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

Cool! What a wonderful story. Next time you hang with the big BW, you should play him "So Why So Sad" by the Manic Street Preachers or "Chewing Gum" by the Super Furry Animals.

 

I think the songs are stronger on Psonic Psunspot, but the EP is the more authentic of the two as far as seeming like a band from the 60s... some of the songs on the full length album were written for real XTC albums and just given a retro spin for the Dukes (e.g. Little Lighthouse, The Affiliated, You're My Drug, Shiny Cage). Dave Gregory felt "Pale and Precious" was too good for the Dukes and in retrospect Partridge agreed.

 

That is amazing! Would you play him my cover of Let Him Run Wild?


Dan

 

Too good for the Dukes?? The best songs any of those guys have ever written are on those Dukes lps. As usual....Andy is a lousy judge of his own material.

 

I'd play him some Motorhead.

 

? He meant it should have been on a proper XTC album.

 

This and Skylarking in SACD please

 

THE ACE OF SPADES! THE ACE OF SPADES! *Brian runs and hides*

LMAO

Dan

 

There was talk a couple of years back regarding an Andy Partridge/Brian Wilson collaboration. Now THAT would be cool. Nothing ever came of it ...

Supposedly, what prompted BW to want to work with AP was his hearing of the entire Apple Venus Volume 1 recording. He thought it was brilliant, which it is.

 

I find that this original Chips CD sounds good in comparison with these LPs:

 

See Mummer - "Deliver Us From The Elements."

 

I'd like to play "Little Lighthouse" for Brian Wilson.

 

I tend to agree.

 

. . . or DVD-A or DualDisc or AF HDCD.

 

Oh man, I love the 25 O'Clock album so much!!! I must say that it stood out in the '80's with it's retro production but now it seems so much better than most recordings from that period. Great headphone music!!

I personally prefer 25 O'Clock over Psonic mainly because I'm a drummer. If memory serves XTC's drummer quit between the making of those two albums, and for me, the loss is noticeable. However, there is a lot to love there, Pale And Precious of course being the most noteworthy. It's cool to know BW hisself heard and liked it!!

 

I tend to agree.

 

I never get tired of talking about this album, let alone this group! I remember hearing it for the first time around 5 years ago and just thinking "why on earth has no one told me about this stuff before!!??". IT really is as good as any 60s-era psych-pop. Well, at least as good as the second best: I won't say it has the same impact as early Pink Floyd or psychedelic Beatles, but well on a par with those greatest obscure slices of psychedelia.

I prefer 25 O'Clock myself, if just for the zany energy and terrific fuzz guitars! The 'original' sound is as good as it gets.

As far as XTC's other catalogue, I'm somewhat of a dissenter. English Settlement seems to get a lot of praise, but I think it's a little too uneven, meandering a bit towards the end. I also don't like some of the post-Skylarking stuff that well; there are plenty of great moments, but it starts to sound a little too meticulous and crafted at times. I prefer the earlier, more "organic" stuff. But it's all good, and Apple Venus Vol. 1 is among their absolute best!

Hard to rank them, since the earliest stuff is so different from later things, but here we go...Mummer gets my vote for most underrated album, one of my favourites!

1. Drums & Wires - perfect middle ground between angular, nervy new wave and glossy pop
2. Skylarking - pastoral pop perfection
3. Black Sea - slightly glossier than D&W, but essentially more of the same
4. Mummer - strange and wonderful transitional album; Dukes-like psych with 80's production
5. Apple Venus Vol. 1 - orchestral pop masterpiece
6. English Settlement - eclectic, transitional with some of the best songs, but also some filler
7. Big Express - more 80's and craftier than Mummer, but still with that organic touch
8. White Music - spasmoid, nervy, spiky, angular...great new wave pop!
9. Go2 - as above, worth the price for Beatown alone!
10...the rest

 

The same person drums on both albums -- Dave Gregory's brother Ian. Terry Chambers had long since quit the band by the time they recorded the Dukes albums.

 

Donkey says, "Where is the link?"

"Here it is", said the man in the blue robe:


http://chalkhills.org/reelbyreal/a_Dukes.html#h25

 

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

 

What we REALLY need is a Steve Hoffman mastered The Dukes of Stratosphear cd.

 

Glad to see there are a few XTC fans here...


I think the finest "pop" song ever has to be "Mayor Of Simpleton".

Never tire of it!

 

There's something about this song....the "radio in my head" plays this tune several times a week and sometimes at the strangest moments. "Mayor Of Simpleton" is one of the most infectious pop songs I've heard and I agree...I will never tire of this one.

 

I agree that Black Sea is probably the finest, most consistent XTC album overall, followed closely by Nonsuch and Drums & Wire, but, wow, there is no love here for the brilliant, White Music. Following hot on the heels of their 3D-EP debut, White Music quite literally blew me away the first time I heard it. Side one of this album just rocks!

Also, I think it is great how these guys were the "darlings" of Virgin back in the late 70's-early 80's, who spared no expense with elaborate, extravagant packaging for most of their single and album releases. I still have much of it including the Making Plans for Nigel game, the Sgt. Rock comic book and the Life Begins at the Hop clear vinyl 45. Great stuff all!

 

I'll raise the bet to M/C SA-CD of 25 O'Clock. I'm not so sure he belives in duophonic though.

I've always thought 25 O'Clock was prime M/C fodder, if there is such a thing-y...