"The Seven Years War" from "New Music" February 1999 (http://www.cmj.com) , Transcribed by Ben Gott (bgott@bowdoin.edu)

XTC ends its strike with a revealing book, a four-CD set of live BBC recordings, and a new studio album.

Story: Steve Ciabattoni
Photo: Johnny Guinta

After the success of 1992's "Nonsuch," XTC went to Virgin Records (its home in the UK) and pitched ideas for new projects and asked if it coudn't have a better contract, please. After all, the band had been with the label longer than Richard Branson! Virgin yawned and XTC went on strike for five years.

"I thought, 'We'll just keep stockpiling [songs] and they're gonna let us go one day,'" says chief songwriter Andy Partridge.

"The worst thing," says Colin Moulding, "was they had some of Andy's songs.  They were going to use that as a bargaining position to get what they could before we left."

"Everyone said, 'This is the end of you, everyone's gonna forget you,'" says Partridge. "'You'll never get a record deal because no one will be interested in a has-been band.'"

Not making records left time for Partridge, Moulding and bandmate Dave Gregory to chat with Journalist Neville Farmer for his book Song Stories,  an XTC fetishist's delight, loaded with interviews that get to the bones of every XTC song ("Pink Thing" is about Andy's penis and his son, for those who care). "Neville has this thing where he tries to belittle you in a way," says the soft-spoken Moulding. "A lot of the song titles we discussed with him in a positive way and he'd wrap it up in a negative way," he says, later flipping through the book to point out a backhanded phrase.

"I like the fact that it's sort of beautifully flawed," says Partridge, explaining that none of the interviews were airbrushed. "And there's a few surprises," he continues. "Because you think, 'Blimey! Did Dave really think that?'"

Partridge took another dive into the past when the BBC sent over tapes that would make up "Transistor Blast" (TVT), a four-CD collection of live performances, including a complete 1980 concert. "Enough time - enough phlegm - has gone under the bridge to listen to this old naive, energy-packed stuff," says Partridge. "I kind of enjoyed it. There was something kind of thrilling in the sort of playful violence of it all - exhilarating in a kind of idiot way."

Other things filling Partridge's time during the strike were an illness, a burst eardrum and a bitter divorce. XTC finally inked a new deal and began recording "Apple Venus Vol. 1" (due in February on TVT), but there were to be two more casualties. Producer Haydn Bendall couldn't finish the project and waved goodbye, and Dave Gregory decided he'd had enough of not having enough input and left the band. The album was finished by Partridge and Moulding using everything from Colin's front room to Abbey Road Studios.

"With this record there was a kind of air of middle-aged desperation," says Partridge. The long struggle and the pressue of not having made a record for years had its impact. "There was a greater expectation [for me] building up to doing 'Apple Venus' than there was building up to the very first album that we did," says Partridge, clenching his teeth to drive the point home.

"Apple Venus" is primarily acoustic and seasoned with the orchestrations that recall the highlights of "Nonsuch" and "Skylarking," though somehow more modest and more ambitious at the same time. The "push your car from of [sic] the road" nursery rhyme "River Of Orchids" is a clever crisscross of three cyclical melodies that comes off like Philip Glass writing pop tunes. "I think the record is going to surprise people," says Partridge. "They'll probably think it's really middle-of-the-road or dead square."

No one, however, could consider "Your Dictionary" a middle-of-the-road song. For all the bile Partridge has for his former label and the music business in general ("It's the devil's asshole of an industry," he says with an all-too-knowing grin), it's nothing compared to the venom spilled in the song towards his ex-wife. "It was written in a real rage when I was a cuckolded husband," he notes bluntly. "I believed in it for five minutes, but when I got a bit happier about the situation I begain to feel a bit embarassed by the lyrics thinking, 'Oh, that's a bit petulant.'" The unflinching ditty makes "How Do You Sleep?" (the Lennon swipe at McCartney) sound like "Wind Beneath My Wings." Choice lyric: "F-U-C-K, is that how you spell friend in your dictionary?" Partridge concluded, "My relationship with my ex-wife is not great but I know when she hears this -- the shit's really gonna fly."