THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BEAT GOES ON

The Agonies of XTC

NEW YORK—“I wish I hadn’t come up with this name,” sighed mastermind Andy Partridge. “Thinking about it now, it’s perfect. But it’s a pun and puns only last a few minutes at best and this one’s been going on for ages and ages.” XTC appear quite content to use uncertain humor as the surrounding structure for their neat little songs. The tunes, bn the other hand, provoke more cold chills than laughter. One listen to the 21st centuryagonized version of “All Along The Watchtower” on White Music or the machine age horrors of “Battery Brides” on Go % and you realize that XTC have greatly advanced the absurdist. excitation wing of young British music.

Most of the new Anglo bands make their homes in London. When they destroyed their surroundings in song, it was in the form of attacks on big city life. XTC were raised and still live in Swindon, whose industry and self-centeredness shaped them as much as Akron’s rubber factory fumes created Devo.

XTC do not dress in zips, pins and shocking colors— bassist/songwriter Colin Moulding even sported luxurious, dark brown shoulderlength hair. Drummer Terry Chambers looked like every working class teenager in the Western World. Keyboardist Barry Andrews was away looking for romance in Bropklyn, so he’ll have to remain in the imagination. And Partridge, who is responsible for most of XTC’s songs, was dressed in unassuming sports gear. His tiny, blond hair poked up from a rounded, open profile. It’s an image that jogs an old memory of watching serious, compact little "faces, behind whose perfection a fearsome intelligence burns. The Children Of The Damned— has one of them escaped to maturity?

Whether for their appearance, their bond mnnusic, or their record contract, XTC must look after themselves. Said Andy, “They hate us in Swindon because they can see us shopping in supermarkets.” Colin roused himself from a stupor resulting from a weekend of gigs at CBGB’s to add, “They really relish the fact that we don’t get such good album sales and reviews and sort of rub it in.” Andy continued, “They’re really not interested in us whatsoever. They still like to be easily impressed by a band who are glamorous. If we looked like Kiss, then it might be important to them. Then again, if we looked like Kiss, they’d beat the shit out of us. Do you know, Swindon is-such a closed-up town that if I walked down the main street with track suit trousers on, which I do quite frequently, gangs of people would just stop and point at me and make a spectacle of me, just because I choose to wear red track suit trousers?”

I envisioned mass hysteria throughout Swindon should we open the floodgates of Central Park’s jogging hordes and transport them there. The band was Amused by this. They look for amusement in desperate situations, another result of their Swindon residency. Tight small towns provoke escapist fantasies from artists trapped in their midst. Eddie & The Hot Rods, after living in the Canvey Islands where you can’t get a drink past 10:30, were pushed into writing the aggressive “Do Anything You Want To Do.” XTC’s “New Town Animal,” reminiscent of watching guinea pigs run endless circular treadmills, is a direct gift of small town life.

“That’s a bit of documentary,” Andy recollected. “Everything closes down at 10:00. I used to have a flat byythe railroad station that had two rooms. They were very tiny. There was nothing to do. There was nothing good on television so you couldn’t stay in and you couldn’t go out ’cause everything was shut. And that was it. You just had to prowl around.”

Other results include XTC’s self-reduction to the basics. In the three years the band has been together, they’ve shown a fast evolution down to primeval music, from songs with a passing resemblance to pop all the way to dub, a most disturbing sound. Dub is a common form of reggae in Britain—on XTC’s Go 2 LP, it strikes foreign ears as alien as a message from Mars.

“It’s just music. It’s taking apart what you’ve already got and making something different. You build up a song. You’ve got lots and slots of bits and pieces, influences from people in the band. And it’s sort of like a construction set. So what ayou do, is loosen alb the nuts and bolts, take some of the pieces away and you’re left with an interesting skeleton/’ Partridge let go with a selfassured glance.

XTC’s brief visit to New York highlighted their first American visit. Their remarkable output of two EPs, two LPs and assorted singles on Virgin Records can be hunted down at import shops, but as yet the band has no domestic distribution. Their message is too explosive to hold under wrap for long. Within the year, XTC •should find a more permanent place in America. So let us leave this innocent little band, “with four personalities who follow what they like and it all comes together in one meeting point. And where it meets,” grinned Andy Partridge, “i^ just absolute Hades.”

Toby Goldstein

Andy & Marie? It’s Just Emotion

SALT LAKE CITY-Love may be thicker than water, but Mormon blood is thicker than anything,-except maybe Andy Gibb’s head.

Andy, the weinie-faced younger brother of the omnipresent Bee Gees, seems to have a bad case of hot sneaks over Marie Osmond, the female A1 Jardine. So bad, in fact, that Osmond family lawyers have demanded that Andy cease his “lovelorn” long distance phone calls to the toothsome miss.

The younger Gibb first met Marie when he was a guest on her TV show last year, and later flew to Hawaii to hold her coconuts during the filming of the Osmonds’ 'first motion picture. Marie, who also has Battlestar Galactica squeeze Dirk Benedict on the trotline, sent him packing.

Andy, a firm believer in the Australian ox-herder’s custom, of Foolish Persistence, then began regularly phoning the coat-rack-lookalike, trying to arrange a series of dates. But - the strictly religious Mormon Ms. declined to let him tickle her tabernacle.

