The Dukes of Stratosphear...

I just wanted to share my excitement with you all. I love this CD! The music is psychedelic, poppy and very retro sounding. It's everything I love about 60s music.

It's XTC's alter ego and they recorded two EPs, both of which are on this CD. I'm amazed they got the engineering right seeing as it was 1987, the era of washed reverbs, chorused vocals and gated snare drums.

Get this CD right now.

BTW, the remaster is the version to get. The original CD has a restricted low end.

 

Yer way behind the game, son.

I fell in love with the original 25 O Clock album...or ep or whatever it was. I picked up the comp about 6-7 years ago. It's great.

 

See also: The Dukes of Stratoshphear (XTC): Chips From The Chocolate Fireball.

 

A lot of people think it's the best thing XTC's everdone.

 

D'oh! I must've spelt sumthng wrng in my saerch. Sory!

 

I never made the upgrade to the remaster, but if Jamie says it's good, that's my cue.

 

I bought the vinyl when it came out.
I know that member Audio is a big fan

Peace-
Norm

 

Yeah, I kept my original CD after getting burned with the remaster of Skylarking. Glad to hear the remaster is good. I forget... is the Japanese remaster (in mini-LP sleeve) different from the domestic remaster?

 

It's near the top for XTC. Simply fantastic album.

I agree, but many do not!

 

I forgot about this one. Thanks for the reminder.

 

The original is very good too. The Record Group did the "CDD pre-mastering" and they always did a nice job. I just like the bass on the remaster. It's a tad fuller and sounds great on my systems.

 

That's where I heard it. His Friday night show has exposed me to a lot of great music. Thanks Adam!

 

Absolutely I am. XTC/Dukes of Stratosphear is one of my favorite bands of all time. I heard the Dukes before I got into XTC. XTC is the next step for you, Jamie, if you don't have most of their albums. You'll like the psych/pop on "English Settlement", "Black Sea", "Skylarking", "Oranges and Lemons", "Nonsuch", "Apple Venus", "Wasp Star", and many more.

I can't disagree more regarding the remaster, though. I thought it was a compressed, processed, piece of blank.

 

Great stuff... go fer it. BTW, wasn't there an insert in some of the early XTC CD's where Andy talked about his influences, like Pink Floyd, etc.??

 

For those who like the Dukes, you should check out Naz Nomad and the Nightmares "Give Daddy the Knife Cindy". It's a bunch of great 60's, Nuggets-inspired covers - released a year before "25 O'Clock".

BTW, this is actually The Damned, but you won't find that info anywhere in the liners.

 

Also, check out these guys....another '60s psych clone band that does an amazing job w/ fantastic songwriting:

http://members.cox.net/damienyouth/wglb.htm

 

Andy: Kicking off with that Syd Barrettesque pantomime of punctured pan-galactic pedal pushing ‘Bike Ride To The Moon’. ”

Andy: “My Love Explodes is The Yardbirds' Over Under Sideways Down mixed with The Pretty Things, or anyone who had an armful of marracas and a basin haircut.”

Andy: “What In The World is bits of Manfred Mann, bits of The Beatles' Only A Northern Song and It's All Too Much; there's also half a dozen ECM records spun in by hand.”

Andy: “Your Gold Dress was the first things written for 25 O'Clock. I came up with the stupidest riff in the history of riffs and thought it was spot on.” Dave: “We borrowed Nicky Hopkins sound from She's A Rainbow.” Andy: “He made Satanic Majesties - The Rolling Stones would have fallen apart at that time without Nicky Hopkins. He is We Love You. One of my favorite ever albums.”

Andy: “Vanishing Girl was steered towards The Hollies a lot. They had two lead singers at the same time, so both Colin and I sang the same so that the voices got smashed into this amorphous Hollies mess.”

Andy: “Have You Seen Jackie was written for 25 O'Clock; it was called ‘Have You Seen Sydney’, a direct reference to our Syd Barrett. It's got smatterings of everything - the character and story are part Keith West/Teenage Opera/Mark Wirtz . . . the kids, the ‘is he a boy is he a girl’, the ‘if you see him leave him alone’ bits . . .”

