XTC - Drums and Wires reissue - Spring 2014

Yeah, maybe see if there's a firmware update for your bluray player?

 

There's no CD only edition of either the new mix or new remaster of the old mix, is there? I find I don't really like this album as much as Nonesuch and the CD/blu-ray edition is overkill, I'd be happy with either the original mix or new mix as a CD only if one existed, but it doesn't look like it does.

 

I had a similar problem with my Blu-ray Audio Disc of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' HYPNOTIC EYE. It would take me several tries to get my Panasonic Blu-ray Disc player to read the disc, otherwise the player would just hang ... so I replaced the disc and the same thing happened. I mean, I can get it to play but it takes time. It's the only Blu-ray Disc I've ever had a problem with. Very odd, but it does happen.

 

Blu-ray discs of all types can have authoring issues with certain players especially if there's video and your player is more than a couple years old.
Make sure you turn off the BD-Live crap and if it's not too much of a hassle, do a reset to default settings.
Not saying these are sure-fire methods but they often help with BD film discs.

 

The CD/DVD-A set is cheaper if you prefer.

 

I've tried to update the firmware but in doing so it nearly bricks the player[I have to unplug it to make it work again].

 

My replacement DVD-Audio Disc arrived from Burning Shed the other day (remember, the first pressing is faulty). All fixed.

 

Got my replacement disc, too!

 

Hi, is there a single, standalone CD of this Wilson remix?

 

Not that I'm aware of. Ask Partridge??

 

No, only CD+DVD-A or CD+BR.

 

Well, I finally got around to extracting digital files from the BluRay of this so I could burn my own little portable Drums and Wires CD box set, and I was shocked by just how comprehensive the set is. There's about seven hours / seven CDs of stuff that you can compile (adding in some other relevant, officially released recordings).

Disc 1: Original LP Mix + Original Single / B-Side Mixes (you'll need to go to previous compilations for the original mixes of some of the singles and b-sides. The single edit of 'Making Plans for Nigel' is on The Compact XTC, but not Fossil Fuel, I believe).

Disc 2: LP - 2014 Stereo Mix (No need to create this yourself as it comes with the set!).

Disc 3: Additional Tracks - 2014 Stereo Mixes and Other Mixes (63 minutes) - Includes the 'Additional 2014 Stereo Mixes', the 'DJM Stereo Mixes' and the long versions of 'Life Begins at the Hop' and 'That Is the Way', and is rounded out with a handful of further tracks not included on the BluRay:
Life Begins at the Hop (First recording) - Coat of Many Cupboards
Life Begins at the Hop (Unused American Rerecording) - Coat of Many Cupboards
Wait Til Your Boat Goes Down (Remix) - Waxworks / The Compact XTC (note that the 2014 remix is even longer than this one, which makes it easy to tell the three versions apart: original single mix 4.21 (it's on Fossil Fuel); Waxworks remix 4.35; 2014 remix 4.41)

Disc 4: Instrumentals (69 minutes)

Disc 5: Demos (63 minutes) - Saucy Plate / Unknown / Swindon Town Hall 1 & 2 / Toots Garage
Plus for completeness' sake you'll also need to add the demo of 'Complicated Game from Fuzzy Warbles 1.

Disc 6: BBC Sessions and Dub Experiments (64 minutes)
All compiled from other sources: the two 1979 BBC sessions from Transistor Blast; the dub mixes from Take Away: The Lure of Salvage / Explode Together and Rag and Bone Buffet.
All but the first two tracks from Take Away are based on Drums and Wires-era recordings, and b-side 'Over Rusty Water' is derived from 'Roads Girdle the Globe'. I've arranged the tracks in original D&W order just to hear them in a different sequence for a change, which gives me:
New Broom (Making Plans for Nigel)
The Rotary (Helicopter)
Work Away Tokyo (Day Day In, Day Out)
Over Rusty Water (Roads Girdle the Globe)
I Sit in the Snow (Roads Girdle the Globe)
Steam Fist Futurist (Real By Reel)
The Forgotten Language of Light (Millions)
Madhattan (That Is the Way)
Cairo (Homo Safari)
Shore Leave Ornithology (Pulsing Pulsing)

Disc 7: Rehearsals (64 minutes) - The Tudor Barn Recordings, plus:
Life Begins at the Hop (First Rehearsal Extract) - Coat of Many Cupboards

 

Thanks for doing the work. I wanted to do something similar myself. I should have all additional sources you mention to come up with a perfect copy of your compilation.

