Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys: Classic or Dud?

In my email just now:

Yep Roc Records is excited to announce the March 5, 2013 release of the new Robyn Hitchcock album, Love From London.

Hitchcock describes his songs as "paintings you can listen to." Love From London "celebrates life in a culture imperiled by economic and environmental collapse," he says. "We are surfing on the momentum of chaos. If a consensus on global warming comes from the people, then the media, the politicians, and the corporations will have to adapt to it. Rock and Roll is an old man's game now, so I'm staying in it."

The record was produced and engineered by Paul Noble, and features Noble on bass, guitar, keyboards and vocals; Jenny Adejayan on cello and vocals; Lizzie Anstey on vocals and keyboards and Jenny Macro, Lucy Parnell and Anne Lise Frokedal on vocals.

Personnel list leads me to think this will be in the same general sound world as Tromse Kaptein...

Yeah, that was my thinking as well - and I wasn't impressed with "Tromso" aside from a few tunes. Granted, he's just come off a trilogy of his best work but still...

Same reaction to Tromso over here. We'll see...

Tromso was a bit boring, yeah, but I thought that was as much the songs' fault as anything else -- if he's got a good collection of tunes, i'm optimistic.

That's my hope-- that Tromso was the second tier of this batch.

I think Tromso sounds like all the songs the Venus 3 rejected over the past x number of years. There are a few solid ones, but as always, it takes other people -- for the recent past that's been the Venus 3 -- to let Robyn know what is good and what is naff. I hope to hell someone in the current circle of friends can do the same.

perhaps someone at Yep Roc is that person (he's always released his inbetweeners on odd labels)

Possibly. It's nice to think so.

Y'know, I haven't really caught up to his last several web singles, the ones he releases on his site for free and then they go pay-only after a few months. How have those been?

He's put out 4 of those phantom 45's and there are probably 2 keepers in the 8 songs.

I'd have to give them another listen but, yeah, nothing struck me as memorable. Just reading the titles I can only recall the tunes to "There Goes The Ice" and "Thank You, Time Girl".

Wow, "Love In The Garden Of Light"! I heard that live in Chicago in 1992 and I remember it vividly.

That was on the old fan club cassette bootleg "Unhatched Crablings". Solid tune but I can see why it didn't make it onto "Perspex" or "Respect".

Someone hacked Matthew Seligman's twitter acct, I got an obvious 'i am a virus please click this link' DM from him today. Would be p excited if actual Seligman DMed me.

I met Matthew after a gig once and he was just as happy to engage with fans as we were to chat with him. Same for Kimberley.

Nothing to contribute except that "Chinese Bones" is a lovely song.

"Chinese Bones" is the song that made my wife a fan.

It's one of the very best things he ever did. Shame not to be able to put it on my rh spotify list (the only A&M Robyn on there is the stuff included on that weird Greatest Hits CD).

I'm surprised a live version wasn't included on the Bad Case Of History disc.

For reasons too boring to go into, I have been A/B'ing the Rhino and Yep Roc remasterings of Fegmania. I think I actually prefer the Rhino by a wee bit. The Yep Roc strikes me as a bit too thumpy for the crowded, colorful sound field of these recordings. This is a paisley party record, the only one of its ilk he ever made, and it needs to glitter more than it needs to rock.

Totally true.

In unrelated Hitchcock news, Yep Roc is releasing those Phantom 45s on LP for Record Store Day. Will be my first record store day purchase.

Oh cool! When is record store day again?

April?

Yeah, ditto, I'll pick that up too.

And Jon, A/Bing sources is only boring to those not interested in the results!

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/20315_530828273617000_310354882_n.jpg

that reminds me - I'm seeing The Residents in a week.

Great painting. It's bothering my eye that the two titles are centered while the painting is sort of shrugging to the right though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkfZ9CP6hv8
think i've seen this before, but it's a better capture -- is this Robyn's most desperate for pop acceptance song? i like it, but there's something that feels like he's *trying* here.

also lol dennis miller 90s

You definitely saw it on my tumblr the other day.

Yeah I never listen to that song, it has that tryhard taint. As does 'Up To Our Nex'. Sometimes I love about half of Perspex but there are times when it just feels like the most suffocating thing.

They were GREAT live on the Perspex Island and Respect tours though. I remember at the (...what the fuck was the name of the main club in Ballard, Seattle?) and someone fainting in the middle of an incredibly intense rendition of 'Child of the Universe'

Until Luxor, I rated Perspex Island my least favorite Hitchcock record. It's still at the bottom of records I would choose to listen to, even if live and the Kershaw disc redeemed some of those tunes.

It's hard for me to separate my life at that time and the actual qualities of the record. The year it came out was probably the low point of my entire life, so there's a certain pall cast over it.

Luxor is full of filler but there is a deep well of mystery in the sound of his voice and guitar on 'You Remind Me of You' and 'The Sound of Sound'

haha EZ! i probably did see it there! my brain.
yeah perspex is probably the most milquetoast hitchcock. though the ones that pop up live from that album every now and then sound good -- she doesn't exist, birds in perspex, lysander...

lysander is the all-time jam from that record. That is an incredible song.

I want a de-stiped she doesn't exist. If RH can forever excise the saxes from 'The Man Who Invented Himself' he can do this.

Good call on those two tunes, Jon. I have yet to find someone who considers Luxor a good record, but even shit Hitch has high points.

ha yeah otm re: stipe. i do like that bright green energy duet thing.
the solo version of lysander i heard him do the first time i saw him is a great memory.

Bright Green Energy is wonderful, I'm not against stipe harmonies per se.

The A&M b-sides were always soooooo great.

'Watch Your Intelligence' FTW

yep.

I hate A&M for not giving a fuck about those records. Criminal.

For reasons too boring to go into, I have been A/B'ing the Rhino and Yep Roc remasterings of Fegmania. I think I actually prefer the Rhino by a wee bit. The Yep Roc strikes me as a bit too thumpy for the crowded, colorful sound field of these recordings. This is a paisley party record, the only one of its ilk he ever made, and it needs to glitter more than it needs to rock.

― here is no telephone (Jon Lewis), Tuesday, January 22, 2013 12:27 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Unfortunately I would like to report the same finding wrt Element of Light Rhino vs. Yep Roc. The essential sound color of Element is the ring and shimmer of Robyn's telecaster; on the Yep Roc they have given so much thump to the kick drum that every time it hits it fractures the sustained tones around it a little. The diff is not huge but i def prefer the Rhino sound. And Rhino has that amazing, amazing 'Raymond Chandler Evening' demo.

Maybe RH wanted to take some of the 80s sheen off this record with its FM synths and Andy's chorused bass, but if so he has thrown the babby out with the bathwater.

I didn't get rid of any of my Rhino reissues because of all the missing tracks on the Yep Roc ones. I'll have to dig them out.

The liner notes were great too. It was so exciting when those were coming out 2 per month in 1994(?).

And Rhino has that amazing, amazing 'Raymond Chandler Evening' demo.
yeahhh, incredible that they took that off of the yep roc element of light. that is probably one of my top ten fave robyn recordings.

He probably omitted it on purpose. RH is a perverse fellow.

"And that could not have been rasher!"

*everyone loses their shit*

is that one not on the yep roc edition either? sheesh.
still ridiculous to me that there's not a soft boys live comp. that'd blow plenty of minds imo.

Robyn has one of the most rereleased and yet still utterly baffling discographies in history.