Chalkhills, Number 204

                  Tuesday, 17 March 1992
Today's Topics:
                   Re: Some Questions
                   RE: Chalkhills #202
                      Peter Blegvad
             The Anglo-Nipponese Axis & more
                       radio waves
                   Chew Some Cud Today!
              Forthcoming XTC Biography News
                 XTC's "perverted climax"
               White Music LP and nonsense

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From: sir Ola Rinta-Koski <ola@lesti.hut.fi>
Subject: Re: Some Questions
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 11:04:17 EET

> From: wilson@psylo.enet.dec.com
> Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 08:32:30 PST
>
> I recently purchased the Peter Blegvad KING STRUT AND OTHER STORIES.
>
> Not a bad CD, Andy co-writes the music to King Strut, produces
> Chicken, and plays everything except guitar and voice on the
> King Strut reprise. I think he sings background on Chicken.
>
> As I said, it's not a bad CD. I have the Japanese version and it

  I have the promo disc for King Strut, called "Peter Who?". It's
about 40 minutes of interviews and general silliness with Peter Blegvad,
with 6 songs from the album thrown in. XTC tie-in:

  The cover says "Assembled & Performed by P.B. & Andy Partridge (of XTC)".
It also says: "Includes: How to pronounce BLEGVAD!" Once in a while on the
disc, there's a short song (with a "The Girl From Ipanema"-type background)
which goes like this:

             Peter Blegvad
             Rhymes with "eggbad"
	     B-L-E-G-V-A-D
	     Pronounced Blegvad!

  Now I'm not 100% sure of this, but it sure sounds an awful lot like it
was Andy Partridge singing that little ditty... This may be even shorter
than "The History Of Rock 'n' Roll". If you wish to know more e-mail me,
but as this is not really a XTC product I won't post more unless there's
general interest. Oh yeah, and one of the songs is indeed King Strut which
was co-written by Blegvad and Partridge.
--
        Ola Rinta-Koski  --  J{mer{ntaival 1 A 57  --  02150 Espoo
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    Whatever happened to pillow fights, Friday nights and jeans so tight,
      lover's lane, passion games, Sunday walks in the pouring rain...
    Whatever happened to morning smiles, wicked wiles, permissive styles,
      twinkling eyes, hard fast drives, compliments on unnatural size?
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
      E-mail: Olli-Pekka.Rinta-Koski@hut.fi (or: ola@vipunen.hut.fi)

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Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 11:16 GMT
From: BAILEYE@vax.lse.ac.uk
Subject: RE: Chalkhills #202

Does anyone besides myself receive Chalkhills in London?  I will be in
the Western Isles (Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides) next month;
any XTatiC persons in the neighborhood?  Please get in touch.  Yers
faithfully and witter witter rabbit witter, Lizzie B.

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Date: Thu, 5 Mar 92 11:23:01 GMT
From: Toby Howard <toby@computer-science.manchester.ac.uk>
Subject: Peter Blegvad

I just got "The Naked Shakespeare" by Peter Blegvad. AP plays on a few
tracks. Overall the album is nice.

The other week I saw a cartoon strip in The Independent (UK newspaper) by a
"Peter Blegvad". I wonder if it's the same one.

Toby

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Date: 06 Mar 92 20:42:00 EST
From: Steve Levenstein <70750.1117@compuserve.com>
Subject: The Anglo-Nipponese Axis & more

Hi there Chalkhills gals & guys! I received the (also) "long awaited"
Little Express too, and the new album is now even more "awaited"
then ever. Having a medieval painting of Nonesuch Castle on
the cover reminds me of the "King for a Day" single, eh?
   Browsing the CD store yesterday, I came across a "Virgin Value"
full-length CD called "X-Amples".
   Included on it was XTC's "Season Cycle". Way to go, Virgin!

   For "Wes", who asked about XTC cover songs by Shonen Knife,
I can only say that there aren't any on their new CD "712".
But other 'Knife CD's are available which would include the
"Nigel" cover.

   As for XTC's "Anglo-Nipponese Axis", yes, Saeko Suzuki did
record with Andy and Dave at Bath's Crescent Studios. The result
was the very good S.S. album "Studio Romantic". Andy played
guitar and sang back-up vocals on 3 or 4 tracks, including
a delightfully bilingual version of "Happy Families".
   Dave Gregory arranged the strings on Suzuki's version of
Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air". Other musical
celebs helping out on the album were Richard Thompson,
Stewart Gordon, and Paul Carrack. I'll be looking for any
extra copies of the album/CD when I visit Japan, but those
desperate to hear "Studio Romantic" can drop me an e-mail line.

