Chalkhills Digest Volume 2, Issue 112
Date: Wednesday, 15 May 1996
Chalkhills Digest, Volume 2, Number 112
Wednesday, 15 May 1996
Today's Topics:
Sugarplastic = XTC
Carmen Sandiego/Johnny Nexdor
The Cleaners from Venus
Reviews ("tosh" is a four-letter word!)
Hey! A good record!
New XTC comics sighting!
We Have a Winner!
Pardon Me, Parvenu!
XTC Unplugged
Re: Todd Rundgren and "Supergirl
marry?
Change My World
Record Collector magazine poll
Re: Scooby Doopergirl!
Dave Gregory alert
Change My World
[Fwd: Re: Todd & XTC]
OK, who set him up to do this?
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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <31953005.3DE@uky.campus.mci.net> Date: Sat, 11 May 1996 17:25:41 -0700 From: "Raul Escudero Jr." <ccbree@uky.campus.mci.net> Subject: Sugarplastic = XTC Hello all. This is my first posting, and I want to say that it's great to see so much discussion about one of my favorite bands. Anyway, to the point of my posting. Recently I bought THE SUGARPLASTIC's new CD BANG, THE EARTH IS ROUND and the minute the first few seconds of the first track started playing I knew I was gonna LOVE this CD. I saw a review of it in the CMJ magazine and they have a rating/reference system that said that if you like XTC, they recommend this band. So just with that information I went out and bought the SUGARPLASTIC CD. I also got the ERIC MATTHEWS CD, since it was mentioned here a couple of times. Well, I gotta tell you, I think The SUGARPLASTIC blows him away. Their music has so much more energy and has that 'quirky' XTC quality that we all love. Eric Matthews is not bad, it's just that he's a little more mellow and serious (which can be good). Basically what I'm saying is YOU'VE GOT TO GET THE SUGARPLASTIC CD. I guarantee it will quickly become one CD you'll want to listen to often... I can't get enough of it. In lieu of any new XTC music, this really hits the spot! Enjoy! -Raul
------------------------------ Date: 11 May 96 19:48:03 EDT From: Sally Unterman <103274.3106@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Carmen Sandiego/Johnny Nexdor Message-ID: <960511234802_103274.3106_IHH64-1@CompuServe.COM> As a fan of both XTC and Rockapella, I'm pleased to know that "Johnny Nexdor & His Neighbors" is actually Rockapella lead vocalist Sean Altman and producer pal Billy Straus, co-writers of "Change My World." Sean's allegiance to XTC and the Partridge/Yazbek influence on his writing is well documented. Sean and Yazbek are high school and college bandmates; they co-wrote most of the material on both Carmen Sandiego albums and sang backup on "Cherry In Your Tree." Sean sang backup on several Yazbek cuts on "The Laughing Man" and occasionally joins Yazbek onstage for a frenzied Polka version of the Carmen Sandiego TV theme song. I recommend checking out Rockapella live or on their website: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bparnes/rockapella & subscribe to their E-mail list: subscribe@rockapella.com Fondly, Sally Unterman
------------------------------
Message-Id: <199605120338.MAA06714@mita2.cc.mita.keio.ac.jp>
Subject: The Cleaners from Venus
Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 12:38:19 +0900
From: Naoyuki Isogai <b9400863@mita2.cc.mita.keio.ac.jp>
Howdy, y'all?
> From: Charles <6500mull@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu>
>
> I loved Martin Newell and Andy's "Greatest Living Englishman,"
> and I was wondering what might be some other Martin product that
> I might be interested in (either solo, collaboration, or with one
> of his old bands like "Cleaners of Venus").
Well, I actually have a CD entitled _BACK FROM THE CLEANERS_, which is
subtitled _BEST OF THE CLEANERS FROM VENUS VOL 2_. I love that CD
_GREATEST LIVING ENGLISHMAN_ so much, but the CLEANERS stuff is just
so-so, I guess. In my humble opinion, Martin is sometimes NOT SO GOOD
at singing in such song as "We'll Build a House". It happens in MOST
songs of the CLEANERS stuff. So, don't expect too much of the
CLEANERS stuff.
---- NaoyuKing, the department "Life's like a firework, you're
of Economics in KEIO Univ. only lit once, and you must
stnad and radiate correctly..."
