Sitarswami (for it is he) transmits his screed from Madame Blavatsky's Etheric Temple And Car Wash on the warm, sunlit uplands of Hackensack, NJ.
Time passes. Daylight dwindles. Dusk and the dissolution of memory and the pursuit of happiness. Has night fallen on the last band that mattered? While the principles survive, and increasingly release new material, there’s little hope of even a contractually obligated Let’s Make Up & Be Friendly 33 1⁄3 reunion. Digging through discographies and discarded pillboxes, Dr. Swami has assembled fragments found scattered across the years on individual ep’s, singles, collaborations and compilations. The result: twenty-five undiluted doses of the next best thing to XTC. So, if you find yourself saying “Life’s just much too hard today” and feel the need to tranquilize your mind - ease your suffering and download right now. Not available in stores. Use only as prescribed. Results may vary. Most insurances accepted. Fuzzy Warbles not included.
Cavegirl – Andy P (an Ape House free d/l of a track from the unrealized bubblegum lp)
Humanoid Boogie – Andy P (Bonzo Dog Band cover and b-side of the Apples & Oranges single)
Scatter Me – TC&I (an ep from Colin M and Terry Chambers)
You Kill Me – Mike Keneally & Andy (the original demo version)
Turn Me On Deadman / Got My ... – Robyn Hitchcock & Andy (from their recent ep)
Greatness – TC&I (see above)
The Mating Dance / Ghost Train / Great Day – Andy P (from the ep My Failed Songwriting Career, v.1)
The Hardest Battle – Colin M (single)
Come on Back / Let’s Make Everything Love / Love Is the Future – Andy P (from My Failed Songwriting Career, v.2)
Papersnow – The Heads feat. Andy (fronting the Talking Heads)
The Man Who Died Two Times – Days Before Stations feat. Colin (who lends his voice)
You Bring the Summer – The Monkees (written by Andy)
You Are Here – Yazbek (co-written by Andy who also sings & plays guitar)
Gloria Monday – Dave Gregory (from one of the Re-moulds releases)
You Can Build a House on Love – Pugwash (string arrangement & guitar solo by Dave)
Karen – Peter Blegvad (produced by Andy who plays guitar & Linn drum, Colin also appears on the album but not this Mummer-ish track)
Baby I Can’t Please You – Sam Phillips (feat. Colin on bass who also co-produced this track, strings arr. by Van Dyke Parks)
Before the Hurricane – Martin Newell (string arrangement & album production by Andy)
The Laundry – The Lilac Time (production & guitar solo by Andy)
The Virtuous Man – The Nines (co-written by Andy who also plays guitar)
Sitarswami's Kirlian Aura Brush n' Wax© is recommended by Pia Zadora! Ask for rates.
Leave us wait for Babs to inspire today's Mass Debate!
ReplyDeleteWhat about me? Can I have?
ReplyDeleteGo for it!
DeleteWhat book or books have read several times?
ReplyDeleteI have never read a book twice. I'm an avid reader and there are just too many out there. I'll never get to them all!!
ReplyDeleteRaymond Chandler. All the novels, all the short stories. It's my Bob Dylan Neverending Tour. Always have one open.
ReplyDeleteComplete works of George MACDONALD, all Sherlock holmes books, DocSavage and Fu Mavchu series, Huckleberry Finn.
ReplyDeleteBucephalus
'Ulysses' by James Joyce
ReplyDeleteKurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five', 'Breakfast of Champions' and 'God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine'.
'Be Here Now' by Ram Dass
'The Magic Mountain' by Thomas Mann
'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee
'Catch-22' by Joseph Heller
'Fear of Flying' by Erica Jong.
'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams
Thich Nhat Hanh's 'The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching' and 'At Home in the World'
'The Left Hand of Darkness' by Ursula K. Le Guin
Aldous Huxley's 'The Doors of Perception' and 'Heaven and Hell'
Oh, okay, if it's a list you want:
DeleteJG Ballard's The Drowned World, The Crystal World
Arthur Machen's Hill Of Dreams
Norman O. Brown's Love's Body
Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, SJ Perelman (short stories)
HP Lovecraft (everything except the minor stuff)
Alice In Wonderland/Looking Glass
Lord Of The Rings (fourth reading this year)
The Aubrey/Maturin series (all of them, four times)
Sherlock Holmes
Dashiell Hammett
Ulysses
The Compleet Molesworth
The Pocket Buddha Reader
... and as a kid, a book called (I think) The Long Way Home, which I've tried to locate since with no luck.
