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Monday, September 01, 2008
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Dave remembers ’No Thugs in Our House’
Song of the Week
This week we feature Mr. Dave Gregory's memories of last week's song, "No Thugs in Our House," from 1982's English Settlement.
The version we've posted this week -- originally recorded 14 January 1982 at BBC Studios, produced by John Sparrow and engineered by Mike Robinson -- was first broadcast 25 January 1982 on the David Jensen Show. It's the first track on Disc 2 of Transistor Blast, a compendium of live and studio cuts made for the BBC.
DG: English Settlement is often described as a "pastoral" record, perhaps because of the abundance of acoustic guitar-laden tracks, so "No Thugs in Our House" provides a little heavy-handed relief from all those plangent, shimmering tones that characterise much of the album. For the introduction, Andy was anxious to copy the rocking acoustic sound of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues," prompting Hugh Padgham to insist we first found an instrument equal to the task. As documented previously, I took the day off to travel to London, returning with a nice Martin D-35, and that evening we started work on the basic track.
I'd recently purchased a second-hand Marshall 50-watt bass amplifier. Obviously designed for bass, it nonetheless had a big, powerful sound that was great for guitar. The problem was that it was too big and powerful -- though rated at a modest 50 watts, it was simply too loud to be of much practical use outside of a studio. I'd come up with a grinding, brutal riff to complement the vocal; the perfect opportunity, then, to set up the Marshall in The Manor's stone room and crank it up. Hugh had installed a pair if [AKG] C414s at the back of the room above the balcony area, to pick up as much room ambience as possible while recording Terry's drum tracks. I put the amp and a 4x12" cabinet at the other end of the room, while Hugh placed a U 47 three feet in front of it. I plugged in the ol' Strat, lit the blue touch-paper and retired immediately...
Jeezuss Kerrriistt!! It was unbearably loud. The sound was leaking out of the glass doors, and the local villagers must have gotten a rude awakening, too. By setting the volume control at 4 --on a scale of 10 ... not 11! -- we were able to get the tough sound we wanted, but it was still not possible to stand in the same room as that amplifier while we were tracking. Having just heard the song for the first time in ages, I'm surprised now at how tame it sounds. Buried there in the mix, you'd never know how massive that guitar track really is.
And in case we were in danger of showing rather too much of our rock undergarments, I tweaked up a calliope-like patch on the Prophet-5 as a sweet contrast for the middle-eight section of the song. I used to enjoy performing this on stage, coming off the synth and back into that thuggish riff -- it always went down very well as a live number. The cross-fade into "Yacht Dance" was another inspired idea, and one of my favourite moments on the album.
In common with most of the Settlement songs, this was recorded quite quickly -- basic track completed in the evening of 14th October 1981, acoustic guitar nailed the next morning, and vocals done on 29th October (together with "Senses"). I did my synth overdub the same day. This completed the track, which was mixed on Saturday, 14th November.
©2008 Todd Bernhardt and Dave Gregory. All rights reserved.
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Monday, August 25, 2008
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Andy discusses ’No Thugs in Our House’
Song of the Week -- Andy's take
Part of an ongoing series of interviews by Todd Bernhardt with Andy Partridge about the songs we feature each week on MySpace. This week's song, "No Thugs in Our House," is from 1982's English Settlement.
Andy Stone, who himself moved from DC to Chicago a couple of years ago, was first to guess the correct answer in response to why Todd's moving, followed closely by Senor "two-correct-answers-in-a-row" Javier Tenaz. Basically, the Bernhardts are moving because they're tired of putting up with about four years' worth of low-level harassment by the local Hitler Youth, and of the "boys will be boys" attitude of the parents of said youth (who've been harassing other politically and socially liberal people throughout the neighborhood as well).
Belated best birthday wishes to Mr. Colin Moulding, who celebrated his entry into this world on 17 August!
We'll be back in two weeks or so with a look at a song that contains what Andy describes as "the sexiest groove" he's ever written.
TB: Let's talk about "No Thugs in Our House." This strikes me as a very angry song.
AP: I don't know if it is, actually! I think it's more of a genteel morality play. It's a real Threepenny Opera, but delivered over some Rock-n-Roll. To me, it's almost Dickensian in its morality, with ironic little twists.
TB: [mock snort] Dickens? Twist? I get it!
AP: [laughs] Oh, ho ho ho! "Do you like Dickens?" "I don't know, I've never been to one."
But yeah, it is rather archaic in its structure...
TB: Sure. It's got three acts -- four, if you count the bridge.
AP: Right. That bridge is like an interlude. Funnily enough, I was looking through some notebooks yesterday evening, and I found one I didn't even know I had! There wasn't much in it, but I'd jotted down, around the time of English Settlement, lots of ideas and connections and bits and pieces. I'd had a video idea for this, which eventually became the sleeve to the single -- that is, to make it like a toy theatre. So, I was obviously seeing as the sort of play you'd put on in a Victorian toy theatre -- you know, a penny-plain or tuppence-colored kind of thing.
TB: You say you don't think it's angry, but for me, it comes across as very angry. I mean -- guitar and drums, bang-bang-bang-bang, and then you go "Rwarrrrr!"
AP: [laughs] Well, that's my Johnny Winter yell you're hearing there. It was one of the things we'd do in the dressing room -- I was always being provoked, because I had, like, the loudest yell in the known universe. It'd be, "Oh, c'mon, Partsy, do your Johnny Winter yell. Give us all a laugh." So I'd yell like a wounded mountain gorilla or something, which would cause great mirth and merriment amongst all company gathered therein. I thought, "Well, I've got to throw this into a song somewhere," you know.
TB: You set the stage very well that way. To me, anyway, it sounds like you're about to sing about something you're indignant about, or angry about.
AP: Well, I could never stand parents who didn't bring their kids up properly.
TB: Was there a particular situation for you that brought this to mind? What prompted the writing of this song?
AP: I think it just was a desire to write this rather old-fashioned-slash-modern morality tale -- you know, to bring it up to date. At the time it was written, there was an awful lot of awareness of the National Front in England -- we'd done at least one Rock Against Racism festival by that time -- and at that point in England, there was an awful lot of anti-Right kind of feeling, because it seemed like they were growing in prominence. It was probably more to do with the paranoia of the time rather than their actual prominence, if you know what I mean.
So I decided to make up this character, who basically is asleep all through the story! Because he's out drinking all night...
TB: And beating up Asians.
AP: Exactly. So, you never even get to meet the main character in the story. He's offstage. He's ob-scene. I thought that was quite a nice mechanism.
TB: Because it's just all a reflection of his actions, rather than actually looking directly at them.
AP: Right. It's the young policeman reporting his actions, or his parents saying, "Oh, our little angel couldn't possibly have done this!" And there are a lot of word games in there, obviously.
TB: Let's talk about that -- there are some phrases I'd like to ask about, because I've always wondered about them. Why is it an "insect-headed worker wife"?
AP: Well, we lived next door to this woman whom we dubbed -- we never knew her name -- "Mrs. Washing." She would wash everything, and one day she was hanging out underwear that could best be described as "waspies."
TB: Why?
AP: They were corset-type things -- to give you a wasp waist.
TB: Ah, okay.
AP: So, she was hanging these out one day, and it was like, "Oh, she's hung out her waspies, I see, so she's like a worker in a wasp hive or something." It was that kind of word play -- who would hang out waspies? Well, it'd an insect-headed worker wife -- there's that alliteration. It's a little word circle thing there, something that sounds [chuckle] very surreal. People think she's a normal person, but why does she have an insect head? It's just so that the word circle feels complete.
TB: "The husband burns his paper, sucks his pipe while studying their cushion floor."
AP: Yeah, that cushion floor was sort of a [salesman voice] luxury vinyl flooring that, to my parents' generation, was the height of success. If you had cushion floor -- and I think it was probably spelled "Cushionflor" [chuckles] -- if you had that, you really had made it. I think we even had that in our kitchen for a while when I was growing up, and you know, my parents felt like they were royalty. Just because of this padded linoleum.
And yeah, he's got it pipe at the kitchen table, and he's reading his paper and absentmindedly setting fire to his paper with his pipe -- I'm just trying to set the scene here. A little poetic license.
TB: "His viscous poly-paste breath comes out."