 

I haven't physically compiled the first disc yet (original mixes), and it might run longer than a CD-R, but if so I'd just leave off the couple of b-sides released after the fact ('Over Rusty Water' would be duplicated anyway with the Take Away mixes).

 

Well I am going to do this with playlists that pick FLAC files from my collection so it doesn't matter if one "CD" is longer than 80 minutes.

 

I really want the original stereo mix but the CD that comes with both packages puts the original stereo mix on the DVD/Blu Ray. I figured they would have put the original mix on the CD and everything else on the hi-def disc. Oh well.

 

The original mix is on all previous CDs so not like you are missing out the whole set means you are not replacing what you have already just enhancing

 

A couple of loose ends I wonder if anybody can shed light on. Amongst the extras on BluRay are four "Original Album Extra Tracks". The first two are self-explanatory: the original mixes of 'Chain of Command' and 'Limelight' from the free 7" given away with the album. The other two are 'long versions' of 'Life Begins at the Hop' and 'That Is the Way.' They're not that much longer or different from the familiar versions, but I have no idea where they were originally released. I looked up the exhaustive discography on the Chalkhills website, but it - weirdly - doesn't even acknowledge the existence of these two versions, even though the site is fully up to date with all the other variant versions that were released on the BluRay. Does anybody have any idea?

 

Aren't these remixes?

 

There's no real info on the packaging, but the implication is that they're original mixes (and previously released) since they're bundled with Chain of Command / Limelight. That's literally all I know!

 

Maybe they were prepared for a 12" single that was never released..? We could ask Andy Partridge on Twitter....

 

Actually, that's not all I know, because I do have ears.

Some differences:

Life Begins at the Hop (long version) runs 4.14 (as opposed to the original single mix at 3.47). The extra material seems to be in the intro - the track begins with four drumstick hits counting in and it's 23 seconds before the vocal starts (cf. 13 for the single mix) - and the outro is a little longer (once the outro guitar begins if plays through the fade for about 30 seconds (cf. 23 on the single). The mix of the long version is much more subdued than the original single mix and the 2014 remix.

That Is the Way (long version) runs 3.31 (cf. 2.57 on the album). The extra material all comes towards the end, where a final return of the chorus is inserted in the middle of the trumpet solo. Again, the mix is flatter / more subdued than either album version, but not to the same extent as 'Hop'.

 

Listening to this disc again, I think Chalkhills might have led me astray, as this track sure sounds like it's based on 'Day In Day Out' rather than 'That Is the Way'.

All this intense listening has given me a greater appreciation of Terry Chambers, who's a great meat-and-potatoes drummer that can nevertheless rise to the occasion when something more unusual is required (for the song - not for his ego). And every single Dave Gregory solo on this record is intelligent, considered, and economical: he fused a couple of great songwriters into a great band.

Additional stray observation: the instrumental 'Chain of Command' is totally awesome, one of the few instrumental mixes that sounds absolutely complete without vocals.

 

Yeah, I asked that question in December last year (Post #438) and no one seemed to have an answer back then either.

"What is the "original album" that the extras Life Begins At The Hop (long version) and That Is The Way (long version) belong to? chalkhills.org has no mention of these two versions."

 

Because they're basically just unedited versions of the familiar tracks, they seem like the kind of things that might have been included on an early promo of the LP, or slipped out by mistake on some international release, but it would be nice to know for sure.