E-mail : b9400863@cc.mita.keio.ac.jp
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 23:56:27 +0900 (JST)
Message-Id: <199605121456.XAA16083@gol1.gol.com>
From: mwicks@gol.com (Michael Wicks)
Subject: Reviews ("tosh" is a four-letter word!)
Dear Chalkhillians!
In Digest #2-111, brunel.ac.uk wrote:
>This isn't meant to sound like a flame, so sorry if it does, but... would
>you mind telling us why >you're bothering with these reviews? Surely
>everyone on this list, even if they don't have all >the albums, is enough
>of a fan to know they want all the albums... and some of your comments
>are, quite frankly, tosh.
One of the reasons for the reviews, besides giving those who are new to
Chalkhills (I'm sure there are a few out there who are new subscribers in
the past few months; and of those, many who only know XTC for either "that
song about Nigel", "SWO", "that song about pot, er...grass", "Dear God",
"that Mayor song", "the Dukes are WHO? XTC?!", and, more recently "Peter
Pumpkinhead.../Nonsuch") a bit of background on the recordings of the
newsgroup they're subscribing to. News flash: not everyone who subscribes
to this newsgroup has all the albums, I'm willing to bet.
Also, the idea came to me when reading through the many, many volumes of
back issues/digests. I started noticing some people's reviews of
albums...especially Nonsuch...then, all of a sudden, they stopped. I wish
to revive this way of discussing some of XTC's work by offering a short
synopsis (i.e. - my own bloody opinion! And yes, very subjective!) of each
of the songs. And, if I may borrow a Colin quote from live shows past, "It
would please me to see " your comments, too! That's what a forum is for,
to discuss, to debate, to have queries explained and answered, to express
how you feel about, in this case, Things XTC!
>Sorry. I'd rather you reviewed something new, or just asked questions.
This brings me to the third reason of doing these reviews. We all know
that XTC is going through some transitionary times, what with the label
change, contract negotiations (those are finished, though, right?), and
whatnot, while we desparate, drooling appreciators of those wonderfully
addictive musical sounds those three purveyors of The Good Things have
given us wait patiently for a new record to come out. It is difficult to
review something new when there's nothing new to review. (You wanna
review Yazbek, or Eric Matthews? Suggestion: Start your own Newsgroup/Forum
then! They don't call this Chalkhills for nothing!)
Now, if these reviews are in any way detrimental to the group, or if some
of you deem them unnecessary, then I'll discontinue them. I do think,
though, that I'll shorten some of the comments down, since I admit they've
been a bit long. But I still kind of like the idea of going through the XTC
catalogue and taking a trip down memory lane while we do wait patiently for
"something new". Besides, I've bought other new CD's from other
artists...but if I wanted to talk about the Posies new one, then I'd send
an e-mail over to Dear 23, not to here.
Anyways, I'm glad I'm getting responses to my musings, hope to hear from
more of ya!
Ecstatically,
Michael W.
------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 11:38:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Natalie Jane Jacobs <gnat@umich.edu> Subject: Hey! A good record! Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960512111937.3598B-100000@galaga.rs.itd.umich.edu> Many of you have probably already heard of Peter Blegvad, a singer-songwriter who has occasionally collaborated with our Andy. A demo of one of those collaborations, "King Strut," turned up on one of my bootleg compilations, unlisted - a delightful surprise, since it's one of the coolest things I've ever heard - a story told in a dry Lou Reed monotone set over one of Andy's hypnotic drum loops and a swirling repetitive guitar lick. I was inspired to go out and find more stuff by Blegvad to see if the rest of it was that good. I found one record, "Just Woke Up" - apparently his latest - and, despite getting off to a slow start, it really is that good. Blegvad combines a sort of straightforward folky simplicity with a surrealisitic quality that reminds me of Robyn Hitchcock. Some of my favorite tracks include "Bee Dream," about a previous lifetime as an insect, and "In Hell's Despite," co-written with Andy, which is truly beautiful. In quest of more Blegvad, I bought John Zorn's Locus Solus, on which Blegvad appears. Zorn is an avant-garde jazz noise-monger extrordinaire and this record is no exception. I'm familiar with him through a more recent project, Naked City, and his improvisatory game Cobra, which he performed here in Ann Arbor. Locus Solus is much less structured than either of these - basically it's just a few guys making horrible improvised noises while someone babbles nonsensical lyrics. I can't decide whether it's brilliant or just wank, but I like it anyway. Tunes - who needs 'em! At any rate, getting back to Blegvad, anyone who can collaborate with Zorn AND Andy is way cool in my book. (I'd love to see Andy and Zorn collaborate - they could do a hellacious saxophone duel...) So now I must find more Blegvad. (Say that out loud, it sounds weird.) I'd especially like to get the album that "King Strut" appears on, which I believe is called "King Strut and Other Stories." If anyone can help me out with this, or offer further suggestions on what to get, please let me know. Thank you ever so. Natalie Jacobs http://www-personal.umich.edu/~gnat ************** Reality dies at dawn!
