ST. ANDREW OF BEDROOM ROCK Andy Partridge (Pt. 2)
Feb 26, 2010
More of our free-association tango with the XTC/Dukes of Stratosphear auteur.
BY RANDY HARWARD
Editor's note: we continue our conversation with good man Andy Partridge, who as we pointed out in part one of the BLURT interview, will hold forth, unfiltered, on freaks (and freak magnetism), Nigel moments, unsexy heavy metal, crap rap, Grandpa Partridge's war wounds, religion, comic books, and why he hates concerts. Among many topics - not to mention that massive Dukes of Stratosphear box set.
FOOD OF THE GODS
Partridge once had an enormous comic book collection, but it met an untimely end when mice infested his apartment above an old shop. "I was away on tour a lot," he recalls, "and [the mice] ate through stacks of comics, the Mylar bags and everything. That was a real heartbreak." Partridge figured if he couldn't keep his comics safe and in mint condition, he'd sell them. "I let ‘em go for a song, which is a shame, because now my son's an animator and it would've been great to give him such a great comic collection for reference."
ANDY WHORE-HOL
XTC fans know Partridge's affinity toward visual art, and that he's served as his own art director on XTC releases, including the Dukes box set. "I love doing all that stuff. That's a big thrill for me... to try to do as much of the artwork. I'm a real packaging slut, I tell ya." He's rather proud of the orange (and blue limited-edition) double-disc packaging for the eponymous debut of Monstrance (Partridge with former XTC keyboard player Barry Andrews and drummer Martyn Baker, who played with Andrews in Shriekback) CD. "I think it looks like an art object, you know?" He also enjoyed creating the book-ish digipak for The Lowdown, the debut release of another side project, Orpheus (with Slapp Happy's Peter Blegvad). "Orpheus was fun to do; I like the silvered ink on dark brown-it makes it look like old photographic stock, the nitrate type thing on old photographs. It was good fun building the collages. Peter and I built them on the glass plate of his scanner with just stuff out of the garden and bits of paper and stationery and stuff like that."
CHECK OUT THAT BOX
Naturally the Dukes box, what with the puzzle, shirt, Dukes Dollars, and fuzzy velvet box, was good fun for Partridge to design. "Yeah, it's the kind of thing, if the Ape label loses money, at least I'll be able to move into the box! That was a blast. It's nice; it looks like a sort of psychedelic funeral parlor. [laughs] It's that color, the dark purple and the kind of ornate, Victorian-looking stuff on it. It reminds me of a sexy funeral parlor. Does such a thing exist? Die Filthily! Randy's Mourning Glory Emporium!
"It was meant to be something you'd use to keep something precious. Or even chocolates-"eat me, please" and blow-your-mind kind of thing. And also a little referential to that gloriously daft, late psychedelic record Odessa by the Bee Gees. Again, it's meant to evoke the late-60s because that's really the whole Dukes thing. If it doesn't make you feel that it's historically accurate, it hasn't done its job, I don't think."
ALL THAT RAP JAZZ
The purple velvet on the Dukes box also gives off a pimp vibe-Bishop Don Magic Juan comes to mind, although his hue of choice is green. "Who's Bishop Don?" Told BDMJ is a pimp "spiritual advisor" to Snoop Dogg, Partridge says he's not a fan-of Snoop or hip-hop.
"It's a world I know little of, young fellow! I don't really revolve in those R&B, rappy circles much. Although I have to admit - begrudgingly - that the hip-hop and rap stuff is probably the only new-ish musical sensation in the last twenty years." This prop comes at the expense of current indie rock bands, which sound derivative to Partridge, "like they're straight out of 1974."
As for Snoop, et al? "[Snoop Dogg] seems to rub me up the wrong way; I can't tell you why." And its message and image of gangsta/bling rap-"the sort of stuff you say on the playground when you're six years old-that draws Partridge's ire: "‘I'm gonna kill you and I'm gonna shoot you and your mum and your girlfriends and everything, and I'm gonna fill you full of holes!' Then you rewrite it as Straight Outta Compton and away you go. It just seems kinda childish to me.
"I don't think there's any nobility to rap, whereas there's fantastic nobility to a lot of jazz, a real sense of nobly searching for new ways of doing things. Jazz is America's greatest gift to the world. Forget Coca-Cola, forget blue jeans... And hey-a lot of people making jazz are poor and black, but their boasting comes through the music, not literal ‘I'm gonna shoot your ass' type stuff."
DISNEY POP: NOT AS BAD AS METAL?
"Yeah, you gotta let them make their own mistakes and discoveries," Partridge said when the subject of kids being force-fed crap tween-pop like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. That's all he had to say about Disney's musical transgressions. Heavy metal's what really drives him nuts.
"Somebody said, ‘Heavy metal took the sex out of rock.' And it's true. ‘I'm a zombie and I'm gonna eat your soul!' and ‘Welcome to Hell!' Come on! Come fucking on! The dog fart vocal, and the ‘spawn of Satan'? Oh, fuck off. It's just really wanky, teenage kid music. You just know it's made by virgins for virgins. They drained every last drop of sex out of rock n' roll with all this talk of blood and visceral decay and zombie flesh rotting. You know, [imitates mumbly, mush-mouthed metal singer]! Jesus Christ. They all sing like some sort of fucking villains from Scooby-Doo. ‘Look out, here comes Carrot-Man!' [more metal mimicry] I don't know how you're going to write that out, by the way."