Andy: “Little Lighthouse was a track that we started to record for Skylarking. Todd (Rungren, producer) got bored with it, so I thought The Dukes could do it. The Dukes made it sound like a lot of bands that imitated The Rolling Stones.”

Andy: “You're A Good Man Albert Brown is pub psychedelia; an attempt to be anyone who ever did a pub single . . . it's the sound of the pub on the corner of Carnaby Street.” Dave: “The Wah-Wah and Sceptre!” Andy: “There'd be a Chelsea Pensioner sitting outside - Steve Marriot's grandad! Jimi Hendrix would be popping in between sets at The Marquee for half pints . . . it's like Oscar's Over The Wall We Go, Whistling Jack Smith's I Was Kaiser Bills Batman, The Universal, a couple of Bonzos things.”

Andy: “ ‘Collideascope’ is John Lennon - except that the chords were picked because they sound like The Move's ‘Blackberry Way’ - it's The Move stealing from The Beatles. I had the lyrics for it in 1978 but didn't use them because I thought they were too psychedelic. The sound effects are from the film Nearest And Dearest with Jimmy Jewell and Hilda Baker . . . and there's a scream from the BBC sound effects library.”
Demo version.

Andy: “You're My Drug is meant to be a mixture of Monterey by The Animals and So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star. Monterey is a favourite joke - I dunno what Califonians thought of Eric Burdon. He was a Newcastle dwarf, a gnarled Geordie mystic! It was an XTC song, but it was too much like the Byrds; the chord change is so West Coast. So we thought let The Dukes do it like The Byrds!”

Andy: “Shiny Cage was brought up by Colin for The Big Express originally, but we said no because it was too stupidly Beatley - it was everything from Revolver all smashed into one song. Epiphone guitar stabs, tabla playing, backward guitar, a dissonant but melodic George Harrison guitar solo . . . George Martin would probably have thought it up and played it on the piano and Harrison would have had to learn it. It was again an attempt to forge an era and an area but smash it and condense it all into one track.”

Andy: “ ‘Brainiacs Daughter’ was a conscious attempt to write as if Paul McCartney had tried to come up with a track around the time of Sgt. Pepper or Yellow Submarine - 1967/68 - so all the ingredients were picked to sound like McCartney. Banana fingers piano, descending chord changes, falsetto vocals, nonsensical lyrics . . . it's got the lot! We tried to make a McCartney psychedelic soup. People thought it was the Bonzos by the time we'd finished it.”
Dave: “Or Thunderclap Newman!”

Andy: “Colin wrote The Affiliated for our next album but wanted to do it quick before we got bored with it, so changed the character of it to be slightly more Ray Davies. The middle section was an attempt to be like Unit 4+2's Concrete And Clay; percussion, acoustic guitars, a slightly latin feel.”

Andy: “Pale And Precious is pretty obvious (A fine Beach Boys pastiche); that was the most difficult one to do. It's the best melody - the surf bit was a bit stupid - but the chords are churchy and Bach and all the stuff that Brian Wilson was into at the time.”

Excerpts from: The Dukes of Stratosphear

 

That album wouldn't be as good if Dave Gregory was not there.

I'm listening to my CD right now... sounds perfect to me!

 

That's awesome, Leppo, thanks!!

 

I don't see my fave track in Leppo's list....Mole From The Ministry. Obviously it's I Am The Walrus influenced.

 

To me, right after Skylarking, it's the best thing that XTC has ever done. These guys are fond of recording as alter egos, as I also have a Carmen Sandiego record where they do a song under another psuedonym, and I seem to recall there's another one out there as well, perhaps a Christmas song?

 

They appear on the XTC tribute album, "Testimonial Dinner" as Terry & The Lovemen.

 

Yep: "Thanks For Christmas" c/w "Countdown to Christmas Party Time" by The Three Wise Men.

 

I tend to like the earlier XTC albums, myself. Pretty much everything up to "Oranges & Lemons". But then again that's when I was really into them. I got to see the band twice in 1980 - both great shows.

 

You're lucky, BFrank - wasn't that just before Partridge's stage fright effectively killed the band as a live act? The closest I came to seeing them live was seeing Partridge play part of an acoustic set through the glass of a radio studio in early 1989.