------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 14:27:13 -0400 (EDT) From: "Craig E. Canevit" <canevit@utkux.utcc.utk.edu> Subject: New XTC comics sighting! Message-Id: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960512141644.29526B-100000@utkux4.utcc.utk.edu> Hey, gang! By now you know what fans the band is of DC Comics, right? Well, on page ten of the first issue of what is probably DC's event of the year, a mini-series called _Kingdom Come_, there's a flier stuck to a utility pole advertising "XTC." *Every* such detail in the comic is an allusion to something (usually comics related, but one is a license plate with "28IF"). Ahh, DC Comics, The Beatles, and XTC! This is how I would want to go! Now, the question is, was it the artist, Alex Ross, who thought to include that little detail, or was it the writer, Mark Waid? Enquiring minds would like to know. On a completely unrelated note, I was wondering whether anyone here could id the fonts used on XTC's albums? Mostly, I'm interested in the font used for English Settlement, but maybe it'd be worth compiling a list of all of them? your heart is the big box of paints, Craig -- Craig E. Canevit <a href="http://cobweb.utcc.utk.edu/~canevit"></a> canevit@utkvx.utk.edu | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us canevit@utkux.utk.edu | are looking at the stars." --Oscar Wilde
------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 15:34:50 -0500 Message-Id: <9605122034.AA18700@ns.cencom.net> From: JH3 <jh3@cencom.net> Subject: We Have a Winner! Well, we finally have a hands-down winner in the "misunderstood lyrics" contest -- bdaniel@hayes.com! >Killjoy you'll win no bee >male parvenu has no e >you came to rain but lied >hmmm >humans screaming bdaniel@hayes.com wins a copy of the ultra-rare Japanese bootleg CD, "Demos 59: The F**k You Sessions," personally autographed (in Kanji) by the President of eXsTatiC Records himself, Akiro "The Loveman" Fujiyama. It features hard-to-find early demos such as "You're the Bitch Whose Car I Have," "I Caught Myself a Flying Turd," "Toads Hurdle the Grub," and "Baking Flans With Di-Gel." All digitally remastered from the original 1,347th-generation mono cassette dub. Congratulations! ******* 7IHd <ee92pmh@brunel.ac.uk> writes: >This isn't meant to sound like a flame, so sorry if it does, but... would >you (mwicks@gol.com) mind telling us why you're bothering with these >reviews? Surely everyone on this list, even if they don't have all the >albums, is enough of a fan to know they want all the albums... and some of >your comments... Personally I have to admire the guts/nerve/chutzpah required to make this complaint, since many will consider it highly...impolite? And while 1) nobody should be made to feel that they can't express their opinions, esp. in a positive way, and 2) there are plenty of posts that are far less pointed and relevant than Mr. Wicks', the plain fact is that these reviews would be a whole lot easier to appreciate if they *didn't* contain those cheesy A-B-C letter grades, as though XTC were in some sort of school or something and we were rating their work on an arbitrary 4-point academic scale. I mean, B-minus relative to what? If I were handing out the grades using the 4-point scale, XTC would have a G.P.A. of something like 6,473,823,423.0, and that's only because I'm lousy at math and I can't count much higher than a few billion or so. I think we all enjoy reading people's stories and opinions about XTC songs, good or bad (that's like the whole point, right?), but losing those letters would go a long way in this case, I think. On the other hand, there's always the Page Down key, and besides -- more complaints mean fewer posts, and that means fewer digests in the "in-box," which would be unfortunate. (That's why this post is so needlessly long, BTW.) ******** Finally, mf@well.com (Mitch Friedman) sez: >And no one should feel guilty for owning the bootleg CD's because you did >it to hear the music and not to sell them to someone else. All I meant was >that we should all be a bit more sly about having them and talking about >having them. Of course, I don't like disagreeing with Mr. Friedman since he's clearly a standup guy in every way -- it was nice of him, actually, to post the statement above, along with the other Andy news, but he's being *too* nice. Technically those of us (including myself) who have these CD's *are* guilty of supporting the bootlegging business, which is a bad thing. And discussing them might conceivably help, if it serves to make it clear to everyone that these are *not* proper XTC releases, that the sound quality of these CD's is generally terrible, and that there's nothing so special about the packaging or whatever that makes them worth having for their own sake. But that's just my opinion... However, Mitch is absolutely right in that people (on and off this list) should definitely *NOT* publicly offer to trade, or even publicly claim to have, Andy Partridge's latest demos! The danger here is quite real, folks! If these demos are made into a commercially available bootleg before XTC can even record them properly, I worry that he'll simply give up and quit the music business altogether. Heaven knows he has enough reason to as it is! --John H.
