Breathing The Same Air: A Memoir of My Time with XTC During The Making of The Big Express

by Andrew M. Stafford

In the spring of 1984, I was nineteen and had just been diagnosed with a lifelong illness. I wasn’t in a good place. Then something came along, which temporarily kicked the disease into touch. XTC were recording their seventh studio album not far from me. I decided to be brave and drive to where they were recording what would be The Big Express to see if I could say hello to my musical heroes. At best, I expected to take up no more than ten minutes of XTC’s time and come away with their autographs. But what I ended up with was more than I could ever have hoped for. Breathing the Same Air is an account of the two months I spent with Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory at Crescent Studios in Bath.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Memoir

180 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Joe Faust · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't resist books about creative people and the processes they use to accomplish their art, whether it's music, writing, painting, film, or what have you. This book is not that. What it is is Stafford's account of getting to hang with XTC during the recording of their album The Big Express. But I wasn't disappointed, even in the early biographical chapters, because this is basically a guy telling you over lunch how at nineteen he got to hang with his musical heroes for a couple of months. There's nothing earthshaking here, but it's fun to hear it told (it helped that I'm an XTC fan as well, although the exact analog for me would have been hanging out with Mike Oldfield during the recording of Incantations - but I digress). Basically, the appeal of the book is this - we all want our pop culture heroes to be nice people in real life. By putting up with Stafford's first fan boy visit and inviting him back to watch songs come together in the studio, XTC definitely qualifies as a group of regular blokes.

[David Frazzini · Rating 2 out of 5]

Struggled with whether to give this 1 or 2 stars. The author spends more time talking about his own life, teenage bands, and concert experiences than he does discussing XTC. From that standpoint, its really not about XTC, its about the author.

When he does discuss XTC he says he's doing it completely from memory, but then several times states that he wishes his memory was better. On at least two occasions, he also points out that band members made statements in interviews that contradict the author's memory, but that he's choosing to go with his own memory. For these reasons, I found it a little difficult to believe the details of his interactions with the band.

Its not a terrible read, and if you're interested in a sort of coming of age story about a young man obsessed with music, you may like it better than I did. If you come to this expecting insights about XTC, you're likely to be disappointed.

[Martin E Rankin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting read. Andrew and his girlfriend simply show up at the studio where XTC is recording their new album. After the Producer turns them away, Colin Moulding finds them waiting in the parking lot and invites them in. They were not their every day, but go back once a week based on their work schedule and talk with the band on a variety of topics. While very interesting, I wish the book had a deeper discussion of the music making process. But very entertaining for any fan of alternative music.

[Kasper · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very candid and rambling read, but one that comes off very sincere. It feels a lot like having a drink with your friend while he's telling you about something that happened to him back in the day. It isn't exactly thrilling reading per se but there are some cool anecdotes and I breezed through it.

[Curtis Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really for die hard fans of XTC (of which I am one. But it is also a slightly melancholy but rather lovely series of memories and a treatise on memory from a 50-something looking back on a couple teenage months spent with his musical heroes.

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

as books on xtc are so few and far between, i lapped up breathing the same air. more of a collection of memories rather than a technical blow-by-blow of how the band recorded the big express, andrew m. stafford lived out arguably every die-hard xtc fan's dream of being a fly on the wall (english settlement reference intended) during recording sessions. being only a year shy of stafford's age when he hung out with xtc at crescent studios, i completely empathised with and understood his tone of awe and excitement in recalling watching music videos with andy partridge or getting a guitar lesson from dave gregory. in a way, reading about stafford's experiences was like living vicariously through him.

knowing that your musical heroes aren't just amazing at what they do, but also genuinely kind, sweet people who understand their fans is always a heartwarming thing to find out. so many times whilst reading breathing the same air i had such a big smile on my face as i discovered the generosity the band extended to stafford and his girlfriend on multiple occasions. not only that, but it was lovely to see the three of them portrayed as merely normal human beings with lives of their own. stafford perfectly blends the enthralled perspective of the xtc fanatic with the understanding that at the end of the day, the band are just a bunch of ordinary guys from swindon who just so happen to be very good at making excellent music.

overall, breathing the same air felt more like an extended facebook post than a book of any sort, but i didn't mind. it's very much lightweight reading, nothing groundbreaking, but a lot of fun for the xtc enthusiast to breeze through. there are also a couple of non-xtc musical stories in this book i enjoyed, especially how stafford met the stranglers' hugh cornwell. even though the reader is assured at the beginning that we can skip past the autobiographical chapters if we so wish, as someone who wasn't alive in the latter half of the twentieth century, i found it all to be very interesting. although perhaps the parts where stafford geeks out about old cars i could do without.

3.5 stars.