"I don't want what I wanted earlier: to become rich and famous and screw the whole world. One half figurative and the other half literal. Don't look at me so surprised, because that's what everyone wants that has the mentality of a member of a teenage gang.... That's why you start a band."

--Andy Partridge, in OOR, June 13, 1992

On April 3, 1982, Andy Partridge called in sane. In so doing he bottomed out on a journey of descent and redemption from which he eventually emerged, a phoenix up from the flames, tempered, aware, enlightened, blessed, armed with the precious datum so many of us seek so desperately yet never ever find: He knew What He Wanted to Be When He Grew Up.

We have all had the experience of seeing a photograph of ourselves from years ago, seen the idiotic fashion choices, the embarrassing haircuts, the ill-advised facial hair, the blotchy skin. We remember what we were then, what we thought we aspired to, where we thought we were going. I think most of us will have experienced the Grownup's Epiphany: "My God, what _could_ I have been thinking?"

So he called in sane. Broke up the teenage gang. Gave up trying to screw the whole world.

And in the process became my hero--became a hero to everybody who's ever thought the world would be a better place if people would just grow up and accept their limitations and quit stomping all over our equanimity with their big smelly boots, trying through threats and intimidation to make us love them. A quiet revolution, that, the silent defenestration of the Ugly Underneath:

Did you ever try to take away the wheel

Not enough attention has been paid to the emergence of the bass guitar as a featured instrument during the late Seventies. Technology had a great deal to do with it: with vastly improved PA systems, proper equalization, compression, stereo imaging, chorus and flange effects optimized for bass-guitar frequencies, it was possible to promote the bass from back-line necessary evil to featured instrument, no longer a mere tonal counterpart of the kick drum. Listen to Talking Heads, Joy Division, Devo, and you'll hear an evolution at work, the bass as an equal partner to the guitars, woven in, harmonically _signifying_ in a way it had never done before. Listen to "Making Plans for Nigel" with this thought in mind--typical of its day, it's an arrangement in which the bass expresses, entirely by itself, the tonal master that the guitars serve.

If "Nigel" were the only thing Colin Moulding and XTC had ever done, they would remain forever a _par-excellence_ late-Seventies band. Of course, luckily for us, they _did_ evolve, and a major--indeed, cardinal--factor in their evolution is Colin's bass playing. In the exuberant kicking over of the r-n-r traces that characterized the New Wave, the bass-up-front thing quickly became a new cliche; listen to how hopelessly _1980_ Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" sounds now. No, Colin _unlearned_ that "Nigel" lesson. Instead of promoting the bass as a new lead instrument, he went on to develop his _ensemble_ playing--not dropping back into the anonymity of the back line, you understand, but instead working to provide a mesmerizing combination of solid rhythmic support and tonal adventurousness that surprises and delights without calling unnecessary attention to itself. _Subtle_ is the word we want.

In moving forward from New Wave bass technique, Colin really reached back to the past--to the master himself, Paul McCartney. Listen to "Getting Better" on "Sergeant Pepper" and you'll hear the model for the post-"Nigel" Moulding bass style: unintuitive note choices, unexpected breaks in the rhythm, oscillating between conventionally styled bottom-end support and a countermelody that is so perfect, so _right_, that the song would suffer badly from its removal. McCartney has said that the giant leap that his bass playing took in 1966-67 came about as a result of more tracks being available in the studio: with an entire track reserved for the bass alone, he had the luxury of recording his part after everything else had been tracked. This allowed him to actually _compose_ the bass part, endlessly and tediously trying and rejecting variations until he had a part he liked. This characterizes Colin's playing as well: his parts sound carefully, artfully, painstakingly _composed_.

Colin's maturing and expanding bass technique has become just unearthly, bespeaking encyclopedic knowledge of counterpoint and harmony, and above all a superb tastefulness that has never failed him. Moulding Moments abound throughout the Canon: "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul," "What In the World?" "Poor Skeleton," "Mayor of Simpleton," "Holly Up On Poppy" (the best fretless bass in pop [NPI]), "Ladybird," "Yacht Dance." All you have to do is close your eyes and listen deeply. Colin will amaze you.