------------------------------ Date: 13 MAY 96 10:12:15 EST From: PCulnane@dca.gov.au Subject: Pardon Me, Parvenu! Message-ID: <0000qyismmoe.0000phftdpnn@dca.gov.au> Mr Prendiville, that paragon of perspicacity, that parvenu of profundity, that, ummm, pathetic pink-thing who wrote to our happy, friendly Chalkhills list with his way-outta-line insults sure got my back up too. I refrained from indulging this guy's chip-on-shoulder until I saw the erudite responses in C'hills #111. bdaniel@hayes.com contributed a very clever poem - it had me laughing like a childish seagull! Anyway, this Daniel individual describes himself as a parvenue (sic). So not for the first time I looked it up in the dictionary. Webster's International (we should use this dictionary 'cos we're world-wide- websters, right?) defines parvenu (or parvenue for females) as someone who has recently attained status beyond their calling, and lacks the social graces to match this new status. The Australian Concise Oxford says "a person of obscure origin who has gained wealth or position; an upstart"......Our Daniel has certainly fulfilled these definitions to the letter, if his recent bitter tirade to Chalkhills is any guide. The last time I encountered the word 'parvenu', it was used in the Rolling Stones' song "Blinded By Love". I found its use both gratuitous and pretentious then, too. Please, Eric Adcock, don't feel that you should go underground and retreat from this list just because of a nasty and unwelcome post by one thesaurus-wielding jerk-off! Try this for a novel idea: If you can't say anything nice or worthwhile, just shut the f**k up! XTC content for this post: they're a great band, they make me happy, and stop me having to think about mortgages. Luv, Paul
------------------------------ Message-Id: <199605130715.RAA13376@warchives.riv.csu.edu.au.> From: "Simon Knight" <sknight@warchivegw.riv.csu.edu.au> Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 16:14:02 +0000 Subject: XTC Unplugged I remember reading in REFLEX magazine sometime in 1993 that XTC were going to record for MTV Unplugged. Was the show ever recorded, or did it fall through some how? Does anyone know what happened? Was it due to Andy's stage fright? This might seem like a dumb question, but MTV Unplugged is only shown as the occassional special in Australia, and then only of high-selling artists. :( I guess if it did take place Virgin probably would have released the set as an album by now. Then again, magazines can be pretty inaccurate. In an interview with SOURCE magazine in 1992 Andy talks about the upcoming release of SOMESUCH and promises it won't be another three years till the next XTC album!
------------------------------ Message-Id: <199605131429.HAA02468@sgi.sgi.com> Date: Mon, 13 May 96 09:30:27 EDT From: dabl2@nlm.nih.gov (Don Lindbergh) Subject: Re: Todd Rundgren and "Supergirl >From: Kirk Taylor Waldrop <gt6680d@prism.gatech.edu> > > According to him >(he said he read it somewhere), Todd Rundgren, in an attempt to show >everyone that he could copy anyone's style and further boost his ego, >wrote "Supergirl" for XTC and it was so perfect an XTC copy that they >recorded it. Does anyone know if there is any truth to this? Dunno about that variation of the rumor, but it's fairly well agreed that they asked him to play keyboards on it. --Don DABL dabl2@nes.nlm.nih.gov
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 13 May 96 10:03 EST
From: Jeffrey Langr <0005392548@mcimail.com>
Subject: marry?
Message-Id: <51960513150315/0005392548ND1EM@MCIMAIL.COM>
>From: Laura Parent <laura@geosun1.sjsu.edu>
>> I haven't been able to turn my wife onto them either,.....
