Brittania Ruled the Rails

I can't embed this... but if you've ever wanted a tour of Swindon from Andy Partridge, click here now.

You're welcome!


But at least I can embed these:

Two More Christmas Favorites

Because It's Just Not Christmas Without Them

John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" and Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" are among my favorite Christmas songs ever.

Also in my top 5 Christmas songs are:



and:



I've never quite been sure what to put in the 5th slot. Maybe that song by the Pogues. Or the Squeeze Christmas song. Or "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses. Or "All I Want for Christmas (Is World Peace)" by Timbuk 3.

Whatever's on your list, here's wishing you a fantastic Christmas (or whatever holiday or non-holiday you celebrate) and an even better 2013.

Busy Banging Out a Headache on the Kitchen Door

And All the While Graham Dreamed On...

Who couldn't use a little XTC for a Monday morning?

Boom Goes My Heart

Talk amongst yourselves.

Under Mats of Flower Lava

Kids are going back to school already.

Long before Labor Day.

In the time of year when we would have tried to squeeze a few last adventures from the waning days of summer.

In the time of year when we would have cursed the "back to school" flyers that started to appear -- seemingly earlier and earlier every year.

Wanting those long days of warmth. The sound of friends laughing. Everything on the move.

The knowledge that it was ending adding an urgency to whatever we did.

And the certainty -- which we'd later recognize as a lie -- that we'd always have the chance to do it all again the next summer.


None of this seems right.

But I can't do anything about it.

All I can offer you is this:

All The Way Through History

Man Machine No Mystery

I wish I'd made this up:

Tween #1: I like that band XTC. My dad listens to them.

Tween #2: When were they popular? The 90s? The 80s?

Tween #1: I dunno. Sometime before we were born.

Tween #2: Yeah. They had that big green record with the horse, right?

Tween #1:I think so. Hey wasn't that the first album that used an electric guitar?

Tween #2: Must have been.



I fear for the future.

To a Distant Constellation

Storms inside your head can amplify the plight...

The windstorm whispers through the trees: "You'll be there. You'll be there soon."

I dream of neighborhoods in a city I've never lived in. A city I've spent about three weeks in -- spread out over 15 years.

Its tortured curving streets appear to me sometimes at night. And the animals who wander the backyards find their way into my dreams.

When did the details of this city cross over into my dreams?

And why do the animals look up at me and not run away?

In another dream, I'm on the patio. Looking down on the city. Watching the sun set.

I said something then. This was a real conversation.

But what I said has faded in time. Faded with the fabric covering the furniture in that backyard, which has now seen hundreds of additional sunsets.

All that remains of that conversation is the memory of the feelings. Still awake, still alive.

Interrupted by dream-like visions of the other city, the city I have never lived in.

And the animals who wander the backyards of my memory, crossing over from the real city.

Now the wind has died down. Now the rain has stopped.

And I stare at the clouds, which seem like they belong in that other city.

I see an animal cross the street -- but it's not an animal from here. It's an animal from that other city.

The clouds say nothing, give me no clue.

As the animal that shouldn't be here darts out of sight, I wonder what else has crossed over in the moment when worlds and cities briefly overlap, overlay, and open themselves to my heart.

Beyond Barbecue

Originally published last year...

It's easy to forget the reasons for holidays.

Beyond the three-day weekends. Beyond burgers and barbecues. Beyond the unofficial start of summer and the promise of longer days and the freedom of warmer weather and school being out.

Memorial Day is about something else. It's a chance to remember and honor sacrifice.

I didn't understand that as a kid; probably no kids really do.

But the past several years, I've been rediscovering the real meaning of holidays like Memorial Day and Labor Day (which bookend summers in the U.S.).

Which brings me to what inexplicably is my favorite XTC song. (Which is far from their catchiest song or their best-known song or even their best-written song.)

The first time I heard this, it resonated with something deep inside me. The evocation that happens with the best music? Some kind of trapped intergenerational memory of another lifetime? I don't know.

But I knew the first time I heard this that it was profoundly meaningful to me. So on Memorial Day, there's only one song I want to hear:

Frost on the Rigging

Hurry and See

The slow-motion movement of the first rays of dawn.

Cold, withering glances on the streets.

Hurrying along sidewalks dusted with snow, slippery beneath.

