Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys: Classic or Dud?

"The Man with the Lightbulb Head" is just outstanding

love this soft boys photo

http://s3.amazonaws.com/quietus_production/images/articles/5207/Soft_Boys_picture1_1288611843.jpg

That’s the classic Morris pic. He looks like bad news!

Xgau goes too far but "My Wife and My Dead Wife" is kinda stupid tbh

Fegmania was my first one. It was new, Greg of Rockhead’s in downtown St Paul, who resembled John Waite and had urged Huskers on me, said I needed to have it. Slash Records cassette.

It’s such a color riot of quivering party psych

I associate it closely with The Top in some way

I guess it was never too likely that the Egyptians would retain a full time keybs guy for the long haul but I REALLY enjoy Roger’s contributions to this record.

I actually don’t have a ton of time for “Heaven” - for me “Cream” “Lightbulb” “Bubble” “Mother” and “Only” are the heart of the album

I mostly agree with Alfred on “Wife”. On almost every RH album there’s a song that’s just too cute for me. “Wife” does not make my best of, not even the “triple disc” version.

"If You Were a Priest" already shows signs of writing to character but what a riff, as ever.

I did not know until today that the Soft Boys also gave us Katrina and the Waves.

Well, yeah!

it's been said many a time, but Acid Bird is good. sounds good on Black Snake, but it also sounded great on this version with the egyptians on Whistle Test that i was watching, several years later

Fun in the sun, luck in the bloodstream
Shallow bodies writhing on the grass
Fun in the sun, hair in the slipstream
Tadpoles shooting through a hollow glass

i mean, what the fuck is going on here, but i love it. the melodies throughout are bonkers too

(Total aside, Jon not Jon, but I was discovering stuff at Rockheads around that time, when I was 14 or so. Bought Pere Abu's Song of the Bailing Man in the sale bin, and so much other stuff.)

Ha! That delights me truly!

Our itinerary every Saturday was St Paul Comics/Shinders/Rockheads/Town Square for food/wander around the skyways for hours

A long time ago, I saw a documentary on cable: RH & Venus 3, travelling around, playing gigs in tiny places---"backstage," if you can even call it that, more like "betweem the Men's Room and the fire exit," Buck was looking cross and sleepy and saying what a good time he was having without "my other band," who made such a big deal of everything. At one point, in his plush Seattle apartment, Robyn was waiting for him, speaking shyly to Mrs. B, and then Buck comes out of the bedroom looking all cross and sleepy and fat as hell, and then they go play another dive---anybody know what that is??? Pretty good!

ROBYN HITCHCOCK: SEX, FOOD, DEATH....AND INSECTS, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNImdQfZolQ

Oh yes I forgot, classic. Gotta Let This Hen Out reissue spoiled a little by the extra tracks though, original verison all killer.

I’ve still not seen the film actually

Oh did you just post the whole thing lol

Everything is on YouTube as Borges predicted. I am watchiing it again right now, forgot all about this one.

Is that the one I was talking about?!

Oh yeah, looks right.

It's groovy. I never saw the Demme one tho, Storefront Hitchcock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLtvbfC4NFY

this was just posted a few days ago. Santa Monica, April 25, 1993.

what's great about this thread is the outside chance that one of you may have been there!

and for the freaks out there, skip to 32 minutes in for extended stage banter riffing about donald fagen

that was just before I got into Robyn — I'd see him for the first time the next year ... in Santa Monica!

Dang, too bad! There are some fun shots of the crowd in the video, too. Seems like a blast to be there. Excellent “Waterloo sunset”, too.

this was just posted a few days ago. Santa Monica, April 25, 1993.

what's great about this thread is the outside chance that one of you may have been there!

I was there! I was a few minutes late (parking in Santa Monica is always terrible) so I was in the back - I think I saw the top of my head when the camera panned to the back during the Donald Fagen section.

i KNEW donald fagen would provide the crucial connection in time and space, somehow!

that's awesome! what a cool show. was that in addition to a show at a more traditional venue or in place of one?

Yah, this was a couple days before his show at The Palace in Hollywood that he refers to at the end (which was also a terrific show). I think he was living in Los Angeles at this time (1991-1993/4 or so) during his A&M Records era so I saw him a lot - this show, several times at McCabe's, The Whiskey, CSUF's coffee bar.

Listening to Queen Elvis today front to back, having listened to it a lot in college (quintessential late-80s/early-90s "college rock" production). Always wondered why it wasn't on streaming services, and hearing it in full now wonder if it's because it's...not very good? Maybe it's Robyn's choice not to have it out there? The high points ("Madonna of the Wasps" and "One Long Pair of Eyes") are streaming from Greatest Hits comps.