>> but she prefers listening to the same five Air Supply and Carly
>> Simon albums over and over. She's comfortable with what's familiar.
>
>The real question is, how could you marry someone like that? (Just kidding)
My wife also came from a Hair Supply background, but even before we were
married I ensured that at least some of my musical tastes were etched into
her brain. Otherwise I don't think I would've married her...
She got flak once for putting on the Kinks' Village Green Preservation
Society at the pool where she lifeguarded ("what's *this* crap???").
I proposed to her while the Buzzcocks were playing. Today, she'll pick out
Ass of Bass or Hair Supply sometimes, but then again more often I catch her
putting on XTC (she really likes Rag & Bone Buffet), and things like the
Cramps, Adrian Belew, and Eno.
Jeff L.
------------------------------ Message-Id: <199605131850.OAA07147@rohan.btg.com> Date: 13 May 1996 14:48:11 U From: "Sherwood, Harrison" <hsherwood@btg.com> Subject: Change My World >> can anyone tell me what the story is as far as "Change My World" by >>"Johnny Nexdor and His Neighbors"? If that's not XTC, it's the damned >> best imitation I've ever heard. The latter. Yes, it's about the best XTC (or at least, Andy) imitation you've ever heard. Sung by Sean Altman (am I right here?) and realized by Sean and David Yazbek. At the time of the "Carmen Sandiego" release, a whole lot of folks here on Chalkhills (myself included) were mighty, mighty skeptical, convinced it was a little Andy prank, with John Linnell from They Might Be Giants singing the bridges. Sean (or was it David?) himself finally cleared up the mystery by posting a "cross-my-heart-it-was-me" explanation. (And boy oh boy wasn't it just _wunnerful_ to see Sean's name against "Ten Feet Tall" on the Tribute Tape list.... Not the _teensiest_ bit intimidating, heck no! Guess we'll get to hear his no doubt spot-on Colin imitation, too...) Harrison "Goose farts on a muggy day" Sherwood
------------------------------ From: ZITTEL@aol.com Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 19:27:47 -0400 Message-ID: <960513192746_112847484@emout12.mail.aol.com> Subject: Record Collector magazine poll The May edition of the UK magazine Record Collector had their annual Top 500 Collectable Artists poll. XTC fell to 69th place after finishing 50th the year before. Probably the long gap between albums has not helped them at all. For those curious, the top 10 collectable artists this year were: 1. Beatles 2. Queen 3. Oasis 4. Pink Floyd 5. Rolling Stones 6. Jethro Tull 7. Neil Young 8. Elvis Presley 9. David Bowie 10. Bob Dylan
------------------------------
Message-Id: <199605140324.NAA15222@warchives.riv.csu.edu.au.>
From: "Simon Knight" <sknight@warchivegw.riv.csu.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 12:22:21 +0000
Subject: Re: Scooby Doopergirl!
>About two years ago I was talking to the sound man at one of my shows in
>Atlanta and he told me a little story about Skylarking. According to him
>(he said he read it somewhere), Todd Rundgren, in an attempt to show
>everyone that he could copy anyone's style and further boost his ego,
>wrote "Supergirl" for XTC and it was so perfect an XTC copy that they
>recorded it. Does anyone know if there is any truth to this?
OK conspiracy fans, any theories on this? I have one, but it takes
some explanation:
For quite a while now i've puzzled over the "passing day" theme of
"Skylarking" and wondered why certain songs are where they are.
"Summer's Cauldron" is a dawn song, certainly, but why is it followed
by "Grass"? It feels more like a summery, midday song to me. Why is
"Earn enough for us" on the start of side two? The bustling, driving
feel of the song strikes me as an early morning song, with people
hurrying off to school / work. Shouldn't it come straight after
Cauldron? Then "The meeting place": The character hurries off
through his familiar streets, past common landmarks, and reminices
about the past (Grass) throughout the morning.
Then "Season cycle" surely a mid-day song and comments on the passage
of life which leads to the next step of marriage. Weddings are
normally in the early afternoon, so "Big day" fits in.
Ballet for a rainy day / 1000 umbrellas seems like late afternoon
songs: the day turns rainy, bringing on a maudlin mood that leads to
"Umbrellas" and hinting at the darkness the night will bring.
