XTC, The Sugarplastic, And Why We Can't Have Nice Things!

The first time I caught The Sugarplastic live, it was 1995 and they were playing Silver Lake's Spaceland as part of the L.A.'s Poptopia power pop festival. 

I had sped across town like a Tasmanian devil to wait in line an hour to get in to see a band I can no longer remember, but was so floored by The Sugarplastic's impeccable XTC tribute that, had their been Twitter, I would have tweeted:

"Geffen should sign these guys. 😀 "

I found myself digging through those old Geffen XTC records and thinking back on the days when XTC regularly graced our American Top 40. Why, I remember it as if it were only...

Oh, that's right, no XTC album has ever hit the Top 40 in the good ol' US of A, not even Oranges And Lemons, which one could easily imagine doing so based solely on the number of times MTV played that damn "Mayor Of Simpleton" video.

Even 1986's Todd Rundgren-produced Skylarking, with the breakout success of the "Dear God" single, only made it as far as #70.

Amazingly, the one XTC album that came closest was Black Sea, which reached #41 in 1980, back when Epic Records was licensing the band's albums for the U.S. market from Virgin UK.

Geffen Records took over in time to issue Mummer and The Big Express, which, oddly enough, were their two poorest selling U.S. releases ad not one, but two albums under the name The Dukes Of Stratosphear. none of which charted.

By the time "Simpleton" was giving "Sweet Child O' Mine" a serious run for its money on MTV, one would imagine Geffen had lost quite a nice bit of money on the band. So why would the very same label, a decade later, sign a band that was, for all intents and purposes, XTC V2.0?

More importantly, why would they do so at a time when radio and MTV were still very much in full grunge mode?

To say that the deck was stacked against L.A.'s The Sugarplastic from Day One would be an understatement, but the band's Kinks-meets-XTC-for-a-date-with-Pet-Sounds-era-Beach Boys aesthetic quickly caught the ears of L.A. pop fans. Led by singer/guitarist Ben Eshbach, the band quickly established a rep for delivering Kink-ish fervor with a healthy dose of Beach Boys pop nuances.

But the band's most obvious influence is a particularly sophisticated trio led by Andy Partridge.

The first time the Sugarplastic came up in conversation was between myself and the head of a then-thriving indie and re-issue label whose love for all things XTC I happened to share. In addition to him relaying what juicy gossip he'd heard from his major label pals, he handed me a copy of the band's self-produced and released Radio Jejune while exaggeratedly mouthing the words "Holy shit".

Upon first listen, I was left awestruck by how another band could sound that much like XTC without actually being XTC. I scoured the CD booklet looking for anything in the credits to give away the connection to Messengers Partridge, Gregory and/or Moulding but, alas, none were found.

A few months later, while attended SXSW, the band was on the lips of every hipster in the 512 area code. If I'd been given a nickel every time I heard the band's name being discussed within earshot, by the end of the festival, I could have purchased David Geffen's soul.

Oddly enough, it was there that I learned that, while other labels were still courting the band, the 'Plastic had quietly signed to Geffen under the stipulation that they be left alone to self-release Radio Jejune first.

The fact that Geffen's Todd Sullivan (the same A&R rep who signed Weezer) didn't blink must have assured the band that the label was thinking long-term.

Bang, The Earth Is Round followed a year later on Geffen and, like Jejune, was produced by singer/guitarist Ben Eshbach and engineered by Casey Neidich.

With no videos to promote the band's music or high profile tour opening for major artists to follow, one has to wonder what Geffen actually managed to do to promote the band's album beyond offering their services to Rolling Stone magazine as models for a men's fashion spread showcasing designer men's suits for spring 1996.

Was Geffen merely biding its time until the band could be talked into working with a name producer like Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello... or, uh, Andy Metcalfe?

(Psst, hey Ben, wrong Andy! Ed.)

Of course, before the band could finish album #3 with Squeeze/Soft Boys bassist Metcalfe producing, big changes would quickly come their way. Most alarmingly, the band and Geffen parted ways, but  so did drummer Josh Laner as well.


The Sugarplastic - Autumn All The Time (Official Music Video) from Hole in a Hole on Vimeo.

Eshbach and bassist Kiara Gellar persevered by hiring new drummer David Cunningham and releasing third album Resin, landing a song ("Don't Look Down") on Rhino's stellar Powerpuff Girls: Heroes & Villains soundtrack, and then capitalizing on that exposure by...

Taking five years to release their next studio album, Will, for which they finally filmed their first music video ("Autumn All The Time") before promptly falling off the face of the Earth yet again.

While one could certainly take Geffen Records to task for their inability to break either The Sugarplastic or XTC in the very country that invented rock & roll, this writer chooses to click "like" that Geffen took the chance anyway.

Those wondering what Mr. Eshbach is up to these days need only click the video below to see the project for which Ben wrote the music and WON AN EMMY (yes, an Emmy) in 2017.

Congratulations, Ben!