The bundled-up masses moving past me. Everyone filled with purpose, needing to be somewhere.

And I have somewhere to be, too.

But I'm not there. And as the sun moves slowly up into the sky, melting icicles on the side of the building, I stop and watch the slow, slow dripping.

Wondering how it can become a torrent... and whether that will happen anytime soon.

Royal Wedding

We Mean It, Maaaaaaaaaaaaan

An otherwise reasonably sane friend called me up and announced she was going to stay up all night watching the Royal Wedding.

"I was a tomboy," she explained. "I never went through the princess phase."

"And now you have to make up for it at 2 in the morning?"

She shrugged. "It's not something I really understand. It's just something I want to do."



"But you're not English," I said. "You're not even Canadian."

"No. But I've been to London. Once."



"But we're American. We don't believe in royalty. We rejected that hundreds of years ago."

"Sure," she said. "But I can still dream."

"Not if you're awake at 2 in the morning."

And she smiled. Indulgently. "It's not a guy thing. You wouldn't understand."

So that's why she'll be at home overnight hosting a party of 11 women (most of whom are reasonably sane), watching an absurd event half a world away... while I'm dreaming of rock 'n' roll.

XTC Demos

Just a few songs for a Monday morning:

Craigslist Ads and the New Wave Songs That Love Them #7

Boombox Babies

Out on Melrose, Last Saturday

Hey, guy with the giant 70s boombox on your shoulder!

It's me, the girl in the ironic 70s denim overall dress.

Your haircut and b.o. would normally be off-putting, but I'm mad at my parents and need to bring a guy to dinner who'll make my current bass-player boyfriend look good.

Wanna save yourself 6 D-cell batteries, get some free food and help a girl out this Friday?

I'm Changed In the Dark

Before they were the best band in the world, XTC was a jumpy punk band

The first time I saw her, she was leaning against a wall, singing.

Well, not really singing. More like chanting. With a hint of melody that disappeared if you listened hard enough.

And it was a song that sounded familiar. But at the same time I knew I'd never heard it before:

There's a hole at the bottom of my brain
At the bottom of my heart
At the bottom of the sea
That's right!

The second time I saw her, she was leaning against a wall, humming.

The same song. Except when it got to the end and she'd say very softly "That's right."

The third time I saw her was at a party. She was leaning against the keg.

I went up to her and said hi.

She looked at me and said "You know why Chinese kids don't like skateboards?"

I didn't.

But she did. Or at least she had a theory. Which unfolded over the course of 27 minutes, during which time she probably only inhaled 2 or 3 times.

It was something to do with Mao and ballbearings. And the chemical composition of rice.

And I listened. Because she was pretty. And because she was different. And because I suddenly got sucked into her monologue and desperately needed to know why Chinese kids don't like skateboards.

When she was done, she smiled and looked at me like she'd just noticed I was there.

"That's interesting," I said. Not because it was interesting (or even comprehensible), but because she had a nose ring that reflected light in a mesmerizing way and when she'd jerk her head to the left and right it would shine into my eyes just long enough to distract me from thoughts of what she'd looked like naked.

"There's a hole in the bottom of the ocean," she said, leaning over to whisper in my ear. "NASA put it in there, so they'd have someplace to bury all the rockets. Didn't you ever wonder what happens to the rockets that fall to Earth? They had to go somewhere, so they dug a hole in the ocean. But now they can't plug it up because they aren't sending up enough rockets, so the oceans are slowly draining into the center of the Earth."

Her exploration of this topic lasted 32 minutes. I nodded 163 times.

She yawned, took a pill from her pocket and drank it with a swig of beer.

"If I have a baby," she announced, "it won't be born in a hospital. Because the hospitals drill holes in the bottom of babies' brains and insert a tiny chip. It doesn't do anything yet, but one day someone in Montana will flip a switch and the chip will activate. Only it won't be babies anymore, it'll be grown-ups, an army of grown-ups following the commands of that guy. In North Dakota."

"You mean Montana?" I asked.

She leaned into me again. "They want you to think it's Montana. They're very clever that way. You'll spend all your time looking in Montana and won't ever suspect they packed everything up and moved it to Fargo."