"Dear god" is the nightly prayer from a father and child, the child
goes off to dream of when the "Mermaid smiled" while the father sits
up alone, questioning his life ("The man who sailed around his soul")
and worrying about death ("Dying"). What should follow is the stark
night quietness of "Another Sattelite" as the world sleeps, the only
light in the distance a "Sacrificial bonfire".
So, to me, the order should be:
Summer's cauldron / Earn enough for us / The meeting place
Grass / Season cycle / Big day / Ballet for a rainy day / 1000 umbrellas
Dear god / Mermaid smiled / The man who sailed around his soul
Dying / Another sattelite / Sacrificial bonfire
I'm not saying XTC's order is wrong, but i just like playing the
songs in this order occassionally, it makes you see the songs in a
different light when you don't hear the one you're expecting next.
Try it and see, and come up with your own! This is only IMHO. Does
anyone have a better order, and explanations?
Back to the conspiracy: You'll notice i left off "Supergirl". It's
because no matter how hard i try, it doesn't seem to fit anywhere.
It seems really at odds with the rest of the album, and contains the
weakest lyric of the "Skylarking" set. (I still love it though, it
would be fine for the Dukes, and would sit nicely on "Psonic
Psunspot", providing a good counterpoint to "Braniac's Daughter").
I've read somewhere that XTC didn't really want to record "Supergirl"
and let Todd record the keyboard parts, quite sloppily, which left
Andy unimpressed. If the band weren't that enamoured of it, why did
they then remove the superior "Mermaid smiled" to replace "Dear god"
instead of the obvious choice?
Was it because Todd refused to let them remove it, since he wrote the
song? ;^) Someone call Mulder, Scully and Scooby Doo, there might
be a mystery here!
------------------------------ Message-ID: <EDC2D62F01291300@ametsoc.org> Date: Tue, 14 May 96 08:41:00 -0500 From: dgershmn <dgershmn@ametsoc.org> Organization: AMS Subject: Dave Gregory alert The debut solo album from Brian Stevens, called "Prettier Than You," features Dave Gregory prominently on guitar and keyboards throughout. (There's even a photo of him!) Brian is >from the Boston area, formerly with the Cavedogs (who had two excellent nationally released CDs of their own in the late '80s/early '90s, if you can find them). He was in Aimee Mann's touring band last year, along with Dave Gregory (who was romantically linked with Aimee for a while, by the way, though I guess that might be common knowledge here already), and I suppose that's where he made the connection and was able to get Dave to play on his album. In any case, it's a very enjoyable album -- Beatlesque, XTC-esque, very pop (in the good sense). Look for it (it's on Q Division records). I met and talked with Brian a few years ago at a party in Brighton, Mass., when he was still with the Cavedogs. It turned out that he was a very big XTC fan, which will come as no surprise when you hear the album. Little did he know at the time, I'm sure, that he'd one day have one of them playing on an album of his!
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 10:17:26 -0500 (CDT)
Message-Id: <199605141517.KAA16708@sky.net>
From: Scott Taylor <staylor@sky.net>
Subject: Change My World
>From: dgershmn <dgershmn@ametsoc.org>
>Subject: Carmen Sandiego soundtrack
>can anyone tell me what the story is as far as "Change My World" by
>"Johnny Nexdor and His Neighbors"? If that's not XTC, it's the damned best
>imitation I've ever heard. The pseudonym would certainly be classic XTC,
>it sounds like Andy singing, and no vocalists are credited, though they
>are on other songs. Writing credits are not given to Andy Partridge, but I
>thought that maybe that was just to further obscure the truth of the
>matter. Have you the answer? Please inform.
I posted this same suspicion a while ago and was regaled with derision from
everybody else who didn't hear the similarity. It's good to know I'm not
alone with my bad hearing. According to Yazbek himself, "Change My World"
is Sean Altman and NOT Andy. I've given it a closer listen since I last
posted about it and I'll admit that the vocalist has a definite American
sound, but isn't it possible that Andy might have affected an accent to
further the ruse? And listen to the middle section ("You suppose there's
nothing much a meager man can do...") alongside "Too Many Cooks in the
Kitchen"... Is that not Colin's sound?
Okay, so now I'm fairly confident (95%) that it's Sean Altman, as proposed.
But it was a good trick anyway. I'm sure it was completely intentional and
he knew somebody like me would be a little to eager to be fooled. And, to
be frank, it's still just as much fun to listen to and pretend it's XTC
anyway. Now I'm wondering, if Altman's that good, why didn't he contribute
something like that to the _Testimonial Dinner_ disc? Hold on a
sec... who, exactly, did Yazbek say that Terry & The Lovemen really were?
