XTC

This rock band was formed in Swindon, England in 1972 by the guitarist and singer-songwriter Andy Partridge and the bassist and singer-songwriter Colin Moulding and the drummer Terry Chambers who got together when the latter two joined Andy Partidge’s band Star Park which would then become known as Star Park (Mark II).

In 1973 the band were the opener for Thin Lizzy and around that time they called themselves the Helium Kidz, which Alan Partridge wrote many songs for . They recorded some demos which they passed to Decca Records and the music newspaper NME wrote an article on them as an “up and coming band”. By this time they also had the guitarist Dave Gartner and the synthesiser player Jonathan Perkins..

The name Helium Kidz survived until 1975 when they took on the name XTC which was from the exclamation “That’s It, I’m in Ecstacy” which was exclaimed by Jimmy Durante when he found the lost chord. Jonathan Perkins left the band and was replaced by the keyboard player Barry Andrews and by the end of 1976 the band consisted of Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding, Terry Chambers and Barry Andrews.

Their manager, Ian Reid who owned a club in Swindon, managed to get them gigs in various clubs and bars and while performing a concert at Upstairs at Ronnie Scotts when were spotted by John Peel who invited them to appear in a session on his radio show on BBC Radio 1. Not long after that they signed a recording contract with Virgin Records and in 1977 they released their first recordings on their debut 3D EP. the following year they released the album White Music which reached No. 38 on the UK Album chart. They re-recorded the single “This Is Pop” and the next release “Statue of Liberty” ended up being banned by BBC Radio 1 in 1978 for its lyric “In my fantasy, I sail beneath your skirt” , although they did perform it live on BBC2’s The Old Grey Whistle Test that same year.

The band toured fairly constantly and would appear on television in episodes of the children’s series Magpie and Tiswas. In August 1978 they released Go 2, which included the EP of dub remixes Go+ ,which went to No. 21 on the UK Album Chart. They toured America in December 1978 and at that time Barry Andrews left the band and formed the League of Gentlemen with the guitarist Robert Fripp. Instead of relaying their keyboardist they took on the guitarist Dave Gregory as a second guitar.

Steve Lilywhite and Hugh Padgham worked with them in 1979 on their next recordings which were the single “Life Begins at the Hop” which went to No. 54 on the UK Singles chart and the album Drums and Wires, which reached No. 37 on the UK Album chart and produced the single “Making Plans for Nigel” that went to No. 17 on the UK Singles chart. They appeared on the popular TV show Top of the Pops twice and went on to tour to sell-out crowds.

In 1980 they released the single “Wait Till You Boat Goes Down” and their first single to be released in the US was “Ten Feet Tall”. During this year Andy Partridge worked on a solo project and release the album Take Away/The Lure of the Salvage which was popular in Japan but had minimum success elsewhere. Also in 1980 Black Sea which reached No. 16 on the UK Album chart and No. 41 on the Billboard 200. It produced the singles “Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)” which reached no. 15 on the UK chart, “Towers of London” which reached No. 31 and “Generals and Majors” which reached No. 32. They toured to support the album for the next year or so in New Zealand and Australia as well as Canada and being the opening act for The Police in the US, but during this time Alan Partridge’s started to suffer with some problems that affected his mental health.

The next album release was 1982’s double album English Settlement which was the band’s highest charting album when it reached No. 5 on the UK Album chart. It produced their most successful single “Senses Working Overtime” which reached No. 10 on the UK Singles chart. This was followed by “Ball and Chain” which reached No. 58 on the UK Singles chart.

The supporting international tour and TV appearances included a gig in Paris which was recorded live but during a performance of the song “Respectable Street” Alan Partridge had to run off the stage and he returned to Swindon to get medical treatment. The tour was cancelled but he was able to rejoin them later to tour the US, but he became ill again and had to return home to get further hypnotherapy. During the next few months he wrote songs while convalescing and Terry Chambers left the band in 1982 when he moved to Australia and started a family and he was replaced by the drummer Pete Phipps. The compilation album Waxworks: Some Singles was released but did not see too much success.

