XTC - The Big Express

By the time XTC’s The Big Express was released, I was already a fan, chomping at the bit to absorb all of their catalog to see if it was as good as Black Sea or English Settlement. The trouble was, their records were not always available in my neck of the woods, so a rare visit to a Tower Records presented me with a chance to get The Big Express (albeit on a pricey Virgin import) as well as score a cheap cut-out of the band’s second release, Go 2.

It would take me all of the way back to Iowa to listen to it-cd players still weren’t readily available-and it would take me even longer to get used to the record’s polished production and the fact that drummer Terry Chambers had left the fold and was replaced by a dude who didn’t even get membership privileges.

Not that the album proceeding this one was a drum pounding effort (which may explain why Chambers left) but The Big Express was being billed as a return to form and a polar opposite of the soft arrangements that wrecked Mummer.

Sonically, The Big Express is a harder album that its predecessor, but not in the drums and wires way of XTC of old. While the arrangements may be a tad heavier-and heavy handed in some cases-this is still a record of enormous pop zeal and quirky arrangements just like in years past.

The album title and a few tracks suggest an almost steampunk approach to the lyrical content, with references to trains, industrial centers, and blue collar dreaming. What it doesn’t hint at are the nearly embarrassing references to the cold war and the continuous fear of nuclear annihilation. It’s here that Andy Partridge gets a bit preachy, claiming concern for the kids while lambasting the parents for not doing enough to change the course of nuclear proliferation.

In “This World Over,” he tells the story about a father taking the kids on a hike of London’s rubble-supposedly the result of war-and fielding questions about “What was London like?”

In “Reign Of Blows,” he states that “Joe Stalin looks just like Uncle Sam,” never mind the chord progression sounds like a Rolling Stones outtake, complete with some pretty tepid harmonica work.

When he lays off the preachy politics, Partridge scores easily. On the tremendous. “You’re The Wish You Are I Had” he recalls XTC’s wonderful sense of playfulness within the melodies. Andy must have worked himself into hyperventilation spitting out the steam engine tempo of the closer “Train Running Low On Soul Coal,” furthering the tradition of the band’s tradition of ending things on a strong note.

Guitarist Dave Gregory and Colin Moulding are critical in keeping The Big Express from running off the rails thanks to some top notch performances, including three positively great tunes from Moulding. While Partridge make consistently produce some of XTC’s best closing moments, Moulding shines with his opener “Wake Up” and he displays talent beyond his own pop upbringings with the jazzy “I Remember The Sun,” complete with stand up bass and Gregory’s fretwork.

While certainly not one of the band’s required listening efforts, The Big Express does point the ship in the right direction once again, paving the way for even more rewarding records in their impressive catalog. 

Jen Oliver - I Say Love EP

Visit Jen Olive’s website at the moment and you’ll see it’s “under construction.” Behind the announcement, visitors will see a variety of spinning mushrooms with the occasional UFO spinning into view.

You can forgive her site’s maintenance schedule, as Olive’s been busy working on what counts: the music. And during that creative period, she’s picked up the attention, support, and record label of one Andy Partridge.

The former XTC frontman sees something in Olive, and it’s not hard to understand why. She approaches the pop dynamic with a very angular approach, molding fingerpicked acoustic patterns with off-kilter vocals and ever-changing time signatures.

I Say Love is a six-song Polaroid of Olive’s idiosyncratic approach, kicking things off right out of the gate with the awesome 5/4 time title track that weaves its infectious arrangements into the repeat button in your head.

Surprisingly, the Partridge arrangements are restrained, bringing a sense of minimalistic folk within the song blueprint. And as quickly as you’re comfortable with this approach, Olive starts fucking it over with a different key, a new tempo, or a captured loop that makes the whole thing change direction.

She’s not at the point where we can place Olive on the same level as her left-of-center influences, but in the hands of mentor/supporter Partridge and her own penchant for lysergic daydreams, she’ll rise to the occasion in no time.

Happy Birthday, Andy Partridge

Look who's 55 today: Andy "Stagefright" Partridge, the elusively reclusive frontman for XTC that spends way too much time playing with toy trains instead of doing something more important: like making fucking records.
There are numerous examples of Partridge acting like an asshole (the conflict with Todd Rundgren during Skylarking, guitarist Dave Gregory leaving, initiating a "strike" against Virgin records) but even more examples of this asshole putting out some pretty awesome music.
Undoubtly one of my favorite bands of all time, XTC put together a string of albums that I would consider to be vital additions to anyone's record collection.