AP: Oh yeah, it's the sort of a breath that a lot of that generation seem to have, which is like wallpaper paste. It kind of smells of wallpaper paste. It also symbolizes a kind of claustrophobia, where you feel the entire world is wallpapered over. All of their world is covered in wallpaper and Cushionflor, and so it's natural that his stinky breath would be reminiscent of wallpaper paste.
TB: Right, and of course that makes sense when you're talking about "their wallpaper world." Which is a great image, because at first glance, wallpaper could look like some solid barrier, but there could be nothing behind it.
AP: Right, there's nothing to it. You can poke your finger through it, because it's all surface.
At the time, I detested wallpaper. For me, it symbolized an older, dead generation. But now I actually have a grudging respect for it. I really like French pictorial wallpaper of the 1800s -- in fact, I treated myself a couple of years back to a large-format book called French Scenic Wallpaper, 1795 to 1865." The wallpaper in it is beautifully printed, sort of classical scenes. So, I've grown a grudging respect for wallpaper, but hopefully my breath doesn't smell of poly-paste!
TB: [laughing] And then, "A boy in blue is busy banging out a headache on the kitchen door." So, you're setting that up...
AP: Yeah, and the snare drum is reinforcing it! Bang-bang-bang-bang.
TB: "And all the while, Graham slept on."
AP: Graham is offstage there snoozing. You never see him, you only hear about him.
TB: So, then the second act opens, after you've set the scene...
AP: Yeah, you pull off your little cardboard characters and get your next set of characters ready...
TB: "The young policeman who just can't grow a mustache." I've always loved that line -- why did you write it that way?
AP: Because young policemen always try to grow mustaches -- [deep voice] to give themselves authority! -- and they never can! It's like three or four wisps, and it's blond and ineffectual, and you want to walk up to them and say, "Look -- for christ's sake, shave that off, because the very fact that you've brought that out into the open air says to people, 'I'm so concerned that you might not take me seriously that I've grown a mustache! Look! Respect it.' Can't you see how stupid you're making yourself look?" So, young policemen should never attempt to grow mustaches.
TB: [laughing] We'll add that to the Partridgean Book of Rules.
AP: Exactly. Like Confucius:
TB: [laughing] This second act is a little more straightforward -- you're not as surreal in your imagery. It's the conversation between the policeman and the parents.
AP: Yeah, I need to tell some story. It's that device in film [laughing] where they cram in all the story -- you know, you've had all the action, and then 40 minutes in, you need to have two people at a table talking -- in essence, telling you what the film's all about. That's the equivalent of this in the song.
TB: Then the bridge, as you said, is a bit of an interlude. The narrator steps in to talk about what the parents have overlooked.
AP: Yes, this is the point where the spotlight turns to the narrator in a separate box off the side of the stage. He's filling in anything that you haven't grasped so far. It hints that there's something sinister in the lad, because his parents think it's a boy's club badge he's wearing. But it's not, of course. It from one of these right-wing groups.
TB: And then, in the last verse, you bring things around full circle. She's out there hanging her waspies on the line again, but now everything's okay. I wanted to ask you about one thing -- years ago there was an argument on Chalkhills about who "Dad" was -- is it Graham's dad who's a judge, or is it the worker wife's dad?
AP: Well, I can settle that argument, because it's Richard Branson's dad! His father was an extremely high-powered judge, and got his son off of a very serious charge. The young Richard Branson, in the very early days of Virgin Records, had a scam where he was claiming that records were for export to Europe and getting them marked up as such. Then the lorry, instead of driving onto the boat at Dover, would turn around and come back to London, and they'd sell these discs that didn't have tax on them, in their shop and by mail order. Branson would pocket the tax.
This was an offense that could have led to jail time for him, but his father, who was a judge -- and who knew exactly what the job of judging's all about! -- stepped in and sort of, [posh voice] "Well, now -- look here." So he got off, completely scot-free! So, that's a cameo in the song.
TB: [laughing] We're going to be able to print this, and not get sued?
AP: Yeah -- it's all out there in several books about Branson's life. He's not happy about it being out there, but the cat's already out of the bag.
TB: Let's talk about the music and the recording of the song.
AP: Actually, the whole song fell out as a result of me messing around with "Summertime Blues." It's not the same chords -- I'm not sure what key that's in, but if it were in E, then it'd be E, A, B. But I messed around and stumbled on a chord that I'd never found before, which I realized has something to do with D, but I still don't know the name of it. The song starts in E, then the notes of the second chord are, in ascending order, G-flat, A, D, A, B, E.
I thought, "Ooh, that's interesting -- that has an unresolved lift." You're settled on E, but then you're momentarily lifted up and hanging on that second chord, then you drop to E again. It's a very bumpy rhythmic ride, and I thought, "Ooh, this is good. Have I found a chord that nobody else knows about?" So that's where it came from -- dicking around with "Summertime Blues."
TB: I'm assuming this is one of these songs that you guys developed and arranged in rehearsal?
AP: Yeah. It was very tightened up in rehearsal. You can tell that -- it's so steady. Everyone's completely integrated with each other. There's not a beat or note out of place on this. It was bashed to death at rehearsal at Fatty Alderton's Tudor Studios in Swindon.
Great performance by Terry Chambers, actually. He's on the button there, all the way through.
TB: Oh yeah. Rock solid.
AP: Yeah, really. And how he does that strange mid-section...
TB: I wanted to ask you about that, because it's very Nigelesque...
AP: It is -- if you listen, there's very dead floor-tom on one side, very clicky-sounding. And then he's playing this triplet counter-rhythm on the hi-hat against that. I'm not sure what his foot's doing...
TB: He's doing four-on-the-floor with his kick drum.
AP: Right. I don't know how that all came up -- it's completely spastic, but completely perfect!
TB: So, that wasn't anything you suggested?
AP: Well, he and I always worked really closely on what the drum rhythms for any song were going to be. That was my closest relation to Terry. We didn't have a lot in common outside of him drumming, even though we were from the -- god, I hate to say it, but it's important in England -- the same class. Now, it's different -- I spoke to him two or three days ago, keeping him up on stuff. He calls every six months or so, and we have a chat.
TB: The credits list Colin as playing "Fender bass" on this. You and I recently talked about how you and Dave sometimes wished he'd "just play his Fender."
AP: Well, if he did just play his Fender, then we obviously thought it was weird enough to mention that it's a Fender! [laughs] Perhaps we were trying to suggest that he should stay playing that Fender, and stop picking up his cartoon novelty bass of the week. [chuckles]
TB: It's very punchy.
AP: Oh, it really is. It's very punchy, and he does put some rather seasick-sounding semi-tonal runs in there, which add to the queasiness of the scenario.
TB: I like the passing tones that he does in the chorus, where you guys are all banging on the A-G-F chords, and he descends to each one.
AP: Yep, that slipping-between-chords thing. Oh yeah, he's a great bass player.
TB: And you're only playing acoustic on this?
AP: I think so! I think Dave's doing all the electric guitars. Dave's doing that ferocious kind of Rock-and-Roll meets Stax thing -- like Booker T. & the MG's. You know, that Fender guitar and four-beat snare punching along together. And it's definitely related to "Life Begins at the Hop." It's very Dave Gregory in that respect.
He also plays that rather "Holly Up on Poppy"-esque keyboards in the middle section. That's the Prophet-5 synthesizer, which I would take home and try to program, to create sounds that I knew I would want to hear on tracks. Because you had to build the sounds and then save them in memory. There were some pre-programmed sounds, but it was a great delight to try to build your own. I had a notebook where I had all the sounds notated, just for that reason -- "this is how to dial up a flute," or "how to dial up a kaliope" or something.
TB: And you were really were dialing up things on that, because it was an analog synth.
AP: It was, and it was the old attack-decay-sustain-release approach -- ASDR. Which is I think is a porno expression as well.
TB: [laughing] I'm a little afraid to ask what the letters stand for!
AP: [laughing] I think the last word is "Roebuck" -- just to give you an idea of how wrong it is.
TB: Is this just you singing? Are you overdubbing your voice?
AP: Do you know, I never twigged that. I know I asked Hugh Padgham to give me a kind of Rock-and-Roll slapback vocal effect, to help the "Summertime Blues" feel.
TB: And that is one of the big differences I noticed between the studio version and the BBC version -- the BBC is much drier.
