Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys: Classic or Dud?

It definitely does, this influence really stood out when they played it on the soft boys reunion tours a decade-n-change ago. Old pervert slaaaaaayed at those shows (rew is a monster)

God fucking dammit Robyn is performing all of Black Snake Diamond Role with Yo La Tengo on March 1 at Bowery Ballroom and it's already sold out :(

yow, that was fast. i would totally go to that, maybe there'll be some more tix made available. or they'll add another night?
haven't listened yet, but this podcast is generally good: http://www.sodajerker.com/episode-96-robyn-hitchcock/

enjoying that podcast a lot.

yeah i think they do a nice job with it

robyn should probably have his own podcast

hey hey jon -- http://ohmyrockness.com/shows/299096-robyn-hitchcock-yo-la-tengo-rough-trade

Lucky ducks. But I'll see him on 3/3 in the Boston area.

Ha yessss

I'm leaving this bookmark open hopefully I won't forget to get one tmrw

Perfectly happy with rough trade as a venue tbh

From Brooklyn Vegan:

They’ve just added a second NYC show, happening at Rough Trade on February 28. Tickets for Rough Trade go on sale Wednesday, December 21 at noon.

Read More: Robyn Hitchcock & Yo La Tengo playing ‘Black Snake Diamond Role’ at Rough Trade before Bowery Ballroom | http://www.brooklynvegan.com/robyn-hitchcock-yo-la-tengo-playing-black-snake-diamond-role-at-rough-trade-before-bowery-ballroom/?trackback=tsmclip

Sorry now that I am going to the March 1st show at Bowery Ballroom. Rough Trade is a great place to see a show.

Yeah I saw television there twice and totally agree. Bowery ballroom is not terrible though.

I finally got around to putting together an anthology of Robyn's 1995-2015 work. It was hard! Some albums are a real slog and other times I had to cut some good stuff. I limited it to 20 tracks each from three periods: 1995-2000, 2001-2015 and The Venus 3 albums. My overall feelings on this period:

I'm a big fan of the Warner's era, the Mossy Liquor/Elixir and the Jewels/Bram sessions produced a glut of great material. Overall, I think these are consistently excellent albums.

The Venus 3 albums are mostly great as well though I find some rough/dull patches on "Goodnight Oslo" (particularly "Saturday Groovers") and "Propellor Time" (first 3 tracks). I'm especially excited to have cherry-picked all the best stuff to listen to in one go.

His 21st century work aside from the Venus 3 has been prolific and a decidedly mixed bag:
Robyn Sings - disc 1 is damn good, disc 2 is fun despite bootleg quality, I like these songs more with Robyn's voice than Bob's
Nextdoorland / Side Three - half great, half forgettable
Luxor - unredeemable due to it's boringness, it was a struggle to pick even one worthy track
Spooked - also half-great and overall better than I remembered, but it gets a bit dull towards the end
Obliteration Pie - an interesting curiosity with one of his best tracks from this period ("City Of Women") but not a critical entry into his catalog
Shadow Cat - not even close to the quality of "Invisible Hitchcock" and "You & Oblivion" in terms of barrel scraping, mostly forgettable aside from the title track
I Often Dream Of Trains In New York - another fun record with some fascinating new interpretations, of course the source material is one of his best ever
Tromso Kaptein - mostly bad
Love From London - mostly bad
There Goes The Ice - full of good-but-not-great material, this was also hard to pick from simply because nothing truly stands out so I chose a couple of uptempo tracks
The Man Upstairs - very nice, I dig the covers and the originals are mostly solid

Aside from the Venus 3 albums, I'd take "Nextdoorland" and "Spooked" as far as original material and "Robyn Sings" and "The Man Upstairs" for covers and that's about it since 2001. Even with those, it's really just the Venus 3 stuff that's keeping my esteem for him so high.