10 minutes into that conversation I started to back away. The nose ring no longer reflected light in my eyes. I realized her legs were too thin. And I knew that no matter how naked she got, she'd never stop talking.

Jumpy, nervy, disjointed, disconnected talking.

This wasn't drug-taking as a way of opening the "Doors of Perception." It wasn't the cool, trippy, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" drug-taking.

This was a rambling, incoherent, paranoid schizophrenic, speed-freak marathon, drug-taking. (And I don't mean that in a good way.)

And when she stopped, I said "Nice talking to you," even though it wasn't. Even though I'd hardly done any talking.

And she started to chant, wanting to sing:

There's a hole at the bottom of my brain
At the bottom of my heart
At the bottom of the sea...

So before I turned away, I smiled a sad smile for her.

And said "That's right!"

A Lot Like You and An Awful Lot Like Me

The Strike No One Knew About

After 15 years of a bad deal with Virgin Records (which the band didn't renegotiate when they had songs on the charts), XTC delivered Nonsuch in 1991.

The album was gorgeous -- combining their love of lush, nearly orchestral pop with catchy hook-driven rock songs. Like Mummer, it was reflective. Like Oranges and Lemons it had twitchy psychedelic songs. Like Skylarking, it had dense, sweet moments. And like every album they ever made, it had lyrics that would melt the heart of English Majors all over America.

Fans loved it. Critics compared it to Revolver and Pet Sounds.

And the album even had a few great videos -- like this one (which I literally saw for the first time four days ago).


Another terrific album that should have made XTC superstars.

And another terrific album that didn't make XTC superstars.

Frustrated by Virgin's inability to bring the band to the next level, XTC asked to be released from their contract. Virgin refused.

And then the band did something that was either very smart or very stupid. They went on strike.

But it was the 1990s... and there was an internet, but not like today's internet.

So almost no one knew they were on strike.

And, since the band hadn't toured since Andy Partridge's onstage meltdown a decade earlier, there was no way for fans to stay connected to the band.

Andy Partridge and company were stubborn -- so they waited out the record company (even reportedly taking day jobs at a car rental agency for a while), recorded a series of amazing demos and plotted their next move -- a double album with one record that rocked out and a second record that was mellower and featured an orchestra.

It took nearly a decade to get released from Virgin. By that time, relationships within the band were severely strained. To generate revenue to pay to finish recording, the band decided to break up the double album -- releasing one record first and the second a year or so later. Guitarist/keyboardist Dave Gregory wanted to thunder back with a rocking electric album that would thrill longtime fans. But Andy insisted the orchestral disc should come out first; Andy won the argument and Apple Venus was released in 1999. But in the process, he lost Gregory, who quit the band shortly before the electric album was finished. Andy and bassist Colin Moulding finished the second album themselves (Gregory had already recorded guitar parts for most but not all of the songs) and Wasp Star came out in 2000.

Both were great, but the band (if you could call Andy and Colin a band) couldn't build on the momentum. Andy announced plans to release a series of XTC demos, calling the project Fuzzy Warbles, but Colin moved and didn't give Andy his new address or phone number. So Fuzzy Warbles instead became a series of Andy Partridge demos (with a few songs featuring the whole band).

And XTC just faded away. A few years later, Andy admitted what every XTC fan had long feared: the band was defunct.

Maybe the strike went on too long. Maybe the group had just run its course.

All I know is that XTC should have been superstars. Many times over.

Need some proof? Let's begin...

New (to me) XTC Videos

Real friends drive you to the airport. Facebook friends virtually drive you to the cyber-airport.

One of my Facebook friends started posting a bunch of XTC videos I'd never seen before. (And isn't that the true beauty of the internets?)

A little background before I share:

XTC, a great live band and an even better studio band, stopped touring in 1982 after Andy Partridge had a mental breakdown and developed a crippling case of stage fright. The band would play occasionally in the years that followed at a few radio stations and on TV.

After their April-Fools-Day psychedlic joke EP 25 O'Clock (released under the pseudonym the Dukes of Stratosphear) sold better than their regular albums in 1985, Virgin (XTC's record company) told the band they wanted them to have a big-name producer for their next album. Virgin gave the band a list of names and they chose the only one they recognized: Todd Rundgren. The band flew off to Woodstock, NY where they clashed with Rundgren almost from the start. The album that resulted, the "life in a day" song cycle Skylarking, which manages to sound simultaneously lush and tossed off, would become a huge hit thanks to "Dear God," which was a B-side that wasn't even on the first pressings of the record.