“It’s ridiculous,” says Mrs. Olive Osmond, Marie’s mom. “There’s no possibility of a full-fledged romance or even a date alone together. I don’t think Marie would marry outside her faith.”

Will -Andy convert? Will Marie de-vert? And wh^re does Debby Boone figure in all this? (She’s Engaged —Ed.) No matter, us serious music fans can only dream of the combined Gibb and Osmond families all trilling “Stayin’ Alive” onstage together like prairie dogs in heat. One verse would make the King family look like Stephen Bishop.

Rick Johnson

Hey Baby, They’re Playing My Song

FARMINGTON HILLS, MI —If you’ve ever enjoyed the deja uu-like flash of hearing a song on the radio that sounds like it was written just for you, it!s now possible to make that feeling come true.

Dan Yessian Associates, an advertising firm that specializes in radio jingles, is now offering the “Stardisc,” a personalized record all about you and your boring life. The customer simply fills out a form, about itself and their friends and sends it in to Dan. He' will then compose an original tune in your choice of styles (no rhumbas) and record it, complete with orchestra and studio singers.

Don’t go sending your Stardisc to any radio stations, however. If it’s a hit, you have to pay the royalties.

Rick Johnson

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES CORNER

Do you axpoct moro out of llfo than just paid vacations, modlcal bonof its ana compiimontary shooshinosf Wall, Robinson's Mvii*r/«s and Liquid Paper Accidental Death Reports has a placo just for you I Company Prosldont Richard "Throtf Tho Switch" Robinson is looking for a fatuous individual to assist him in making high loval decisions. Experience not required, but a thorough knowledge of bone-setting and tourniquet application is helpful. Persons with next-of-kin, salaried legal counselors or friends of any sort need not apply. At Robinson's, the motto is "Don't Deface—Erase!" (Seriously, though, the studio wiz has embarked on a career in magic. Robinson opened for David Johansen at the Palladium in New York last New Year's Eve.)

Free Filth!

PORTLAND, MAINE—For those who’ve been wondering what those famous “seven words you can’t say on television” rea//y are, fret no more.

The Portland Press-Herald (Portland, ME 04100) will mail you a list of the seven wanton words if you’ll send them a stamped, selfaddressed envelope along with your request.

Just to be safe until you get your list, none of these words are on it: prod, insipid, rooter, pigeons, deckhand, pirn or fife. But don’t say “jukebox” in mixed company until you’re sure.

Rick Johnson

Dylan Saves Twin Cities Rock

ST. PAUL, MN-A heated battle between rock ’n’ roll promoters and police officials here in MTM land has been decided by no less than home state hero Bob Dylan.

The St. Paul City Council was 'considering a ban on all rock shows due to violence and drug use at some concerts. But thanks to a “relatively uneventful” appearance here by Bob and his hanky-headed band, the Council is reconsidering.

“I’ve seen wilder gatherings at a meeting of the Police Wives’ Association,” commented one cop.

That must havfe been the time they all got down *and tried to sing “Rainy Day Women.”

Rick Johnson

ASK THE LOONEY

From time to time, readers ask us to help them with difficult boy/girl problems. One of the most common problem* is getting rid of a girlfriend who no longer waters one's pubic passions. And since none of us have been able to maintain meaningful relationships with anything but dogs, cats ana the occasional budgie, we posed the question to that maestro of mental macho, Frank Zappa, who gave us Three Ways To Leave Your Lover:

1. Just set her on a 50,000 volt stack. Jack.

2. Put her on the street, Pete.

3. Poke her In the eye Guy, Just listen to me I (Next month: How to contact the dead.)

Ding! Ding! Thud.

FORT LAUDERDALE-As skateboarding and pinball fever continue to sweep the nation like a gigantic janitor, the ultimate combination of the two is now available: Human Pinball.

Dubbed Skate Ball by its inventor, Dan Smith, the game is constructed on a huge fiberglass skating surface. The player puts in a quarter, hops on his board and whizzes around the DayGlo hills and curves setting off electronic sensors along the way.

“Bells ring, horns hoot, buzzers sound and lights flash as the skateboard triggers the hot spots on the course,” says Smith. The sensors also set off a scoring device that displays the skater’s tally in foot-high numbers on top.

Skate Ball has four different courses: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and— get this—Grand Mogul Slalom. Games are already being built in Chicago, Phila-' delphia, Los Angeles and other major cities.

There is some speculation that Smith’s next invention will be a Skate Ball course with six-foot flippers called Trip Ball.

Rick Johnson

5 Years Ago

Primal Scream Stifled!

There’s a strong possibility that the Monkees may reunite sometime later this year. The only thing said to be holding it up is the fulfillment of individual committments. So who needs the Beatles?

Coming Soon: Tucker Suckers

ATLANTA-Hot off their blurbs for Mateus and Pabst Blue Ribbon, the Marshall Tucker Band has been signed by the makers of Junior Mints to have their picture appear on 75 million boxes of the popular movie munchie.

Whether this will result in a wave of theatergoers tweeting “Can’t You See” through their Junior Mint boxes is unknown, but promising.

Rick Johnson