| Page 1 2 GETTING TO KNOW: XTC by Matt ConroyWho They Are: XTC are one of the most prodigiously talented, wildly creative and influential groups to emerge from the mid to late ‘70s British music scene. The band’s first two albums, with their buzzing carnival keyboards and hyperactive, spasmodic vocals, owed much to the influence of Barry Andrews, the band’s madcap keyboardist, who would eventually leave XTC in 1979 to form Shriekback. But it is childhood friends and co-songwriters Andy Partridge (guitar) and Colin Moulding (bass) – along with masterful guitarist Dave Gregory, who replaced Andrews – that formed the crux of the band during its most productive and pioneering period. From the release of 1979’s Drums and Wires, which for many fans was the band’s first truly great album, through 2000’s Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2), the Partridge/Moulding collaboration has resulted in one of pop music’s strongest, most inventive and varied songwriting catalogues. The crunching guitar of Black Sea’s “Towers of London”; the gentle, pastoral quality of Mummer’s “Love on a Farmboy’s Wages”; the dizzying, orchestral sweep of Apple Venus Volume 2’s “River of Orchids” – there is hardly a style that the band has not touched on, mastered and made their own. Lyrically, there has always been an “everyman” Ray Davies-like quality to Moulding’s best songs that contrasted nicely with Partridge’s grander, biting, more fantastical vision. Listening to the two styles striking sparks off each other on an album such as Skylarking is a true pleasure. Though Moulding was responsible for several of the XTC’s earliest hits, including “Making Plans for Nigel” and “Generals and Majors,” his production has steadily diminished over the years. In recent interviews tied to the release of his Fuzzy Warbles box set (a mammoth 8 disc collection of outtakes, rarities, b-sides and demos spanning the band’s entire career), Partridge has indicated that, much to longtime fans’ dismay, we may have heard the last from XTC. If that should be the case, now is as good a time as any to take a look back at the amazingly consistent – and consistently satisfying – musical output of Swindon, England’s greatest gift to the world. How to Spot Them: Hang around Swindon long enough and you’ll probably catch a glimpse of Moulding or Partsy, as he is affectionately known. Both are notorious homebodies. Moulding’s the soft-spoken one, while Partridge is the bespectacled loonie offering cutting commentary and humorous opinions on all and sundry. None of the trappings of the rock star lifestyle for these fellas. Dave Gregory pops up fairly regularly as a crack session player and maintains his own guitar wankery website, Guitargonauts. Vital Fact: Two events in the history of XTC go a long way toward explaining why the band may have failed to achieve the sort mainstream popularity its work has merited. The first is Partridge’s ongoing struggle with panic attacks, which reached a crisis level during the English Settlement tour in 1982. XTC subsequently turned its back on touring altogether and became, for all intents and purposes, a studio band. The second is Partridge and Moulding’s decision to go on strike against their longtime record label, Virgin. The dispute lasted nearly six years, from 1992 to 1997, a period during which fans heard hardly a note from the band. The impact of the lack of touring and contract dispute on the band’s public profile, though impossible to calculate, cannot have been positive. Not So Vital Facts: Partridge is an avid collector of toy soldiers. His music for Disney’s animated feature James and the Giant Peach was rejected by the studio in favor of Randy Newman’s Oscar-nominated score. Several of Partridge’s compositions for the film, including the delicious “Stinking Rich Song,’ can be heard on Fuzzy Warbles. Where To Start:  Drums and Wires (1979): The band’s first album following the departure of Andrews saw them shedding some of the hyperactivity and frivolity of White Music and Go 2 in favor of a more polished style. The arrival of Gregory also added depth to the band’s sound, even as Moulding and Partridge’s songwriting continued to mature. “Making Plans for Nigel,” the band’s first (and arguably only) true hit, about an overprotected boy of privilege, features big, aggressive percussion and stinging guitar. “Life Begins at the Hop,” another Moulding composition, did not feature on the original UK version of Drums, but was part of the North American release. A pulsating slice of adolescent nostalgia, it is one of the band’s early highlights. Partridge, whose songwriting had yet to reach full bloom, kicks in with a healthy dose of sexual frustration on “When You’re Near Me I Have Difficulty” and “Helicopter”. The macabre “Scissor Man” buzzes along on Gregory’s guitar and Moulding’s throbbing bass.  