Faking the Summer of Love all over again

This last month saw the reissue of the two records done by the Dukes of Stratosphear, which originally appeared back in 1985 and 1987. The Dukes were really just XTC in disguise, teaming up with producer John Leckie to make some crazy psychedelic records that sounded like they came right out of the Summer of Love. The first EP 25 O'Clock was even released on April Fool's Day back in 1985. I'm guessing maybe Andy Partridge was shooting for that again, but just missed it by a few weeks as the reissues came out in mid-April on his
Ape label.

The two records (which only appeared on CD before as a compilation called Chips from the Chocolate Fireball in 1987) have been reissued separately, each coming in their own beautiful mini hard back book complete with over 20 pages of photos, lyrics, and liner notes. And earch record comes with original videos ("The Mole from the Ministry" and "You're a Good Man Albert Brown"). But, of most interest to fans will be the unreleased material. The 25 O'Clock EP is more than doubled in length thanks to six demos (two of which weren't on the EP) as well three other Duke-like songs Andy Partridge recorded over the years. Psonic Psunspot also sees the addition of six demo versions of songs from the LP, including a Colin sung version of "Vanishing Girl" called "No One at Home." I've always been more of a fan of the Colin songs (although fewer in number to Andy's prolific writing) and "Vanishing Girl" is one of my favorites. So it's nice to hear Colin sing it since Andy sung it on the original album.

Finally, if all the music on the reissues isn't enough to hear a bunch of guys writing and performing songs that payed homage to the music they loved as kids, you can hear more about the process by listening to some podcasts of interviews between John Leckie and Andy Partridge that are posted over at Andy's Ape House web site.