Bernstein, Jonathan (1995). "XTC". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. pp.441–43. ISBN 0-679-75574-8. Drums and Wires was released on 17 August, with lead single "Making Plans for Nigel" following on 5 September. [43] From 11 September to 5 October, XTC embarked on another underwhelming British tour. [44] Gregory remembered: "in Wolverhampton [there were] about 200 people in a place that holds about 1,500. It was really depressing." [8] On 8 October, the band performed four songs from the album for BBC Radio 1's John Peel show. [45] Performances of "Real by Real" and "Ten Feet Tall" recorded were later released for Drums and Wireless: BBC Radio Sessions 77–89 (1994). Xu9O9O.QxU35LYCz5Qnd_Ow9X28sMiwb6MGFXLot0dAu2FE4vYUW3JJ8IzZh2uPBWNiDFdRk5rmpOtn6IMQwxYlYI8flXC5XbuloMpm Moulding scored the band a hit with “Making Plans for Nigel,” which peaked at number 17 on the UK singles chart. The song would become a kind of blueprint for Moulding’s songwriting style: pastoral, sweet and just a little cheeky. It was inspired by the plays of British writer-actor Alan Bennett, “who writes principally about home life and these guys who spent most of their time with their mothers,” Moulding says. a b c Bernhardt, Todd; Partridge, Andy (6 January 2008). "Andy discusses 'Complicated Game' ". Chalkhills . Retrieved 30 August 2019.

Another fact to be aware of is neither Partridge nor, especially, Moulding can really sing. They reach for notes and sometimes fail to find them. They speak rather than sing, voices sounding like, during puberty, they failed to break completely leaving them in a halfway house where both highs and lows are a stretch. The beauty of the situation being it suits the band perfectly. Not only are the songs bizarrely brilliant but so are the vocalists. a b Bernhardt, Todd (11 May 2009). "Colin discusses 'Life Begins at the Hop' ". Chalkhills . Retrieved 20 September 2017. Lyrically, the album focuses on the trappings of the modern world, a highly new wave sentiment. Best described as “polychromatic”, the album is an off-kilter, angular offering. With the effective production and compositional aspects of the album, they are matched by Partridge’s insightful lyrics and worldview.Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrateded.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p.344. ISBN 0-646-11917-6. Moulding and Chambers reunited in 2017 as TC&I, releasing an EP titled Great Aspirations and playing a run of sold-out shows in their hometown of Swindon. They released a live album in early August 2019, but Moulding isn’t sure they’ll continue with the project. songwriting muscle (which is becoming delightfully erect).” Andy: “Suddenly we were a three piece. The songwriting was Moulding agrees. “I started writing more in my own self; I think in the first two albums I was trying to find my niche, what was me and what wasn’t,” he tells TIDAL. “ Drums and Wires was a new start for me and I was writing in the vein that I wanted to write in. And we had a hit! That was a surprise…” All the new Steven Wilson mixes have been created with the input of founder band member Andy Partridge and the full approval of the band. Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory all contribute sleeve notes to the booklet.

