130: The Dukes of Stratosphear - Chips From the Chocolate Fireball (1987)

November 21, 2023 / Amanda Rodgers

"People think I'm besotted with the '60s, which I'm not. It's just that when we did the Dukes of Stratosphear I thought it would be a piece of fun to kind of be in the band that you always wanted to be in when you were a schoolkid.”

—Sir John Johns

It’s time for a psychedelic podcast extravaganza, five years and two recordings in the making! The album Chips from the Chocolate Fireball by XTC’s alter-egos the Dukes of Stratosphear was supposed to be our fifth episode, but technical difficulties turned the episode into a splendid cream bun. But Rich, Ben, and Mike are finally back for a second round discussing a collection that perhaps isn’t XTC’s definitive artistic achievement, but it’s possibly the most pure fun you can have in their discography. Artistically adrift in the mid-’80s, the band adopted goofy pseudonyms and recorded a loving tribute to the ’60s music of their youth, produced by psychedelic engineering wizard John Leckie. If you enjoy Pink Floyd, the Byrds, the Small Faces, the Kinks, the Yardbirds, and especially the Beatles – which you most likely do, because you’re listening to this podcast – you owe it to yourself to take a bike ride to the moon with the Dukes.

Miscellany

Chips from the Chocolate Fireball is not available on Spotify in Canada, so on our playlist those songs will be grayed out for our Canadian listeners. But you can find Chips from the Chocolate Fireball for pretty cheap on Discogs, and Psurroundabout Ride on Burning Shed’s XTC store.
In addition to the Monkees song and the split EP with Robyn Hitchcock, Andy Partridge has kept putting out music at a fairly steady pace, including a series of EPs called My Failed Songwriting Career consisting of rejected songs for other artists, and he recently played in an avant-pop trio called The 3 Clubmen with musician-songwriter Jen Olive and multi-instrumentalist Stu Rowe.
Neville Farmer’s Song Stories is out of print and fairly pricey to find used, but Todd Bernhardt’s Complicated Game: Inside the Songs of XTC, drawn from a series of interviews with Partridge, is also an excellent resource and a very funny and informative read. Very special thanks to Ben for sending a new copy of Song Stories to Rich, whose original copy was eaten by guinea pigs.
One of the few times Partridge has been coaxed into appearing on stage since 1982 was to sing “Collideascope” in 1993 as a duet with Aimee Mann, whose backing band at the time included Dave Gregory. The performance was not recorded for posterity, and Partridge reportedly spent “two weeks in the lavatory” in preparation, so don’t expect him to appear live anytime soon.
Rich and Mike discussed “What in the World??” and all of the other samples that went into our theme in a bonus episode titled “Anatomy of a Theme Song” available to Patreon subscribers.
John Leckie also produced XTC’s debut album White Music, as well as This Nation’s Saving Grace by the Fall, an album we discussed last year.
The tracklist for Psonic Psunspot originally had the sides switched, so the album began with “You’re My Drug” and ended with “Collideascope.” When heard in this order, the narrative segments make just as much sense.
John couldn’t be on this episode (last-minute family stuff), but he had a couple of related thoughts he wanted to throw in about “The Mole From the Ministry” and its ties to “We are the Moles” (by The Moles, a predecessor group to Gentle Giant). First, it's interesting that “We are the Moles” was written by a group pretending to be a different group (The Moles was Simon Dupree and the Big Sound trying a different name to escape from the success of “Kites”), in much the same way The Dukes was XTC pretending to be a different group. And second, XTC was to pop music as Gentle Giant was to prog rock.

Discord & Rhyme Roll Call

Rich Bunnell (host)
Ben Marlin (moderator)
Mike DeFabio

Chips from the Chocolate Fireball tracklist

25 O’Clock
Bike Ride to the Moon
My Love Explodes
What in the World?? …
Your Gold Dress
The Mole from the Ministry
Vanishing Girl
Have You Seen Jackie?
Little Lighthouse
You’re a Good Man Albert Brown (Curse You Red Barrel!)
Collideascope
You’re My Drug
Shiny Cage
Brainiac’s Daughter
The Affiliated
Pale and Precious

Other clips used

XTC/Dukes of Stratosphear:

Train Running Low on Soul Coal
Neon Shuffle
Respectable Street
Pink Thing
Some Lovely (My Brown Guitar)
Deliver Us from the Elements
Dear God
You’re My Drug (Steven Wilson mix)
Ball and Chain
Towers of London
Knights in Shining Karma
That's Really Super, Supergirl
Season Cycle
Poor Skeleton Steps Out
Black Jewelled Serpent of Sound
What in the World?? (instrumental)

Others:

The Electric Prunes - I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)
They Might Be Giants - 25 O'Clock
Yes - Yours Is No Disgrace
The Beatles - Baby You're a Rich Man
Tomorrow - My White Bicycle
Pink Floyd - Bike
The Move - I Can Hear the Grass Grow
The Yardbirds - Over, Under, Sideways, Down
The Yardbirds - Hot House of Omagararshid
The Other Leading Brand - Little Cameras in the Walls
Zager & Evans - In the Year 2525
The Beatles - Only a Northern Song
The Smoke - My Friend Jack
The Rolling Stones - She's a Rainbow
The Seeds - Pushin' Too Hard
The Beatles - I Am the Walrus
The Beatles - A Day in the Life
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever
The Moles - We Are the Moles
The Hollies - On a Carousel
The Tokens - The Lion Sleeps Tonight
The Small Faces - Happiness Stan
The Hollies - Pegasus
The Hollies - After the Fox
Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne
Pink Floyd - See Emily Play
David Bowie - Love You Till Tuesday
Mark Wirtz & Keith West - Grocer Jack
Moby Grape - Omaha
The Rolling Stones - 19th Nervous Breakdown
The Small Faces - Lazy Sunday
The Royal Guardsman - Snoopy vs. the Red Baron
The Kinks - Plastic Man
The Move - Blackberry Way
The Byrds - Eight Miles High
The Byrds - So You Want to Be a Rock n’ Roll Star
The Animals - Monterey
The Beatles - I'm Only Sleeping
The Beatles - Martha My Dear
Wings - Let 'Em In
The Beatles - Hello Goodbye
The Kinks - Yes Sir, No Sir
The Kinks - A Well Respected Man
Unit 4 + 2 - Concrete and Clay
The Beach Boys - Heroes and Villains
The Beach Boys - Cabin-Essence
The Stone Roses - Waterfall
The Monkees - You Bring the Summer
The Verve - Slide Away
The Olivia Tremor Control - A Peculiar Noise Called "Train Director"

Band/album personnel

Sir John Johns (Andy Partridge) – vocals, guitar, bass (4, 7)
The Red Curtain (Colin Moulding) – vocals, bass, rhythm guitar (4)
Lord Cornelius Plum (Dave Gregory) – mellotron, piano, organ, fuzz-tone guitar
E.I.E.I. Owen (Ian Gregory) – drum set
John Leckie – production
Lily Fraser – narration

Credits

“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of:

Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste
The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...
Faith No More - Midlife Crisis
Herbie Hancock - Hornets
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen
The Dukes of Stratosphear - The Mole from the Ministry (this episode only)

You can buy or stream Chips from the Chocolate Fireball and other albums by the Dukes of Stratospear and XTC at burningshed.com, your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Instagram @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Editing and production are by Rich Bunnell, and special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for the introduction, our theme song, and other original music. See you next album, and keep as cool as you can.

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tags / Rich Bunnell