Comments on: The Dukes of Stratosphear

By: Sunn

Sunn — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 21:44:21 +0000

Didn’t like these as well as “Chocolate Fireball”. “Black Sea” a little to punky for my taste (Clash meets Beatles meets ELO). However, I did enjoy the last track (reminded me of Brian Eno). I liked “Skylarking” really well. Will be listening to that one some more. Almost sound like two different bands (3 counting the Dukes). Again thanks to TTop & jek for turning me on to these.

By: TTop

TTop — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 17:39:16 +0000

No offense taken. I was only a half-hearted exerciser before this year. On January 3rd, 2005 I started a hard-core diet and began running -- although I hated running and could only run barely a mile (and hurt for days afterwards). After training hard all spring and summer, I lost ~55 pounds and then on October 9th I raced in the Royal Victoria Half Marathon, beating my goal of two hours by finishing in 1:52:05.

By: Sunn

Sunn — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 17:31:26 +0000

TTop, I hope you took my last comment as a lame attempt at humor. Reread it, and didn’t quite come off like I intended.
Peace, Love & Understanding (or something like that)

By: Sunn

Sunn — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 02:37:05 +0000

TTop, I was thinking we had quite a bit in common until you said “great music for exercising”

By: TTop

TTop — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 23:00:12 +0000

Black Sea had four singles make it into the top 40 in the UK -- "Generals and Majors" (also a US alternative radio hit), "Respectable Street", "Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me)" and my personal favorite "Towers of London" (last year I made sure to listen to that on my iPod the day that I visited the Towers of London). I think you'll find Black Sea and Skylarking sound very different from each other, but I like both records. I think Black Sea is great music for exercising -- almost all of it is upbeat.

By: Jek

Jek — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:22:47 +0000

BTW, there is some previous XTC conversation on the HARD KNOX AND DURTY SOX post from April.

By: Sunn

Sunn — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 17:52:17 +0000

TTop, on your recommendation I just ordered Skylarking. Also ordered one called Black Sea. I will let you know what I think. Thanks again for the suggestions. Oh yes, Nuggets. I bought the first CD when it was released (15 or 20 years ago?)

By: TTop

TTop — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 21:14:35 +0000

I really like the XTC stuff — one of my favorite bands of all time. They have changed a lot over the years, from early punk/new wave in the 70s to a more melodic rock sound today. The Dukes are definitely a side project, XTC’s other music doesn’t sound like it, but the 60′s influence is definitely there. I like to think of XTC as what the Beatles might have become had they not broken up, but that might be overstating it a bit Reminds me of a line in John Wesley Harding’s song “When the Beatles hit America” — a song about a dream he had that the Beatles re-formed and toured the US in modern times. It has a line that says “they sounded quite a lot like ELO, or ELP… or REM or XTC, they sounded a lot like XTC!”

Some of my favorite XTC albums:

Skylarking – “A summer’s day cooked into one cake” as described by XTC frontman Andy Partridge. Produced by Todd Rundgren, this album is very cohesive from end-to-end, with some great songs. They had a minor hit off this album with the song “Dear God”.

Oranges and Lemons – this might be the most Dukes-like album as it was made in the same timeframe and some songs originally thought to be Dukes tracks ended up on this. The production is more modern and shimmery, but still lots of good songcraft here, from the psychedelic-tinged opener of “Garden of Earthly Delights” to the anthemic “The Loving” (“All the rich and poor, even those we fight at war need The Loving…”), to the cheeky double entendre-laced “Pink Thing” and the majestic hopefullness of the closer “Chalkhills and Children.”

Apple Venus Volume One – I didn’t think any XTC album could ever supplant Skylarking as my favorite, but this one did. Conceived and executed as an “Orchoustic” album, Partridge hits the peak of his songwriting combining grade A pop songs with orchestral/acoustic production. If you forced me to choose at gunpoint, I say this is my favorite album of the last ten years.

XTC has lots of gems in their extensive catalog, rummage around in your local used bin and see what you come up with. For the XTC newbie, I would avoid any albums pre-1979 (they had a kind of herky-jerky punk sound then).

In other Dukes news, just this morning at the record store I saw a new release,Children of Nuggets, the third in the excellent Rhino Nuggets box sets series (all psychedelic obscurities). Excitedly I flipped over the box and saw the very first track on the very first disc is “Vanishing Girl” by The Dukes of Stratosphear.

By: Sunn

Sunn — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:17:25 +0000

Listened again this morning. Doubly impressed. Cloudy morning, had the lava lamp going. It was like Deja Vu all over again (Yogi Berra). What are the XTC CD’s like?

By: Sunn

Sunn — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 19:05:25 +0000

Thanks to jek & ttop for suggesting this one. My copy arrived from Amazon yesterday.
The summary jek provided is spot on. It sounds like an original sixties group using fairly modern recording equipment & techniques. One of the few “rock” albums I’ve purchased in years. Enjoyed it very much. Will listen to this one a lot.