No thugs in our house

Movie of the Week: XTC Play At Home (1984)

Following Siouxsie & The Banshees, New Order, and Echo & The Bunnymen, we have XTC's Play At Home film from 1984.

Movie of the Week: XTC at Rockpalast (02.10.82)

Setlist:

01. "Respectable Street"
02. "Towers of London"
03. "Runaways"
04. "Jason and the Argonauts"
05. "Burning With Optimism's Flames"
06. "Snowman"
07. "Ball And Chain"
08. "Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)"
09. "No Thugs In Our House"
10. "Senses Working Overtime"
11. "Making Plans For Nigel"
12. "Living Through Another Cuba"
13. "Generals and Majors"
14. "Real By Reel"
15. "Life Begins At The Hop"

Hat tip to Dangerous Minds

Melt The Guns

I'm speaking to the Justice League of America.
The U S of A,
Hey you,
Yes you in particular!
When it comes to the judgement day and you're standing at the gates with your weaponry,
You dead go down on one knee,
Clasp your hands in prayer and start quoting me,
'Cos we say...
Our father we've managed to contain the epidemic in one place, now,
Let's hope they shoot themselves instead of others,
Help to civilize the race now.
We've trapped the cause of the plague,
In the land of the free and the home of the brave.
If we listen quietly we can hear them shooting from grave to grave

Before and After: All Along The Watchtower

Before - Bob Dylan


During - Jimi Hendrix


After - XTC


Hat tip to Music Ruined My Life

Rare Andy Partridge of XTC interview on WFDU

For any of you XTC nuts out there, it can be frustrating at best to glean anything new from the band's camp. Well, courtesy of Ghosty, long time DJ over at WFDU-FM (89.1 on your FM dial out of Teaneck, NJ), fans can have a listen to an amazing interview with the somewhat reclusive Andy Partridge. If you're interested, I'd suggest listening immediately as I don't know how long the stream will be available. And if anyone happens to rip it, please let me know. The interview starts at about the two hour mark right here.

XTC At the Manor

The following was posted earlier today on Slicing Up Eyeballs and it's a gem. I highly recommend subscribing to them if the 80's are your thing: "On Aug. 24, 1980, the members of XTC set up at Richard Branson’s Manor Studio to record another version of “Towers of London,” a track destined to be the second single off the band’s just-completed, but not-yet-released album Black Sea — a weekend session captured for posterity 30 years ago in this hour-long documentary called “XTC at the Manor.”

The program on BBC2 examines, in great detail, the band’s creative process. As the doc’s narrator says in the introduction, “It will take them the best part of three days to record four minutes of music, and this program is a condensation of that working weekend and of the multilayered process of creating the sound.”



Here's the final version:

Just Because - XTC

Just an excuse to run this high quality scan of a classic album with beautiful artwork, XTC's Drums and Wires, released in 1979. I was lucky enough to see them a year later, around the release of the follow up album, Black Sea. They were opening for the Cars at the time, and it would prove to be their last US tour. Life might begin at the hop, but doesn't end there.