Category Archives: Uncategorized

I first heard of XTC when I heard the song “Senses working overtime” on the radio.  Because of the way my hearing has always been, however, “Senses” is not what I heard.  So when I walked into Sam Goody Music, I had the misfortune of hearing several people laugh at me when I asked for “SISTER’s  working over time”.

Needless to say, they corrected me and set me up with two tapes.  Again, when this happened, CDs were a luxury that I could not afford as was a CD player.  The Tapes were English Settlement and Skylarking.

English Settlement really did not do much for me.  The music seemed to all be the typical kind you might hear on the radio any particular Thursday afternoon, but I will admit that it was OK.  The one that really moved me, though, was Skylarking.  The songs, sound, rythym and story were great…  but as you might have already guessed about me… it was the story that was told through the lyrics and the track placement that hooked me.

If you listen to all of Skylarking, you will hear a story of meeting, courting, life, birth, death, questioning our existence and love.  You may not catch it the first time around, but listening to it enough, you will see it all there.  While I could find no confirmation of it, I have to think that the album was inspired by something that happened to one or more of the writers.  Who knows.

XTC themselves have been around since the late 1970s and the members performing for longer than that.  Unfortunately I have no personal experience with their music dating before 1982, so it would be unfair for me to comment on what they were before that.  I do see a lot of information out there about them on sites like Wikipedia and the like, but I would like these articles to be as much in my own words as it possible.

One of the lead names attached to XTC during their rise to fame was that of Todd Rundgren.  Yes… THAT Todd Rundgren.  While I will admit that his leadership did guide XTC to greater success, I think it also drove them apart.  Again… this is my own opinion and not based on anything other that what I see in the music and read in the trades.

Based on what I have read, one gets the feeling that Todd’s brief direction of the group caused them to burn brightly and use up quite a bit of their success.  But what was created in this period of time, while he was pushing them and going forward, was… in my humble opinion… some of their best work to date.  This culminated in the release of their last two CDs… Apple Venus volumes 1 and 2 in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

The Apple Venus CDs appeared to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, however… shortly there after there was nothing else to be heard from the group.

One could say that the bloom had fallen off the rose by this time and there appears to be no effort to get the group back together again.  Though if someone out there reading this hears different… I would like to know.  XTC is actually on the short-list of groups that I would be willing to go stand in line to see… preceded only by Pink Floyd and Jimmy Buffett.

If by some chance any reader thinks that I am bashing Todd Rundgren with this or blaming him for the breakup of XTC, that could not be further from the truth.  I think that he simply exposed flaws in the band that were already there.  They were destined to break up at some point.  He caused them to refine their talents and work harder for a period of time so that the production house would be happy.  They might have made it a few more years without him, but I suspect that the sound would not have been the same quality.

Please… go out and pick up a copy of Skylarking, then let it help you decide if you think the others will be good for you.  Personally, I think that if you like Skylarking, then you will like all their work, including the early stuff.

There are very few conversations that you can have about musicians and bands that were ahead of their time without mentioning, at some point, Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO.

For those of you who may not know who ELO is, you will probably be surprised.  Their music has been used in movies, commercials, television programs as well as being covered by several other groups over the years.  So it is very likely that you have at least heard some of their work and just not realized it.

Founded in 1971 by two guys (Raymond Wood and Jeffery Lynne), they created a group with a sound not entirely unlike the “electronica” sound that you hear today, combining the sounds of violins and organs with the sounds of electric guitars and synthesizers.

Today you might listen to their work and think that this sound is nothing really that spectacular or special, but you have to stop and think for a moment about the time that the music was originally released and who it was that they had to compete with at that time during their formative years.

In July 1971 (1972 in the USA), when their 10538 Overture was released, they were competing against such rock legends at Rolling Stones, Sly and the Family Stone, The Bee Gees and various others.  Needless to say, one might think that they really did not have a chance right out of the gates… they had a lot of well established competition.  People were not really ready to listen to something  new, with a completely new sound.

The Overture peaked at number 9 that July, in the USA. So in spite of the odds, they found their market and their niche.  The rest, as they say, was history to be made.

The music did continue to get better and their world appeal increased but personally I think they peaked with the release of the album Time, in 1980.  I still think that it stands as one of their best works as a whole.  That is not to say their other albums were bad, it was just that with the others, there are songs I like and ones I did not.  You know, the ones that you fast-forward through, or skip if you are playing them on a CD.  With Time, I could listen to the entire album and not want to skip a single song.  My two favorites on that album would be Ticket to the moon and Hold on Tight… the later a fairly popular song even to this day.

The band kind of started to fall into disrepair after the release of Time, releasing Secret Messages in 1983 and Balance of Power in 1986.  I am sorry, but even though Secret Messages had a couple good songs on it (Rock and Roll is King and Four Little Diamonds), I feel that the entire album was a parody of themselves and a lame attempt to gain new momentum for the band, which was starting to break up about that time.  The album intentionally included back masked messages on some of the songs… a couple of them I heard, most I did not.   Balance of Power, however, was a noble attempt… they had a good sound and some catchy lyrics, but gone was the original sound of the ELO that I remembered.  It did not have the deep rich “Light Orchestra”  sound that they had become so well known for, having become mostly synth and guitars with no more strings or brass.  In addition, you would think that we should have suspected something was happening when they were no longer using their trademark “spaceship” logo on the front of that album.

In spite of a few attempts to reignite the spark they had, namely the formation of ELO Part Two, in the early nineties, it was apparent that the band was gone.  In 2000 or 2001 the album Zoom was released.  I had been expecting this for a while and was waiting in anticipation for this, not know at the time that the ONLY original member of ELO that woudl be in the band was going to be Lynne… Tandy did participate on one song, but I have a feeling that was because he felt some requirement to do so, nothing more.  The rest of the album had some good music, but I felt that it was more like going to see “The Beatles Experience” after having seen the real thing.  It was fun, and the music was alright, but it was just not the same.

ELO is gone… but I still have the CDs and a couple of the 8-track tapes, somewhere.  Like so many other things in our lives, it is sad to see something like this go.

My message to the remaining band members?  Do not try to put the band back together again.  Leave us with the memories we had.  OK?

Here are some pieces for you that may not be familiar with the work: