XTC - Respectable Street - LIVE! [Transistor Blast] | jt1674

 start your Sunday with a nice quiet ditty? . . . . . TURN IT RIGHT UP!

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/815493671798620160/xtc-respectable-street

The Dukes of Stratosphear - You’re My Drug : Psonic Psunspot | jt1674

 Monday zest! with XTC re-incarnation Dukes of Stratosphear

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/780634774334324736/the-dukes-of-stratosphear-youre-my-drug

XTC- Burning With Optimism’s Flame (live) [Transistor Blast] | jt1674

 

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/780260303974875136/xtc-burning-with-optimisms-flames

XTC - Paradiso - Amsterdam Netherlands 1982 FLOPPY BOOT STOMP

XTC - Paradiso, NL 1982 - Soundcheck

A SILENT WAY SPECIAL

The Boss says: 

XTC - Paradiso
Amsterdam, NL.
1982-03-08

Taped & transferred by:
Hans Devente aka 'The Mad Taper'

Known info:
'RECORDED WITH MY SONY STEREO, FROM ATOP THE MIXING DESK
THE FIRST PART IS THE ENCORES, in ORIGINAL TAPE 23 CONCERT
THE SECOND PART IS THE SOUNDCHECK, BEFORE THE SHOW'
XTC31

 

Terry Chambers - Drums
Dave Gregory - Guitar, keys
Colin Moulding - Bass guitar, vocals
Andy Partridge - Vocals, guitar

Play Time - 00:36:48

Yacht Dance Tease + Mic/Instrument Test/
Senses Working Overtime#
- Adjustment -
Melt the Guns/^
Runaways/%
- Adjustment -
Outside World%
- Milling About -
All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)#
Making Plans for Nigel > Adjustment#
No Language in Our Lungs#
It's Nearly Africa/^


Notes
- Again, thanks to Hans Devente for transferring and sharing these XTC gems!

- This soundcheck is quite a bit different than the previous one from their
  appearance in Apeldoorn, NL, which has also been circulated. This soundcheck
  sees far fewer songs performed, and only a few performed in their entirety.
  Perhaps this is more of a remark on their maturation as a band. This sound-
  check focusses less of being certain they know how to play their tracks  and
  more on making sure things sound the way they want them to and a general warmup.-

- This soundcheck is now the only known source of 'It's Nearly Africa' performed
  in a live setting. Unfortunately, it's and incomplete performance and Andy only
  sings the first verse. On the other hand, it's very cool to hear the guys play
  this song. Having heard it here, I'd bet this would've made its way into the
  set had XTC stayed a touring band for a little while longer.-

XTC - 'It's Nearly Africa' - Live Soundcheck 1982-03-08

XTC - PARADISO SOUNDCHECK 1982 here . . .

XTC - Ball & Chain + Jason & The Argonauts "Live" (Oxford Road Show) 5/02/1982

XTC - Life Is Good In The Greenhouse | jt1674

 

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/776655374415790080/xtc-life-is-good-in-the-greenhouse

Pin back your Ear Holes and get with some Dukes Of Stratosphear! What In The World?

 XTC by any other name

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/770598073642745856/the-dukes-of-stratosphear-what-in-the-world

XTC- I Can’t Own Her [Apple Venus]

 XTC - I CAN’T OWN HER (Apple Venus)

#xtc#andy partridge#apple venus#i can't own her

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/768668984932450304/xtc-i-cant-own-her

Dukes of Stratosphear (contd.) Psonic Psunspot |Twilightzone

The Dukes Of Stratosphear "Psonic Psunspot" 1985

"On Psonic Psunspot the Dukes took it a little bit further. They tell stories about Jackie that disappeared, many open questions, no Answers, and everything in colourful pictures of the 60s. (...) ... also a musical discovery even today." (Good Times, February / March 2020)

What can follow a masterpiece like Skylarking? Well, at a distance, the answer would be two albums that were just as good: Oranges & Lemons and Nonsuch. But in the wake of Skylarking, an album that developed very slowly from a commercial point of view and culminated many months after the original release, XTC retreated to their alter egos, not as masked criminal street fighters in the main streets of Swindon, but as psychobilly followers who echoed the spirit of 67 with Psonic Psunspot, with 10 perfectly formed songs, culminating in "Pale and Precious", one of the best songs of the decade. - jpc

Performer: E.I.E.I. Owen, Lord Cornelius Plum, Sir John Johns, The Red Curtain (you know who they are!?)

01 Vanishing Girl 

02 Have You Seen Jackie? 

03 Little Lighthouse 

04 You're Good Man Albert Brown (curse you red barrel) 

05 Collideascope 

06 You're My Drug 

07 Shiny Cage 

08 Braniacs Daughter 

09 The Affiliadet 

10 Pale And Precious

XTC | THE DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR “25 O’Clock” 1985 | TWILIGHTZONE

The Dukes Of Stratosphear "25 o'Clock" 1985

“When I was a kid I wanted to be in a group, and that group are The Dukes.” 

- Andy Partridge, Swindon. December 1987.

