What an eclectic bunch of fans we've got - and Joey B!
I find most people I speak to hate XTC, and feel the same way they do about one of my other favourite bands, Ween. They really seem to polarise people - they're bands who need to be lived with for a bit, I'll admit, but what a reward you get for your time!
Love a lot of the same stuff - though particular penchants for Beach Boys, Gene Clark ('No Other' probably my favourite album of all time), Cheap Trick, Tangerine Dream, The Fall (most of what MES touched turned to gold, even if it took a few years to get there), all solo Beatles, in particular George (find The Beatles, Stones, and Dylan themselves pretty much go without saying in these discussions), Neil Young, Yes, King Crimson, Fairport Convention, Richard (and Linda) Thompson, John Cale, Fleetwood Mac. And got to get The Kinks, Small Faces, The Move, Bowie, Roxy/Eno, and T-Rex in there - love glam (this country needs a rocking glam band, and has done for ages: Muse have touched a bit on the rhythms, but they're too professional; we need a proper bunch of amateurs at it - Earl Brutus did it well for a while); and finally the great Todd Rundgren. Who - bringing us full circle - in producing XTC's Skylarking embodied a musical wet dream of a team up. I definitely like less and less new bands - comes a point where you've seen it all before and can see who they're ripping off (nothing wrong with stealing - I wish Saints would rip off Barcelona more often), but just harder to get excited by it. Only few I've really gone for in the last few years are Cass McCombs (check out 'County Line') and Ariel Pink. Certainly Cass McCombs will be taking his place with the above mentioned at some point in the next 20 years, I'd say.
Oh, and the other unmissable "new" act, who has actually been going since the late-60s, which I feel pretty safe guaranteeing that any fan of XTC will like (and arguably could well have influenced them, had there been the internet in the 1970s) is R. Stevie Moore - check out 'I Like To Stay Home', or 'Benefit of the Doubt' for starters - probably thousands of his songs and videos on youtube. Like most Beatles obsessives, his songs are flawed attempts at writing songs as good as theirs - and its in the flaws where a different kind of genius comes out. I'm reminded of this because I saw recently he'd recorded a track with XTC's Dave Gregory, called 'Dates' (also on youtube, I think). Support the guy - his career has finally started at the age of 60!
One things this thread confirms (though it was never in doubt) - men love to compile lists.
Any Saints-supporting bands/singers? I was always under the impression that Craig David and some of Coldplay were.