XTC

XTC: Black Sea

Review by Paul Rambali, NME, 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: 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; in 4 parts, total file sizes: 114.8mb, total interview length: 2h 05' 24" sound quality: ****

The Agony & The XTC

Interview by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 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: Sheffield Polytechnic, Sheffield

Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, 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: 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. ...

XTC: Drums And Wires (Virgin)

Review by Paul Morley, NME, August 1979

Something Like The Best ...

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

Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 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, NME, September 1979

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

XTC: Apollo Theatre, Manchester

Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 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, NME, 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: Optimism Is Next Week’s Thing

Interview by Mike Stand, Smash Hits, 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, NME, 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, 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, NME, 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, ...

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, 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: 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: 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, 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. ...

Andy Partridge Confronts His Lifelong Enemy - Stagefright!

Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, June 1994

This is an interview with Andy Partridge. ...

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, Raygun, 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. ...

XTC: Senses Working Overtime

Retrospective and Interview by Pete Paphides, Word, The, 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 ...