If you are a fan of psychedelic rock then this album is a must have. A very rare find on record, it is worth every second of your time to obtain a copy. I picked up this album sifting through a stack of LP's in an auto bodyshop. Having never heard of the Dukes of Stratosphere and feeling skeptical of the 1985 release date, I finally decided that it was worth the 50 cents to buy out of pure intrigue. (Not to mention the fantastic album art.) So I took it home and gave it a spin. After 30 seconds I was blown away. Opening with the title track,"25 O'Clock", the album blasts off immediately and takes you back to 1967. "Love Explosion" and "Mole from the Ministry" are two more of the six far-out tracks on this oddity of an album. Influenced strongly by late Beatles and very early Pink Floyd, XTC wrote the best music of their careers under the top secret alias, Dukes of Stratosphere. If only more musicians droped acid instead of blowing all of that coke in the 80's; then maybe we wouldn't have all of these Yuppies running about today.
These is a real fun album doing a good impression of psychadelia in rocky/poppy late 1980's sort of way. It is actually XTC behind this. I had it on tape when it came out because I was a huge XTC fan. It was actually a really nice surprise because it is very different from XTC's normal output at the time - which was good too. C McGuigan

Dukes:
Sir John Johns (Andy Partridge), Red Curtain (Colin Moulding), Lord Cornelius Plum (David Gregory), and E.I.E.I. Owen (Ian Gregory).

Twilight Zone

XTC - BLAME THE WEATHER | Le Ramasseur De Mégots

Blame The Weather

Le Ramasseur De Mégots

Left off English Settlement for reasons best known to someone else there is this B-side to Senses Working Overtime 1982

1. Single version, 3'37.
   Produced by Hugh Padgham and XTC.
   Engineered by Hugh Padgham.
   Recorded during sessions for English Settlement.
   Released in January 1982 as a B-side of the Senses Working Overtime 7" single in the U.K.
   Also released as a promotional single with copies of Trouser Press magazine, April 1982, in the U.S.A.
   Also available on Rag & Bone Buffet.

   Andy: “From English Settlement.”

when your love's flown out the window    and the
pain comes through the door    once again you've
missed the boat and you're stranded on the shore,
And you find out that what you had     was never
yours at all,   friends and lovers that you knew
so well     will never take your calls
So.......  you blame the weather, oh-oh,   blame
the weather, oh-oh,     blame the weather, oh-oh
can't you see you're in your prime,       you're
turning creases into lines.
If you play the game you've got to be   prepared
to take a knock,        you get put down so many
times     but you keep on getting up,     so put
your tears away and don't forget        to worry
is a crime,     nothing bears thinking about too
much,   you'll be old before your time
so -...    you blame the weather, oh-oh,   blame
the weather, oh-oh,     blame the weather, oh-oh
can't you see you're in your prime,       you're
turning creases into lines.
the pool of tears you left to drown in   (dry up,
dry up)   the helping hands that never came (dry
up, dry up)    the years you lost out to another
all went up in flames
so ....    you blame the weather, oh-oh,   blame
the weather, oh-oh,     blame the weather, oh-oh
can't you see you're in your prime,       you're
turning creases into lines.

           composed by c. moulding

The Dukes of Stratosphear - 25 o’clock | URBANASPIRINES

The Dukes of Stratosphear - 25 o’clock | URBANASPIRINES

The Dukes of Stratosphear were an English rock band formed in 1984 by Andy Partridge, Colin 

Moulding, Dave Gregory, and Ian Gregory. Modelled after psychedelic pop groups from the 1960s, the Dukes were initially publicised by Virgin Records as a mysterious new act, but were actually an XTC spin-off band. They recorded only two albums: 25 O'Clock (1985) and Psonic Psunspot (1987). In the UK, the records outsold XTC's then-current albums The Big Express (1984) and Skylarking (1986).

Single of The Day :: Colin Moulding ‘The Hardest Battle'

Colin Moulding - The Hardest Battle (2021)

"It’s Colin Moulding’s birthday today (mine too) so I thought I’d see what he’d been up to in the last few years. Turns out that he’s recorded a fine EP a few years back. The evidence also suggests that he’s in much better place than his XTC bandmate Andy Partridge, who seemed very bitter in the interview I read recently.” Guess I’m Dumb

Strange little bird sing your own fair song

thanks as ever for the suggestion Guess I’m Dumb

Single of The Day : Start your week by lying on the ‘GRASS' - XTC :: (Colin Moulding) - SKYLARKING

 More XTC singles and accompanying videos . . . . I don’t recall this one being released as a single but the album is right up there in my top ten and top 3 of the XTC oeuvre second only to English Settlement maybe or, well its hard, they go in rotation . . . . look out for the skylark too they are nearly extinct now . . . . . .beautiful late Spring day here

YouTube notes say:

Skylarking is the fourth and perhaps most anticipated release in a series of expanded XTC album reissues, including 5.1 Surround mixes, new stereo mixes and High-Resolution stereo mixes by Steven Wilson, along with a wealth of extra audio and visual material. For more info and order please follow this link :

https://www.burningshed.com/store/ape...

  XTC

GO 2

Now I have said before what a fan of XTC I was (still the loudest band I ever heard at a theatre here in Oxford) and one of the albums that struck me at the time was the brilliant GO 2 album and not least because it was clever and eye-catching in it's ground breaking cover art (Hipgnosis)

I think it is so clever and the first self referential meta-language text for an album I have ever found and it impressed me so much at the time. Finding it again now it was a source of great pleasure and still makes me smile . . . . .I think I bought everything they did as a band and tried to keep up with their off shoot projects, (Dukes of Stratosphear etc) solo antics and so on. I still greatly admire Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding's creativity and for what it's worth I still consider Terry Chambers amongst the very best of drummers and he regularly would feature in ky top ten pop drummers of all time. Andy & Colin possibly as among my favourite pop writers  . . . . . . . Oh we go!

 

This is a video of the Song Battery Brides (Andy Paints Brian) the second track on the album GO 2 by XTC

This is a video of the Song Jumping in Gomorrah the ninth track on the album GO 2 by XTC

This is a video of the Song Meccanik Dancing the first track on the album GO 2 by XTC

This is a video of the Song Are You Receiving Me? by XTC this is not on the album GO 2 by XTC but is a single to try to get a single song in the charts for pop sales. I bought this and others when they came out from my local record store.