Or, if you like,  British (and Aussie) Skinny Tie, 1975-82 : guitar-driven power pop, late pub rock, proto and post-punk.  In some cases, the guitars are crunchier than the American variant, the lyrics dour. There is likely more keyboard or quirkier music. It's great for a drive, and at 8 hours, this one will take you 500 miles while the roads are still open, gas is cheap, and the BnB rooms still empty and discounted. Don't like a song? Wait two and a half minutes for the next.

To expand upon yesterday's post, we look today on the period pieces created by Retro Bogus Bands . In honor of his passing, and in celebration of his work, we'll lead it off with That Thing You Do , written by Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger, who passed yesterday from complications of Covid-19. In addition to the Oneders , we include Ruben and the Jets , a Zappa project that - reportedly - some thought was a real doo wop group, period pieces by Spinal Tap (please see the Rocklopedia Brittanica for their history), the Rutles , the  Dukes  and a project by Rundgren's Utopia .

April Fools Day, 1985....and XTC releases 25 O’Clock , a six-song EP under the pseudonym Dukes of Stratosphear. Conceived 6 years earlier, the band got to work on the project in 1984. Modeled on 1967-68 British psychedelia, no more than two takes were allowed on any tune, vintage instruments   - including an old mellotron picked up on the cheap – were used when possible, and the madcapery was laid on thick . The joke, though, was on them, as the resulting EP – 25 O’Clock – outsold the previous XTC release, The Big Express . What we have today,  Dukes of Stratosphear & Sources ,  is the 25 O’Clock, coupled with the Dukes’ subsequent album, Psonic Psunspot. Each song is followed by the track (or tracks) that it evokes, at least for me. Some connections are instrumental, some thematic,  and yet others stem from the use of effects and treatments that were, as they say, “of their time.”