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XTC

XTC

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XTC: Black Sea

Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 13 September 1980

XTC'S FOURTH outing, called, for no apparent reason, Black Sea, greets the reviewer like nothing so much as a bowl of Frosties on a wet ...

XTC: A Chat with Andy Partridge

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, CDNOW.com, 2000

HAILING FROM unglamorous Swindon, 70 miles west of London, XTC were clever-clever new-wavers who quickly outgrew the late 70s punk scene and matured into purveyors ...

Audio interviews

XTC's Andy Partridge (1994)

Interview by Johnny Black, Rock's Backpages audio, March 1994

Childhood fears, being bullied at school, his first tentative steps as a musician up to the extended trauma of XTC, culminating in his stage fright-induced withdrawal from live playing.

File format: mp3; file size: 120.4mb, interview length: 2h 05' 26" sound quality: ****

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XTC: Music Machine

Live Review by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 16 July 1977

ONLY A FEW NIGHTS EARLIER there'd been a brawl in the Music Machine involving the Boom Town [sic] Rats, but in the cold atmosphere while ...

XTC: Hope and Anchor, London; New Hearts, The Models: Speakeasy, London

Live Review by Barry Cain, Record Mirror, 3 September 1977

Is this what was intended? ...

XTC: An Everyday Story Of Country Punks

Report and Interview by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 29 October 1977

TIM LOTT visits them at The Manor ...

The Agony & The XTC

Interview by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 12 November 1977

I TELL YOU no word of a lie. This table was at least the length of my sitting room at home, if it wasn't actually ...

XTC: Middlesex Polytechnic

Live Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 28 January 1978

"HELLO, WE'RE XTC. You're the audience, and this is 'Radios In Motion'." A violent blast of noise collides with your brain, a few pints of ...

XTC: Sheffield Polytechnic, Sheffield

Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 11 February 1978

IT WAS pointed out, some while ago, that a large number of punk outfits preface their name with the definite article, as compared with the ...

XTC, Wire, the Secret: Lyceum, London

Live Review by Geoff Barton, Sounds, 4 March 1978

Shock as Soundsman writes non-metallic rave ...

XTC: White Music (Virgin V 2095)

Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, May 1978

GALLOPING OUT of the remains of the new wave, as we tried to explain last issue, is Britain's new answer to tedium, Power Pop. ...

The Agony and the XTC

Report and Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, August 1978

TELL A LONDONER you're going to Swindon on the weekend and you get the same reaction as if you told a New Yorker you were ...

XTC: Electric Ballroom, London

Live Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 25 November 1978

HAVING BEEN, so to speak, mis-directed in a choronological sense leads to a somewhat briefer exposure to XTC radiation than intended — meaning exposure to ...

XTC: Go 2

Review by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, February 1979

XTC'S FIRST ALBUM, White Music, released earlier this year, was a stunning debut from a band that defies easy labeling. ...

The Agonies of XTC

Interview by Toby Goldstein, Creem, April 1979

NEW YORK — "I wish I hadn't come up with this name," sighed mastermind Andy Partridge. "Thinking about it now, it's perfect. But it's a ...

XTC: Drums And Wires (Virgin)

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 18 August 1979

Something Like The Best ...

XTC: Drums And Wires (Virgin)****

Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 August 1979

I'M WELL qualified to write about XTC. I don't understand them at all. I prove that publicly last autumn when a couple of days in ...

XTC/The Yachts: Sheffield

Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 22 September 1979

THIS IS POP? THIS IS POP?? ...

XTC: Apollo Theatre, Manchester

Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 22 September 1979

STUDYING THE development and, um, progression of XTC is one of my favourite past-times. ...

XTC: Making Plans for Andy Colin Terry and Dave

Report and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 20 October 1979

"I FEEL GREAT antagonism towards the press we've all too often received. They always seem to end up never actually talking to you, they just ...

XTC: The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindon

Interview by David Hepworth, Smash Hits, 1 November 1979

The only notes that count are the ones that come from Wilts. David Hepworth meets XTC. ...

XTC: Music Machine, London

Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 5 January 1980

Love is like oxygen ...

XTC: Hurrah, New York

Live Review by Mark Williams, Melody Maker, 26 January 1980

Gunboat diplomacy ...

XTC: Old Waldorf, San Francisco

Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 15 March 1980

XTC HAVE toured the East Coast a few times now, but this is their San Francisco debut. Incredibly, Drums and Wires is their first release ...

