I’m a huge fan of XTC. I consider their run of albums from Go2 through The Big Express one of the most impressive runs of albums in rock. I even think Skylarking is a pretty great album, although I don’t wholly embrace its constricted production. However, I was never a fan of Nonsuch. I tried to like it for a few months and finally decided to cast that devil out of the house!
Click here for a fascinating look at a band in the studio at a time when they forgot to change the batteries in their bullshit detector. (Unfortunately, this is one of those YouTube videos that the owner will not allow other sites to embed, so you’ve got to go to his specific URL.)
Does anyone in this studio look uncomfortable with the mess that’s being put down? All that’s missing is a nodding Derek Smalls, stroking his beard nnd pulling on his pipe.
When people tell me they don’t “get” XTC – or think they stink, I figure this must be what they’re hearing. I ask Townspeople who don’t get XTC, Is this what you’re hearing?
XTC, “Cats Fucking”
I know of at least four fans of Nonsuch here: myself, HVB, BigSteve and Alexmagic. Anyone else? I say it’s time we marshal our forces and put a tired RTH talking point out to pasture. Celebrate the prock-pop pleasures of Nonsuch!
I think of “That Wave” as good filler. In the video, it just looks like they’re getting the job done. I was kinda interested to see they let Dave Mattacks air some input into the song structure. I assume most hired hands don’t get that luxury. What, you’re surprised latter-day XTC were studio chin-scratchers? Sorry this footage didn’t contain any hookers, blow, or Guy Stevens jumping off a ladder.
Check your own detector’s batteries, Oats!
Mr. Mod, why the hatred for Nonsuch? It wasn’t a masterpiece but it’s not like it was XTC’s version of Metal Machine Music or anything. There were a few good songs like “Peter Pumpkinhead”, “Rook”, “The Disappointed”, & “Then She Appeared”. It was a much better album than Phobia by the Kinks(I think Oats would agree on that point). Also, what’s your opinion on Oranges & Lemons?
Finally, Dave Mattacks now lives in the North Shore MA area & he goes to the record store I go to here in the Witch City, which is now filled up w/tourists for our yearly Satanic Brigadoon a/k/a the Halloween season.
The album sounded DOA to my ears, Diskojoe. I was already sick of them not having Terry Chambers and moving away from original-sounding rhythm tracks. Then they put out Nonsuch, which had a sludgey, stagnant feel to it, like a cutout album from 1975. I buy my share of sludgey mid-70s cutout albums, but I expected more from XTC.
Although I skip over most of Oranges and Lemons the very rare times I feel like listening to a few songs from that album – and although I can’t stand that album’s overall production – at least it sounds like they were still trying to make a splash, like they had a pulse. Nonsuch sounds like it was made with about as much enthusiasm as this video indicates. I think I liked 2 songs from it, “Then She Appeared” and some “Holly on Poppy” song. Maybe there was one other good one. “Peter Pumpkinhead” goes on 3 minutes too long; I like the first 2 minutes.
I haven’t had a chance to look at the link yet, but that’s a pretty solid Nonsuch running crew there. You sure you want to go against us, Mod?
Oranges & Lemons is the real dud, and the leader in awesome-album-art to disappointing-album-sound ratio in my record collection by far. Holy hell did they ever lie to me with what that album cover promised the album would sound like.
While I do enjoy Nonsuch, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I like it more than Black Sea or Drums and Wires or anything…but I can’t help but think those are the albums that people who don’t “get” XTC don’t get. Nonsuch, whatever you think its faults are, is a lot more accessible to the average listener than the earlier, full-on Partridge ‘angular’ sound.
In the interest of fairness, Nonsuch does have its faults, and some are on Moulding’s shoulders. “Smartest Monkeys” and “War Dance” are crap. I kind of wonder if he didn’t use up everything he had left in the tank with that second batch of Red Curtain songs for Psionic Psunspot.
I think “Nonsuch” is incredibly borrrring. The Moulding songs are pretty crappy this go around. Even O&L had “Mayor of Simpleton” a stone-cold classic. “Peter Pumkinhead” is pale in comparison
I’d add XTC to The Kinks and Elvis Costello as that template of RTH bands I enjoy but am perplexed to the mania surrounding them.
But damn, that video is excruciating. It seems like an outtake from one of those Yes spin-offs. Was John Wetton a full-time member in this era? Maybe I should pare it down to the FOSSIL FUEL double best-of and be done with them, I DO have an impressionable kid in the house.
I quite liked that album and the video is pretty interesting actually…so add me to the list. I remember being in the UK when that album came out and seeing ads for it on bus stops and what-not in London.
Yeah, the video is kinda them just getting it done but it is pretty cool that Mattacks has a word in edge-wise.