AP: Yeah. You have to kind of knock the songs out at the BBC, and it's a case of, you know, "The thing to make echo -- we're using that on the guitar, so we can't possibly put it on your voice."
TB: Was it that primitive?
AP: No, probably not, but it is a case of you've got to get so much recorded and mixed so quickly -- you've got a couple of hours to do four songs, and it's got to sound presentable. The best thing that you can hope for is that there's more nervous energy than there is on the album.
TB: And I think it succeeds on that level. It's interesting to listen to it -- because there's not such a wash of reverb, you can hear other things going on more easily. For instance, you're doing lots of percussive strumming accents on the acoustic.
AP: Yeah. Well, this is the most Rock-and-Roll XTC have ever been, I think.
TB: You mean, like classic Rock-and-Roll?
AP: Yeah, with the almost kind of "Rock Showband" kind of feeling, you know?
TB: Let's talk about the coda at the end, if you could call it that. Just when you think it's going to end, Rwarrr, it comes back in. Was that something you planned from the beginning, or did you say later, "Wouldn't be great if we just fooled people this way"?
AP: It probably grew out of enjoying playing it in rehearsal. You kind of don't want to stop, you know? The song would stop, and Chambers would probably look over, and we'd be off and running again. "Ooh, that feels so right!" A case of, "Well, why stop? This is great fun, let's do some more."
I also really like the false start, with the quiet drums. I don't know where that idea came from, but I was reminded of that, listening to this yesterday. I think that's a great way to bring the listener into the song.
TB: Yeah, you kind of do that on "Roads Girdle the Globe," right?
AP: Yeah, but that was the whole track -- for that song, we moved up the whole track up a couple of dB when it came into the motif part. But with this one, the drums were made to sound very thin and quiet -- kind of like a drum version of that thin acoustic guitar, and then suddenly, when the rest of the band kicks in, you get the proper drum kit. And it sounds great. Because you think, "Oh, well, that's it then, here we go," and then suddenly, Pow! Sucker punch.
And there's the Johnny Winter yell -- I remembered that on an American tour, we had a roadie who used to be one of Johnny Winter's roadies and, as I say, the band would poke me into doing my Johnny Winter impression in the changing rooms. This fellow told us, "Every night on stage there would be a slow Blues number where I would bring out a rocking chair, and Johnny Winter would sit in the rocking chair and play a little bit." I think Johnny had a sax player in the band for a little while, who would solo, and this guy said, "During that section, Johnny would inevitably -- every night -- fall asleep in the rocking chair."
He said it got to the point where the rest of the band would know this, and would signal to the roadie, who would slide on in the dark, and between the spindles of the rocking chair, would violently poke Johnny Winter with something, to poke him awake. Winter would leap out of the rocking chair with a "Rhwarrrr!" and start playing, start soloing. [laughs]
TB: [laughs] One more question -- there's a video out there of you guys on The Old Grey Whistle Test doing this song. Any particular memories of that? I think it's a great performance.
AP: I was exceptionally nervous. I did not want to be touring. And it was like, "Oh no, this is the tip of the iceberg of touring, and what's the first thing we do? Live television to the nation!" You've been writing and rehearsing and recording an album, and you don't want to go back on the road, and what do they do? They put another worldwide tour in, and they start you off with live television.
TB: So the Whistle Test was live?
AP: It became live after so many years. Not very many people realize this, but earlier, bands would mime to backing track, and either add a live vocal in, or they would just sing along with their record. For example, when the New York Dolls were on there, with the track "Jet Boy," they're just singing along. They've got the mic's in the studio, and you can hear the clumping of their stack heels louder than you can the actual tracks. They're obviously miming. And when David Bowie was on there doing "Five Years" -- people say, "Oh, that's the greatest performance" -- he's singing to a backing track, for christ's sake! Anybody can see this.
But then, as the years went on, they would insist that bands really did play live. When we did our appearance doing "Statue of Liberty," that was totally live. So was the "Yacht Dance" and "No Thugs" appearance.
TB: Was it going out on to the airwaves live, or were you performing it live in front a audience?
AP: It was a performance, one take, and then they'd put it out the following week, or whatever.
TB: I thought maybe it was actually streaming out live to TV sets across the nation...
AP: No, you got the one shot at it, and there you go. Which, I guess, is second-worst. [laughs]
©2008 Todd Bernhardt and Andy Partridge. All rights reserved.
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Monday, August 18, 2008
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Here’s the demo for ’You’re the Wish You Are I Had’
Song of the Week
As the summer heads toward its sun-drenched consummation, leading to Labor Day and the birth of a new school year, we continue our sometime-tradition of posting alternate versions of songs that Andy has already discussed here. This week we feature the demo of the song Andy discussed last week: "You're the Wish You Are I Had," from 1984's The Big Express.
This version can be found on Volume 2 of the Fuzzy Warbles series -- a total of nine discs of demo and unreleased cuts that give as good a glimpse into the musical mind of Andy Partridge over the past 30 years as anything else on this planet. You'd need a scalpel to get any deeper.
You might find that the demo provides interesting insights into what can happen in the space between when an idea goes down on tape, and when it is released in "ready for the world" form. Enjoy!
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Monday, August 11, 2008
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Andy discusses ’You’re the Wish You Are I Had’
Song of the Week -- Andy's take
Part of an ongoing series of interviews by Todd Bernhardt with Andy Partridge about the songs we feature each week on MySpace. This week's song, "You're the Wish You Are I Had," is from 1984's The Big Express.
Lots of good guesses for this one, but Javier Tenaz came through pretty quickly with his "easy" guess. Welcome to the club of multiple winners, Senor! We'll be back in two weeks with a an Andyview about a song that can be related to why Todd's moving house in several weeks (those who know why are disqualified from guessing). And, gentle readers, because of that upcoming move, be forwarned that the interview schedule through the rest of August and into September may be rather, um, fluid. Bear with us while we go through this change of life, resting assured that we'll return to our regular programming ASAP.
TB: Let's talk about "You're the Wish You Are I Had." You told me you didn't want to talk about this song, but it sounds to me like you put a lot of effort into recording it. What put you off?
AP: Well, after I played through The Big Express version two or three times, I had to dig out the demo, and do you know what? About 90 percent of it's on that demo. It was one of those things where I locked the band out, without meaning to.
TB: I don't know if I'd agree -- I listened to the demo, and it's mostly guitar-based, while there's fantastic keyboard all over the studio version.
AP: Yeah, that's Dave plonking away. The reluctant keyboard player.
TB: The reluctant-yet-fantastic keyboard player.
AP: Yeah, he's very good.
TB: And the bass line is quite evolved on the studio version.
AP: Sure, he takes some of the melodic things I did on the demo, and roots them a bit better.
TB: Plus, I love his tone on the song -- it's like "rubber-band bass" or something.
AP: True -- I don't know if that was his new bass or not. He'd just bought a Wal bass at the time. Much to the chagrin of [producer] David Lord, who said [imitates Lord], "I can't make that bass sound any good! I've got six compressors chained across it to try to get it to sound equal." He was very upset with us, but Colin loved it. And whatever David Lord was doing eventually sounded fine. But I think it took a lot of work.
Dave and I were always frustrated that Colin didn't just play his Fender. But Colin had his "novelty basses" that he would insist on playing. You know -- the Epiphone Newport with the damaged mute, or later on, it was a Vox bass...
TB: That he'd gotten from T-Bone Burnett?
AP: Yeah. Which, you know, just sounded like phuh. It sounded like someone doing a particularly hot fart -- it didn't sound like a bass at all! [chuckles]
TB: [laughing] But at the same time, when you think about it, the Epiphone was a huge part of your sound. It ended up being quite a defining part of the band's sound.
AP: The Epiphone did, yeah. In fact, that's maybe on more recordings than anything else. But I think on this one it's probably the Wal. Of course, in lieu of Colin talking to anyone, we're never going to find out! [laughs]
TB: Why did you and Dave prefer the Fender? Did he have a P-bass?
AP: I think he might have even had a Jazz, originally. Dave can tell you that. He probably even knows the serial numbers of all the guitars! [chuckles]
TB: Was there something in particular you preferred about the Fender, or was it just that the sound would be straight-ahead, and you'd know what to expect?
AP: I like the sound of Fender basses. I think they have a nice punch to them. In fact, I bought one a year or so ago -- just a cheap one, a Squier one -- and it sounds fantastic! £150 -- what's that, $300?