I've read some of John D MacDonald's Travis McGee books more than once. And several of Carl Hiaasen's.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've read the Bible many times. Worth it every time.
ReplyDeleteAfter that I've read The Lord Of The Rings a lot.
I used to have a HC collection of the Flaming Carrot that I read many times. lol
OMG, what a tough question, I just mention authors... Jack Vance, H Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ian Buruma, Geert Mak, etc. Nowadays I mainly read new books though. Thanks in advance for the XTC/Andy compilation, looks pretty cool.
ReplyDeletePeter Matthiessen's Shadow Country (Killing Mr. Watson et al.), which I consider to be the Great American Novel, that elusive white whale, as it were. The collected short stories of Anton Chekhov . . . I start with vol. 1 and go through to vol. 13 and then start all over again.
ReplyDelete--Muzak McMusics
Located and blagged Shadow Country. Looking forward to it.
DeleteI will try to read what I haven't ...taking your lists as suggestions, and I am reminded of 2 things I want to read again. Bush Pilot with a Briefcase: The Incredible Story of Aviation Pioneer Grant McConachie, and Harpo Speaks. In these days I want to laugh a little more, So I am keeping the Thurber Carnival in the bathroom. Everybody needs to Shake Hands With Birdey Doggett! His practical joke will work at any Museum. I always tell people who are going to museums that they should bring an empty glass with them. The sound of breaking glass is anathema to docents and curators.
ReplyDeleteBucephalus
Speaking of Thurber, the book that I read over and over as a young'un was The Thirteen Clocks, with its lovely color illustrations by Marc Simont.
DeleteBorges "Labyrinths" & "The Book of Sand," "Collected Stories of Philip K.. Dick", Tim Powers "The Anubis Gate," Roald Dahl "Kiss Kiss" & "Someone Like You," Jack Finney "The Third Level" & "Time & Again" and Raymond Chandler novels.
ReplyDeleteI really recommend The Drowned World and (especially) The Crystal World, Swami. Pure mindblowing psychedelia.
DeleteHere's the loadup. To avoid Tagging Hell, and prevent the album downloading as scattered tracks, I've tagged the album (on each track) as "Agony" by "XTC". Swami's detailed credits are included as a text file for you to refer to while skinning up, and the two covers.
ReplyDeleteI've read the first few chapters of Moby Dick three times, but never managed to finish it yet.
ReplyDeleteIn my teens I read and re-readThe Colditz Story and Reach for the Sky every year.
Jeeves & Wooster
Swallows and Amazons and the rest of the series.
Sounds like you'd enjoy Erskine Childers' "Riddle Of The Sands", one of the great spy/action novels - and absolutely timeless in spite of being published in 1903.
DeleteYep, I read it last year
DeleteHave you read Gavin Lyall's "The Other Side Of The Sky"? The perfect thriller.
DeleteI always thought Moby Dick was a venereal disease.
DeleteIf it is, then the action must start after chapter 3.
DeleteThanks, Farq, just downloaded the Gavin Lyall book - it had a good write up on Wikipedia from P G Wodehouse. Have you tried the Christophed Brookmyre books they are a good mix of humour and whodunit. Start with "Quite Ugly One Morning" - the plots get dafter and dafter and I got tired of his later ones, but there is a good run of them before that. Fans of SAHB may want to try "The Sacred Art of Stealing".
DeleteIt's in the stacking system, thanks.
Delete@ Clarence Pune - It's a little known fact that Sperm Whales (Physeter macrocephalus), were named by British Naval Seamen.
DeleteNow I'm blubbering.
DeleteSo much to read here, that I tend not to re-read these days.
ReplyDeleteHowever:
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch. The best fantasy novel ever, and the next book in the series is almost as good.
The Discovery of France - Graham Robb. A collection of musings and anecdotes about how France emerged very late to find its identity.
Usually once read the book goes to the charity shop, however I read Aldous Huxley's Island recently, and will read that one again when time permits.
ReplyDeleteI'll look out for JG Ballard's The Drowned World and The Crystal World, Farq, I've read a few of his and very much enjoyed them.
Swami, I look forward to this not XTC comp, it all looks new to me, thank you.
The Crystal World is just jaw-droppingly hallucinogenic.
Delete"By day, fantastic birds flew through the petrified forest, and jewelled crocodiles glittered like heraldic salamanders on the banks of the crystalline river.
