, Andy, that's about it. I know you have other interviews to do. I want to thank you for talking to us. It's great to catch up on things and to hear what you're up to. A: It's a bit of a tease because the stuff that's about to come, I feel that it threatens to be some of the best stuff we've done. If you've heard the demo you can get an idea of some of the things that are going to be coming. And I'm a bit revved up about doing it. A mixture of revved up and relief that we finally got this thing going. WFMU: Do you have a problem if we end the interview with an airing of "Rook"? A: No, not at all! I'd be sort of flattered. I know some people get immensely paranoiac: "It's a demo of a song that doesn't exist yet! Oh my god, you're going to be spoiling it for the public!" No, it's me sitting in the garden shed with a synthesised piano and a synthesised trumpet and a shaker made from a Harrod's shortbread tin full of rice. And I'm sort of proud of it, although it's primitive. WFMU: That's what we'll do. Thanks again Andy. Andy: Alright, Jim. WFMU: [ plays demo of "Rook" ] [ End of interview. ]
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Welcome James Tittle, Bryan G. (Pinko) Taylor, Christopher M. Donnell, Jim LeeMaster, Steve Cutchin, David M. Bregande, and Yoshi (ommadawn) Matsumoto! For all administrative issues, such as change of address, withdrawal from the list, fan club addresses, discography requests (last update 29 January), back issues, etc., send a message to the following address: <chalkhills-request@chalkhills.org> The Chalkhills archives are available at "http://chalkhills.org/". All views expressed in Chalkhills are those of the individual contributors only. Is that my name on the bell?
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