These two videos date from 1987 -- an appearance on the British TV show The Tube, hosted at the time by former Squeeze keyboardist Jules Holland. (The show would be cancelled soon thereafter when Holland used the word "fuck" in a live promo for the show.)

The songs are both from Skylarking, which featured both the megahit "Dear God" and the insanely catch "Earn Enough For Us." But XTC didn't play the song people knew or the catchy song. Nope. They played two dense album tracks that fans would leave fans ecstatic and leave everyone else scratching their heads.

Still, the videos are pretty cool -- and if you haven't seen 'em, they're new to you.

"The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul":


"The Meeting Place":

Beyond Barbecue

Is it wrong to wish people a Happy Memorial Day?

It's easy to forget the reasons for holidays.

Beyond the three-day weekends. Beyond burgers and barbecues. Beyond the unofficial start of summer and the promise of longer days and the freedom of warmer weather and school being out.

Memorial Day is about something else. It's a chance to remember and honor sacrifice.

I didn't understand that as a kid; probably no kids really do.

But the past several years, I've been rediscovering the real meaning of holidays like Memorial Day and Labor Day (which bookend summers in the U.S.).

Which brings me to what inexplicably is my favorite XTC song. (Which is far from their catchiest song or their best-known song or even their best-written song.)

The first time I heard this, it resonated with something deep inside me. The evocation that happens with the best music? Some kind of trapped intergenerational memory of another lifetime? I don't know.

But I knew the first time I heard this that it was profoundly meaningful to me. So on Memorial Day, there's only one song I want to hear:

Shilling for the Fellow Who Brings the Sheep In

With windows cracking and a roof held together by holes...

One band, two songs, same subject.

XTC's "Love on a Farmboy's Wages" it the rural one -- in which a man who works on the farm (and, sadly, is really great at what he does) prepares to marry his beloved. He wonders how he can provide for his new family, but is ultimately willing to give it a shot. It's a wonderful acoustic song (although a strange and unfortunate choice for a single).


Three years later, XTC was paired with producer Todd Rundgren for Skylarking. Andy Partridge and Todd didn't get along. When the album came out, it sounded odd -- like it was designed to be played in a car going 80 with all the windows open. (And, famously, the oddball hit single "Dear God" wasn't even on the album -- it was a B-side that got all the radio play and forced the record company to pull the album and rerelease it with "Dear God" on Side 2 because there was no room on Side 1, which contained a "suite" of songs about the seasons -- one of Todd's pet ideas.)

Another song from Skylarking that got plenty of radio play was "Earn Enough for Us," seemingly the urban version of "Love on a Farmboy's Wages." But this time, the couple is married and the husband goes off to work every day on a bus, puts up with hurtful comments from his boss, and vows to get another job at night when he learns he's going to be a father. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Back when this record first came out, I thought the two songs told the exact same story.

It wasn't until I listened carefully to Skylarking a few days ago that I realized what "Earn Enough for Us" really is. If anything, it's a sequel. The Farmboy gave up what he was good at to earn more money in the big city, only to discover himself struggling and his wife expecting. But he's still hopeful, he's still willing to do whatever it takes. Unlike Major Tom (who apparently was really just a junkie), the Farmboy has matured and grown into a man who takes his responsibilities seriously -- he's even willing to be in a more radio-friendly song if that's what it takes.

I'm older now and I can see the heroism in the husband's struggle. He's harnessed the hope from the farm, tempered it with realism, and hunkered down to provide for his loved ones. But the Farmboy is never really gone -- and I like to think he's planting a small garden behind that little house, caring for it with love, and knowing it will grow and prosper.

The Lost Bubblegum Album

And they said "We Don't Understand."

Just before XTC went on strike against Virgin records, Andy Partridge pitched an off-kilter wild idea. XTC would record an album that would be marketed (with a nudge and a wink) as a collection of hit bubblegum songs from the late 60s and early 70s. Virgin would announce that they'd acquired the rights to the imaginary label Zither and release an album of Zither's hits from bands with names like The Lemon Dukes, Sopwith Caramel, The Twelve Flavours of Hercules, Anonymous Bosch, The Brighton Peers, The Lollipopes, Cake's Progress, The Piccadilly Circus Tent Rip Repair Company, etc. All these "bands" would really be XTC and XTC fans would recognize this (in the same way they recognized the Dukes of Stratosphear as XTC).

