Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys: Classic or Dud?

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

Wow that second set!
Can I just--

― Cognition (Remix) (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, March 1, 2017 6:23 AM (five hours ago)

damn, that sounds more than slightly incredible. where is the skulking bootlegger when you need him?

think that nyc taper was hoping to record at least one of these shows ...

ha, was hoping to hear from you, tyler

i assume these will turn up on archive.org if anyone tapes them (though... does YLT have the same laissez-faire as robyn to live recording sharing...?)

hi contendo!

ylt is generally taper friendly, but sometimes it seems like they're not into "special" shows being shared ... but i imagine they'd defer to robyn in this case.

howdy, jon!

...well it's up on dime now.

is dime still a private club?

i think they have open registrations. anyway probably not long before it shows up on archive or whatever for anyone who doesn't want to register for an account.

ysi?

I'll bet tonight's show will be even better, there were some minor spills last night

Though rough trade strikes me as a better room to record from the audience in than Bowery

any intel on last night's show?

I was at the show. Tremendous. I was struck how Ira ended up being Hitch's perfect foil on guitar. He really brought home the noisey bits. The entire band was completely up for the task. Highlights included a triplpy version of Lizard, great falsetto vocals and heavy groove on Do Policemen Sing? and a jaw-dropping version late in the second set of Let There Be More Darkness with Hitch nailing the creepy "Kevin, Supper's Ready!" bit. No Lucifer Sam encore but we also got "I often Dream of Trains, which is always a treat. I'd love to hear a recording of the show. It was a special night.

Noooooo they did let there be more darkness??? Fuuuuuuuuck

ha, that must be a first? man, Invisible Hitchcock is such a good collection.

This might be hyperbole on my part but I think I'd give Tuesday's whole show for that

Many years ago I saw Hitch play it solo. But this was a different beast altogether.

New album strikes me as one of the best things he's done in years. Also, I didn't know about his father, and am now noticing references to him all over the place. Virginia Wolf is the early favorite, but a bunch of strong and rocking stuff on this one.

Is his latest the one that starts with that Psych Furs cover? Ghost in You that's it. If so I wasn't too into it. Also had a new take of his old classic The Ghost Ship. Seems to be short on material. Anyway, love him as a human regardless. And am positively nuts for The Soft Boys. A longtime intense favorite of mine. Up there with The Fall and Pere Ubu in my personal pantheon. And the origin of my convoluted screen name. A Can of Bees being my favorite lp of theirs. But really I dig it all.

No, there's a new one that just came out. Released as Robyn Hitchcock. Much more like his older days.

Let's see if I can do this without screwing up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R843CEIBntQ

Well whattya know? Pretty damn good. Thanks for that. Is that YLT backing him or Venus 3 or ?? In any case I enjoyed that very much. Sylvia Plath saw the world as it is. Love that. And it's nice to hear Hitch equating being dead with being "alright". It is more like his classic era stuff and I certainly welcome it.

It's out? I thought it was gonna be released in late may

came out on friday ... i like it! a couple of throwaways but that is par for the course. some great robyn electric guitar action.

After a couple of listens, definitely his best since the Venus 3 work. I was afraid his new squeeze would negatively impact it but that's not the case.

My emusic credits just refreshed, I'm buying this tonight.

think my fave is "raymond and the wires" -- the kind of weird/beautiful song only Hitchcock could write.

It's also a pretty rare (or maybe not) straight song by Robyn. I've gotten fascinated by the influence of his father on his work lately. His dad did in fact have a bad leg, and the song sounds pretty autobiographical.

Raymond Hitchcock. Author of "Percy" (Kinks) and "Venus 13." Died in Winchester. Etc. There's an article to be written there, if it hasn't already been....

yeah it does seem that way -- i imagine a lot of his songs are obliquely autobiographical, but this one is obviously pretty direct.

There's a whole book to be written about rh but do I have to do it?

wasn't there some kind of hint about robyn writing his memoirs at some point?

There was??? That'd be amazing

With all due respect to one of my favorite artists, he needs a good editor. A really good one. A bio of him could be amazing or horrible. I don't want to read about crepuscular crabs and longings for margarine. I think he's going to get one shot at a bio, and I kind of pray that someone else is in charge.

first listen is happening now. this is great. doesn't sound quite like any other rh record. he has to tour this electric!

'oh god you were beautiful' on mad shelley's letterbox is one of those simple yet odd expressive hooks only robyn can locate that instantly give you life-chills

and the guitars behind that phrase, my goodness TOTAL BYRDS ORGY

Nice post re Demme:

https://twitter.com/RobynHitchcock/status/857259489510252545

Huh, that's odd. Thought it would have autolinked.

always appreciated that Demme took his Oscar cachet and made Storefront Hitchcock, which obviously was not going to be a huge box office smash. nice to have such an artfully made document of Hitchcock at that point ...

I also like that he cast him in a couple of fictions, though demme cannot address the yawning lack of a Robyn-as-Dr-Who TV movie.

Aw man and me clicking on neds link is me learning demme has passed

"autumn sunglasses" is so nice

yeahhh, the whole record is really strong! i think that opening tune is the only one that doesn't click for me, actually (which is weird, since he's usually pretty great at choosing openers).