1995-2000:
Sinister But She Was Happy (Moss Elixir)
Heliotrope (Moss Elixir)
You And Oblivion (Moss Elixir)
Beautiful Queen (alt) (Mossy Liquor)
Cool Bug Rumble (Mossy Liquor)
Wide Open Star (Mossy Liquor)
Each Of Her Silver Wands (Mossy Liquor)
Trilobite (Mossy Liquor)
Where Do You Go When You Die (live) (Storefront Hitchcock)
Mexican God (Jewels For Sophia)
Viva Sea-Tac (Jewels For Sophia)
I Feel Beautiful (Jewels For Sophia)
Dark Princess (Jewels For Sophia)
Jewels For Sophia (Jewels For Sophia)
Daisy Bomb (A Star For Bram)
The Philosophers Stone (A Star For Bram)
The Green Boy (A Star For Bram)
The Underneath (A Star For Bram)
Take This In Remembrance (non-lp)
Eerie Green Storm Lantern (non-lp)

2001-2015:
Not Dark Yet (Robyn Sings)
Pulse Of My Heart (Nextdoorland)
Mr. Kennedy (Nextdoorland)
Sudden Town (Nextdoorland)
Evil Guy (Side Three)
Keep Finding Me (Luxor)
Television (Spooked)
If You Know Time (Spooked)
Everybody Needs Love (Spooked)
Creeped Out (Spooked)
City Of Women (Obliteration Pie)
Shadow Cat (Shadow Cat)
Winter Love (live) (I Often Dream Of Trains In New York)
Old Man Weather (Tromso Kaptein)
Be Still (Love From London)
Fix You (Love From London)
Halo Mary (There Goes The Ice)
Belly Full Of Arms And Legs (There Goes The Ice)
San Francisco Patrol (The Man Upstairs)
Follow Your Money (non-lp)

The Venus 3 (2006-2010):
Adventure Rocket Ship (Ole Tarantula)
Underground Sun (Ole Tarantula)
Ole Tarantula (Ole Tarantula)
Cause It's Love (Ole Tarantula)
The Authority Box (Ole Tarantula)
NY Doll (Ole Tarantula)
Embryo Twirl (Ole Tarantula bonus disc)
What You Is (Goodnight Oslo)
Your Head Here (Goodnight Oslo)
I’m Falling (Goodnight Oslo)
Hurry For The Sky (Goodnight Oslo)
Up To Our Nex (Goodnight Oslo)
Goodnight Oslo (Goodnight Oslo)
I Just Wanna Be Loved (Goodnight Oslo bonus disc)
Ordinary Millionaire (Propellor Time)
John In The Air (Propellor Time)
Propeller Time (Propellor Time)
Primitive (Propellor Time)
Sickie Boy (single version) (non-lp)
Evolove (Propellor Time)

that looks great! don't even think i ever heard Obliteration Pie. agree that Love From London might be his weakest record. Might have a handful of decent songs, but something about the production is just so dull.

and hey, new album coming out soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHlR_yeXz9M

Different strokes for different fegs... I can't CONCIEVE of how you could not pick "narcissus", "no i don't remember guildford", "sometimes a blonde" or "star of Venus", each the strongest song from their respective sessions imo

And "trilobite" instead of "as lemons chop"? For shame!!!

Also "sound of sound" off Luxor is all time

Those were all the on the list but cut in favor of something else:

We'll have to agree to disagree regarding "Star Of Venus", that one never grabbed me.

And I adore "Trilobite"; "Lemons Chopped" was the last track cut.

I'll revisit "Sound Of Sound", it's just so hard to bother with "Luxor" at all.

I like the sound of that new song though I don't think I like the song itself very much. But I'm excited to have a new album of electric RH!

think I'll go see him on this tour, I haven't seen Robyn Hitchcock in almost 30 years.

yeah, kind of agree -- the song itself doesn't seem amazing, but I like the overall sound. weirdly it's grunge-man brendan o'brien producing

this is odd to say but it sounds like one of the lame songs from an otherwise good Robyn album? Hence I am psyched

haha, that sounds about right. i like the line about the cat dynasty.

there's definitely bits i like but i had to take a break when he exclaimed 'if ya got no heart!'

chorus seemed to scan so awkwardly at first but by its third appearance i kind of liked it

I'd add:

1974
I saw Nick Drake
Sometimes a Blonde
We're Gonna Live in the Trees
Solpadeine

Brendan Benson producing right?

oh ha, you're right! brendans!