Monstrance - Monstrance

For those of you who thought that Andy Partridge had simply gone the route of “closet cleaning” with the release of last year’s vast Fuzzy Warbles: Collector’s Album box set, his latest project wants to assure you that he isn’t ready to reside on the merits of his history just yet.
Monstrance finds Andy partnering up with Shriekback members Barry Andrews and Martyn Barker for a two-disc exercise in improvisational exchange. Andrews, you might recall, was a member of the original XTC line-up before leaving to form Shriekback, but be warned: Monstrance sounds nothing like either of those bands.
So what does it sound like? Pretty much what you’d expect from an album with liner notes that read “There was no rehearsal or discussion about key, tempo or feel and no overdubbing. It just came out this way.”
Before you’ve completely written off this project, consider who’s in the mix here and remind yourself that a lot of your favorite bands perform this exact same experiment every time they begin feeling around for new material. Hell, The Church have a released a couple albums of nothing but their improvisational rehearsals and The Grateful Dead performed nightly explorations under the “Drums/Space” title, live in front of thousands of fans. Of course most of them were baked…so ok…bad example there.
I guess what I’m asking you to do is to admire the cahunas that it takes to consider releasing a project like this; either Andrews/Barker/Partridge are enormously talented and the recording reflects this or they’re extremely pretentious to think that fans would want to hear ninety minutes of them (essentially) dicking around the studio.
I used the Church/Dead analogies purposefully, as Monstrance sounds similar to both the Aussie’s Bastard Universe limited edition disc and the live Dead’s “time to spark a joint” psychedelic forays.
Each disc starts with some fairly worthless directions before, occasionally, a groove, a pattern or an intriguing phrase finally takes root. Clearly, a double disc of this type of thing is unwarranted; there’s several minutes of head-scratching that can be found throughout the record as the musicians seems to be waiting for someone else to take the lead and burn a path towards something concrete to build upon.
I certainly don’t want to discourage Partridge from working with Andrews again, particularly since Colin Moulding seems to have retired from music, thereby retiring the XTC moniker in the process. But then again, I don’t feel inclined to support a project that is better served to remain in the vaults or used as a starting point for something more linear.
Besides, I think that fans deserve a little more effort from Partridge as of late; we’ve spend a few years now shelling out for his unreleased material and endless Apple Venus editions. So isn’t it time for him to buckle down and provide us something tangible?
Monstrance is merely Partridge back-filling his recent house cleaning with some additional clutter that should have stayed in the closet.

This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise

XTC & Everclear

I firmly believe that Andy Partridge is one of rock’s elite statesmen. The type of dude that’s a genius, yet you wonder why he isn’t filthy rich or, at least fully compensated for everything because he’s a national treasure.
He unfortunately isn’t, but his sporadic output over the past few decades and decidedly uncommercial projects seems to point to a lifestyle that’s comfortable and undemanding. And as long as he can muster up the next rewarding material, I’m cool with whatever life has afforded him.
In high school, one my summer rituals was to participate in the drama program’s summer musical. It was a great way to meet girls and interact with some interesting people. I think it says something about a person’s character if they’re willing to stand up and humiliate themselves onstage in front of an audience. These are the people you want in the trenches with you when the shit goes down.
One of the guys that I met was inexplicably transplanted from Louisiana for the summer, and even more inexplicably, managed to negotiate his way into the summer musical program. He was semi-privileged and carried an air of college town swagger with him.
He also carried a pretty decent record collection and he would bring examples of it to the dressing rooms of our town’s lone performance theatre, The Grand. He shared the local’s occasional tastes of left-of-center material, tolerated our affection of pop-metal favorites, and seamless transitioned into our regular pothead drama troupe.
He went on and on about two records: Ultravox Vienna and XTC’s Black Sea. I never really got the appeal of the Ultravox album, but man oh man, did I absolutely love Black Sea. Still do; drop whatever your doing and buy it right now. It’s full of awesomely smart pop rock with killer drum sounds and punchy fucking geetars.
And Black Sea, as I later discovered, wasn’t even Andy Partridge’s first example of brilliance.
There were other examples of it though (English Settlement, Skylarking, and the Dukes of Stratosphere sideproject) and even more examples of near-brilliance (Oranges & Lemons, Apple Venus, Nonesuch, Go 2), but there’s a tremendous segment of well-minded rock fans who have little reference of Andy’s output of three decades.
So, you understand, I’m indebted to that kid from Louisiana, who mysteriously left for college after the summer and never maintained contact with any of us when he left. A good explanation for his silent departure: the last time I saw him was during the cast party after the last performance of the drama department’s production of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. He made some cool party invitations that quoted A Clockwork Orange and he threw in some bucks to get a keg for the event. We had it at my best friend’s place; he had a pool, so the idea was to get the chicks loosey-goosey and into their bathing suits. From what I learned, those kids in Louisiana don’t drink like we did in Iowa. Before Midnight, he was missing, only to be found alone in a darken bathroom, silently passed out on the floor. He had also vomited all over himself and the bathroom, Vomit streaked down the walls, which also showed evidence of damage as he’d ripped down all the towel racks before blacking out.
As we lifted his drunken body and attempted to take him outside, our grip on him would slip from the slick vomit that covered his arms. We managed to get him into a wheelbarrow that we found in the garage. From there, we wheeled him next to a garden hose and cleaned him up with some cold tap water. He thrashed a bit, yet remained incoherent. We then found his car, drove him to his parents house, parked the car in the garage and left him there to suffer the consequences with his parents in the morning.
I remember thinking that his status within our little group had diminished because of the babysitting he put us through. And, I remember mentioning to him on several occasions to take it easy on the Everclear-fueled punch that we had concocted for the ladies.
But now I’m thinking that all the hassles encountered from mystery Delta boy’s drunken shenanigans were all worth it. I mean, fuck, the dude introduced me to the genius of Andy Partridge.Plus, it gave "Respectable Street" an familiar relevance.
Andy Partridge was born on November 10, 1953.
Photo by Dan Fellini