XTC: Rainbow Drops and Finger Pops

"Malking Plans for Nigel" from XTC's 1979 album "Drums and Wires" is one of the defining songs of the new wave era for me, alongside The Police's "Can't Stand Losing You", Split Enz's "I See Red", Squeeze's  "Misadventure" and Joe Jackson's "I'm the Man". These relentlessly up-tempo songs with choppy guitar, catchy choruses, conspicuous keyboards and deliberate quirkiness did much to fuck up my taste in music forever.

Rainbow Drops & Finger Pops - Live at the Rainbow Theatre, London, UK, 1979-09-17 is another lavish XTC bootleg - worth getting just for the packaging alone never mind the kinetic live performance from the band near their peak:





01 Beatown
02 Real By Reel
03 The Rhythm
04 Roads Girdle The Globe
05 Science Friction
06 Life Begins At the Hop
07 Helicopter
08 Battery brides
09 Making Plans For Nigel
10 Scissor Man
11 Instant Tunes
12 Outside World
13 Life Is Good In The Greenhouse
14 Crowded Room
15 Radios In Motion
16 Are You Receiving Me?
17 Set Myself On Fire
18 Meccanik Dancing
19 This Is Pop
20 Dance Band
21 Statue Of Liberty

Love or hate the designation, what are your defining 'new wave' songs? Le us know in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the link for Rainbow Drops and Finger Pops CD).

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XTC: 3D CD (1977)

Your COMMENTS - have demanded more XTC and be ready for the deluge. This offering is one of the more loving bootlegs you'll ever see (check out the promo poster!) and consists of live material and demos from 1977 (and 1978). More to come...



I'm looking forward to this series but of course I'm pretty sure by XTC Fans standards (those who buy muti-volume of Partridge's home demos) I'm a real lightweight. I only own the first five albums on CD, my once substantial XTC vinyl collection got sold years ago and while I've owned Oranges & Lemons and Nonsuch they too were purged plus I once tortured a guy I worked with when he wore his XTC shirt by saying, "Hey, I hear they're coming to town." (now that's just mean, I know). While I do believe that they are one of the very few graduates of the class of '77 who never had a dire period (some may beg to differ), my interest in their newer (i.e. pre-break-up) material has waned. Though, it should be noted, my favourite XTC fan did make me listen to Apple Venus Vol. 1, which I found pleasant if overly long and little too quiet for its own good.)

XTC
3D Compact Disc

Live in Birmingham & Liverpool 1977 + Early Demos, Helium Kidz and Go 2 out-takes

   Live at Rebecca's, Birmingham 17/11/77:
01 Hang Onto the Night
02 Crosswires
03 Let's Have Fun
04 Radios in Motion
05 I'm Bugged
06 New Town Animal in a Furnished Cage
07 Into the Atom Age
08 All Along the Watchtower
09 She's So Square
10 Do What You Do
   Live at Eric's, Liverpool 26/11/77
11 Dance Band
12 Science Friction
13 Neon Shuffle
14 Traffic Light Rock
   Helium Kidz Demos:
15 Yabber Yabber Yabber
16 Neon Shuffle
   XTC Demos:
17 Refridgeration Blues
18 Quicksilver
19 Saturn Boy
   Go 2 out-takes:
20 Cheap Perfume
(21 Things Fall to Bits) officially released on the Coat of many cupboards box set.
22 I Overheard
23 bonus interview: “What do you remember of 1977?”

So what XTC albums do you own? Are you gonna get more? Le us know in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the link for 3D CD).

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XTC: BBC Sessions (Drums and Wireless)

“We would trundle down to the BBC Studios in London with our little amplifiers and, in a day, recreate more-or-less-live versions of four songs. You would play the track, get maybe one overdub and then sing it, so they were basically shoot-from-the-hip versions.”

 Andy Partridge

So I raved about one of my early encounters with XTC (though "Making Plans for Nigel" got strong radio play in Canada) and their ineffably wondrous single "Senses Working Overtime" HERE yesterday. Today, however, I can begin unleashing the out-of-print goodies on Swindon's finest (only?) rock n' roll misfits. . (For more on XTC go HERE.)



Drums and Wireless contains immediate versions of songs from all over the XTC catalog. It includes a variety of sessions from 1979-1989, all mixed up to ensure you can hear the consistency of Partridge and Moulding's song-writing.