Oh, and one more thing (I sound like Columbo…) Talking of production – Oranges & Lemons is very “LA” and all digital sounding, while Nonsuch is “very English”, and I don’t say that based on the covers and where they were recorded…Nonsuch is just very controlled in a “British” way…I’m not really explaining it well but you must know what I mean.
Boy, it just looks uncomfortable to me. I think one of the things about XTC I never could get with was that, while they use melodies and interesting lines more than almost anybody, they seem completely irrelevant to the words, which themselves often feel at odds with the overall sound. He always sounds on the verge of hysteria, something that tires my ears and psyche quickly, and the words that get the heavy emphasis of high notes, volume, and angst are as often as not just some connective phrase or I don’t know what. I thought hearing just him and the guitar made it sound less offensive to me. But if you’re generally going to emote and strain so much for a “pass the salt” workaday lyric, go ahead and pass the lark’s tongues in aspic, or something. “Calm down a’minnit, Gummy Joe, and tell us agin from th’ beginnin’ in yer purty barytone voice.”
Good stuff, Townspeeps. I do feel like I’ve gotten an opportunity to hear through some of your ears.
Mrclean, I know what you mean about the LA vs UK thing. Usually I’m way in favor of the UK approach, but for some reason that production didn’t work for me on Nonsuch.
I’m on Team Nonsuch. More later, but I’d like to start by going on record as saying:
Man, you had to pick *that* turd to damn the entire album. Unfair! It’s a big, sprawling LP, badly in need of an editor, and *that* song is, without doubt, one of the tracks that shoulda/woulda ended up on the studio floor. It’s a needle-lifter, for sure. Tracks that aren’t include:
Humble Daisy
Then She Appeared
Smartest Monkeys
Bungalow (I used to *hate* this track, but now love it)
My Bird Performs
Rook
The Ugly Underneath
Dear Madam Barnum
Wrapped In Gray
My back-of-the-envelope analysis of this record is that it was the end of Andy Partridge’s ability to tell good from bad. There are a bunch of self-indulgent Partridge turds on it, including “That Wave.” And a whole bunch of impeccably crafted smarty-pants songs that are clever and all, but have no soul. The disproportionately high number of Colin numbers on my list are an indicator of how much more “soul” I think Moulding brings to his otherwise slight songs on this record.
HVB
Listen, let me be clear and emphatic on something: “Bungalow” is an *amazing* song. And I seriously used to find it unlistenable. But — man — I swear I hear Colin Moulding singing about something he really cares about in it. It’s about *people*; a crucial counter-balance to Andy’s cerebral, quasi-mathematical, Kentonite/Prock enterprises. I mean, even simple songs like “Peter Pumpkinhead” come across as calculated genre exercises on this album. It may be Andy’s worst, I think.
Hrrundi, my point wasn’t so much to trash the entire album. I’ve done that numerous times, and it’s not that fun anymore. It’s not instructive. My point WAS to ask if there’s any sign that anyone in that studio realized what a turd they were recording. People have said things like, “Well, it just looks like they’re getting down to business.” We’re not talking about business. We’re talking about making music! They weren’t in the studio to record jingles or project manage an advisory board meeting. That’s when getting down to business is enough. Partridge is leading them through an awkward, unpleasant song. Gregory is getting his licks in with little regard to the song. Moulding might as well be browsing an instruction booklet for his new microwave. No one’s making a face or smirk. Where’s are the signs of heartfelt apathy, the kind that’s on display as The Beatles bravely fall apart during Let it Be? Do the members of XTC give any indication that the dream is over for this song?
I hope this clears things up and starts heads nodding in agreement on that specific point of view.
Well, Mod, I think you may have a bit of an over-romanticized notion of what goes on when you spend months putting an album together. And I don’t mean that to sound patronizing; I just mean that there are songs in these enterprises where the band as a whole is unenthusiastic, but does what they have to to keep key personalities happy (enough). I suspect this was one of them.
And, hell, Andy is one of those dudes that folks frequently “put up with” because he really brings a lot to the table. Colin waited an awfully long time to bail on him, but bail he had to.
Incidentally, “Crocodile” is on my list of “Nonsuch” tracks worth keeping, also. Barely, perhaps, but there it is.
HVB
Hrrundi, it’s not a patronizing tone that you should be worried I’m getting from you. It’s your making excuses for a lousy song and a roomful of passive guys who AT THE MOMENT CAPTURED ON VIDEO could have benefitted from even the slightest expression of discontent that I’m getting from you and some others. Let’s focus on this song, this moment captured on videotape, and the status of XTC’s bullshit detector at this time. I’m well aware that a band often needs to work very hard on what ends up a turd, but considering this album was made during the band’s 20-year stretch of bitching about how they’d been screwed over by the record industry and their managers, maybe someone in the band could have taken even a sideways glance in a mirror. As a big fan of the band, I reserve the right to romanticize their best work.