---> Steve

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Date: 09 Mar 92 22:56:26 EST
From: Steve Levenstein <70750.1117@compuserve.com>
Subject: radio waves

   My radio is bursting forth with XTC recently, alas nothing
>from Nonesuch... But I did hear "Nigel", "Dear God", and
unbelievably: "All Along the Watchtower" (!!).
   This, all in the last 2 days. "Nigel" I heard this morning
on CFNY-FM, a tiny bit of it was their "sample of the day".
   What worries me is what the DJ said after the song was played:
"... and XTC have a new album due in April or May ..."
   MAY??! Uh-oh, I'm getting that terrible feeling again...

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From: wilson@psylo.enet.dec.com
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 92 05:22:19 PST
Subject: Chew Some Cud Today!

I finally received the Hey! Wire! CD-5 single and also Magic (only
the former is produced by the famed Dave Gregory).

I like both of these singles; "Hey! Wire!" is a good song,
and even "Magic" and the stuff not produced by Dave is good.

Wow, psychedelic pulsating purple cover on the Hey! Wire! huh?

Cud intrigues me. On the one hand, they're not unique for being
60's revivalists; on the other hand, they play like they came
right out of 1970, seeming like genuine, rockin' hippies.

Glad to have these two CDs...

Is LEGGY MAMBO worth getting?

Wes

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Date: Thu, 12 Mar 92 12:49:33 PST
From: John M. Relph <chalkhills-request@chalkhills.org>
Subject: Forthcoming XTC Biography News
Organisation: Chalkhills Anonymous

I just received a letter from the folks at The Little Express and they
asked me to pass this information on to the folks at Chalkhills.  So
without further ado, here it is:

	We recently received a letter from OMNIBUS PRESS in
    the U.K. with some current information as regards Chris
    Twomeys XTC bio "Chalkhills & Children".

	OMNIBUS PRESS are currently seeking a separate
    American publisher for the book but in the event that they
    are not successful, the book will be distributed by their
    own American company, Music Sales Corporation in New York.
    In Canada the book will be distributed by Monarch Books of
    Downsview, Ontario.

	... [It] sounds as if it will be an excellent read.

They also enclosed a copy of part of an interview with the author, and I
will try to transcribe part of that in coming weeks.  I wish I had a
scanner.

	-- John

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From: "waves at Ernst" <stewarte@sco.com>
Subject: XTC's "perverted climax"
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1992 15:44:37 -0800 (PST)

Channel-surfing on late-night cable TV not long ago, I happened across
a religious show doing a feature on everyone's favorite bogeyman,
satanic rock 'n' roll lyrics.

They covered some of the more obvious deliberately offensive heavy
metal bands, and a couple of unusual choices like Depeche Mode's
"Blasphemous Rumours" (which seemed pretty mild to me, but hey).
They showed excerpts from videos with crudely-drawn subtitles (because
as we all know, true believers can't understand rock lyrics).

(I know, you're waiting for the interesting part...I'm getting to it!)
The narrator announced that this blasphemy reached its "perverted
climax" in the song "Dear God" by "Ecstacy" (that's how he pronounced
it).  They then proceeded to show most of the "Dear God" video, from
the second verse to almost the end (cutting off at "it's you").
That's more of the video than I'd seen anywhere else, actually!
They obviously missed the central irony of the song (that it's
addressed _to_ God, telling him he doesn't exist!).  Oh well.

-- Stewart

*****************************************************************************
"baseball's not *really* a sport--more like Zen ritual infotainment..."
                                       -- Tim Ruckle (timr@sco.COM)

DNS: stewarte@sco.COM  UUCP: ...!uunet!sco!stewarte

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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 92 16:22:01 PST
From: "John M. Relph" <relph@presto.ig.com>
Subject: White Music LP and nonsense

Am I the last XTC fan to notice that "White Music" appears in block
letters in matte finish in a gloss white background on the original
cover of the Virgin UK album?  Of course, I still don't actually own the
LP, but...

I was in Dallas on the weekend of the 7th of March, working at the North
Texas Irish Festival, and I sold a ticket to a man wearing, of all
things, an English Settlement T-shirt!

And on that CUD subject, I found a promotional box of bubblegum with
stickers on it that proclaim "Chewy Mothers Chew CUD" bubblegum.

	-- John

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17 March 1992 / Feedback