But Dave and I were always frustrated. [mimics them whispering in the corner] "Why doesn't he just play his Fender bass? Why do we have to dick around for hours because we can't get a good sound on the..." and then you fill in whatever novelty bass of the week Colin was playing -- his fretless Danelectro, or whatever it was on English Settlement, or his malfunctioning Epiphone Newport, or whatever.
TB: What prompted you to write this song?
AP: I can tell you where the song came from, originally.
TB: Out of your imagination? Were you pining after someone?
AP: Well, it didn't start with the lyrics. It actually started, yet again, with a new chord I'd discovered, as most of the songs do. That's the thing that snags you and trips you up, and suddenly, splat, you land headfirst in a song.
And the chord is -- [plays it] -- I bet you don't know what that is, do you?
TB: No, I don't!
AP: Well, me neither! [chuckles] But I'll describe what it is. If you play an idiot open-G, as in "Row the Boat Ashore," but you slide it all up so your root note is on the C, that's your chord. These are the notes: C, E, D, G, G, C. [plays chord, sings melody line over it] Then it goes to a chord of B there. So that's the chord -- some type of C-glorious thing, then to B. And it was just discovering that that made this snaky vocal melody fall out.
TB: Right. Suggested by the notes in the chord.
AP: [hums the G-flat in the melody line] Well -- no. [laughs] Some of the notes just aren't in the chord! [sings more, then resolves into the chorus]
TB: See, that's one of the things that I really like about the song -- how it resolves into a very major feel there.
AP: Yeah, I think it goes to E. I haven't played it for a while, but I think it jumps to an E. But the song came out of the very snaky melody suggested by that chord.
TB: So, where did the lyrics come from, then?
AP: I don't know! I think it was a case of blurting out the chorus -- I think those words came first. I thought, "Shit, I'm allowing myself to write a McCartney song here! This is like a McCartney-type chorus -- it's like a missing track from Sgt. Pepper or something." Related to "Lovely Rita" or "Getting Better" or something.
I was still struggling at the time with this Beatle influence, which was getting bigger and bigger in me, and I was refusing to acknowledge it. I'd only just acknowledged it momentarily, with "Ladybird" on the previous album. I was not allowing this Beatleness free rein, but I think with this one, it was a case of, "Oh, just let it go. Let it out." And I was okay with that. "I'm out!" [laughs]
TB: [laughing] Don't you feel better now?
AP: "Mum? Dad? I quite like Paul McCartney." [laughs, imitates Mum's voice, voicing regret] "Oh, we thought you were a Lennon, son. We thought were going to marry a nice Japanese girl and stay in bed all day." [voice of resolute youth] "No Mum, I want to live on a farm, and wear a Fair Isle sweater, and I can't wait to get bagpipes going." [laughs]
So yeah, it was a matter of, "Oh, why not -- if it wants to come out like McCartney, fucking let it go. Let it out."
TB: So, let's get back to the lyrics again. What was driving that? Did you have a secret flame?
AP: It was probably Erica. I'd met her when I'd gone over to the States with Colin for the premiere of "Times Square," because we had "Take This Town" in there. And, well, if it wasn't love at first sight, it was certainly "severe crush at first sight"! I didn't want to think of it as love at first sight, because I'd only been married for something like six months, so it was a bit painful, you know? It was like, "'Shit! I'm married!"
So, I think there's lots of Erica mixed in there, and also probably some previous girlfriends as well. It's that situation where you think, "Wouldn't it be great if I had a girl that was like that." And then suddenly, you know, you bump into one. It was like this with my ex-wife -- I was working in McIlroys, the department store, and she walked past me in the corridor during a winter's day. She was wearing a fur coat and a fur hat, and she looked like a Russian princess. Stunningly beautiful. I remember thinking, "Wow. I'd love a girlfriend like that." It was one of those wishing things. And we ended up together, and married, for Christ's sake! And then we ended up divorced, so I signed up to PETA! If she's going to wear fur coats, then I'm going to get her. [laughs] No, no, stop it.
So yeah, it's a combination of lots of previous girlfriends with big dollops of Erica in there. One of those things where you think, "If I was single, maybe I could get together with her!" It's a naive thing, but I've still got big lumps of naive in me.
TB: That's the Romantic in you.
AP: It's the Romantic, or it's the last bastions of creativity or something. It's curiosity. Maybe if you know everything, you don't want to create anything or be bothered with anything.
TB: I like the juxtaposition of images in here -- just like in "Seagulls," you're talking in large terms -- you know, your blood running "like ice right through" you, and images like that -- and then you bring up the most mundane image of, "I made her eat an apple / and I made her drink a cup or two."
AP: Yeah! It's the sort of thing, you think, "Well, if we were together, we'd sit and have a cup of tea together," or "She'd be sitting there eating an apple." You're not just getting a blowjob by the shadow of the Eiffel Tower or something like that, you're also wishing for these everyday things.
TB: And then you talk about your idealism in the bridge, basically saying, "Don't try to take my wishing away from me."
AP: Yeah, don't do that. The bridge is also about my guilt. I have terrible, terrible guilt.
TB: So let's talk about the parts...
AP: That's me doing the garbage-guitar slide solo.
TB: I was wondering if that was you or Dave...
AP: It was a case of, "Well, what do you want in the middle?" And I didn't know what I wanted in the middle, which is why I put that piece of garbage slide solo on the demo...
TB: On each version of this song, you have something in that section that's kind of a throwaway. On the BBC version, you're credited with "Zippy Zither."
AP: [laughs] Right. Well, you know why? Because it's a spot where I never knew what I wanted. Occasionally, I just can't hear a section, and that was true here. I knew I wanted a little instrumental break, and on the demo, I just grabbed a bottleneck and thought, "I'll just go up and down the neck, make a noise here, and we'll come up with something in the studio. I'll just ask folks, 'Okay, who can come up with something good here?' " And, do you know, we couldn't come up with anything better than just dicking around on a slide guitar!
TB: I like the solo -- I think it fits the song well.
AP: It does suits the song by lending it a kind of dreamy, [chuckling] guilty indecision or something -- which the song is pretty much about, I think -- but we couldn't find anything better. So it was a case of, "Oh, if you have to make that awful row, Partsy, then just make it!"
It's Dave playing the piano, and I think he's playing that very growly, phasing, chorus-ing guitar. I can't remember what the hell I'm doing on this, to be truthful.
TB: Are you playing what you played on the demo?
AP: Probably, but it's not very high in the mix.
And it's Pete Phipps drumming, of course. No Linn drum!
TB: I was going to ask about that. It sounded to me like acoustic drums, but he's basing what he's doing on what you had programmed, correct?
AP: Sure. On the demo, there were these funny little cross tom-tom things. But on the demo, I wanted to turn the idea of the drums upside-down. So, what the hi-hat pattern would be -- tap-tap-tap-tap-tap -- is on snare drum. So, on the finished version, I said to Pete, "Look, can you do this? Can you twist it upside-down, and make the hi-hat pattern the snare drum?" It's all Pete, and he does a great job of just sitting on it.
You know, there's more of Pete on that album than people would thing. They say, "Oh, I don't like that record, it's all Linn drum." No, it's not! There's not that much Linn drum on it.
TB: I like the way he lays into the kick on the "7-and" and "1."
AP: Right. He's a good player. He can turn his hand to many different feels.
TB: Let's go back to the vocals a bit. You guys obviously spent a long time on that. Is it mostly you overdubbing yourself, or are Colin and Dave on this, too?
AP: I think there's quite a bit of me, but I think there are bunches of any combination of the three of us. To be truthful, we'd probably have to sit with the multi-tracks and pull them up, and say, "Oh, I can hear Colin in there," or, "I can hear Dave." Because they do have quite distinctive timbres. Dave's that wispy one, with lots of air, and Colin's is a little bit higher and strident. Possibly a little oboe-like in places.
TB: Did you plan all the counterpoint-like vocals out, or were you in the studio making it up as you went along, inspired by what you heard?
AP: I think a fair amount of them is on the demo...
TB: It sounded to me as if on the studio version you developed it a bit more.
AP: Yeah, because we had more tracks to stretch with.
I feel as if I'm struggling a little bit , Todd, to talk about this one! It seems to be kind of one of the lost tracks, if you know what I mean. It's a bit of a "Fixing a Hole" of a track -- one of those passed-over sort of things.