The songs were all classic bubblegum numbers -- sweet and seemingly innocent but filled with double entendres that would rank them among the filthiest songs ever recorded.

Partridge and Colin Moulding even had demos for a dozen or so of the bubblegum songs. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Virgin didn't get it. They wanted XTC on Top of the Pops. Failing that, they wanted to hire young bands to dress up in period costumes and perform the songs on TV.

A couple of these songs leaked out on compilations over the years and more surfaced on Andy Partridge's Fuzzy Warbles demo series.

It could've, should've, would've been amazing. In an alternate universe, it would have knocked Nirvana and all the grunge bands off the radio and out of the stores. We might even have been spared the boy-band craze of the mid-90s and American Idol.


But then again, Virgin never knew what to do with XTC (and XTC didn't have the desire or clout to do anything to resolve their situation with Virgin).

So the album remains lost, unfinished... and legendary.

Go Here, Watch & Listen to This, Read That

More from the digital world of hunter/gathering.

Peter's Power Pop reminded me of the fabulous Mitch Friedman (a New York-based singer/songwriter who manages to corral both Andy Partridge and Dave Gregory from XTC to play on his records) and his very, very meta "This is A Song":


Swedesplease points out that this song from the Most is "perfectly crafted pop circa 1968" and the Jean-Luc Godard-influenced video could easily have come from 1968 (except for those shots of the cell phone):



And finally, Then Play Long (home of long, fascinating essays about each #1 British album of the rock era in order) draws the curtain down on the 60s (and the Beatles) with a meditation on Abbey Road. Give it a read.

Opening Lines

It's All About the First Impression.

A reader emailed me to ask about my favorite opening line for a song.

It depends on my mood. Sometimes I love lines like "I was born in a crossfire hurricane." Sometimes I'm in the mood for Robyn Hitchcock's intricate wordplay.

But, right now, off the top of my head, here's my list of Top 11 Opening Lines I love. (Tomorrow the list would be different and I might even be able to limit it to 10.)

11. The Nerves -- "Hanging on the Telephone"
I'm in the phone booth, it's one o'clock uh huh.
Yes, kids, before cell phones there used to be phone booths. Just ask Superman. (And, yeah, this song existed even before Blondie covered it.) It's the "uh huh" that gets me.

10. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers "I Need to Know"
Well the talk on the street says you might go solo.
Slick Hollywood posturing and powerful music covering up a broken heart.

9. Badfinger "Day After Day"
I remember finding out about you...
My second-favorite Badfinger song. (And a pretty great George Harrison slide-guitar solo, too.)

8. XTC "Dear Madam Barnum"
I put on a fake smile and start the evening show...
Best romance-as-circus-act metaphor ever.

7. Immaculate Machine "Broken Ship"
We are sailing on a broken ship and only one of us can survive.
Stripped-down instrumentation, simple sparse lyrics, and an emotional vocal that tries desperately to be hopeful despite the pervading sense of doom. (Plus, how can you resist a song that includes the line "cello, play us off"?)

6. Warren Zevon "Werewolves of London"
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand walking down the streets of Soho in the rain.
I know I've had days like that... and I'm pretty sure you have, too.

5. Paul Simon "Kodachrome"
When I think back on all the crap I learned in High School it's a wonder I can think at all...

4. Joe Jackson "Is She Really Going Out with Him?"
Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street...
Just. Freaking. Perfect.
There isn't a guy alive who hasn't had this thought.

3. Graham Parker "You Can't Be Too Strong"
Did they tear it out with talons of steel?
Haunting song that explores a controversial issue from a point of view that's usually ignored.

2. John Lennon "God"
God is a concept by which we measure our pain...
The "dream is over" song... still beautiful and visceral 40 years later.

1. Billy Bragg "Life with the Lions"
I hate the asshole I become everytime I'm with you.
It's funny because it's true. And I know we've all been there.



So... there's my list. Tell me the ones you think I should've included.