COCKERNEE ENVY
The Dukes song "You're A Good Man Albert Brown (Curse You Red Barrel)" was an attempt to write "one of those fluent cockernee [Note: Cockney rhyming slang], knees-up, kind of pub psychedelia songs." The danceable strain of psych, says Partridge, seemed to be getting a grip in England in the late ‘60s. "Really, the Kinks were to blame for that, with "Dedicated Follower of Fashion," and then the Stones caught it [sings "Something Happened to Me Yesterday"]. They really wanted to be the Kinks at a certain point. And also the Small Faces had a lot of ‘how's your father' cockernee [psych songs].
GER-SCHPLODEN: PARTRIDGE'S BIG BANG
The lyrics to "Albert Brown" are a mishmash of the true story of Partridge's paternal grandfather Albert and Elsie Brown, the nurse who nursed Grandpa Partridge back to health after he was wounded in the trenches in the first World War-and later became Partridge's grandmother. The song title combines their names and checks Red Barrel-"this appalling beer that was everywhere in England in the ‘60s and ‘70s"-in the parenthetical.
"It's really quite truthful and factual," says Partridge, "which is unusual for the Dukes." Albert Partridge, he tells, was due to field-test the then-new secret weapon-the tank-that afternoon. During combat that morning, Albert was manning the machine gun, and a shell landed near him. "It blew every tooth out of his head but one, strangely enough."
Partridge says "It would be nice to meet the German that shot the shell that exploded and blew my granddad's face apart... If that German hadn't fired that shell, I wouldn't be here now. So I'm shaking him by the hand, somewhere in a heavenly realm. Danke schoen, mein freund, for ze ger-schellen, explody, ger-schpunken... plunken. Whatever. Ger-schploden? There's probably a long word with about fifty letters in it that describes that action."
SHEPHERD'S PIE: YOUR NIGEL MOMENT
Although XTC mate Colin Moulding wrote "Making Plans for Nigel," Partridge identifies with the song's central theme. "It happened to me. I'm sure every parent has this thing, where you plan for your child's future... he's gonna be an accountant or a furniture salesman or usually [something to do with] the parents' interests and backgrounds. They do everything to steer you and guide you into that sort of world."
He calls the realization that you want something other than what your parents plan a "Nigel moment." Partridge's went thusly.
"Once I'd seen the Monkees on TV, and I'd seen A Hard Day's Night and Help! at the cinema, that was it. ‘Wow, this is how you get girls-and it looks easy! You get nice clothes and you live together with your friends in a house. And writing songs can't be difficult, can it? Yeah, that's the job for me.' And suddenly I forgot all about wanting to be a policeman or joining the Navy like my father."
OF SHORTS AND SHRIEKS: IS THERE A CORRELATION?
Partridge wasn't sure of everything at that 1964 screening of A Hard Day's Night. "I think I was in short trousers at the time," he recalls, "and I remember feeling very torn. All the girls are screaming, and I thought ‘Are boys supposed to scream?' I didn't scream, but I felt very confused. Should I be screaming? Is that the etiquette? Does one scream? Are you supposed to have long trousers on to scream? Because it means something different if you scream and you're in shorts."
FUCK A CONCERT
"I can't stand concerts; I hate going to concerts. I always have." Such a strange admission for a musician, but Partridge makes sense of it - after all, he is St. Andrew of Bedroom Rock (Or Whatever You Want to Call It).
"I had the chance to see the Beatles live or Hendrix live. I've seen dozens of bands as a teenager and in my twenties. I have never been really satisfied. I prefer getting the record on and putting on my headphones and just disappearing inside of my own world. I don't want to be with a load of sweaty people yelling and waving lighters or throwing cans of beer and stuff.
"I used to see bands and think, ‘No, you're out of tune' or ‘[scoffs] You can that a light show? That's shit' or ‘You dressed really poorly. I wouldn't come on stage wearing that' or ‘This music's rotten. I could write a better song than that.' I was always far too critical. So many bands I've walked out on because they've not satisfied me. But that's kinda part of the drive of wanting to do it yourself. You think, ‘Oh I can do better than this, and I'm gonna.'"
OPIATE-FREE KIDS
Religion is a pet peeve of Partridge's. It came up when discussing religious reactions to "Pink Thing," an ambiguously written song that Partridge confirmed in the Fuzzy Warbles Volume 6 liners is about his son and not his penis, although the double-entendres are intentional. An excerpt of his explanation:
"...You want so badly to write about your kids, it's natural, but it seems too easy to fall into the sickly greeting cards world overpopulated by flatulent but well-meaning fathers. So I thought I'd write about Harry in a way that was utterly unmistakable with thinly disguised filth. ... Of course, being more of an upright member of society these days, if I spot a D.E. in my lyrics I whip it out immediately."
So the suggestion that pious acquaintances freaked out about lyrics like "Pink thing, spit in my eye/I'd love you for it" probably pushed a button, eliciting this reaction from the devoted father and unapologetic lyricist and general no-shit guy:
"You know I think there should be a campaign started-children should not be exposed to any religious upbringing. They should be legally allowed to choose their own religion when they become legally an adult. Not to have it put on to them in any way. If they ask questions, like every kid does, and you feel you must give a religious answer, then that's fine. But the squeezing of kids into this mold, I think, is really wrong-whatever the religion. It's the sole reason that religion perpetuates, is through forcing it on to your children ... They're trying to baptize that spunk before you're even conceived."
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