TB: Well, that's one reason I wanted to talk about the song!
AP: Do you know, part of me fantasized about it being a single, but nobody pointed it out as one. I thought it was kind of commercial enough, in its way...
TB: I thought it was very commercial -- as I was saying, the chorus is really sunny and bright, and stays with you.
AP: Sure, and all those voices kind of canon all over each other. I thought that was pretty good, but nope, nobody at Virgin cast a glance at it.
TB: Where did you guys record this?
AP: It was done at Crescent Studios, in Bath, which was a funny combination of a couple of houses -- if you can imagine an L-shaped thing of two houses together, and imagine the join between the far ends of the L walled-in, so it sort of created a kind of foyer area. The best parts of the two houses were the studio. The control room was on the ground floor, and the performing studios, the two of them -- the bigger room and the smaller room, with the piano in it -- they were upstairs.
TB: Really? So if you were sitting in the control room, you couldn't see the players?
AP: There was a TV camera and monitor downstairs. If you were up in the performing area, you couldn't see the control room, but they could see you.
I liked it in there. I thought it was really interesting. Trouble was, when it was warm, they'd open the doors of the studio out to the world, and you'd get a lot of people passing by and coming in. You know, you'd be sat at the mixing desk, and you'd turn around and there'd be two or three people, [drunken voice] "What you doin', mate?" [chuckles]
There was a little old fellow turned up one day. We said, "Yes, can we help you?" He said, "This was my house. You see that little alcove there? That was the fireplace. I'd sit there and have my porridge before I went to school in the morning." The control room had been his kitchen!
TB: Was this David Lord's studio, or was he just working there with you?
AP: It was his studio. It was co-owned between him and -- his other partner died, so his partner's widow kind of kicked in and took over, and handled the business side of things, while David was head honcho. They had another engineer called Glenn Tommey. Those were the main three, and they had a secretary called Gaynor -- little ginger-haired Welsh girl. So, there you go, I've remembered all of them, for some strange reason!
TB: What were his contributions to the song, as producer?
AP: On this one, just really the engineering side of things. Pretty damned good engineer. His real skill was arranging. He's a phenomenal arranger -- just his taste in where things should sit and how you should point things. That was his background, though.
TB: Right, that was why I thought he might have had some input into turning this into the fully developed version -- maybe with the keyboards or vocals or something.
AP: Not so much, no. Not on this song. He did with something like "Wake Up." He turned that song from something quite minimal and bare into quite an epic production. He had a great ear for how things should go. That was his craft. In fact, he was asked to arrange "She's Leaving Home" by McCartney. He said he went to dinner at McCartney's or something, and was asked to arrange the song -- and he thought, "Nah, Beatles, that's just Pop music." So he didn't do it. You'd think Paul would have asked George Martin! The bitch. [chuckles]
TB: Who ended up doing it, right?
AP: No, somebody else did it -- some other arranger, I think, ended up doing it. [Mike Leander]
TB: I know you guys did a version of this for the BBC. Is there anything in particular you remember about that?
AP: No, that was really just running through it.
TB: You are using the Linn drum on that, right?
AP: Yeah, sure. Because it was like, "Can we get Pete?" "Well, he'll want paying, and he might be out on tour," and all that. So, "Dave, can you do a program that sounds like Pete's drumming?"
TB: So Dave was the one that programmed the Linn?
AP: Yeah. Because he was the best drum programmer. He could make it swing a little bit better than any of us could. [chuckles] It still sounds stiff, but it was fine for what we wanted.
TB: And then there's the Zippy Zither on the solo...
AP: [laughs] I've still got Zippy Zither!
TB: You do?
AP: I do! In fact, I was just dicking around with a song called "You're a Magic Set," which has a strange little motif that goes through it. I've tuned the Zippy Zither to be that motif, so if I drop that in the song, I shall record it with Zippy Zither. Yes, Zippy's still zipping along. Been on a lot of records, ol' Zippy Zither.
TB: [laughing] Which ones?
AP: It's on the Dukes, on "The Mole from the Ministry." It's been on "Galveston," that song from Orpheus: The Lowdown, which I did with Peter Blegvad. If I sat and looked, I could probably find another half a dozen things it's been on, actually. Zippy's earned his corn! He wasn't expensive.
TB: Yep, and there's a sound that you can only get from a zither, right?
AP: That's right. And, of course, through a fuzz box he's kind of interesting as well. [chuckles] But I've yet to try that.
©2008 Todd Bernhardt and Andy Partridge. All rights reserved.
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Sunday, August 03, 2008
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Rare Live version of ’Roads Girdle the Globe’
Song of the Week
This week we have a real treat for you -- it's a rare live version of "Roads Girdle the Globe," which Andy discussed in early June and Dave remembered in mid-July. Originally on 1979's Drums and Wires, this version was recorded live July 20th, 1979 -- exactly 29 years before we published Dave's memories of the song! -- at the Marconi Club, Sydney, for JJJ Radio in Australia. Produced and engineered by Keith Walker, it was released in January 1981 on the B-side of the Canadian "Love at First Sight" single.
Special thanks go to Per for his help in getting a digital version of this.
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Sunday, July 27, 2008
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Andy discusses ’Beatown’
Song of the Week -- Andy's take
Part of an ongoing series of interviews by Todd Bernhardt with Andy Partridge about the songs we feature each week on MySpace. This week's song, "Beatown," is from 1978's Go 2.
The hint two weeks ago inspired XTCfans to a wide spectrum of speculation, but only one -- Kittysneezes -- was right. Good Puss! Gesundheit! We'll be back in two weeks with an Andyview that looks at one of his songs of desire.
Oh, and a belated Happy Birthday to Mr. Terry Chambers, who came into this world on July 18. We salute you, Mr. C! Hope it was a happy one.
TB: When I brought this song up, you seemed a little trepidacious about discussing it -- why?
AP: Good word! Yep, trepidacious about talking about it -- because it was a long time ago, and while some songs are really clear -- where they came from, and the sentiment behind them -- others kind of get lost in the fog. Maybe the sentiment behind them was kind of just something very slight.
TB: I've got to say, that's one of the reasons I want to talk about "Beatown" in particular -- I've always kind of wondered [laughs] what you're going on about in this song!
AP: [laughing] Yes. Okay, you got me bang to rights, Gov'ner.
TB: So, what are you talking about? What are the lyrics about in this song?
AP: [Cockney accent] I never done it! I swear I never done it, Constable! It was that Colin Moulding -- he made me go over the wall and nick them apples!
I was listening to the thing two or three times through today and frantically making notes and spinning back and checking it out, and I thought, "Why the hell did I write this song?" I think that the title came from the onomatopoeic sound of the chord I'd just discovered. I shall reach over and pull up a Martin [chuckles] from a pile of discarded Martins -- no, from a pile of one! -- and it was this change [plays the chords behind the word "Beatown"].
The chord is the chord of D, right up there on the top, so it's nice and tight, and then you slam on a chord of A, with your little finger, so the resulting chord is these notes: D, A, E, A, D-flat, G-flat. And then you move it down to B, and do the same thing, so it's B, G-flat, D-flat, G-flat, B-flat, E-flat.
For me, the chords sounded futuristic and medieval at the same time! They sounded like some big cityscape -- you know, it could be [chuckles] London in the 11th century, or it could be Brasilia 200 years from now. It sounds big, and it sounds urban and, like I say, it sounded like it was futuristic and archaic at the same time. I thought. I thought, "Wow, that sounds like a big town, a big city," and for some reason a "beat town" just came into my head. I don't know why. It sounds really cheesy, like it ought to be the title of a film from 1962, with lots of Beatniks on the beach having some sort of kinky barbeque. "Beat Town Blanket Bingo"! [laughs] Lots of bongos and other stuff beginning with "B."
The lyrics contain lots of commentary on our manager at the time. He was always moaning that he couldn't get us on the phone, and it hadn't occurred to him that I was so poor I didn't have a phone! [laughs ruefully] I had to walk about 200 yards to the nearest phone box to call in, to find out what was going on that day or what was happening on such-and-such an issue. [imitates an annoyed Ian Reid] "I can never get you on the phone!" "Well, I don't have one, Ian." [pissed-off Reid] "I can never get you!" He seemed to not be able to grasp that I didn't have a phone -- I couldn't afford one.
