XTC "This is Pop" documentary coming to Showtime Jan. 11

Todd only had one studio at Mink Hollow. Maybe they thought he was going to record them at Bearsville?

My personal theory is that Todd is ADD or ADHD. But on the other hand, he expected bands to have their music figured out before they got into the studio - which is a very expensive rehearsal space. If you weren't ready to start doing takes, he'd be perfectly happy to leave and come back when you were ready. He's recorded a number of his own "studio" albums live, like Second Wind. Bat Out of Hell was mostly first and second takes by a very well-rehearsed band. I'm a huge Kate Bush fan, and can understand the validity of composing in the studio, but XTC really didn't have the option - they were on the verge of being dropped by their label.

XTC sent him a bunch of demos, and he came up with the "concept" for the album. But in doing so, he chose a number of Colin's songs - which annoyed Andy, who expected that they would be making a mostly-Andy album.

One other factor is that Todd agreed to produce the album for a set fee, which meant all the time that the band was not productive was costing him time that he could have spent recording his own music or another band.

The third factor is that Todd and Andy are both very creative people with strong opinions and healthy egos - which Andy described as "Two Hitlers in one bunker." But Todd was willing to do what was needed. On the Todd Rundgren fan podcast Rundgren Radio, Andy was interviewed and described being stuck on The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul. He had a very straightforward acoustic guitar thing, but wanted a "John Barry spy movie" type sound. Todd said "I can do that" and came in the next morning with it all charted out.

He said "Todd has the people skills of a Dalek, but he is a God among arrangers."

Todd didn't have automated mixing. If he had, I'm sure he would have been more willing to spent days and days fiddling with the mix.

On the Marc Maron WTF podcast, Todd got quite annoyed about the whole claim that he had reversed the phase. He had taken his mix, with the original track listing including Dear God, to Sterling Sound to be mastered by Greg Calbi, who would have noticed. They changed the running order and had it remastered by someone else and it was out of his hands.

 

I love how Lydon wears his heart on his sleeve. He's a thinker, but Andy is sort of perpetually 13 years old. Love all three of them.

 

You seem very knowledgeable re: Todd and that's great. I know very little of Todd's MO except what is in Andy's liner notes. Todd means very little to me but XTC is my favorite band after the Beatles.

XTC had publicly stated how important Todd was to organizing and formatting the songs in the order they appeared on Skylarking. But that doesn't mean it was a good experience for the band.

Personally, I don't feel Skylarking is a concept album, but I can see how some might think that.

But clearly Andy was distressed re: the album when it was released. You mentioning KB to me is important because I'm a huge Kate Bush fan. But it's apples to oranges. I don't think Kate was likely to be dropped from her record company from 1978 to 1990. I might be wrong, but the success of HOL cemented her successes all over the world.

If you believe Andy's liner notes, Todd's original mix of Skylarking was unacceptable and Virgin requested a remix to which Todd was apparently annoyed with. He did so and added a post-it note that said "no more mixes."

 

Oh, sure he can be a huge, sarcastic jerk. But he did what he was hired to do - get them a hit record. And in the process, very likely saved their career.

Not one like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, but with the theme of the progress of a life.

After The Dreaming was the point where she was most likely to be dropped. But her contract had been renegotiated where she was incurring all the costs of recording the album and licensing the master to the record company - so they weren't on the hook for much. They weren't paying for the months and years she spent in the studio, which by the time of Hounds of Love was in the barn behind her parents house.

Todd claimed to have mixed the album three times. I think if he had access to board automation, he would have been more willing to fiddle with the little things they wanted changed, rather than having to roll tape and manipulate all the faders straight through, over and over. Of course Stephen Wilson is able to do a better mix - he's doing it with automation.

One of the myths about Todd is that nobody worked with him twice. Not true, both The Pursuit of Happiness and The New York Dolls did. And he's worked with some of the same musicians for decades - one of whom worked on Skylarking, Prairie Prince - and if he were the monster Andy paints, I doubt that would be true.

 

Just wanted to add that I loved this documentary. I've never been a Showtime subscriber but just had to sign up for the free trial just to see 'This is Pop.'

While I wish it were longer and more comprehensive, I'm just happy that it was made and and had the cooperation of Andy, Colin, Dave and Terry.

Hopefully we'll see a Blu-ray with lots of bonus content.

 

As a casual fan, I side with Todd's views of the band. Skylarking is the only XTC album I like from beginning to end. The rest of XTC I like because of their signals.
Todd took a lot of flack in the comment section of this youtube video, but I think he's spot on. He does get the wrong song that was substituted for Dear god (It was Mermaid Smile)

 

Despite who paid for the HOL sessions, EMI allowed Kate Bush to produce the album herself. She called the shots.

XTC, in contrast, felt like they had relatively little input as to the production of Skylarking - - if you believe Andy's liner notes - - which they had enjoyed on their earlier records.

 

Yes........... yes they are.

 

I have a 'tin-foil-hat' theory that, back in the '80's, all UK bands that were signed to Geffen were given 'the talk'!;
"HEY! We didn't sign you out of the kindness of our hearts! You better find a way to get a US 'hit record' out of yourselves! And, you better do it now!"
From Peter Gabriel to Siouxie & The Banshees, it seemed as if they all curbed their 'edge' in order to 'chart'.... and so, I assume XTC got the same memo.
Of course, I have no proof about this....