Black Sea (1980): Maybe the best place to start for XTC neophytes. Like Drums and Wires, Black Sea was produced by Steve Lillywhite and engineered by Hugh Padgham, and the two albums share a taste for big, bold percussion and snaky, skittering guitar. The songwriting has become increasingly topical, as two of Partridge’s favorite themes, labor and poverty, begin to find their way into the music. “Towers of London” reflects on the fate of the countless blue-collar workers responsible for building England’s empire (“Victoria’s gem found in somebody’s hell”), while “Paper and Iron (Notes and Coins)” reflects the middle class strife of the dawning Thatcher era (“Working for paper and iron/Working for the right to keep my tie on”). XTC have never been a particularly “political” band, but a strong social consciousness runs through their music, and we see it here for the first time. You can tell that Moulding and Partridge are beginning to move into new songwriting territory, from “No Language in Our Lungs,” which laments the inadequacy of words to express emotions, through “Travels in Nihilon,” the dark, drizzly, atmospheric beast of a song that closes the album. English Settlement (1981): English Settlement marks a turning point of sorts in the XTC discography. Due to Partridge’s anxiety attacks, the band was to give up touring shortly after the album’s release, but you already get the sense here that the group was moving off into new territory, with increasing folk and jazz influences and unconventional structures finding their way into songs like “Yacht Dance” (with its lovely 12-string guitar), “Jason and the Argonauts” and “Senses Working Overtime.” Partridge, Moulding and Gregory had become a formidable unit, though Terry Chambers, XTC’s longtime drummer, was growing more and more uncomfortable with the direction the band was taking. He would eventually leave for good during production of Mummer in 1983.  Skylarking (1986): Todd Rundgren was enlisted as producer on Skylarking, a decision that Partridge, especially, came to regret – at least initially. A notorious control freak, Partridge found himself butting heads with the equally stubborn Rundgren, who had very clear ideas about what the album’s songs should sound like, and how they should be sequenced. Though Skylarking may have been born in strife, the result is a beautifully rich canvas of pastoral pop music, chock full of ideas and leavened by lush orchestrations and harmonies, with the tracks bleeding gloriously into each other. This is perhaps XTC’s most coherent album from start to finish, from the lazy August day and buzzing bees of Summer’s Cauldron to the pagan-sounding “Sacrificial Bonfire,” one of Moulding’s greatest achievements. Strangely, the song from the Skylarking sessions that had the greatest impact in North America was the single “Dear God,” which did not find its way onto the album. Apple Venus Volume 1 (1999): Finally released from their Virgin contract, Partridge and Moulding found themselves alone with a mountain of songs that had been stored up over a period of years. The two Apple Venus albums were originally envisioned as a double record, a notion that, for artistic as well as financial reasons, was scrapped in favor of two separate releases. Recently the two albums have been brought back together as Apple Box (a 7” Apple Vinyls version is available as well), and it’s well worth the investment to have them together as one. But if you were going to choose one of the two to represent late-period XTC, Volume 1 would have to get the nod. “River of Orchids,” a fantasy of nature run wild in a world choking on its own oil dependence, grows from a barely audible dripping sound into a sweeping orchestral tapestry. The biting “Your Dictionary” is an uncharacteristic, if cathartic bit of bile from Partridge, who, in addition to suffering from health problems, was witnessing the disintegration of his marriage. “The Last Balloon,” reminiscent of Elvis Costello’s “Shipbuilding,” with its closing trumpet solo, strikes a despondent note, reflecting Partridge’s disenchantment with the human race’s seemingly endless capacity to celebrate ugliness. Moulding’s voice has become far less prominent. Both here and on Wasp Star, he focuses on domestic themes. If Moulding seemed the more accomplished songwriter early in the band’s history, it’s Partridge who eventually emerged as the more enterprising and ambitious of the two.Page 1 2 |  |
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