The Good Life? Mojo Issue 58, September 1998

The discreet charm of Swindon's longest-running and barmiest combo. By Chris Ingham

XTC: Song Stories
Neville Farmer And XTC
Helter Skelter £12.00

If you love XTC, hearing them grow from the brightest sparks of the New Wave School Of '78 into masters of Mature Pop has been one of the more heartening rock stories. In And Partridge they have a maverick songwriter of remarkable gifts, the trio of songs closing 1989's Oranges And Lemons alone being an extraordinary achievement; the effortless juggling of the baby/penis metaphor ion the sly and breezy Pink Thing, the life-giving/destructive evolution of himself as a Miniature Sun and the jawdropping beauty of Chalkhills And Children, all operating at rarely attained levels of musical sophistication and lyrical invention. Completing the band is Colin Moulding, a quietly excellent foil who long ago accepted his Harrison-esque proportion of credits (though, much to Partridge's dismay, Moulding managed to take the lion's share of singe A-sides at one point), and Dave Gregory, the proper musician helping his Swindon chums achieve the sort of rigorously creative music very few grown-ups with guitars are capable of, some of the best music that pop has to offer.

However, the business side of XTC has been a disaster which has not yet ended. Always low on funds, the band were at a breakthrough point in their career when Partridge's terminal stage-fright ended their touring career in 1981; money went missing, management was sued, debts were accrued that even sales of half-a-million couldn't clear, a five-year deadlock ensued as Virgin refused to release them and XTC refused to work. When they did escape and record, studio bills were unpaid and tapes were confiscated. 20 years on, it appears the band who often worried in song about domestic finances (Love On A Farmboy's Wages, Earn Enough For Us) are struggling to finish their eleventh album, their first in six years, because, unbelievably they have no money.

This sorry tale runs behind the main thrust of Farmer's book which, in its cheerful celebration of the minutiae surrounding XTC's music and with the band's musical passion intact, doesn't wallow for a second. It's essentially a band-driven project for the fans, so if the song-by-song stuff is low of Revolution In The Head-style perception, it's high on setting-the-record-straight anecdote.

Farmer's chummy asides ("Trust Andy to find the oblique view...") and Partridge's neat summaries (on Moulding's beautiful Bungalow, "A bit of Mike Leigh-On-Sea"; on No Thugs In Our House, "Violent Motown meets Johnny Winter") set the tone. We learn much about recording circumstances (hours programming Linn drums, Dave Gregory objecting to Partridge's "atonal rub") and songs' inspirations, both musical (Terry Riley, dub, Blue Nile, "dicking around with the chords of Blackbird") and personal (Cold War paranoia, schoolyard crushes, wobbly marriages, Swindon).

The best sections are the disarmingly entertaining transcriptions of three-way reminiscences. On Andy's inability to appear live:

AP: "You must have been disappointed, though."

CM: "No, not really"

AP: "Well, that's very warming. Because I felt I was just public enemy number one..."

DG: "I felt sorry for you. It wasn't a conscious decisions made out of spite."

Hadn't they talked about this before?

The personality of Partridge dominates the book as it does XTC's music. Superbright. Funny, commanding, hurtful, there are many Andy Being Difficult stories. He's either crying (with stage fright, suing his manager/writing the fantastic Rook) or arguing, usually with producers. His run-ins with Todd Rundgren (or Herman Munster to the band) on what turned out to be their masterpiece, 1986's Skylarking, are hilariously terrifying.

It becomes clear that it's only thought the accommodating personalities of Moulding and Gregory (both of whom have been bruised by Andy but obviously love him, the latter at least considering him a genius) that XTC still exist. During Oranges And Lemons, Partridge made a cap decorated with pictures of female genitalia so when "anyone was being difficult they had to put on the Colonel Cunt Hat."

"I think it was made for you," remembers Colin.

"Strange. It fitted perfectly," says Andy.

Hurry back, chaps.

All original work is acknowledged as being the copyright of the originator.