So, there are little things like that. And "it's a capital city" -- "capital" is the sort of word he would use. [high-pitched, whiny-yet-posh voice] "Absolutely capital, chaps! Capital." And so there are lots of little private in-jokes about the group at the time, and our manager.
Also, it's a song about positive violence, if such a thing exists. It's like a Monkees theme tune. It's sort of about us -- I know this sounds crazy -- "Beatown, yes we're the XTCs, we're coming to your town, we're just XTC'ing about." You know, it was just one of those rather silly, self-manifesto songs. [Bad Swedish accent] "Hello, we're The Trousers from Sweden, and our song is 'Hey Hey, We're The Trousers,' from our album Meet The Trousers" -- my god, this is bringing my brain to a halt even explaining it!
One thing I do remember is, Barry Andrews said, "I love that line, 'We use the head and not the fist.' "
TB: Yeah, tell me about that.
AP: Well, you know, it's how you get things sorted out. You don't just attack. You think.
TB: But there's a conflict of sorts that you're talking about in the bridge. You're saying, "He says... He says..." and then you say, "I said they beat you fair and square sir / They use the head, and not the fist."
AP: Yeah. It's about thinking things through. Use your brain -- don't resort to flailing and kicking first. Use your brain if you want to get things sorted out. I suppose if it was The Monkees, it'd be, "Hey hey, we're quite intelligent, we think things through. We're coming to your town to think things through with you." [laughs]
TB: [laughing] And it rhymes!
AP: [laughing] There you go. So, what a slight, silly reason to write a song. But I love the idea of that epic Rock-y repetition -- the opening and closing sections are almost like Philip Glass was in a rock band, or working with music for guitar, keyboard, bass and drums, you know? Because there is that great, nice, violent repetition to it. I love all that stuff!
TB: It's a pretty powerful song. I was struck by that this morning, as I was really concentrating on it, listening on headphones -- it's big. It's one of the bigger songs on the album.
AP: It is, and when John Leckie's three-machine tape phasing kicks in -- whoa. You know, I'd forgotten all about that!
TB: How did he do it?
AP: It's the best-quality way you can approach phasing. You have two copies of the tape on two different machines -- one copy on each machine -- and then you have a third machine to record the results. You play the first two machines, and make one of them go slightly out of sync...
TB: So you're literally phase-shifting!
AP: That's right, rather than using an external effect. So, you drive machine number one against the sound of machine number two, and as you drive it slightly out of sync, the whole track goes [imitates effect] -- you know, it combs through the phasing, and you capture it on the third machine.
TB: Is he only doing it on some of the instruments? I don't think the bass is involved in the phasing at all -- it sounds to me as if it's drums and the high-end stuff.
AP: I think you don't have to do it 100 percent -- you can do different degrees. I'm pretty sure that everything went through it.
TB: Okay, so maybe you only apply it to certain frequencies?
AP: Maybe certain frequencies, or possibly it was not done to such a deep degree as, for example, on "Jason and the Argonauts." The phasing on that is actually mechanical -- it's a device called a bell flanger or something. The whole track went through that 100 percent. But on "Beatown," I seem to remember it being tape phasing, but you can obviously do different depths, you know? I'm pretty sure you can. Now you've got me thinking! Yeah, I swear it was tape phasing, because that was a trick that John showed us how to do, and boy, were we impressed.
And we did this in Abbey Road Studio 2, the Beatle room. But that was of no importance to me at the time!
TB: Yeah, I remember you talking about that.
AP: Because I was in Beatle denial! And oh boy, have I got a punky voice on this -- have I got a silly, yelping voice.
TB: It's funny -- you do, on the studio version, but then I was listening to the live version, and you're actually singing quite clearly on that. You weren't "barking" so much.
AP: With Go 2, I was starting to wonder, "Should still be doing that silly voice by now, or should I relax and be a bit more me," you know? So, by the time we got to playing it live with Dave, I was getting more relaxed and being a bit more myself, I think.
TB: So, what are you saying at the beginning of the song? You're spelling it out, but not exactly.
AP: I'm just phonetically spelling it out. It's like teaching sounds -- "oh" "eh" "ah" -- I don't know why I decided to do it like that. I guess it's the teacher in me! [laughs] "Gather 'round now, children!" It's probably my hang-up about being the last to read in my class, actually. For some reason, I was slow with reading. I may have been mildly autistic.
TB: Well, Einstein didn't speak until he was four, I think.
AP: And what was the first thing he said? [little kid voice] "E=mc2, Mommy!" [laughs]
TB: [laughing] "Eureka! I have found my voice!"
AP: [laughing] So, he didn't speak 'til he was four, eh?
TB: Yeah, I believe that's the story. They all thought he was a dope. So there you go, Mr. Genius!
Let's talk about the drums -- first of all, Terry's stamina on this song is just unbelievable. Having just gone through a little Go 2 party with other fans in the DC area, I had to get my forearms back in shape, and realized what a young man's album this is!
AP: Oh, yeah -- don't you love it when he does that roll right before the end-repetition part -- both hands, both toms, simultaneously. No overdubs, of course -- all one take.
TB: And it's one of the few songs that he plays a ride cymbal on.
AP: That's right! Yeah, he was a hi-hat man.
TB: Did you ask for a ride cymbal on this song?
AP: Do you know, I cannot remember. In my minimal notes on this song, I've written "Terry workhorse." He really is a workhorse on this track. We did some of the album in Studio 3, but I think John said, "If we can get Studio 2 for a week, we can do a lot more live-sounding backing tracks." I've got a feeling that this was a Studio 2 recording -- the drums sound somewhat better, but they're still relatively close-mic'ed. That was John's sound -- he didn't like ambience too much on the kit. Which lead us to seek out Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham. But yeah, Terry's really sweating away on this one.
TB: Let's talk about the bass line a little bit.
AP: It's very good! It's kind of minimal, but it really works.
TB: The end part is minimal, but he has some quite-complex runs around the chorus.
AP: Yeah, it's very much that kind of music -- I don't know what it's called -- that you'll hear when someone's trying to evoke a cityscape, taxi horns, and things like that. You know -- scurrying city sounds. So, maybe Colin was getting that out of the chords, too, because I don't remember saying to him, [chuckles] "Try a scurrying, cityscape, workers-hurrying-to-the-office bass line, please"! He just kind of got it, you know?
TB: Right. And this would have been one of those songs that you'd worked out in rehearsal?
AP: In those days, it was just, "Okay, I kind of want something a bit like this -- go!" And off we went. But yeah, it's very melodic. I also like the intro, where he play those big accents on the "two," you know? I think it's a chord or something.
TB: He also shows a lot of stamina in that end part. That's not easy, to just keep doing those two notes over and over again.
AP: No, not at all. But these were the days where they [Terry and Colin] would really challenge each other to lock-in to what each other did. You know, they would have these kind of duels -- you'd see them going at it in rehearsals or soundchecks. Terry called everybody by their last name -- it was like an Army thing. So, it was never "Andy" -- it was [barks] "Part'ridge!" Or, "Andrews!" or "Moulding!"
So, Terry'd yell out, "Moulding!" Colin would turn 'round, and Terry'd be going for a rhythm and Colin'd have to be on it in a nanosecond. They were always trying to catch each other out. And 99 times out of 100, they'd be on it together within a fraction of a second -- whatever the other one was going to pull out of the bag as a challenge, you know. There was a kind of roughhouse camaraderie. A brotherhood, dammit.
TB: I remember you telling me, when we spoke a long time ago, about the different drummers you'd worked with, how you thought that Terry had the most musical dialogue with Colin, out of anyone in the band.
AP: Absolutely. I mean, the pair of them came along together as a unit. It was like, "I know this bass player," and "I know this drummer," and it was them two. They'd played with each other before then -- not for very long, but they did have a bit of a background together. They were looking for guitar players, singers, whatever, and I was kind of a guitar player, and a reluctant singer.
TB: Let's talk about the keyboards a little bit.
AP: Oh yeah, I love that organ! That's the very pinnacle of the Barry Andrews organ timbre -- you know, the tonal quality he could get out of that Crumar.
TB: It's just swirling throughout the entire song.
AP: Oh, I love it. I love the bit on the outro where he's playing those dissonant, clustery, swirly things. They are just -- oh, it's sex. It's sex, made cheap organ. That was his keyboard sound, and for the Go 2 album, he borrowed some rather swish synthesizers.