 

EMI, by that time, had no choice. The contract that Bob Mercer let her renegotiate basically gave her absolute artistic control. The label had only two choices - release what she gave them or not. Kate and her family had formed a corporation called Novercia that had one product - Kate Bush records. She had invested her earnings into the equipment needed to create more of them, and had squirreled away enough to pay all the people needed for however long she deemed necessary. She, her parents, and her brother John (who had trained as a lawyer), with the cooperation of Bob Mercer, had maneuvered a huge record company into a position where they had no power at all, bless their flabby little hearts.

Todd said the same thing in the video jojopuppyfish posted. He claims that his assignment was to take responsibility for production away from them, and to make an album that would sell.

 

Not tin foil hat at all. The one thing, the only thing, that any record company wants is a hit record. Anything else said to an artist or a band falls into the category of "things said to keep them happy enough to make a hit record."

 

One other thing about Kate that may be appropriate, from former EMI chairman Tony Wadsworth:

I don't know if outliers like her really change the way it is for everybody else. She earned her artistic freedom. It wasn't a given. She came in to EMI with a certain amount of privilege – being under David Gilmour's aegis. But she earned that by: 1) being massively talented before she released a record; and 2) in the nicest possible way, being completely uncompromising and a control freak. But that wouldn't be enough; it would be enough to get you dropped. The key thing, and the third thing, that made her was choosing her first single, Wuthering Heights, against everybody else's wishes. No one wanted that single but she said, “This is it!” and didn't budge. And it went to number one all over the world. At that point she had a creative blank cheque.

She is a total, one-off outlier. She did one short tour in 1979 and then nothing until her residency in London in 2014. How did that change the industry? Everyone else carried on touring. But she made it an option. The Pet Shop Boys came along and they didn't tour until their third album. Outside of a couple of PAs when they were starting out, they had these massive Top 10 hits from the first two albums and only then decided to tour. I don't know how much outliers do change the way things are done for everybody else.

When I joined EMI in the early 1980s, Kate was on the decline. She was just about the release The Dreaming – which I love as an album – but there was very much an air in the company that this was a good run but it's all over now. Even though they still let her do whatever she wanted. There was no point in saying to her, "Can you do it this way?" She just wouldn't. You wouldn't have an argument and it wouldn't get nasty. She just wouldn't do it. Half of being a successful control freak – apart from the talent – is actually not making a big issue of it. I once said to her, "It's the Brit Awards in February. Do you want to come?" She just laughed. "Why would I want to do that?" She thought it was an hilarious question in the first place! She created her own world. She had a circle of trust that she wouldn't go out of, or rarely go out of. It would take a long time to get into that circle of trust, if ever you did.

The worrying thing is that it's as inspiring to untalented people as it is to talented people! If it empowers some talented women – and men – to go off and completely do their own thing, then it's great and it's for the good. When you look around at the music industry at the moment, where every record has more collaborators that they have ever had, even in the 1950s and 1960s, then you question whether that auteur influence is as strong as you'd like it.​

 

I wouldn't quite say Kate Bush did nothing live between 1979 and 2014 -

 

I was quoting the former chairman of EMI. She did a few things, but no tours.

 

I know, it was just an excuse to post an interesting outlier from the Bushcography.

To keep things on topic: I hope licensing costs don't suppress the amount of bonus material on a (hypothetical) DVD or Blu-ray of the XTC doc. If they can afford it, I'd love to see the 1982 Rockpalast show included. It should exist in stereo because the show was simulcast on the radio.

 

He also worked with The Tubes twice producing of their best albums and what many consider to be their worst. I think there's validity in what both of them say. I also think that Andy didn't like having to sacrifice so much time to Colin's songs. I also give Todd credit for keeping Colin in the band when Andy and Colin had a major blowout. It wasn't the experience the band expected and it wasn't the experience that Todd expected.

 

Which were which? Not a big Tubes fan, though I have a few albums.

It was interesting to find out that Andy was an only child. Like you couldn't guess. And that his mother was OCD as well. I sympathize with him some, but I get the feeling most of his report cards said he "did not play well with others."

 

Remote Control is a terrific concept album (way ahead of its time but par for the course now) and Love Bomb (not as good). Maybe awful was too harsh on Love Bomb--it had five songs co-written with Todd and had a strong commercial bend but just didn't have the quality of their previous albums IMHO. The Tubes were dropped by their label after the album was released and before their tour self financing their tour themselves to honor their tour commitments and ended up a half million dollars in debt because of their label. After the tour Prairie Prince and Vince Welnick joined Todd's band.

 

...and Todd married Michele Grey, one of their backup singers.

 

It would seem that Andy's behavior could be viewed as childish. I also think that behavior also contributed to some gorgeous songwriting and record making.

 

Todd didn't endear me in the interview above by calling Andy a p****. In fact I lost a little respect for him. There are some bat-guana crazy people out there, and I can understand if Andy didn't want to become the poster boy for atheism at that time.

 

Watched it tonight, WONDERFUL

 

That will be worth a look. I don't listen to them anymore, but
there was a time when English Settlement came out, I purchased
it, and then could have sworn that I experienced God on my turntable.
What a release that one was!

 

I watched this over the weekend and thought it was OK, if somewhat of a superficial feel-good exercise. Based on this you wouldn't know they had many conflicts over their career, nor would you have much of an inkling about their last decade or any confirmation that they were indeed no more (before the end credits). But it's a worthwhile view, just for the coverage of their early career and hearing something of their story direct from the horses' mouths. It's not like there are any other XTC doc's out there.

 

Ya think?