I am unfamiliar. I must presume that this is Extreme Terracotta. Thus I must also presume this is some sort of Japanese game show, Strange business.

Won't try to convert anyone in earnest, but among their LPs, Oranges and Lemons doesn't seem to get enough love.

Am quite fond of its overall production aesthetic as it's one of those albums, like Eno and Cale's Wrong Way Up, that you don't hear anymore. Or at least I don't.

Hard to articulate, but it's as if there was this period of transition, in the late eighties and early nineties, wherein bands with arty leanings and lots of chops/ideas, and maybe some new gadgets, were making these colorful anomalous records that were cutting edge somewhat but would soon be eclipsed by more "fashionable"/trendy/loud/marketable music, and maybe in the context of their larger careers these albums would get overshadowed by records made before or since. But in the harsh light of 2021, they sound inviting. Ages ago, a friend of mine sent me the track "Heavenly Clean" by John Came, and though stylistically different in a lot of ways, it's vaguely in line with that sound. Sort of...user friendly/pristine/colorful quasi-utopian sounding music with arty leanings but not too proggy/excessive, or weighed down with thematic baggage. Can't quite explain it, if it was indeed a "thing" for a while, that could be said to belong to a specific era.

The live on the BBC collection is really cool. The songs from White Music sound especially visceral.

Too busy to fetch it, but there's a stellar video of XTC playing live in Paris and they seem to have had more fire live than some of the more polished recordings might let on. See also, Old Grey Whistle Test. The band had it down.

The whole concert that 'Respectable Street' was pulled from for Urg, A Music War can be found on YT. It's basically a greatest hits setlist of that D&W-English Settlement era with the band in peak live form.

A friend's dad was a very close, life-long friend of AP. It was pretty clear that Partridge has challenges that most of us don't in terms of how he deals with the world. He also is a brilliant, unique writer.

Plus (like Rick Davies and me) they come from Swindon.

NOT CRAP.

I like The Dukes of Stratosphear.

Kniferide wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 4:01 pm I like The Dukes of Stratosphear.

Was gonna mention them too.

Love almost everything up through Apple Venus 1, which is a brilliant record. Volume 2 not so much. Not crap.

I'm only familiar with a couple of singles, but that Nigel song alone makes me vote Not Crap.

DaveA wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 10:58 pm Too busy to fetch it, but there's a stellar video of XTC playing live in Paris and they seem to have had more fire live than some of the more polished recordings might let on. See also, Old Grey Whistle Test. The band had it down.

Here it is:


Everything you said is 100% true. I've watched this set so many times now, particularly when they do "Are You Receiving Me?". The original studio version, which I heard from the Go 2 CD that has it inserted into the middle of the record between the two sides, it's OK, sounds a little stiff and slow and Barry Andrew's synths are cheesy and unnecessary. The version they do here, much more sped up, more impassioned vocal delivery from Andy, with the new guy Dave Gregory on second guitar and no synths at all, HOLY CRAP. So much fucking better than the original, no contest man. I'm gonna rip the audio from the vid so that I can listen to the live one instead when I put on Go 2.