By night the illuminated man raced among the trees, his arms like golden cartwheels, his head like a spectral crown ..."
Hoorah!
ReplyDeleteXTC finally gets a screed - many thanks Swami!
Andy Partridge is just simply a pop genius.
A- HA!!!
DeleteThere are just so many books to read that rereading seems like an indulgence, especially as the realisation grows with each passing year that I don't have an unlimited time stretching out before me. That said, you do have to indulge yourself now and then. Lonesome Dove is a book I've read a good few times, always with great enjoyment, and I'm promising myself a return visit one day soon. And, as mentioned by others, the works of PG Wodehouse are an unfaillng source of joy for the rereader.
ReplyDeleteSteveShark has reminded me that I have an as yet unread copy of The Discovery of France languishing on the shelf. As I'm heading there for a month this summer I'm getting that one down tonight. Thanks, Steve.
Brendon Chase by "BB"
ReplyDeleteThe Bus Fleets of Cyprus - David Corke
and the usual, Hobbit, Lord of The Rings, Dharma Bums, Gormenghast, etc etc.
Brian Aldiss 'Last Orders' a.o.
ReplyDeleteJG Ballard 'The Terminal Beach' a.o.
Spike Milligan war memoirs
Flann O'Brien 'The Third Policeman'
WS Burroughs 'The Naked Lunch'
HG Wells 'The Island of Dr Moreau'
Brett Easton Ellis 'American Psycho'
Martin Dillon 'The Dirty War'
Jacques Vallee 'Revelations'
Toby Harnden 'Bandit Country'
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke 'Black Sun'
Bruno Schulz 'The Street Of Crocodiles'
James Herbert 'The Dark' ao
Another hat thrown in the air for The Third Policeman here. What a brilliant book. Listen for "the click"!
DeleteAnother hat for Bruno Schulz, and a third for The Third Policeman. It's a difficult pancake.
DeleteLike others have said, I usually buy from a charity shop, read and return, but scanning my bookshelves I'm reminded that I have kept the following, presumably for rereading some time:
ReplyDeleteWilliam Boyd - all, but especially Any Human Heart and Ordinary Thunderstorms
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Tom Sharpe -All
The Basque History of the World
Compleet Molesworth, as already championed by FT3
A special mention for a local author :
Leonard Barras - Up The Tyne in a Flummocks. He has been described as the Wallsend Ionesco and wrote mainly short stories about a weird bunch of characters based in the Norgh East. He had a unique way of writing that continually circled back on itself. There are a few selections in the attached. His books are all out of print, but I've picked up a couple cheaply on Amazon & Ebay recently.
https://www.imagenetz.de/gzzUJ
Well thats just weird. In the article that I uploaded and I have just read, Leonard Barras gets compared to Flann O'brien, who I'd never heard of before the mention of Three Policemen above.
DeleteBallard and Wodehouse are favourites for re-reads. Also the Ozzy Osbourne bio, many laughs.
ReplyDeletePartridgewise I also enjoyed his collaboration with Harold Budd, a rather abstract and landscapist work to watch paint dry.
Thanks for the comp, Swami.
Sorry, I forgot...
ReplyDeleteCheers Diego
Thanks to Swami for the compilation. My knowledge of XTC is spotty but the stuff I know (Black Sea, Nonsuch, Apple Venus, Mummer, Oranges & Lemons) is great enough to make me grab this.
ReplyDeleteAny of you online library mavens ever come across any of actor Robert Shaw's long-OOP novels in digital format?
Thanks Swami, great to hear these xtc related tracks, some real goodies amongst them.
ReplyDeleteThe 4or5guys will love this. Again xtc related, but this is actually xtc under the Dukes of Stratosphere alias. It is a beautiful pastiche of 1967 era psychedelic music. Oh who needs a pastiche? I hear you thinking. Well I think you do, yes you reading this now. Go on d/l the link, light a joss stick, turn on your oil wheel projector, and maybe ask the grandkids to score you some 'green'.
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/k242CDYf9PE
This may have been shared here before, but nothing came up on the search thingie.
This is the only XTC I listen to - and at the time (SWIDT) 25 O'Clock was their best-selling album - fun fact! Is this the version with the xtry trx? I have if not.
DeleteAlso - So Pale And Precious rises above pastiche to become the best song Brian Wison never wrote.
This is the standard Virgin remaster of both albums from 2001 (Originally 1986/7) without the extra track. I believe I have the extra track on 7" vinyl. Most of my xtc is vinyl.