XTC: Optimism Is Next Week’s Thing

Interview by Mike Stand, Smash Hits, 18 September 1980

TERRY CHAMBERS said, "I want to talk to you". I said, "Fine". Fine. Then the drummer walked away and I didn't see him again until ...

XTC: Last Exit To Catalonia

Report and Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980

XTC ARE BITING their nails backstage of an open air gig at a soccer ground in the Madrid suburbs – the equivalent of an English ...

XTC: Slaving For The Yankee Dollar

Report and Interview by Betty Page, Sounds, 20 December 1980

FUNNY HOW life is. Guess who Elvis Presley, Bonzo and Ian Curtis are expecting for Christmas? You know the answer. Yet he and the other ...

XTC and Gary Numan: The New English Art Rock

Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, February 1981

BOTH XTC and Gary Numan express a sense of the new English isolation. Americans seem to like the car-crazy Numan, while the pure British pop ...

The Ecstatic Aesthetics Of XTC

Interview by John Mendelsohn, Creem, July 1981

EVERYBODY DOESN'T like something, but nobody doesn't like XTC. Nobody, that is, except the countless hundreds of thousands who find the British beat foursome's relentless ...

XTC: Mummer

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 3 September 1983

I DON'T THINK "England" means very much to me any more, although I do have some sympathy with Andy Partridge's particular affection for a country, ...

XTC: Mummer (Virgin V2264)

Review by Betty Page, Record Mirror, 3 September 1983

ANDY PARTRIDGE predicted a return to acoustic neo-folk at least two years ago, well before our new pop explosion. Thus, only the few will be ...

XTC: Mummer (Geffen GHS 4027)

Review by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, May 1984

XTC MAKES music that is deceptively complicated. The lyrics are literate and occasionally obscure, the rhythms jerk around, dissonant strains loop in and out of ...

XTC: Mummer (Geffen)

Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, May 1984

MUMMER MARKS XTC's psychic retreat to the band's native village of Swindon, where folk are rough and still near to the earth. The women wear ...

XTC: Love and Disguise on a Farmboy's Wages

Interview by Karen Schlosberg, Musician, June 1984

IF THERE WERE A TRUE NORM for British pop bands, it would be XTC, who reflect where they're from and what they see so accurately ...

XTC: The Agony and the...

Interview by Mick Sinclair, ZigZag, January 1985

Contemporary Note: This interview took place at Virgin Records' London HQ during the height of the year-long miner's strike (led by the National Union of ...

The X-Factor: Andy Partridge

Interview by Bruce Pollock, Guitar, January 1986

"WE CALL IT BILLY Bolts or Billy Bolt Upright. I just sort of sit up and become this person Billy Bolt. You lust get into ...

XTC: Andy Partridge, Pop's Dan Archer

Interview by Roy Wilkinson, Sounds, 11 October 1986

An everyday story of pop music folk. Nine years on and XTC are still waiting to break it big in the USA. Their noise used ...

XTC: Skylarking (Geffen)

Review by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 26 March 1987

NOT THAT long ago, XTC was a nearly perfect band. It corrupted its bountiful hooks with unsettling harmonies and rhythms and rocked hard enough to ...

XTC: Celestial Postcards

Interview by Karen Schlosberg, Creem, July 1987

AN UPDATE on the attempted Americanization of XTC. For an eighth full album the trio is told, as reported by stalwart singer/songwriter/guitarist Andy Partridge, to ...

XTC: Oranges and Lemons (Geffen)****

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, 23 March 1989

XTC's Paternal Power Pop ...

XTC: Toys in the Attic

Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1989

XTC’s Andy Partridge is from that eccentric, uniquely English school of songwriters that brought you Ray Davies and Vivian Stanshall. His problem has been his ...

XTC: Nonsuch (Geffen)

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, 19 March 1992

A CHARTER MEMBER of England's class of '77, XTC is one of the few bands from that era to remain virtually intact. ...

XTC: Times They Are A Changin'

Interview by David Quantick, Vox, June 1992

Most XTC-ellent! After a three-year Bill and Ted-styled sojourn in history, pop's eccentric gurus have returned with a new LP, Nonsuch. Singer Andy Partridge waxes ...

