THE BEAT GOES ON
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 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.