Mr. Mod, you can’t be suggesting that people have to not only be happy but look happy to make good music, because that’s what it sounds like.
Maybe I have an under-romanticized notion of what goes on in a recording studio. As someone who’s watched I Am Trying to Break Your Heart and its outtakes on DVD a number of times, this XTC clip just didn’t really surprise, shock or annoy me.
Incidentally, if anybody wants to hear what the last Dukes of Stratosphear song sounded like, check out “Open a Can Of Human Beans” here. Note that you’ll have to fast-forward to 2:54.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umoQ6OF5WVk
What’s cracking me up here is the idea of bakshi claiming that anybody is using an unfair example, video or otherwise, to back up his points. That’s the essence of the bakshi method… his complaining about it is like Mod complaining when somebody other than him delivers a backhanded compliment. Guys, it ain’t just XTC’s worn chops that are starting to show here.
That said, I’m also kinda surprised that any early followers of XTC are still on board for the band this much later in the game. Seriously: after Skylarking, an album I have mixed feelings about, much like the Mod’s, this is a band that played a few small nifty games and then sank into total irrelevance. Youthful latecomers like Oats can be forgiven a different experience of the band: they’re rediscovering the forgotten. But bakshi ought to understand that we’re now talking about the post-game noodling of a group that, once upon a time, could play in a way that mattered.
Sidebar:
Do you indulge in the always entertaining sport of telling the tourists “You know, the witches actually lived in Salem Village, which is now Danvers. All this is hype”?
Thank you, Mwall, for reframing what I’m trying to get at. Perhaps others will understand and take a stand.
No, BigSteve, in no way do I expect expressions of happiness while XTC works on this tune. It’s more like healthy self-doubt that I’d expect to see, or something beside punching the clock on a song that’s going nowhere. Does anyone even like this song? I remember it being especially bad when I owned the album.
Nonesuch? I agree, 3-4 very good songs, but a boring record overall (although some of these comments make me want to revisit). My little brother gave me an XTC tape with Oranges and Lemons on it to listen on my way back to UGA (from Atlanta, about a one-hour drive) and when I got to the dorm I called him and said “I could not get into this at all” One month later this was my favorite CD (I did go out and buy it) Since then I would say I am nostalgic for O&L but it is not their best (never could stand the production) I love their 1980 – 1984 output. This is a Love ’em or hate ’em band.
“we’re now talking about the post-game noodling of a group that, once upon a time, could play in a way that mattered.”
Sounds like the debate is did they fall apart the moment they became a duo and not a band?
Mwall raises an interesting question: At what point, really, does a band cease tp be relevant, and who ultimately can make that determination? Perhaps I’ll have an answer as soon as I move on from the larva stage:).
I wouldn’t expect to see anything like an honest response when there’s a camera in an artist’s face while he’s trying to work. Seriously, can you imagine how much of a drag that’d be?
I like Nonsuch fine. I don’t think XTC, or any musician really, was ever especially “relevant.”
Jungleland2, I think the beginning of the end is when they lost Terry Chambers, a drummer who was a real band member who could be molded to help create what was a distinctive approach to making records that Partridge led through the band’s most fertile years. Once they started pulling in studio drummers they were content to let the songwriting carry the weight. In my opinion, their songwriting – the lyrics, the melodies, and so forth -was not so strong without the cool, repetitive, pounding arrangements. Take a song like Skylarking‘s “Meeting Place”. Nice tune, lovely sentiment, and all that, but after a while it sounds like nothing more than a “nice” tune. Had that been recorded during the time of Black Sea or English Settlement it might have been framed differently; the pulse might have been brought to the fore. I know that approach wears on some, but for me it was key to why I loved XTC and thought a lot of other ’60s-based pop bands of the ’80s were just “OK.”
Even before Gregory left the band it seems Moulding checked out in all but body. To me, Nonsuch is the sound of Andy Partridge trying to spark up his remaining bandmates and not always succeeding. I think Moulding’s the real dead weight from this point forward.
great 48, all I do is observe the suckers, erm, tourists converge upon downtown until 11/1, when we slip back into our coma. Halloween is on a Friday this year, so after giving candy to the kiddies, I’m barricading myself in the house.