Drums and Wires (liner notes). XTC. Ape House. 2014. {{ cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) ( link) Partridge formed what would become XTC with fellow Swindon, England, pub mates Colin Moulding and Terry Chambers in the mid ‘70s. For a while, they rode the new wave train with a changing lineup of members, releasing White Music in 1978 and Go 2 that same year. Their punk origins are very apparent on those records, which rip along at an expedient pace — far more jagged and confrontational than subsequent releases. The band chafed under the confines of leather and crew cuts, though, and soon broke free into uncharted pop territory. Larkin, Colin (2011). "XTC". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th conciseed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8. Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding, Dave Gregory, Terry Chambers, Steve Warren, Hugh Padgham, Al Clark, Laurie Dunn – Vernon Yard Male Voice Choir on "Roads Girdle the Globe" [26] XTC - Drums And Wires - Producer(s): Steve Lillywhite - Virgin VA13134 (Atlantic) - Genre: POP". Billboard. 1979.Life Begins at the Hop" was released on 4 May 1979 [10] and became the first charting single for the band, [39] rising to number 54 on the UK Singles Chart. [40] They played a 23-date English tour, playing to half- or quarter-full concert halls. [8] In July, music videos directed by Russell Mulcahy were filmed for "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Life Begins at the Hop". [7] From 25 July to 17 August, they embarked on another tour of Australia, which was more successful. [8] [41] Immediately following the tour, the band arrived in Japan and played four dates in Osaka. Partridge recalled the band encountering much fan hysteria in Japan: "We could hardly go anywhere without being screamed at. You'd walk into a hotel lobby and there'd be a crowd of girls sitting around waiting for you." [42] Coinciding with Gregory's arrival, in April 1979, the band recorded " Life Begins at the Hop", written by bassist Colin Moulding, and their first record with Lillywhite producing. [9] After the band went on tour for the single, sessions for Drums and Wires resumed from 25 June to July. [10] By this time, Moulding "wanted to ditch [our] quirky nonsense and do more straight-ahead pop." [1] He said that when Andrews was in the band, Partridge had "no kind of foil" to work with, as he "used to like the real kind of angular, spiky, upward-thrusting guitar ... if one is angular, the other has to kind of straighten him out, you know? It was just going too far the other way, I felt. So when Dave came in, and was a much straighter player, it seemed to make more sense, I think." [11] Partridge opined that, before then, Moulding's songs "came out as weird imitations of what I was doing, 'cause he thought that was the thing to do. ... On Go 2 he was sort of getting his own style, and by Drums and Wires he really started to take off as a songwriter." [2] Gregory remembered that XTC's songs "inspired a different approach to listening and playing from that which I'd grown up with. I simply couldn't continue grinding out old blues clichés and power chords, so I began to think more in terms of the songs as the masters and the instruments as the servants." [12] The album was recorded in three weeks and mixed in two. [10] a b Manno, Lizzie (13 February 2019). "21. XTC, Drums and Wires". Paste . Retrieved 30 August 2019. Zaleski, Annie (20 March 2016). " "Music is so abused these days": XTC's Andy Partridge opens up about songwriting, painting and developing the "cruel parent gene" toward your own art". Salon . Retrieved 20 September 2017. Making Plans for Nigel” is a prime example of Moulding’s songwriting; the second song on Drums and Wires, “Helicopter,” is pure Partridge. While “Nigel” opens with the booming live drums made famous by Townhouse Recording Studio’s stone room (best known for birthing Phil Collin’s signature sound), “Helicopter” zips in on electric-sounding beats and a playful guitar line. Zippy, playful and futuristic, the song is perfect encapsulation of Partridge’s musical bugbears: novelty tunes heard courtesy of a junked record player his father nailed to a tea trolley. “I think he thought that was swish — that you could move it from one room to another and plug it in in another room,” Partridge says. “It was very perverse.”

The long-awaited reissue of XTC‘s 1979 album Drums And Wires has been announced, and like the Nonsuch deluxe release from 2013, the two-disc sets (CD+Blu-ray and CD+DVD-A) will offer a massive amount of extra audio and visual material, including new 5.1 surround and stereo mixes. of the album's 12 songs were written by Partridge, with the remaining 4 by Moulding. " Making Plans for Nigel" is told from the point of view of parents who are certain that their son Nigel is "happy in his work", affirming that his future in British Steel "is as good as sealed", and that he "likes to speak and loves to be spoken to." [21] The distinctive drum pattern was an attempt to invert drum tones and accents in the style of Devo's 1977 rendition of the Rolling Stones' " Satisfaction". [22] Partridge remembered his discontent with the time devoted to the song's recording, remarking that "[w]e spent a week doing Nigel and three weeks doing the rest of the album." [1] "Helicopter" was inspired by Partridge's childhood memory of a 1960s magazine advertisement for Lego toys. [23] I want to cleanse my brain,” he says. “I’ve been doing ordinary things like going to the shops. I purposely didn’t really want to do any music for a while because I wanted to recharge the batteries totally. To come in fresh. It’s like having tennis elbow: the only remedy for it is to take a break.” I was fascinated with Chinese culture, and I started wearing Chinese clothes whenever I could get a hold of them,” Partridge recalls. “This fascination with China lasted until I saw the Tiananmen massacre on the TV. I thought, ‘Nope, don’t want to be fascinated by that no more.’” Rathbone, Oregano (January 2015). "XTC – Drums And Wires". Record Collector. No.436 . Retrieved 19 March 2017.

That was where Moulding came in; the bassist evened out some of Partridge’s more esoteric impulses, creating that balance between batty and boppy that defines XTC. The result is a record that boasts both poppy tunes (Moulding’s “Life Begins at the Hop,” which made it to Top of the Pops) and the very Beefheartian “Roads Girdle the Globe,” Partridge’s hymn to the religiosity of car enthusiasts. In an interesting U-turn, the band opted to hire a second guitarist rather than a replacement keyboardist. The man they chose was Dave Gregory of the Swindon based covers band, Dean Gabber and His Gabberdines. XTC held a “pretend audition” for Gregory, where he was asked to play their 1978 song ‘This Is Pop’. Gregory then asked the band which version they wanted to hear, album or single. To which Partridge remembers that they thought, “‘Bloody oh, a real musician.’ But he was in the band before he even knew.”