1974 is my favorite Star for Bram song. Star for Bram is really strong though, I consider it the equal of Jewels for Sophia barring a couple of throwaways

Daisy Bomb is my Star For Bram tune. The studio version of 1974 irks me.

nietzsche's way is great, too ... was always a little let down by the studio "nick drake" -- i saw him do it at one point w/ Jon Brion on keys and it was incredible.

Yes I liked I saw nick drake better live, especially a very slow solo acoustic one

Not my favorite era for Hitch but where's "Cheese Alarm"?

Part of the challenge and fun of making best of's is setting a limit. I mean, I usually listen to full albums but artists with huge catalogs often benefit from a less-is-more approach. So 20 tracks or 80 minutes works well and forces me to really pick the cream of the crop. I've really enjoyed listening to Robyn's best work and bypassing the bad, merely good and failed experiments.

at one point I made a hitchcock playlist and it had like hundreds of songs on it and was 4 hours long at least. his catalogue is just so vast at this point.

I have two Robyn best of playlists on Spotify, one super concise one where each album gets only one or two tracks, and one big baggy one where you get several tracks per album (both are titled Verities & Verdigris). The shitty thing there was that the A&M era is not on Spotify except for the Greatest Hits cd, so a bunch of my favorite globe/queen/Perspex/respect tracks couldn't be included.

second single from this new record is a damp squib, too. Kinda bummed.

oh nooooo really?

seeing the Black Snake show with Yo La Tengo tomorrow night

i dunno, gotta listen to it a bit more, but it sounded good

I'm jealous Jon! Couldn't justify the trip, no matter how much I wanted it. If there's some goofy march thing you could pick one up for me. :)

Here's the new tune. The nicest thing I can say is it's overly familiar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW6scypUj1M

dang yeah that Black Snake show is going to be funnnnnnn

i actually blew it when they announced the second show because i was in minnesota at my mom's and by the time i got home and remembered to buy a ticket it'd sold out too. But I asked my buddy if he had any juice at rough trade store and to my relief he had juice at rough trade store and got our names on the list.

i hope this isn't the last time seeing him in front of an electric band.

ROCK ARMADA '99 FOREVAH

Those Rock Armada shows were the best.

So EZ they just have cd and 7" versions of the Robyn & Emma single and some black snake diamond role shirts and posters
Not the esoterica you would want I assume
(Show has not started yet)

Wow that second set!
Can I just--
Wey wey hep uh hole
It's a mystic trip (w pedal-enabled backward guitar from ira)
All I want to do is fall in love
I got a message for you
A skull a suitcase and a long red bottle of wine
Going down to Liverpool (!)
Run run run (ira ostrich solo)
Sleeping knights of Jesus (4 part harmonies!)
Kingdom of love
He's a reptile (hard and tight as fuck)
Rock n roll toilet (w YLT playing the wrong instruments)
Lucifer Sam
Airscape (w backward ira guitar and Georgia singing the harmonies -- omg)

I may have gotten the exact sequence wrong and or left something out

Yow that looks amazing -- hoping someone was on hand to tape it all...

He indicated that the second set was selected by YLT to his surprise and or chagrin on certain items, ha. And that the second set tonight at Bowery would be different.

First set (black snake lp):

Man who invented himself -- rhythm guitar takes piano part, a guy plays the redacted sax melody on trumpet

Do policemen sing was SO GOOD, super hard and brusque with mcnew and Kaplan doing the high backing vocals

I watch the cars was really fast and charging w the muted rhythm chords super brutal

The lizard was perfect

Love was so beautiful and I gotta think this is the first time he's every played it live? (Likewise policemen)

I forgot to say he's playing a strat now wtf when did that start???? And switched to playing with his fingers on a bunch of tracks, notably skull/suitcase and run run run

sweet, thank you for the report! "Airscape" with Georgia is definitely a dream come true ...

I've never heard him with a female singer doing the Morris harmonies. God damn it was good.

That sounds amazing Jon. So glad you got to see it.

And yeah, that merch is BORING.

wish i was going to tonight's show too!

BTW merch table was run by small blonde with Aus accent, I assume this is Emma Swift. Thought that would mean she would sing on something but didn't happen. RH did dedicate Airscape to her.

That's sweet.

Robyn's catalog is littered with songs to his ex's. I wonder what happened to Michelle.

Ahem one L