On Pop's High Road with XTC

Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 12 June 1992

IT'S FAIR TO assume that some people hate their names. But what about rock bands? You can practically hear XTC's Andy Partridge groan over the ...

Paul Fox: College Rock Wizard

Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, October 1992

PRODUCER PAUL Fox came up as a keyboard player in the skinny-tie era. "When I first moved to L.A., there was a big banner on ...

Andy Partridge Confronts His Lifelong Enemy - Stagefright!

Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, June 1994

This is an interview with Andy Partridge. ...

John Leckie: A Desk Job

Interview by Tom Doyle, Melody Maker, 3 June 1995

Fifteen years of experience has carried producer JOHN LECKIE from a-song-a-day sessions with John Lennon, to hours spent pouring over the endless noodlings of The ...

XTC: Fossil Fuel

Review and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, September 1996

ARGUABLY the most intense and most intensely English musical experience to have arisen from the brief heyday of the new wave that succeeded punk, XTC ...

XTC: Transistor Blast: The Best Of The BBC Sessions

Review by Kit Aiken, Uncut, December 1998

FOUR-CD set of BBC sessions 1977-89 and In Concert 1978/9 ...

Andy Partridge: Lemons And Lemonade

Interview by Bill DeMain, unpublished, 1999

"I'M A LUDICROUS optimist," says Andy Partridge. "I'm in front of the firing squad and I've got the clown's makeup on and I'm telling gags ...

English Settlement: The Rise and Fall and Rise of XTC

Profile and Interview by JoE Silva, Ray Gun, January 1999

After surviving legal entanglement, personnel losses and numerous bouts of bad luck, XTC return with their first new album in seven years. Joe Silva ventures ...

XTC: 'Til Death Do Us Part

Retrospective and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, March 1999

Like the set of a James Bond finale, the cavernous, converted power station of Metropolis Studios is all walkways, bridges and industrial lifts. At the ...

XTC: Wasp Star: Apple Venus Volume 2

Review by Kit Aiken, Uncut, June 2000

Magnificent guitar-centric follow-on set to the orch-pop of Volume 1 ...

XTC: Reissues

Review by Kit Aiken, Uncut, June 2001

Their Virgin albums 1978-1991, digitally remastered and available either as limited edition Japanese-import miniatures or full-artwork, extra-tracks British releases ...

XTC: A Coat Of Many Cupboards (Virgin) ****

Review by Adam Sweeting, Uncut, April 2002

FOUR-CD box set offers alternative history of quintessentially English pop group. ...

Andy Partridge: Fuzzy Warbles 1/Fuzzy Warbles 2

Review and Interview by Kit Aiken, Uncut, February 2003

Frontman of much-loved — and much-bootlegged — eccentric English pop band clears out his compositional closet on the first two CDs of a 10-disc series. ...

Andy Partridge: English Settlement

Report and Interview by Pete Paphides, MOJO, February 2003

BEARING IN MIND his back catalogue, it may not be too surprising to learn that Andy Partridge is an assiduous recycler. ...

XTC: Senses Working Overtime

Retrospective and Interview by Pete Paphides, The Word, April 2004

When the police found him howling at the moon in a mud-stained Santa suit after calling his mother the worst word imaginable, it was another ...

The Old Boy Network

Report by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, June 2004

GETTING DITCHED by a major label is not always the end of the line for the big stars of yesteryear, as Terry Staunton reports ...

The Great XTC Problem

Essay by Craig W. Thomas, Rock's Backpages, 2006

Back at the start of 2002 I wrote this essay for XTC and their management, partly because I wanted to do a book on the ...

Andy Partridge

Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, May 2007

OF ALL THE bands thrown up by the Punk insurgency of 1977 (30 years ago today, folks! Get your Sergeant Leper facemasks here!), XTC were ...

Heavy Load: Andy Partridge

Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 19 February 2016

XTC mainman Andy Partridge on loving the Monkees, coming from Swindon and finally being defined as prog. ...

Andy Partridge: Mid-Morning Matters

Interview by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, July 2016

"Empires and whole XTC albums have been built on Tunnock's wafers. Their packaging! It's like the glam version of traditional." XTC's main songwriter and musical ...

XTC: How we made 'Making Plans for Nigel'

Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 27 April 2020

"British Steel responded by rounding up a lot of workers called Nigel and getting them to say their jobs were actually great." ...

see also Shriekback

see also Dukes of Stratosphear, The

see also Andy Partridge

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