TB: I knew that he had done that, and that he'd rented out a clavinet.
AP: He uses the clavinet on the middle section of this song. He's mirroring the bass line, I think.
TB: Is he using any synths on this?
AP: I don't think he is. I think it's all Crumar, otherwise. You know, I'd see this synth lurking in the shadows or whatever, and I'd think, "Oh shit, I don't really want that, because that's not the sound of the band. The sound of that band is that Crumar, and his fuzzy Lawrence piano."
I think that band musical identity, at that point in our career, was very important. If you go veering off track too quickly, I think you're going to lose people who've just got on board, you know? Which was probably why I felt so threatened when Barry suddenly brought up seven songs for this album. [imitates John Shuttleworth, sings] "Seven songs by sunset!" [laughs] Sorry, what a strange coincidence! Ooof!
TB: [imitating JS] "It can't be done, Ken!"
AP: [ditto] "It can't be done, Barry!" [imitates Barry] "Oh yes it can, matey, and I'm gonna do it!"
So yeah, love the sound of that Crumar. There's something about it that is better than other cheap-sounding organs that I've heard. And at the time, I didn't like the Hammond organ sound. I love it now, but at the time I associated it with the sort of people my dad used to play with. He'd go out playing with these combos -- playing dance-y, jazzy, classic stuff. And it'd always be a Hammond, so I just seem to associate it with the cheese of Easy Listening.
But the Crumar keyboard sound, to me, that was the wet dream of the kind of psychedelic bands from the late '60s that I really liked. It was embedded in my psyche, you know?
TB: Very spiky and angular.
AP: Exactly, and especially the way he played it.
TB: Let's talk some more about your guitar -- you talked about those chords, but what else?
AP: I'll tell you, another important guitar thing for this song is -- and I don't know how you're going to write this up -- but this figure of [grabs guitar, plays intro to verses]. I stumbled on to this figure, and again, it's that repetition, that mechanical playing. You know, it's related to "Battery Brides," it's related to "Day In Day Out," it's related to all that kind of, "Aren't you the band who play guitars like they're sequenced?" So, you can hear that over the intro, and before the verses.
And in the middle, I changed to the very thin, out-of-phase tone -- my Ibanez guitar has got a little phase switch that you can flick to put the pickups out of phase, and I used that for the very scrubby kind of tone I have during the bridge. You can also hear that on the rhythm guitar of "I'm Bugged," if you want further reference of that sound. That very thin, insect-legged [imitates guitar part]. That's the Ibanez flicked out of phase.
TB: Back to the vocals, there are some are some harmonies I wanted to ask about -- I think Colin's way above you, on lines like "You won't even get them on the telephone," but then he drops below you, on the whole "Beatown" part at the end.
AP: Yeah, that's me and him doing those close harmonies. It's pretty much identical live, as well. Colin and I would work hard to try to stay as tight as possible on the harmonies. Even if there were bends in what we were singing, like at the end of this song. We'd try to stay on with each other. It was a pride -- regimental pride! [laughs]
TB: I've always thought your voices complement each other well, and this is a good example of that.
AP: These are still the days when I think he was trying to sing a bit like me. Then we made the mistake of touring with the Talking Heads, and suddenly Colin started singing a bit more like David Byrne [chuckles], and then, by the time he'd got through that, he was just singing more like Colin. But initially, around the time of White Music, he was doing sort of ersatz Andy.
TB: A final quick question about the lyrics -- when you mention, "it's a capital city," there's a pun there, right? You mentioned that Ian used to say, "Capital!", but at the same time you're talking about how it's all based on money -- on capital -- right?
AP: Um, no, not so much! [laughs] You're being very creative in reading into that there, but I think I was thinking more that it was a capital city as in the central place. Capitol -- "t-o-l," rather than capital, right? Which one's money and which one's central government?
TB: Well, in the U.S., according to various styles, it's "t-a-l" for everything except if you're writing about a building where government takes place, which is a "capitol." But the city is "capital." I've had to deal with that as an editor.
AP: How confusing! I'll leave that one to you, then, because you've confused this little old anorexic -- anorexic? No!
TB: [laughing] I hope you're not!
AP: [laughing] Anaconda? Anne of Green Gables? What am I? That's why I was slow reading at school -- I was Anne of Green Gables! And no one knew! [laughing]
Yes, I was agnostic at school. I couldn't understand all the Biblical stuff we were reading. I was Agnes Moorehead. Sorry, I'm going off on one. God, I fancied her in Bewitched!
TB: [incredulously] Agnes Moorhead?
AP: Yeah, she played the mother.
TB: Yeah, but by that time she was getting on a bit, wasn't she?
AP: She was, but it was that filthy, slutty eye makeup! I have a real thing about makeup. And Agnes Moorehead in slutty eye makeup. I think this is probably a perfect ending to this interview.
TB: Well, she does have the perfect last name, right?
AP: [laughing] Exactly! No, it was just purely the slutty eye makeup.
TB: Okay, well, all female fans should note this when thinking of approaching Andy!
AP: Uh oh.
©2008 Todd Bernhardt and Andy Partridge. All rights reserved.
5:40 PM
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Sunday, July 20, 2008
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Dave remembers ’Roads Girdle the Globe’
Song of the Week -- Dave's take
This week we feature Mr. Dave Gregory's take on "Roads Girdle the Globe," which Andy discussed in early June. Originally on 1979's Drums and Wires, this version was recorded for the John Peel show on 8 October 1979, and is featured on Transistor Blast -- Disc 1, to be precise. (Yes, we've posted this before, but hey, it's a great version.)
DG: The Drums and Wires LP was recorded and mixed in just 12 days in June 1979, except for the single "Making Plans for Nigel," which we spent a whole weekend on prior to the album sessions. It was only my third or fourth visit to a professional studio, and I could hardly believe my good fortune at the realisation that, at last, this was now my full-time occupation. No sooner had we toweled off following my debut tour with XTC -- which had begun in Exeter on April 18th, promoting the new single "Life Begins at the Hop" -- than we were back in rehearsals at the end of May to learn and arrange new songs for the album. There was a very happy, very positive vibe in the band and we couldn't wait to get back to work.
We'd enjoyed working with Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham on the singles, so the choice of producer and engineer was a no-brainer. Virgin's Townhouse Studios were then brand new, and we gratefully availed ourselves of the state-of-the-art facility. The smaller Studio 2 was at the far end of the building, and we immediately felt at home there. It had a fantastic live room, perfect for recording Terry Chambers' brutal hammering; I remember Andy once saying to Hugh, "I want these drums to sound massive"-- of course, Hugh would later go on to record yet more massive-sounding drum kits in that very room. Because the studios were new, there was the odd sound-leakage problem that had yet to be corrected. In the big room next door, Jethro Tull were recording and word filtered back that Ian Anderson had been unable to successfully record his mandolin overdub due to Terry's battering of his drums from the live room of Studio 2!
One reason the D&W album was completed so quickly was that the songs had been thoroughly rehearsed and routined. Another reason was that there are very few overdubs; all the basic tracks were recorded live, using headphones but no click tracks. Punk rock, see? Four of the songs we'd already taken out on tour: "Life Begins at the Hop," "Making Plans for Nigel," "Outside World," and "Roads Girdle the Globe."
When Andy first brought "Roads" along to rehearsal I seriously wondered how we were ever going to make sense of it, much less so an audience. Its dissonant, jagged chords were bounced off a thrashing, metallic drum beat interwoven with a preposterously sinewy bass line. Only when Steve and Hugh were setting up the mix for the track did I suddenly hear and appreciate what Colin was playing there -- genius! He played a black Fender Mustang bass through a H+H bass amp with an Orange 4"x12" cabinet; Andy played a Fender Bronco guitar that I believe belonged to his then brother-in-law Robbie Wyborn (Andy's in the right-hand channel); I used my '63 Strat, bridge pickup (threw switch to neck position for the middle 8) through my '62 Tremolux amp (I'm in the left-hand channel). Terry was still using his kit of black Premier drums.