After band had to cancel the rest of the tour it left them in debt and after looking into their financial issues they issued a lawsuit on their manager for mishandled revenue and unpaid VAT. It would take almost a decade to get back to earning for themselves again as everything was put into litigation costs. The suit was settled in 1989.

In 1983 they released Mummer which reached No. 58 on the UK album chart and the released single from it “Love on a Farmboy’s Wages” reached No. 50 on the UK Singles chart. Later in 1983 they released “Thanks for Christmas” where they were credited as Three Wise Men.

The next album, released in 1984 was The Big Express which reached No. 38 on the UK Album chart and No, 178 on the Billboard 200, with it’s “All You Pretty Girls” reaching No. 55 on the UK Singles chart, with the video costing £33,000 to produce.

Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding, Dave and Ian Gregory put together the spin-off group The Dukes of the Stratosphear with each musician also going by a pseudonym. They released a 6-track mini album, 25 O’Clock, which sold twice as many as The Big Express had and in the US also saw some popularity.

When 1986 came around the band were told that if they didn’t exceed 70,00 sales of the next album Virgin would drop them. They asked Todd Rundgren to produce them and after sending him some demos he came up with the thought of it being a concept album and with his assistance on music arrangements they recorded Skylarking in New York with the resultant single “Grass” with “Dear God” on the B-side which became popular with college radio stations in America. In fact, the album sold over a quarter of a million copies on the success of “Dear God” which had been included on a re-press of Skylarking and won a 1987 MTV Video Music Award nomination.

The following year the Duke of Stratrosphear released its second album Psonic Psunspot in 1987 which sold more than XTC’s Skylarking. Later that year it was issued as a double album with 25 O’clock as Chips from the Chocolate Fireball. By 1989 they were in Los Angeles and back to recording as XTC on the band’s next album Oranges & Lemons with the Pat Mastelotto, who had previously worked with Mr. Mister and King Crimson, as the drummer. The album reached No. 28 on the UK Album chart and No. 44 on the Billboard 200, with the single “Mayor of Simpleton” reached No. 46 in the UK and No. 72 in the US. They did an acoustic-guitar American radio tour for two week to support the album and appeared on MTV and Late Night with David Letterman. An acoustic tour had been slated for Europe but the tour was cancelled and Andy Partridge produced an album for the band Lilac Time and worked on the children’s show Matchmakers during that time.

When the 1990s came along they released the album Nonsuch in 1992 which went to No. 28 on the UK Album chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 1993. The singles released from it included “The Disappointed” which was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award and reached No.3 on the UK chart followed by “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” which reached No. 71. The next single “Wrapped in Grey” only had 5,000 copies made before it was withdrawn.

Later in 1993 the band went on strike against Virgin as any music they recorded would have been owned by the label automatically. After they were freed from Virgin and from debt they went on to unusually record on the 1995 tribute album to the band A Testimonial Dinner: The Songs of XTC, as artists don’t normally perform on their own tribute.

In 1999 Apple Venus Volume 1 was released on the band’s own Idea Records label and the following year it was the turn of Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2). Volume 1 reached No. 42 in the UK and Volume 2 made it to No. 40. Two years later in 2002 the 4-CD box set Coat of Many Cupboards was released with recordings by both XTC and The Dukes of Stratosphear and another box set Apple Box was released in 2005. Another multi-album box set, The Official Fuzzy Warbles Collector’s Album, was distributed between 2002 and 2006 as a series of volumes that were simultaneously released. Also in 2006 the album Monstrance was recorded by Andy Partridge as a separate project and he later said he had to think of XTC “in the past tense” and writing his “musical partnership with Colin Moulding has come to an end….” in a Swindon newspaper in 2008.

There was no official break up of XTC with Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding controlling the trademark so several albums were re-issued during the 2010s. In 2014 Andy Partridge won a Q Award as a Classic Songwriter and the book Complicated Game: Inside the Songs of XTC was released by the writer Todd Bernhardt and Andy Partridge in 2016. In 2017 Colin Moulding and Terry Chambers released the EP Great Aspirations which came out about the same time as the Sky Arts TV documentary XTC: This Is Pop.

The band were influential and revered by many although often under-appreciated during their decades of recording in their own unique style from the 1970s.

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