DeleteIf I had more xtc in digital, I would share, all of their later albums are wonderful, Oranges and Lemons I would recommend if you've not heard it Farq.
That is so sad that the proper xtc albums, were outsold by 25 O'Clock, it's hard to believe, I imagined English Settlement or Drums and Wires to be big sellers.
This is Pop the xtc film is worth finding on the yewchewbs.
See below for XTC's This is Pop.
DeleteIt's quite enjoyable working out who you're hearing a pastiche of - sometimes more than one artist in a track.
DeleteI've always had a funny on/off relationship with XTC - never heard Go2 - bought White Music - never heard Drums & Wires - bought some singles, including a Barry Andrews ep (who he) - saw them live in about 1979 - bought Black Sea - never heard much after that but have downloaded some later stuff and am waiting for the chance to hear it, including a live 1978 show from my old stomping ground of Erics Liverpool. Loved the way they covered All Along the Watchtower at a time when you weren't meant to have heard of his bobness.
DeleteI tend to ignore the first couple of albums, but your post has made me listen to them again. Thank you! There's far more there of the direction they moved in on later albums than I realised..They were never ever punk, although Virgin (spit) marketed them as such.
DeleteI really like the first XTC album, but it is a bit spikey. A lot of uk punk, was never punk, but adapted to fit in with a scene - The Stranglers had a hammond organ fergawdsake. Magazine were the best prog band, who never get called prog. And The Damned showed their psychedalic/prog side on Strawberries and in off-shoot bands.
DeleteI came to punk a bit late, so it was the post punk period that I thrived in. Arriving in Liverpool in late 1977 as a typical wouldbe student, flares, denim shirt, Airforce overcoat, army haversack. Straight to the record shop to buy the latest Barclay James Harvest lp and then off to see Wishbone Ash, Elkie Brooks (but also Dr Feelgood/ Mink deVille).
DeleteBut I had heard My Aim is True before I left home, so it was off to the Liverpool Empire for the Stiffs Live Stiffs tour and that was the turning point, bye bye the City Halls and hello to Mathew Street and Erics with the joy of seeing young (or not so young!) bands in dingy sweaty cellars.
Great gigs from Magazine, Adverts, Devo, Penetration, Joe Jackson, The Pirates, Revillos, Piranhas, JCC, XTC, Undertones, Au Pairs, Gang of Four, Steel Pulse, Jonathan Richman, Young Marble Giants and all the emerging Liverpool bands Teardrop Explodes, Echo & the Bunneymen, OMD, Yachts, Hambi & The Dance, Wah! Heat.
Although when I look at my collection of flyers from the period, I missed seeing some crackers, Talking Heads supported by Dire Straits (I'd gone home for the holidays) Buzzcocks supported by Joy Division (sold out) Clash supported by The Specials, Iggy Pop..... the list goes one.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteDamn, meant to add this clip of Erics, which is all I can find on Youtube. EC performing Watching the Detectives for Tony Wilson's Granada show. I'm sure there used to be more stuff filmed at the same time with Nick Lowe, but can't find a trace now.
Deletehttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjxw7PTuef3AhXPTMAKHcmUAdsQtwJ6BAgIEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6lBYxveQqk4&usg=AOvVaw2_suzTgToc8pP0wMTwXyUr
"This is Pop" - officially endorsed XTC documentary. Great quality and lots of Andy P.
ReplyDeleteOne hour 14 mins and 1.14Gb. Subs folder included.
https://workupload.com/file/zAp9eJAv9g2
Awesome, thanks. XTC @ The manor was good too, have not seen in years, used to be on the webs
DeleteHad the Manor film on a HD here. Not the best quality, but still watchable.
Deletehttps://workupload.com/file/LWCg5vjL5uD.
Even though living in the current dystopian nightmare known as the UK always enjoyed Damon Runyon's tales of guys and dolls .. all life is 6 to 5 against and although the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet
ReplyDelete"the current dystopian nightmare known as the UK"
DeleteDon't fret - I gather we'll all be governed by a coalition of the much more far-sighted WHO, WEF, Silicon Valley and gobshite commentariat in a day or two.
If anyone is interested, Terry Chambers XTC drummer has a new band performing XTC material in England in July of this year. see below
ReplyDeletehttps://www.extc.co.uk/tour/
Speaking of books...I seem to come back to Catch-22 about once a year.
ReplyDeletemmm books eh ? didn't mind Douglas Adams ..
ReplyDelete