Isaac Newton's annoyed with me
Oct. 3rd, 2004 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatI called AT&T again today, and they informed me that it was the last day I could have cancelled the number for the superfluous phone that I never used, or even took out of the box. I probably could have argued with them that I had never used it and therefore should not have been charged for it, but I guess it's still good that I called them today, so as to avoid the hassle. I hope they actually DO cancel the number. Maybe I'll check tonight before leaving work. I'm getting pretty fed up with them overall. They send me a phone I didn't ask for, and then make it a pain in the ass to get rid of it.
Anyway, here's my track-by-track review of Volume 5 of Fuzzy Warbles, the set of demos done by Andy Partridge, once-and-hopefully-future band leader of XTC.
Welcome To Volume 5—A little theme song for the disc. Not necessarily a great theme song, but not bad either, and I like theme songs in general.
Young Cleopatra—This is a pretty cool little song, with a bouncy rhythm and good music and lyrics. Some of the same themes as in “Playground,” I suppose.
I Defy You Gravity—I agree with Andy that the best lyric in the song is “Isaac Newton’s annoyed with me.” Otherwise, not bad at all, but not great as far as Andy-penned songs go. Some of the lyrics remind me of those to “Rocket From A Bottle.”
Ice Jet Kiss—A nice little instrumental (well, there’s a vocal part, but it isn’t made up of actual words), originally written for Wonderfalls, but not used.
Broomstick Rhythm—This is a pretty catchy song, really. I don’t really have much else to say about it, but I do like it.
Earn Enough For Us—Pretty similar to the finished version from Skylarking, but not quite as polished, and without the backing vocals or Dave Gregory’s excellent guitar parts. Still, if I hadn’t heard the finished version first, I’d still think this was a really cool song. I do think it’s interesting that Andy decided to edit out a line about what he would buy for a boy and a girl baby (rings and a truck, respectively). Maybe he thought it came off as kind of sexist. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.
Dear God—Identified as the “Skiffle Version,” this is a rough demo of the song, with some of the lyrics just mumbled.
Crocodile—Like many of the demos of songs that made it to albums, this is pretty similar to the finished version, but without some of the little touches that made the final product so cool. Lyrically, I noticed that Andy hadn’t written in the “scene three lying (through his back teeth)” pun yet.
Motorcycle Landscape—Kind of an unusual song for Andy. I mean, it’s clearly an Andy song, and I guess I can see a touch of other distorted songs like “Reign Of Blows,” but it’s still not something that I’d typically expect from him. Not a favorite of mine, but I do like the chorus.
Rook—Good song, but not much different from the Nonsuch version. Andy claims that it made him cry.
Don’t You Ever Dare Call Me Chickenhead—The title comes from a British comic with a chicken-headed supervillain. A kind of amusing and cheap-sounding keyboard-driven song.
Mermaid Smiled—Just the tune and the word “smiled,” making it essentially an instrumental version of the finished track.
Aqua Deum—A sea-themed instrumental. Pretty good, but not really great or anything.
Me And The Wind—Less energy or enthusiasm than in the finished version, but the flute is already there. Andy writes that he bought the flute for his wife, and decided to use it on a song.
Smalltown—I’ve always liked this song a lot. “Sunday Sunday,” one of my favorite Blur songs, has always reminded me of it. Again, not too different from the finished album version, but one the lyrics mentions a “brand new catalogue rayon nightie,” which becomes a NYLON nightie on The Big Express, adding a touch of alliteration. Oh, and the line “next you’ll be telling me it’s 1990” just seems amusing to me, listening to it in 2004.
Blue Overall—Not one of my favorite XTC songs, but it’s still pretty good, and it’s cool to have this earlier version. I notice that the blue dog used to be a blue baby.
Red Brick Dream—A fairly rough demo of a Big Express B-side. The lyrics printed in the liner notes are actually the ones to the finished version, not this demo. And is “rooves” a word? {g}
Jacob’s Ladder—A minimalistic, ambient kind of thing. I’m not generally into ambient music, but it’s okay for what it is. Sort of like “Frost Circus,” but not as melodic.
My Land Is Burning—Now THIS is cool. An anti-government song with an old-fashioned, bell-heavy arrangement. Possibly my favorite of the otherwise unreleased songs on this disc.
