Chalkhills, Number 244

                 Tuesday, 6 October 1992
Today's Topics:
                   Demo tracks & Dolby
                  Italian book about XTC
                        the book!
                         La Freak
                    Andy produces Blur
                         An Aside

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Date: 26 Sep 92 21:27:08 EDT
From: Steve Levenstein <70750.1117@compuserve.com>
Subject: Demo tracks & Dolby

My wife Maya's new Japanese "Crossbeat" magazine arrived today.
A half-page ad on the inside front cover shows a small white CD
with the "Nonsuch" castle in black, titled "XTC Demo Tracks".
The magazine's issue date was August, the CD's release date
was July 17th. Cost is 1400 Yen.
Here are the demo tracks: "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead"
                          "The Smartest Monkeys"
                          "Down A Peg"
                          "My Bird Performs"
                          "Always Winter, Never Christmas"
While this is not the full-album "Nearsuch" or whatever, and those
who have bought the various singles already have these tracks, it's
a neat package in itself. Does anyone have this one yet?

In the last Chalkhills, someone mentioned Thomas Dolby.
Yes, Stewart & Gaskin's "Leipzig" is excellent!! Even better is
the extended version of the song I have on a Japanese CD single.
Anyways, I bought a different Thomas Dolby CD single which includes
"Europa and the Pirate Twins" and "Eastern Bloc". The latter song
is really good! Listed as the sequel to "Europa", it borrows a few
lyrics and samples some of the music. Not Andy's harmonica, tho'...

That's interesting about Andy visiting Japan soon to "open a new
Virgin megastore". Anyone know which city it's in? Tokyo already
has one such store, although it could easily support two or three!
Well, that news has upset the wife, who moans "Why am I here?!"
---> Steve

"...there's a message up in China, that they getting in Japan..."

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 21:52:28 BST
From: Toby Howard <toby@computer-science.manchester.ac.uk>
Subject: Italian book about XTC

Details of the Italian book about XTC I spotted in a local record shop:
'XTC, Testi con traduzione a fronte' (anyone translate this??). ISBN
88-85859-87-G.  Distributed by Materiali Sonori Exports, Valdarno, San
Giovanni, Italy. (0) 55 943 88 52027. Er... wish I could tell you more but
I was in a hurry and when I went back the book was gone...

Toby (I know... a little infomation is worse than none at all!)

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 12:56:05 -0700
From: Breakin Two <ukevc@mcl.mcl.ucsb.edu>
Subject: the book!

Last Tuesday, I went to my local Tower Books, and i was dubious about
whether they would have THE BOOK, but they did!  So i bought it, and
read it all in one sitting on my long train ride the next day.  I found
it kind of depressing, what with all the dismal chapters about the
Mummer years, this failure, that failure... I wish there'd been more
>from very recently as well, more Nonesuch stuff.

The anatomy of Andy's "stage fright" or "illness" or whatever you want
to call it was very interesting... there was something near the
end to the effect that these days, it's more of Andy Partridge's sense
of comfort at not having to tour than any physiological nausea or anything
like that.

The touring question was another reason why it was depressing-- that
Colin and Dave are getting antsy, eager to tour even if they have to
split from Andy to do so.  It is very likely a very fair and reasonable
thing for them to want to do after all this time, but it's still kind
of depressing to think of the band being so tenuous.

"At one time there was no one who loved a good audience as much as
Andy Partridge"--- (or words to that effect)-- Colin

I just started living with my friend Joe, who is another XTC fanatic,
probably more severe a collector than i am because he buys singles and
things even if they have no new material.  So I heard Always Winter,
Never Christmas, and Down a Peg.... hooray...

Kevin

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Date: Thu, 24 Sep 92 14:59:20 PDT
From: "Dan Weir" <dweir@us.oracle.com>
Subject: La Freak

someone writes... "We also witnessed the infamous French concert nervous
breakdown segment (grim) ..."

Please satisfy my morbid curiosity and tell me what this looks like in more
detail.  Is this available somewhere?  Anybody else know where I can
get footage of the Black Sea tour?

-- Dan

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Date: Sat, 3 Oct 92 13:29:41 BST
From: Toby Howard <toby@computer-science.manchester.ac.uk>
Subject: Andy produces Blur

See in this month's Q:

"Experimental coupling, as it were, from Blur, wo take tentative steps
in the general direction of a follow-up to their successful debut album
Leisure, with Swindon's own Andy Partridge at the console. Although
XTC's doyen of olde English punk quirkitude doesn't have much form
when it comes to production, the idea is to 'put down a few tracks and
then see how it's going'."

Toby

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 14:46:16 PDT
From: "John M. Relph" <relph@presto.ig.com>
Subject: An Aside

This is not directly XTC-related, but what the hey...

_Delicacy & Nourishment: Lyrics by Ernest Noyes Brookings Volume III_
has been released.  Volume II, _Place of General Happiness_, included
"Rocket", music composed and performed by Andy Partridge.  Volume III
includes "Embarrassed", music composed and performed by Peter Blegvad.
Partridge has worked with Blegvad on numerous occasions.  Oddly enough,
Evan Jones & His H-Bombs also have a track on Volume III.  They have an
album which has cover art almost identical to that on Waxworks/Beeswax.
Also on this compilation are songs by Peter Stampfel & The Bottlecaps,
Yo La Tengo, Peter Holsapple & The Freaking Bigs, and many many more.
Call before midnight tonight!

I have been working on the XTC discography, culling information from the
multitude of other discographies available from cs.uwp.edu.  The latest
version is 1.41, from 6 October 1992 (that's today).  It is available
in the Chalkhills archives (ftp from turbo.bio.net).

The Chalkhills FAQ (Answers to Frequently Asked Questions) was last
updated on September 9.

Ciao and pe,

	-- John

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

For all administrative issues, such as change of address,
withdrawal from the list, fan club addresses, discography
requests (last update 6 October), back issues, FAQ list,
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.  And I'm crazy for girls like that...

---

Go back to Volume 1.

6 October 1992 / Feedback