Happy birthday, Andy Partridge

I don't normally mention birthdays here, but I read that XTC’s Andy Partridge is 70 today.

Two years ago, at a rate of one a week, I featured my favourite XTC songs, most of them written by Partridge.

It culminated with this post, XTC – an appreciation, that concluded as follows:

Finally, a word about the sometimes maligned Andy Partridge, the band’s principal singer/songwriter, whose feud with producer Todd Rundgren during the recording of Skylarking in 1986 is still being written and talked about by XTC obsessives decades later.

Ironically Skylarking is many people’s favourite XTC album and the consensus seems to be that Partridge needed a strong producer to curb his excesses and in Rundgren he met his match. Or, as Partridge himself said, it was “like having two Hitlers in the same bunker.”

What cannot be denied is that for all his alleged bossiness in the studio which clearly drove band mates and several producers to distraction, Partridge can be irresistibly engaging and humorous. The evidence, if you want to look for it, is on the Internet – from appearances on the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop with Noel Edmunds, presenting a guided tour of Swindon, his home town, to more recent podcasts and interviews in which he is happy to talk at length about XTC and the process of songwriting. (Listen to him describe the making of 'Easter Theatre' from Apple Venus.)

Arguably the most evocative of the 30 songs listed above is a simple live acoustic version of ‘Train Running Low On Soul Coal’ that was recorded as part of a documentary (XTC - Play At Home) broadcast on Channel 4 in 1984. In my view it's far superior to the longer, over-produced version that appeared on The Big Express and even ends with a knowing, self-deprecating nod to XTC’s legendary ‘popularity’, even in their home town. Available only on YouTube, you can watch it here.

Since the final XTC album was issued 23 years ago, Partridge has kept himself busy releasing demos (the 8-CD Fuzzy Warbles collection), overseeing the release of remastered versions of XTC’s back catalogue, and (occasionally) writing with or for other musicians.

His recent projects include a 4-track EP written and recorded with Jen Olive and Stu Rowe and released as The 3 Clubmen. The lead track, Aviatrix, is worth a listen even if you have no interest in XTC.

A few weeks ago The Big Express, ‘the seventh in a series of expanded XTC album reissues’, was re-released and although it’s still far from my favourite XTC album you can’t fault the ambition of a track like the aforementioned ‘Train Running Low On Soul Coal’.

Meanwhile, I have bought myself an advance Christmas present - ‘Pop Artery’, a ‘deluxe 122 page book collecting 56 unique paintings by Andy Partridge that offer visual interpretations of XTC songs’.

It will go nicely, I think, with the ‘Dig For XTC’ print that’s on the wall of my office (below).

The serious point I wish to make, though, is this. Sometimes, when I read interviews with Partridge, you can sense frustration that XTC never enjoyed prolonged commercial success or greater recognition.

To most people XTC and Andy Partridge are at best a footnote in pop history, if that.

It’s regrettable, certainly, but thousands of talented musicians have fared much worse, and nothing can diminish the pleasure Partridge has brought to people like me (and I’m not even what you might call an uber fan), or the body of work he has created.

He may not be a household name (even in Swindon!) but most people would, and should, be extremely proud of such a legacy.

So happy 70th birthday, Andy Partridge. You’ve earned it.