And on top of all this was the vocal. Andy's impassioned rant against the cult of the motor car, with the famous seal-bark at full throttle. I always looked forward to the a capella "Roads girdle the glowwwwb!", followed by Chambers' metallic tom-flam, that heralds the coda. We "got" the take on the second pass, broke for dinner, then returned -- refreshed -- with a posse of blokes from Virgin Records to help out on the choruses (we insisted they sang for their supper). I remember us all gathering in the live room behind Terry's drums, drinks in hand; even Hugh joined in, while Steve manned the board.
We all loved playing this song live, despite management pressure to drop it -- it had none of the hit potential they wanted from us -- and it remained in the set for most of our touring years.
©2008 Todd Bernhardt and Dave Gregory. All rights reserved.
4:28 PM
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Sunday, July 13, 2008
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Andy discusses 'I Wonder Why the Wonderfalls'
Song of the Week -- Andy's take
Part of an ongoing series of interviews by Todd Bernhardt with Andy Partridge about the songs we feature each week on MySpace. This week's song, "I Wonder Why the Wonderfalls," was written and recorded by Andy in 2003 for the TV show Wonderfalls. It's available for purchase at iTunes.
We had an amazing three-way tie in the guessing sweepstakes -- Jordan Cooper, Thorn Brain, and Erin all simultaneously came to the same conclusion, with J.D. Mack hot on their heels. Great minds, etc. We'll be back in two weeks with a capital tune by Andy.
TB: We were talking about "Travels in Nihilon," and how layered it is, then I listened to "Wonderfalls," and I thought it was a fantastic demonstration of just how far you've come since then. Now, I love "Travels in Nihilon," and think it's a wonderful representation of where you guys where at the time, but with this song you've become a mature, developed artist who knows his craft and the studio -- and you've done all this in your little garden shed! The song sounds big, clean and clear...
AP: It does sound clear and crisp, actually. I was very proud of that. I don't like what the TV company did with it -- they wanted 40 seconds, no more, and I delivered it at 40 seconds, but there's a five-second reverb tail hanging over. Because of that, they sped the whole track up, which was really annoying, because I can hear it. They did it with a computer, and you can hear that "gargle." That's what happens if you speed stuff up in a computer and try to keep the pitch the same.
I said, look just dump it to tape, and tweak the speed of the tape up a bit. Besides, what's wrong with five seconds of reverb? Just cut it off when you go to the ad break -- I don't care.
TB: Let's talk about how this song came to be. Who approached you about this?
AP: I was rung up in April 2003 by a lady called Jacquie Perryman, who works for Fox TV. She used to work for Virgin Records, in the International Department, and I did have a hell of a crush on her! Much to the chagrin of my ex-wife. [laughs] But she was just a crush.
So, it was nice to hear from her, and she said, "I work for Fox TV at the moment -- what have you been up to lately? I've been out of the music loop, and out of the loop of what you're doing, so could you send me some stuff?" I sent her Apple Venus and Wasp Star, and she called back and said, "Yeah, that's it. We're convinced. You've got to be the one to do the music for this new TV series called Wonderfalls.
It was very flattering to be asked, but I had recently turned down some TV stuff where I didn't like some of what I'd seen. So I said, "Look, can you send me a couple of shows?" They sent me the pilot and, I think, the first proper episode, and I really liked it. It was "Amelie USA." I thought, "This is interesting -- they've taken that Amelie concept of conversing with inanimate objects, and doing good deeds and saving people, and taken it Stateside."
So I said, "Sure, I'll do something. What do you have in mind?" The two fellows that came up with the show -- Todd Holland and Bryan Fuller -- they called me in a conference call, and said, "We want the music to be choral but not necessarily a song; we want it to be spiritual."
I sent them some ideas, and actually the first idea I sent them was this song -- "I Wonder Why the Wonderfalls." They said, "Oh no, we don't want a song, we want it more instrumental, an instrumental, choral thing." They sent me an album that what's-his-name from Eels did -- he did it under another name. DJ somebody? It was all vocal samples -- kind of Moby meets Fatboy Slim thing.
I said, "Well, I don't know if I can really do that." So I sent them "Ice Jet Kiss," which made it on to Volume 5 of the Warbles, and which I really like. I'm really proud of that, as a little piece of music. But they didn't like that, and they said, "Maybe it should be voices, a little song." So I sent them "These Voices." But they didn't like that, either.
Then they came back, saying, "We really want the first song that you did." So we went all around the house, back to the first idea. They asked for a long, full version, and a 40-second version for the titles, so I recorded them in the Shed.
TB: Tell me about the writing and recording process.
AP: I recorded it in October 2003, and mastered it in January or February -- in England, because I didn't like their mastering of it. I went to Ian Cooper in the Townhouse, who does a lot of stuff for me, and who got it so I was dead happy with it.
TB: Let's take a step back a little bit -- when you wrote it, did you sit on your couch with a guitar and figure it out, or did you build it piece by piece in the Shed?
AP: I quite fancied doing a Rag! Playing it on headphones yesterday, I thought, "Hey, do you know what? Maybe I was trying to be Leon Redbone!" [plays the song intro, then starts singing in deepened voice, sounding like Redbone] Do you see what I mean? It's Leon Redbone. I just can't grow the mustache!
The first version I gave them was much slower, but then I thought, "No, I'm never even going to get to the chorus by the time the title sequence is finished." [laughs] So, I had to do it faster.
TB: So, the first one they heard was the slower version?
AP: The slow acoustic one, yep.
TB: Then, did you send them the faster version? Is that what convinced them to use the song?
AP: They said they wanted it a little faster, because they wanted some of the verse and, of course, the chorus, before the titles were over. At the time, I wasn't that familiar with sampling and looping, but I managed to get hold of a couple of different loops of brushed snare. One is a kind of a funky, jazzy shuffle, and then I programmed some brushed snare, so the two of them are sort of fighting off against each other. You can hear one in the center -- that's the real, looped brushed snare -- and a programmed one on the right-hand side, so it's slightly contrary to that. I then went and programmed a bass drum, and dropped in cymbals where needed.
TB: It seems to me you're channeling Dave Mattacks on this.
AP: Yeah, I'm trying to keep it simple, and instead of [imitates complex tom roll], I'm just going thump. Because there's that nice big one near the end, after the big long buildup -- there's a Mattacksian thump there. I'm glad you spotted that! [laughs]
So yeah, I'm just playing a rag...
TB: You just sat on the couch and figured it out?
AP: Yeah -- as a matter of fact [laughs], exactly where I am right now with this guitar in my hand. Same guitar, and came up with it.
In fact, the chorus actually uses a couple of the same chords as "Garden of Earthly Delights." [plays some examples, singing lyrics from each song over them, to demonstrate] It's also got those little descending arpeggios [plays example] -- I tried to think like Dave Gregory for that. I thought, "What would Dave do? Ah, he'd do augmented runs, and because it's 'Wonderfalls,' it'd be falling down." So yeah, I'm Leon Redbone in the verses, Dave Gregory doing the guitar over the choruses, but I stole my own invented chords for the chorus!
TB: So, what chords are those?
AP: In the verse -- I don't actually know the names of all these -- it's a kind of G-flat; then a chord where the notes are, in ascending order, E-flat, A, C, G-flat; then another one I don't know the name of, where the notes are A-flat, B, E-flat, B-flat; then another, whatever it is, augmented or diminished, where the notes are F, B, D, A-flat. I'm sorry I'm a bit primitive on chord names, but that's the verse, largely. [plays the part] And the second time around, it ends on a D-flat 7, then goes to a B, then to E7, then repeats, then G-flat 7. Then, when you think it's going to set up to go to a B, it goes to this glorious version of B-flat with the G ringing open, which is the "Garden of Earthly Delights" chord.
Then you move one note down, moving the B-flat in the middle to an A, then the whole chord resolves to an A. At the end of the chorus, you go to F, then G, then A7. So, you've risen out, and everyone thinks, "Great, that A7's going to go to a D" -- but it doesn't. You go back to G-flat. So, it's like a real gear change -- a change of scene, totally.
TB: Which makes sense.
AP: Right, because it's like, "Okay -- scene two!" And in scene two, I get to do a little guitar noodle, and because it's for an American sitcom, I thought, "I've got to nod my head to "The Dick Van Dyke Show." So, at 1:15, I get my Dick Van Dyke falling over the ottoman, and at 2:27, during the guitar solo -- which is sung as well -- I nod to Dick Van Dyke again, but instead of falling on a big tom-tom, it falls on a little triang | | |
