Dukes Of Stratosphere - inspired by what songs?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Hard Panner, Apr 27, 2006.

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  1. Hard Panner

    Hard Panner Baroque Popsike & Fuzz Thread Starter

    We all know that The Dukes of Stratosphere were more than inspired by songs from 60s bands. My question is, can we here on this list name as many of those songs as possible. Example: "Collideascope" = "Blackberry Way" by The Move. The reason I want to do this is to make a compilation for my 13 year old daughter. I got her into XTC and the Dukes last year. I'm trying to get her to like psych music and figure listening to some familiar sounds might just do the trick.

    1. 25 O'Clock
    2. Bike Ride To The Moon
    3. My Love Explodes
    4. What In The World??
    5. Your Gold Dress
    6. The Mole From The Ministry
    7. Vanishing Girl
    8. Have You Seen Jackie?
    9. Little Lighthouse
    10. You're A Good Man Albert Brown
    11. Collideascope
    12. You're My Drug
    13. Shiny Cage
    14. Brainiac's Daughter
    15. The Affiliated
    16. Pale And Precious

    Let the games begin!
    Deke
     
  2. Leppo

    Leppo Forum Librarian

    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

    See also:

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

    The Dukes of Stratosphear...
     
  3. Steve E.

    Steve E. Doc Wurly and Chief Lathe Troll

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY, USA
    There's actually an Andy Partridge article where he takes the whole thing apart, but it's more fun to use your ears. I'm going to resist doing the whole thing myself.

    The little kid doing the fairy tale monologues between songs is a Traffic song, yes?

    2. Bike Ride To The Moon --Syd Barret "Bike"
    6. The Mole From The Ministry--"I am the Walrus"
     
  4. Jamie Tate

    Jamie Tate New Member

    Location:
    Nashville
  5. Dave D

    Dave D Done!

    Location:
    Milton, Canada
    25 O'Clock sounds more like I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night than the Amboy Dukes.

    Edit...YEP!

     
  6. Jamie Tate

    Jamie Tate New Member

    Location:
    Nashville
    Never noticed that before. I've been wearing out Blackberry Way recently and had an obsession with Collideascope last summer when Adam played it on his radio show.

    Very cool!
     
  7. Hard Panner

    Hard Panner Baroque Popsike & Fuzz Thread Starter

    Great info everyone! Now time to rifle through the racks to see if I have all of the songs to make the compilation. :righton:

    Deke
     
  8. Hard Panner

    Hard Panner Baroque Popsike & Fuzz Thread Starter

    Oh BTW, I'll post the final order of the CD compilation if anyone is interested.

    Deke
     
  9. Mick Jones

    Mick Jones Senior Member

    Hole In My Shoe. A massive UK hit single in 1967.
     
  10. Hard Panner

    Hard Panner Baroque Popsike & Fuzz Thread Starter

    Was listening to The Bee Gees 'Horizontal' album today and heard a lot of sounds and lyrics connecting it to the Dukes. Anyone else?

    Deke
     
  11. LarryDavenport

    LarryDavenport New Member

    Location:
    Seattle, WA, USA
    If you buy Andy Partridge's Fuzzy Warbles Volumes 2, 3, 4, and 6 you will get 6 Dukes Demos:

    Vol. 2: 25 O'Clock
    Vol. 3: Collideascope & Little Lighthouse
    Vol. 4: Braniac's Daughter
    Vol. 6: My Love Explodes & Bike Ride To The Moon

    Volume 3 also has a great cover of Strawberry Fields.

    (They are available on ITunes too).
     
  12. Burningfool

    Burningfool Just Stay Alive

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    Thanks, Larry! :righton:

    Off to iTunes (again!) I got the single version of JA's "Mexico" on your suggestion from iTunes as well, so thank you for that one also.

    Chris
     
  13. CardinalFang

    CardinalFang New Member

    Location:
    ....
    Please do. :)
     
  14. Bringing up an old thread to say (again) -- yes, please do!! :goodie:
     
  15. Hard Panner

    Hard Panner Baroque Popsike & Fuzz Thread Starter

    Damn, this kills me. I had a hard drive die a few months back that had all of my notes for this comp on it - along with my Mellotron comp ideas. There were some crossover songs and some decisions to be made. Damn. I gotta start this one again.
     
  16. pool_of_tears

    pool_of_tears Searching For Simplicity

    Location:
    Midwest
    Very much influenced by the Smile era :agree:
     

  17. Let's not forget "Open a Can of Human Beans" on volume 8--the Dukes reunited for one song only!
     
  18. mark f.

    mark f. Senior Member

    I always felt like Andy's article was a fairly humble attempt at listing the references. I get the impression that he and Colin really know their 60s music and some of the influences are fairly deep - especially in Andy's case.

    One that isn't mentioned that I can see is "We Are the Mole People" by Simon Dupree and the Big Sound. Maybe it's in one of the older threads?

    Also, not very deep at all, one of Colin's songs, "The Affiliated," I believe has several musical references to Love.
     
  19. kiff

    kiff Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    XTC were one of my favs for a long time and I was always hoping for the rumored Dukes reunion. Even just a song or two would have fit in with one of the Austin Powers movies,
     
  20. stevenm

    stevenm New Member

    Location:
    Freiburg, Germany
    Did someone mention a mellotron comp? Count me in!
     
  21. jdmack

    jdmack Forum Resident

    Location:
    Silver Spring, MD
    Quoting from Wikipedia:

    "The Dukes of Stratosphear reformed in 2003 to record the track "Open A Can (Of Human Beans)" for the MS Society charity compilation album The Wish List. The track was later included on Andy Partridges' album Fuzzy Warbles Volume 7 (2006)."

    J. D.
     
  22. mark f.

    mark f. Senior Member

    The demo is included on FW.

    Wish List is a wonderful CD too. Get it from http://www.heyday-mo.com/
     
  23. kiff

    kiff Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Yeah, Open A Can was already mentioned. Nice to see some sharp XTC fans here though. Haven't had much reason to visit Chalkhills in years...
     
  24. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Vancouver
    No, that's the actual Dukes track.
     
  25. Hard Panner

    Hard Panner Baroque Popsike & Fuzz Thread Starter

    Good news! Well, at least to me. I managed to recover my notes on the origins of the Dukes of Stratosphear. Now, once I'm finished with my current project, I'll get back onto the Dukes.

    I'm calling it 'The Songs We Were Sensing'. :D

    Good news here, also. I also retrieved the notes for this comp. That'll have to come after the Dukes project.
     
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