Bring back the Kings For A Day

Imagine The Smiths reforming? Marr’s guitar rings out again as Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce play This Charming Man but wait, there’s no Morrissey? The Police return to tour with Copeland and Sting, but no Andy Summers. The Jam without Weller? Rush without Peart? Well that kind of reunion suddenly happened and then stopped happening this year and I’m still reeling. Be reassured, I’m not thinking of the extraordinary dumping of Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac (replaced by Crowded House guy). The musical reunion of the year happened somewhere just off the M4, was momentarily, life-affirmingly wonderful and yet mundanely dispiriting at the same time.

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In late 2018 two members of “the greatest British band since The Beatles” went back on the road and played music not performed together live since the early 1980’s. Grown middle-aged men wept. XTC, Swindon’s finest, nearly together played again. Colin Moulding and his ex-XTC bandmate Terry Chambers formed “TC&I”, released a four song EP and played a handful of shows in some dreary Arts Centre, near Cheltenham.

I fancifully imagined the duo teasing a deliberately low-key warm-up for one of those “Earth-Aid’ style mega-gigs of 20 years ago, where Pink Floyd, or Led Zeppelin, or Gabriel-era Genesis would magically hug again, kiss and make up on stage, in front of 80,000 people, while their accountants and off-shore tax advisors toast them from the wings. I dreamt of Moulding playing the intro to Ball & Chain…and there, out of the smoke stage left, would stride Andy Partridge, bald head, manic teeth and ch-chopped bar chords. Shane Meadows would be in the shadows making the ‘come-back’ film. The obligatory tour of provincial towns would follow.

But no. It now appears that the TC&I project was demised almost as quickly as it appeared, as Moulding has decided to spend another twenty years out of the limelight with his family. Meanwhile, Andy Partridge lost his marbles in a horror to end all horrors shit-storm of nightmare public rows (on Twitter), locked himself in his Shed (literally and metaphorically) and has not yet come out. I both love and fear for Andy and want nothing more for him than to be stupidly happy again.

Listening today to XTC, they still sound extraordinary. Thirty years ago, Partridge was John Lennon to Moulding’s McCartney. As a song writing duo, Partridge and Moulding had all the invention of the early 1970’s Beatles, armed with riffs and melodies and hooks, and strings and brass, and astonishing bass lines and thunderous Drums and, to their left, their very own George Harrison on electric-twelve strings, Dave Gregory. Their song-writing wit and invention has seldom been matched since - though maybe Rotheray and Heaton of The Beautiful South come close .

I do not pretend to be an expert on XTC but plenty are and they have created some marvellous routes to find out more. There are some fascinating books of archives, interviews and curious stories produced by XTClimelight.com. You could start there, or you could simply find yourself a friend with one of those a science-fiction-amazing new Vinyl hifi systems, and play Nonsuch or Skylarking and just immerse yourself in the wonder that is pure pop genius. I watched a video recently where some tech wiz from Canada tested a $34,000 sound system with headphones that are called The Abyss. The quality was so good it made him cry. If I had access to that I would put on the opening of Apple Venus 1 with those ugly cans attached to my head and hear that arrangement. Such is the demand for the music to be rediscovered as amazing, there has been a lot of “re” going on, with much of the XTC back catalogue now remastered and reisssued, with some albums ”5.1 re-engineered” by Steven Wilson. Other than Trevor Horn at his zenith (and there’s a Blog topic for another day on that man) then I cannot think of a better musician to blow dust off the tapes and make Wrapped Up in Grey, or Great Fire, or King for a Day sound any better. It seems with the TC&I false start and Mr Partridge’s current hobby of writing Christmas songs for the surviving members of The Monkeys (I honestly jest not) we will never see a full XTC reunion.

We’re left with them, as they were in the past. Kings in their day.

UPDATE. 06 March 2020.
Terry Chambers recently announced that TC&I was defunct but that he would be touring in 2020 with a new band EXTC, performing a full set of classic XTC material, much of which has never been aired live. Terry has joined forces with TC&I colleagues Steve Tilling (vocals, guitar) and Gary Bamford (keyboards, guitar, vocals), plus Matt Backer (vocals, guitar) and Ken Wynne (bass, vocals).

EXTC apparently “comes with the blessing and support of Terry’s former XTC bandmates Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory”.