ST
staylor@sky.net
+-----------------------------+
| Scott M. Taylor |
| staylor@sky.net |
| http://www.sky.net/~staylor |
+-----------------------------+
------------------------------ Message-Id: <199605141538.IAA03044@sgi.sgi.com> Date: Tue, 14 May 96 10:38:51 EDT From: dabl2@nlm.nih.gov (Don Lindbergh) Subject: [Fwd: Re: Todd & XTC] I haden't seen this particular text posted here before so I thought I'd forward it. Not meant to open an old can of worms, just thought it was interesting. From the Rundgren net list 'wizard' regarding the Skylarking production. --Don dabl2@nlm.nih.gov =========BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE========= > Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 14:26:12 GMT > Message-Id: <199605141426.OAA05675@samos.statusiq.co.uk> > To: AWIZARD@planning.Ebay.Sun.COM > From: "D.Lawrence" <darren@statusiq.co.uk> > Subject: Re: RE;Chalkhills and children. Excert from Keyboard magazine, November 1987.... "Well, I don't write material for the bands. I try to pick bands that have good material to start with. And then when it comes to production, it's a job. The priorities from album to album vary. Somebody may just be incompetent in the studio and need some help. In the case of XTC, they've come to a plateau, a crux in their career, that may mean longevity or death, and they have to take some extraordinary measures to legitimize themselves in order to remain in the business at all. In that sense XTC was an extraordinary measure . The guys in the band weren't used to making records with a real producer. They were used to having producers just be engineers or order-takers. I've always been a fan of the band, but I also recognize that they have this tendency to be incoherent, and to want to tweak peoples noses in a musical sense. To be wise guys, you know? Like, you're listening and enjoying a record and then they'll poke you in the ear, just for the hell of it. I tried to weed all of that out of the record. I said, "For once, why don't you seduce people, instead of trying to make them pay attention by dropping your trousers?" The whole idea was to eliminate all of these gratuitously jarring things and make a record that people would, at some point, realize, "I'm really enjoying this!" instead of thinking, "Hey, I'm really smart because I'm listening to their record," which is the attitude that Andy Partridge has. He wants it to be some kind of intellectual elite thing, and I didn't see the point in that, particularly considering that their record label was prepared to drop them if they didn't come up with some commercial success." thats iT!! DL =========END FORWARDED MESSAGE=========
------------------------------ From: patty@gdb.org Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 11:43:30 -0400 Message-Id: <9605141543.AA07330@musichead.gdb.org> Subject: OK, who set him up to do this? >From Ted Mills: > >Lucas sez: > > > >So here are the lyrics: > > > >This is the land where I was born > >in the bosom of technology > Irony of ironies, this is a song off the most recent David Byrne album! All right, Tom Chao, how much did you pay Lucas to post this question? 'Fess up, boy! I'm not buying any of this coincidence theory. OBXTC: Boy, could I really go for some Colin demos right about now. Yeah, I guess unless my favorite bassist builds a studio in the shed in his back garden I'm outta luck, but really! If he's depressed about the low musical output, why doesn't yer man Partridge invite Colin over for a cuppa and some private studio time? I have this horrible thought of this bass guitar underneath Colin's bed collecting dust bunnies or summat... Speaking of horrible thoughts, I was also thinking about those 'Hillians who responded to my poll last spring in regards to the question "When will the next XTC album come out?" who answered "Never." Maybe I'm just tired of reading about the legal troubles that are still going on, but geez, 1996 is totally outta the picture, and I'm not betting any rent money on 1997, the way things are going. >From Gene Yoon: > And to the rest of us, I hope no one thinks twice about posting to > Chalkhills for fear that they'll be called "childish" or "immature." Or > that they don't use Roget's Thesaurus every time they post. Or that > they're not an overeducated nerd. Hell, no. Having been dubbed "pigheaded" by none other than the member above, I'd like to encourage everyone to dive right in. Sure hasn't stopped me. And I only use Roget's Thesaurus, oooh, every third or fourth post. David Byrne is a succussion! > I think I'll grow grab that coffee now. I thought drinking a lot of coffee stunted your growth. -Patty P.S. Today is David Byrne's birthday.
------------------------------ End of Chalkhills Digest #2-112 *******************************
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