Colin Ivor Moulding (born 17 August 1955) is an English bassist, singer, and songwriter who was one of the core members of the rock band XTC. Moulding wrote their first three charting UK singles: "Life Begins at the Hop" (1979), "Making Plans for Nigel" (1979) and "Generals and Majors" (1980).
Life and career
Moulding is self-taught as a bass player; he was learning rock riffs at the age of 15. He cites Andy Fraser of Free as an early musical influence, and has stated a preference for an intuitive approach to writing and playing rather than study.[2] When writing songs Moulding has used guitars and keyboards rather than the bass guitar.[3]
Outside his work with XTC (and their alter-ego side project The Dukes of Stratosphear), Moulding released a non-charting solo single ("Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen" b/w "I Need Protection") in 1980 under the pseudonym "The Colonel".[citation needed]
In 1995, Moulding contributed bass on several tracks of French band L'Affaire Louis' Trio's album L'Homme aux mille vies.
In February 2007, Partridge told music website Pitchfork Media that Moulding was "not interested in music any more, and doesn't want to write".[5] Moulding concurred in having a recent loss of interest in music.[2]
In November 2008, he emerged for an interview about "Making Plans For Nigel" for an installment in the series of interviews by Todd Bernhardt. He gave a two-hour interview in December on the Todd Rundgren fansite, Rundgren Radio.[2]
Moulding made vocal contributions to a Billy Sherwood progressive rock album (The Prog Collective, August 2012), combining with Rick Wakeman on "Check Point Karma". He performed a lead vocal for the song "The Man Who Died Two Times" from the album In Extremis by the progressive rock band Days Between Stations (released 15 May 2013) and appears in the video for the song, released in June 2014.[6]
Moulding played bass on "High Noon", a track on Anton Barbeau's 2016 release Magic Act, and contributed vocals to the title track of Little World, a 2016 collaboration between Barbeau and Sacramento singer Allyson Seconds. Moulding also appeared in both the "High Noon" and "Little World" videos.[7]
In 2017, Moulding and former XTC drummer Terry Chambers recorded an EP titled Great Aspirations that was credited to "TC&I". It was released on 20 October 2017.[8] In October/November 2018 TC&I, featuring Moulding, Chambers, Steve Tilling, Gary Bamford, Susannah Bevington and Moulding's son Lee, played a series of six gigs at the Swindon Arts Centre. The sets consisted of a selection of Moulding's songs from XTC's career plus material from the TC&I EP and a cover of Andy Partridge's "Statue of Liberty". Highlights of the concerts were released in August 2019 on CD and in download format under the title 'Naked Flames: Live at Swindon Arts Centre'.[9]
Discography
'XTC studio album appearances' ( more correctly 'writing credits')
