Buzzin Music

Album of the week #1:
Dukes Of Stratosphear – Psonic Psunspot (1987)

Dukes Of Stratosphear - Psonic Psunspot

Funny music is usually pretty shitty. Lyrical jokes and parodying rip-offs wear thin pretty quickly. Dukes Of Stratosphear, though, have endured, probably because the music they parody is so well known, and because they do it in such a way that a guilty part of you (and them) is actually falling in love with the music they pastiche.

Dukes Of Stratosphear were XTC’s alter-egos. They were a fictional band whose music was deemed too psychedelic to be released by XTC themselves. Only when applying the pseudonyms Sir John Johns, Red Curtain, Lord Cornelius Plum and E.I.E.I. Owen did they find the creative outlet for songs that ripped off The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beach Boys and The Hollies. Songs such as ‘Little Lighthouse’ were actually written for XTC to release (on Skylarking) before they deemed them too ridiculous.

With psychedelic nonsense such as the lyrics “Collideascope, careful don’t look down the wrong end / you will see ships that fall out of the sky / who put that nail in your eye / you make me wanna cry” sung in John Lennon’s Lucy In The Sky nasal whine, the Dukes Of Stratoshpear nailed their pastiche of psychedelia whilst making some of the most brilliantly arranged songs of the 80s.

‘Collideascope’ itself has possibly the most brilliant chorus ever. ‘Vanishing Girl’ and ‘Pale and Precious’ compete for the most West Coast pop song never to come from America. And ‘Braniac’s Daughter’ is the sort of brilliant cheese that McCartney should have written instead of ‘Yellow Submarine’.

Interspersed are the hilarious Alice In Wonderland style narrations by the Dukes’ then studio owner’s daughter such as “The puffin sipped as his herbal tea and sighed, ‘you can’t get the buttons these days’”, about which Andy Partridge says:

“We initially tried to get aged British character actor Derek Guyler to read the psychedelic nonsense between songs in honour of Stanley Unwin’s sterling gibberish on the Small Faces’ Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake. But unfortunately Guyler’s agent wanted the sum of £10,000, which was the total budget for the whole album. So little Ms Fraser stepped in and did a great job for a pat on the head and ice cream money.”

The fine line that XTC drew between themselves and The Dukes Of Stratosphear emphasises their heightened intelligence and meticulously critical music-making. However, it also emphasises their brilliant skill for arrangements seen on all of their own albums and their secret passion for making the music they knew they could never permit themselves to market.

Both of the Dukes Of Stratosphear’s albums (the other one is 25 O’Clock) were re-released on April 20th with bonus tracks/demos . Psonic Psunspot is flipping brilliant, and you should definitely listen to it.

Here is a website with lots of brilliant XTC/Dukes Of Stratosphear info – chalkhills.org.