Tracklist
1         Opening Speech     0:48    
2         No Thugs In Our House     5:24    
3         Runaways     4:42    
4         You're The Wish (You Are) I Had     3:26    
5         Poor Skeleton Steps Out     3:26    
6         Crosswires     2:10    
7         Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her     4:21    
8         Real By Reel     3:48    
9         Into The Atom Age     2:27    
10         Meccanik Dancing     2:35    
11         Ten Feet Tall     2:55    
12         Scarecrow People     4:11    
13         I'm Bugged     3:34    
14         Dance Band     2:41    
15         Jason And The Argonauts     5:42    
16         One Of The Millions     4:25    
17         Roads Girdle The Globe

Track 6 recorded 20/6/77
First broadcast on the John Peel Show 24/6/77
Tracks 9, 13 and 14 recorded 21/9/77
First broadcast on the John Peel Show 26/9/77
Track 10 recorded 13/11/78
First broadcast on the John Peel Show 23/11/78
Tracks 1, 8, 11 and 17 recorded 8/10/79
First broadcast on the John Peel Show 15/10/79
Tracks 2, 3, and 15 recorded 14/1/82
First broadcast on the David Jensen Show 25/1/82
Tracks 4 and 7 recorded 11/10/84
First broadcast on the Bruno Brookes Show 20/11/84
Tracks 5 and 12 recorded 16/3/89
First broadcast on the Richard Skinner Show 5/4/89
Track 16 recorded 16/3/89
First broadcast on the Andy Kershaw Show 11/6/89

So do you want to hear more rare XTC, MRML readers?  If so, let us know in the COMMENTS section (where you'll find the BBC Radio Sessions link).

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Songs We Can't Forget: XTC's Senses Working Overtime:

The physical impact of this song has never left me, the blow it delivered has left red, raised scars on my psyche that are still tender to the touch to this day.

It's the spring of 1982 and I'm all of twelve years old, sitting on the concrete steps of my junior high school. I'm all alone at this moment but that's okay because amongst the group of older kids a few feet away from me someone has a battery-powered radio. The radio's owner fiddles with the static until the sound of an acoustic guitar being rocket-propelled by a crashing drum and bass begins ricocheting around the concrete overhang before being flung out towards the cool blue sky. The dial fiddling stops. Muttered conversation resumes but I'm all hearing, leaning forward like Matt Murdoch perched on a gargoyle high above Hell's Kitchen.

Weaned as I was on folk music, I tune first into that hard-strummed acoustic, then as a lyric devotee I listen to the explosion of words and images but of course it's the chorus with its persuasive count-in ("And I've got 1-2-3-4-5 - senses working overtime") that leaves me struck dumb. I stay still in my sun-lit corner as the song races from fever pitch to fever pitch - it is a song about a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown - till the the song ends and the DJ says,  "that was the new XTC song, "Senses Working Overtime". I file that information in my brain, not knowing that it will take up residence there and never leave.

I like to think every music fan has such a never-to-be-forgotten moment, whether it came from Duke Ellington, Willie Nelson, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or Radiohead. Hell, if it came to you while listening to Mandy Moore, I say treasure that fucking instant because there's only a too-brief window in a person's life where some piece of music can reach past intellect, experience, fear and social conditioning and just punch your lights out. Believe me when I say that I still hear songs that hit me on a purely visceral level and that music can still be transcendental but moments where the doors of possibilities are battered down and the sun shines enough to warm your face but not enough to burn belong to an earlier, more formative times.

What's your song you can't forget? Tell us about it in the COMMENTS section.

Punching Holes: La Mer (1980)

 
Roberto's Rarities:
An irregular MRML series powered by the wild generosity of our reader, Roberto: Enjoy and don't forget to leave our benefactor a thank-you comment.

After leaving Newcastle scratchy post-punk band Punishment Of Luxury (more HERE), singer Brian Bond formed Punching Holes (with Tim Jones, Norman Emerson and rock music writer Sid Smith who would later write a successful King Crimson biography). Here's their lone single, produced by the late Dave Goodman (more to come...) for the Pinnacle label.




Reactions to this Punilux-related rarity are strongly encouraged and can be left in the COMMENTS section (where the  La Mer 7" link can be found).