The Volume 6 review should be coming in the next day or so. In the meantime, check out this e-card promoting the upcoming Camper Van Beethoven album. Only nine more days before it hits store shelves!
Anyway, here's my track-by-track review of Volume 5 of Fuzzy Warbles, the set of demos done by Andy Partridge, once-and-hopefully-future band leader of XTC.
Welcome To Volume 5—A little theme song for the disc. Not necessarily a great theme song, but not bad either, and I like theme songs in general.
Young Cleopatra—This is a pretty cool little song, with a bouncy rhythm and good music and lyrics. Some of the same themes as in “Playground,” I suppose.
I Defy You Gravity—I agree with Andy that the best lyric in the song is “Isaac Newton’s annoyed with me.” Otherwise, not bad at all, but not great as far as Andy-penned songs go. Some of the lyrics remind me of those to “Rocket From A Bottle.”
Ice Jet Kiss—A nice little instrumental (well, there’s a vocal part, but it isn’t made up of actual words), originally written for Wonderfalls, but not used.
Broomstick Rhythm—This is a pretty catchy song, really. I don’t really have much else to say about it, but I do like it.
Earn Enough For Us—Pretty similar to the finished version from Skylarking, but not quite as polished, and without the backing vocals or Dave Gregory’s excellent guitar parts. Still, if I hadn’t heard the finished version first, I’d still think this was a really cool song. I do think it’s interesting that Andy decided to edit out a line about what he would buy for a boy and a girl baby (rings and a truck, respectively). Maybe he thought it came off as kind of sexist. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.
Dear God—Identified as the “Skiffle Version,” this is a rough demo of the song, with some of the lyrics just mumbled.
Crocodile—Like many of the demos of songs that made it to albums, this is pretty similar to the finished version, but without some of the little touches that made the final product so cool. Lyrically, I noticed that Andy hadn’t written in the “scene three lying (through his back teeth)” pun yet.
Motorcycle Landscape—Kind of an unusual song for Andy. I mean, it’s clearly an Andy song, and I guess I can see a touch of other distorted songs like “Reign Of Blows,” but it’s still not something that I’d typically expect from him. Not a favorite of mine, but I do like the chorus.
Rook—Good song, but not much different from the Nonsuch version. Andy claims that it made him cry.
Don’t You Ever Dare Call Me Chickenhead—The title comes from a British comic with a chicken-headed supervillain. A kind of amusing and cheap-sounding keyboard-driven song.
Mermaid Smiled—Just the tune and the word “smiled,” making it essentially an instrumental version of the finished track.
Aqua Deum—A sea-themed instrumental. Pretty good, but not really great or anything.
Me And The Wind—Less energy or enthusiasm than in the finished version, but the flute is already there. Andy writes that he bought the flute for his wife, and decided to use it on a song.
Smalltown—I’ve always liked this song a lot. “Sunday Sunday,” one of my favorite Blur songs, has always reminded me of it. Again, not too different from the finished album version, but one the lyrics mentions a “brand new catalogue rayon nightie,” which becomes a NYLON nightie on The Big Express, adding a touch of alliteration. Oh, and the line “next you’ll be telling me it’s 1990” just seems amusing to me, listening to it in 2004.
Blue Overall—Not one of my favorite XTC songs, but it’s still pretty good, and it’s cool to have this earlier version. I notice that the blue dog used to be a blue baby.
Red Brick Dream—A fairly rough demo of a Big Express B-side. The lyrics printed in the liner notes are actually the ones to the finished version, not this demo. And is “rooves” a word? {g}
Jacob’s Ladder—A minimalistic, ambient kind of thing. I’m not generally into ambient music, but it’s okay for what it is. Sort of like “Frost Circus,” but not as melodic.
My Land Is Burning—Now THIS is cool. An anti-government song with an old-fashioned, bell-heavy arrangement. Possibly my favorite of the otherwise unreleased songs on this disc.
The Volume 6 review should be coming in the next day or so. In the meantime, check out this e-card promoting the upcoming Camper Van Beethoven album. Only nine more days before it hits store shelves!
