Chalkhills, Number 66

               Wednesday, 15 November 1989
Today's Topics:
                 Andy's amazing 1K brain
            The O&L Debate, One More Time =B^)
                  XTC Videos, CD Source
                   Songs about England

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From: sco!stewarte@ucscc.ucsc.edu
Subject: Andy's amazing 1K brain
Date: Fri Nov 10 16:19:48 1989

Quoth John Relph:

    _Oranges and Lemons_?  Yeah.  I think it suffers from the "you guys
    are great" syndrome.  The producer, Paul Fox, didn't have the balls to
    tell XTC when they had gone too far and when their songs were cheese.
    Or when they had recorded too many tracks and overdubs on any
    particular song.

This is a very good point.  I think it relates to the drummer debates of
some time ago, too -- Pat Whatsisname isn't a bad drummer, but he comes
off as timid, like he's just playing whatever Andy tells him to.

John quotes Andy:

        And as soon as
        the idea came to my 1K brain that, "Hey, we don't have
        to tour if we don't want to," suddenly the music
        seemed to get a lot better, technicolour, even.

It's interesting to me that this is the second time I've heard Andy
refer to his "1K brain"...the first time was over a noisy phone line,
and I couldn't be sure that was what he was really saying.  Perhaps
Mr. Partridge is a closet computer nerd?

-- Stewart

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Date: Fri, 10 Nov 89 16:09:04 PST
From: batman@ebay.sun.com (Karl MacRae - Like a New Town Animal in a Furnished Cage)
Subject: The O&L Debate, One More Time =B^)

	Geez, I thought I was done with this arguement in this
	forum!
	I took it up on usenet, but John had to bring it back
	here....
	Ok, here we go; Duane, you listenin'?

In Chalkhills #65,
relph@presto.ig.com (John M. Relph, Our Fearless Leader) Sez:
>
>In article <127586@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> batman@batcave.Ebay.sun.com
>(that's you, Karl) writes:
>>
>>	This is the Andy that said goodbye with 'Funk Pop A Roll';
>>	He's sold out; he'd made his artistic contribution to the
>>	world, and now just wants to get paid.
>
>I had never interpreted "Funk Pop a Roll" that way.  I think "Funk Pop
>a Roll" was an obvious joke on Virgin, showing that they could write a
>song with a great hook and danceable beat, just like the record execs
>thought they wanted, but turn the whole thing upside down.  Yes, it's
>danceable, but if you listen to the lyrics you get an idea of what XTC
>were up against at that point in their career (pre-_Mummer_).
>
>And if Andy was selling out with "Funk Pop a Roll", how did he come up
>with the stuff on _The Big Express_?

	I don't mean 'Funk Pop a Roll' is selling out; It's one
of Andy's single greatest lyrics; all the bile and bitterness, and
all the the lyrical cleverness that are his signature. What I mean is
that it's Andy's goodbye to those of us who've been his fans. It's right
there in the end of the song:

	"But please don't listen to me; I've already been poisoned
	by this industry"

Then, as the song fades out:

		"...Bye Bye!"

	Obviously, Big Express is the flaw in this theory; all I can
come up with is that Andy had a few more songs in him, or really
just hadn't learned how to sell out yet; Big Express still
sounds like XTC (Particularly tracks like 'Reign of Blows').

>_Oranges and Lemons_?  Yeah.  I think it suffers from the "you guys
>are great" syndrome.  The producer, Paul Fox, didn't have the balls to
>tell XTC when they had gone too far and when their songs were cheese.

	No, I think you got that backwards; Fox declawed the songs and
prettied everything up; he gave it a big, LA sound. You can feel his
hand all over the thing; it's just so fucking american.

	It's like an LA producer's vision of what a late 60's
english pop group should sound; like he wanted to make another
Dukes record.

	The thing just makes me depressed and nauseous every time
	I listen to it. I try; I read people's positive
	reviews and look for all these clever, wonderfull things
	in the songs. But It's just not a very good record, from
	any angle you look at it. The only way I can even tolerate it
	is to edit it down to only the few decent songs and pretend
	it's a collection of leftovers that wern't good enough to
	make 'Dukes'...

-Karl

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
         Karl MacRae                        batman@batcave.Ebay.sun.com
         Sun Microsystems, Milpitas, Ca. (The armpit of Silicon Valley)
         1550 Buckeye, Milpitas, CA 95035 Mailstop M21-25 (408)922-4996
   "Funk Pop a Roll consumes you whole; Gulping up your Opium
     so copiously from a disco; everything you eat is waste-
      But swallowing is easy when it has no taste!"
	XTC, 'Funk Pop a Roll'

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Date: Fri, 10 Nov 89 23:50:46 CST
From: oconnor!keaton!jtl@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Joe Lynn)
Subject: XTC Videos, CD Source

Ranjit Bhatnagar and Mike Berger:   check the classified section
of the XTC fanzine "The Little Express" for people selling XTC videos.
"Look Look" (the collection of videos from '78-'82) is also
available as "Best Hits" and "Studio Songs"...  Here's the address:

	The Little Express
	P.O. Box 1072
	Barrie, ONT  L4M 5E1  Canada

You may also want to check record conventions in your towns;  videos are
becoming quite a hot item at these gatherings...and yes, the Japanese
LaserDisc "Best Hits" _is_ playable on US (NTSC) equipment.  In Hi-Fi
Stereo, no less.

Bruce Hulsey: you're looking for sources for import CDs;  this discussion
has come up hundreds of times in rec.music.cd, so I suggest tapping that
resource first for ideas.  If you don't meet with any luck on the net or
Chalkhills, I can give you the name of the company I bought my copy of
_Black Sea_ through.

				--Joe Lynn

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Date:         Sun, 12 Nov 89 04:11:13 EST
From: Ben Zimmer <ZIMBENG@yalevm.bitnet>
Subject:      Songs about England

I was just thinking... Andy and Colin write quite a few songs mentioning
England and the like.  Those that I can think of:
Living Through Another Cuba ("the bulldog"), Towers of London, Paper and Iron
("the unicorn and lion"), Senses Working Overtime, English Roundabout, Desert
Island, In Loving Memory of A Name, This World Over (London), Red Brick Dream
(Swindon), I Bought Myself A Liarbird ("an average English summer/winter's
afternoon"), When We Get to England...
Any others?  I get the feeling that as an American, I'm not getting the full
XTC experience.  Plus, America is always portrayed negatively (Another Cuba,
Reign of Blows, Pres. Kill Again, etc.).  Comments?

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---

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16 November 1989 / Feedback