As for XTC, I think that Andy Partridge & Ray Davies share the same problem of needing to be in control & not having the capacity to see the forest for the trees. As much as I like the Kinks, I kind of wish that Ray could have had an outside producer on their post 1971 work, which is not as beloved as the stuff they did w/Shel Talmy. I also think that Andy treated Colin Moulding much the same way that Ray treated Dave, i.e., not that great. XTC’s biggest hits in the UK were written by Colin (“Making Plans For Nigel”) & I feel that Andy could have found more room for his songs.
Thanks for the video tip, HBV. It’s a very good song, although I didn’t care at looking at the slacker dude twirling something around.
I think I’m pretty much in line with what hvb and mrclean have said, particularly in the production “feel” of Nonsuch vs. Oranges & Lemons. The latter, for me, only has two worthwhile songs in Simpleton and The Loving.
I’d rate Crocodile higher than hvb does, as I think that best keeps the energy of the songs he was demoing vs. the slicker, more airtight things that made it onto the album, and I really like the guitar in that. For me, the keepers are Dear Madam Barnum, The Disappointed, Holly Up On Poppy, Crocodile, Then She Appeared, Wrapped In Grey, The Ugly Underneath and Bungalow.
I’d put Peter Pumpkinhead, My Bird Performs, Humble Daisy and Books Are Burning down a notch. The Smartest Monkeys, War Dance and That Wave are duds…That Wave sounds like it should be a short linking piece on a Dukes album, like a palate cleanser after something great like Mole From The Ministry, and if he was going for the creepy, off-kilter sound, he did it infinitely better on Travels In Nihilon or Complicated Game.
HVB, I wonder if your initial distaste for Bungalow was because it comes after That Wave, and the way it starts, it almost sounds like it’s going to be Moulding’s version of the same song, with the phase-y vocals and the ice rink keyboards.
Despite the awful, awful, awful title, “Goodbye Humanosaurus” would have been a good fit on the album somewhere, though I get the feeling he somehow split it in half to get Holly Up On Poppy and Then She Appeared.
So, how do both sides feel about the last two XTC albums?
Alexmagic, I like the first of the last two XTC albums better. In fact, I think that first one is at times pretty strong. At that point, I thought, they did better not worrying so much about drums and rocking out. For the first time in ages I like the Moulding songs, even though it sounds like he walked up to the mic after a 2-week bender.
The last album is OK. It sounds like something by some band in LA that a member of the Chalkhills list might suggest we check out.
jungleland2, you had a way better experience than I did with Oranges and Lemons. I tried, but there’s nothing redeeming in it at all. So far, the Hall has only shown me lesser XTC while they try to decide just when it was that XTC “lost it.” So far, I haven’t seen that they ever really had it, but I haven’t tried too hard.
That video makes ignoring them just that much easier, though.
Does anyone want to remind me why there are such mixed feelings for SKYLARKING? The production style had moved on from their earlier work but I always thought that it was their most solid collection of songs.
I like the import LP packaging, I still remember controlling the impulse to gloat at being the only guy at the college radio station who had it (local musician Rick Henederson was particularly a fan), months before it was available domestically.
The concept of relevance/irrelevance is certainly worth saying more about at some point, and debating, perhaps in another post. For me it usually begins at that point at which a band starts making albums that no longer contribute significantly to the value of their own musical legacy, or at best (which I guess is under discussion here re XTC) are dotting a few final i’s and crossing a few t’s. It tends to correspond, although not always exactly, with that same moment at which any new fans of the band (of which there are likely to be fewer and fewer) tend to “discover” them as something to look back at. If you first heard the Stones in 1988, for instance, you still don’t think that 1988 was “when they were really great.”
Here are some moments like that: Graham Parker after The Real Macaw, The Stones after Tatoo You, REM after… well, what? I’ll be damned if those later albums aren’t so deeply indistinguishable that I’ve never bothered to tell them apart.
I found jungleland’s Georgia/Oranges & Lemons story interesting. The last time I was in Atlanta, about three years ago, I grabbed that album more or less at random as I left for the visit, and it became my soundtrack for driving around town. It sounded GREAT, much better than I had remembered. Maybe the mix is just somehow attuned to being listened to on a reasonably good mobile stereo in a small Japananese car while driving in a large Sunbelt city.
As I tried to express earlier, db, I like most of the songs on Skylarking just fine, but it’s the first XTC album that leaves out much of the band’s slightly discordant, repetitive side. All the “wrong” stuff is polished off, probably thanks to Rundgren. As a result, it strikes me as not much different than something Jellyfish or World Party could have done. It makes me think of all the dudes who’ve shoved Left Banke albums down my throat. I like that kind of ’60s pop enough, but it has no edge.
FWIW I’m listening to Nonsuch now in iTunes and the top three playcount songs are:
My Bird Performs
That Wave
Then she Appeared