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New Roman Times
Date: 2004-10-03 04:21 pm (UTC)Re: New Roman Times
Date: 2004-10-03 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-03 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-03 06:35 pm (UTC)You'd think so, but that's not the impression the woman I talked to gave me. I think they only charged me the $1.80 last month, and I told them to credit it to my account, but who knows whether they actually will?
no subject
Date: 2004-10-03 07:51 pm (UTC)But yeah -- I agree about Smalltown -- that was actually sort of the unofficial theme of the short film I did a while ago. (I ended up doing a song that was a style-parody of earlier XTC -- actually ended up being the chords to "Sleepyheads/Looking For Footprints" (depending on whether or not you're most familiar with the Rag and Bone Buffet version or the Coat of Many Cupboards one, heh) turned around inside out. Or, maybe not the exact chords, but a similar pattern. Either way, though.
As for the 1990 line, while back in 1984, it made total sense, listening to it now, I tend to read it as a line that's just to say how Out-Of-Date it is; sort of like "Wow, next you'll be telling me they've gotten something better than the autogyro!" So, like, if I were to cover it, I'd actually keep the 1990 line as is. (That, and since we're out of the 1900s, there's no really good sounding year to replace it with. I mean "Next you'll be telling me it's twenty-teee-eehn" doesn't work at all.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-04 02:10 pm (UTC)It's kind of odd that the song is just called "Smalltown" on FW, but it's "The Everyday Story Of Smalltown" on The Big Express. I guess Andy hadn't decided on the longer title yet. Volume 6 has two versions of "Across This Antheap" on it, but the earlier demo is actually called "Across THE Antheap," a difference that Andy points out in the liner notes.
I guess I can see what you're saying about the 1990 line. Incidentally, when TMBG did the "Theme From Flood" at a few shows in 2000 and 2001, they sang the "brand-new album for 1990" line just like it was on the album.
I don't have Coat of Many Cupboards. I'd kind of like to get it someday, but I'm curious as to how much of it is made up of demos or live versions that sound almost exactly like the album tracks, as opposed to unreleased songs and significantly different versions of released songs, which I'm more interested in (as I indicated in my most recent post).
no subject
Date: 2004-10-04 05:47 pm (UTC)Oh -- that's kinda funny about "Smalltown", but makes sense. I was just calling it "smalltown" since "Everyday Story Of Smalltown" is pretty long. That's pretty cool about the two versions of "Across This Antheap", since that's one of my favorites from Oranges and Lemons.
That's pretty amusing, although TMBG seem to have a history of playing with time like that. I think their first album has been their "brand-new debut record" for 18 years, heh.
I was a little worried about Coat when I first got it, since it was a pretty big chunk of change and at the time I was in College and as such, didn't have a whole lot of money coming in, but it's actually really worth it. (I just woke up and am going through email so I haven't read your most recent post yet, but I will in a little bit.) But it's got a lot of really cool rarities and such, and very few album tracks. Also, very few live tracks, but, well, it's XTC. (And they were actually pretty awesome live, at least from the various live stuff I've heard -- a bit sloppy, but lots of energy, so, hey.) But yeah -- it's also got Barry's other two songs that were cut from Go2 because of Andy's Ego (what Andy said, heh), and some various outtakes and the Langer/Winstanley version of "Ball and Chain" (Or, rather, the XTC/Winstanley version, as Langer and Andy got into a fight and Langer more or less just left.)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-04 08:42 pm (UTC)I do have a CD from an XTC concert, which I believe was from 1980 or thereabouts (the newest album at the time was Black Sea). I think it's also the first disc of Transistor Blast, which I also don't have and would kind of like to have, but not as much as Coat. Based on that CD, yeah, I'd say they were definitely good live. As for the sloppiness, I'd generally rather have a sloppy-but-energetic live version of a song than one that's neat but sounds almost exactly like it does on the album. So yeah, I certainly wouldn't be adverse to hearing more live XTC, but I doubt there IS that much of it, aside from the radio sessions on Transistor.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-04 09:01 pm (UTC)Yeah -- I think that's the one. It's a pretty good show, and you're right about sloppy-energy. I've seen some Bad Sloppy Bands, but over-all, I prefer sloppy live stuff to Precise. (Unless it's something like DEVO, where they do Timing X Live _perfectly but faster_.) But yeah, Transistor Blast is sort of less essential (and you might want to wait for the Retitled-Reissue of it, since the packaging for Transistor Blast could be better -- it's not like Coat, where the packaging is really neat).
no subject
Date: 2004-10-04 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-04 09:21 pm (UTC)