Anyway, 80s/early-90s Hitchcock is always perfect fall music for me, so listening to it on this cool morning.

i love this anecdote:

Airscape" concerns his "favourite beach", Compton Beach on the Isle of Wight,[5] which also provided a backdrop for the cover shots. He was inspired by learning about the erosion of the cliffs, and imagining the ghosts of people who had walked the cliffs centuries ago now suspended over the water.[6]

this is my "Not That Robyn: I've been listening to Hitchcock for a summer" spotify playlist (so missing some things, like Queen Elvis, as Eazy just mentioned), in chronological order. i realize i have huge blind spots and i need to give his 90s - present albums more time, but at least later i can look at it and make fun of it, about 10 years from now. i hope i don't have horrible back pain all of the time when i do that! i'm sure i won't

human music
leppo and the jooves
i wanna destroy you
kingdom of love
insanely jealous of you
tonight
queen of eyes
underwater moonlight
only the stones remain
acid bird
out of the picture
love
all i wanna do is fall in love
the cars she used to drive
trams of old london
egyptian cream
the man with the lightbulb head
bells of rhymney
i'm only you
airscape
the leopard
if you were a priest
somewhere apart
vibrating
a globe of frogs
chinese bones
flesh number one (beatle dennis)
queen elvis
executioner
shimmering distant love
driving aloud (radio storm)
dark princess
she doesn't exist
ride
television
luckiness
propellor time
evolove

Queen Elvis has some duds, but I love "wax doll," "veins of the queen" and "swirling" in addition to the ones you mentioned.

I think its absence on streaming is just that A&M is kind of a mess rights-wise? That's why those Robyn A&M records have never been reissued.

Exactly.

That’s a strong list KM! You have good taste in RH songs!

thank you! it's hard to go wrong with RH, though. i came away very impressed with his consistency over the years. even the lesser ones generally have at least a few really strong tracks that make it worth revisiting

I'm always finding stuff in his catalog that I've overlooked — like this week, I was blown away by this one, a late 80s outtake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DqdrUrgqPc

oh and hey, I interviewed Robyn this week! Last time I did that was 20 years ago!

Those Yep Roc box sets were supposedly great. I wasn't yet a fan so I settled for getting the album reissues one by one as I got to know his music.

yeah, they're pretty nicely done — his stuff has been reissued so much over the years, it's hard to say what the "definitive" versions of a bunch of his albums really are. But the yep roc ones are pretty close?

for me the rhino series is definitive. The Yep Roc are good except the egyptians studio items are too louderized - i don't want morris' kick drum to momentarily wipe out the sustain of every other instrument every time it hits. If you had the yep roc boxes and the rhinos of fegmania and element you'd be sitting pretty IMO

tyler where is the interview gonna be... and do you have any shareable thoughts on Shufflemania?

So Karl when you announced your RH jag earlier this summer i got inspired to try to make my definitive RH/SBs comp. This became a two month obsessive hitch-hole in which I went through several cycles of culling. I never did get it down to a single CD or even a double CD. I made it to 53 tracks before it became too excruciating to delete anything more.

Here is the tracklist for A Deck Of Cones - The Best Of Robyn Hitchcock:

I Want To Be An Anglepoise Lamp (7" version) (Soft Boys 1976-1981 2CD)
Salamander (Soft Boys 1976-1981 2CD)
Human Music (A Can Of Bees)
The Pigworker (A Can Of Bees)
The Asking Tree (Invisible Hits)
Insanely Jealous (Underwater Moonlight)
Underwater Moonlight (Underwater Moonlight)
Only The Stones Remain (Underwater Moonlight bonus)
The Lizard (Black Snake Diamond Role)
Acid Bird (Black Snake Diamond Role)
Mr. Deadly (Invisible Hitchcock or I Wanna Go Backwards)
Flavor of Night (I Often Dream Of Trains)
Sounds Great When You're Dead (I Often Dream Of Trains)
Winter Love (I Often Dream Of Trains)
Autumn Is Your Last Chance (I Often Dream Of Trains)
I Often Dream Of Trains (I Often Dream Of Trains)
Victorian Squid (You and Oblivion or I Wanna Go Backwards)
I'm Only You (Fegmania!)
Insect Mother (Fegmania!)
The Cars She Used To Drive (live Gotta Let This Hen Out)
52 Stations (Kershaw Sessions version)
The Abandoned Brain (Invisible Hitchcock)
Winchester (Element Of Light)
Airscape (Element Of Light)
The Leopard (Element Of Light bonus)
The Ghost Ship (You and Oblivion)
She Reached For A Light (You and Oblivion)
Chinese Bones (A Globe Of Frogs)
A Globe Of Frogs (A Globe Of Frogs)
Wax Doll (Queen Elvis)
Freeze (Queen Elvis)
Aquarium (Eye)
Lysander (Perspex Island)
Birds In Perspex (Kershaw Sessions version)
Arms Of Love (Respect)
Egyptian Cream (live version from Rhino ed. of Fegmania - or live version from Live At Cambridge Folk Festival)
Filthy Bird (Moss Elixir)
I Am Not Me (Moss Elixir)
Glass Hotel (Storefront Hitchcock)
1974 (A Star For Bram)
I Feel Beautiful (Jewels For Sophia)
No, I Don't Remember Guildford (Jewels For Sophia)
Mr. Kennedy (Nextdoorland)
Creeped Out (Spooked)
Sometimes A Blonde (Spooked)
Museum of Sex (Ole Tarantula)
Goodnight Oslo (Goodnight Oslo)
John in the Air (Propellor Time)
The Abyss (Tromso Kaptein)
Strawberries Dress (Live at the Troubadour LA from archive.org because the production on the Love From London version sucks - killer song though)
Mad Shelley's Letterbox (Robyn Hitchcock)
Autumn Sunglasses (Robyn Hitchcock)

nice! thanks for sharing

robyn interview will be on aquarium drunkard in a couple weeks. shufflemania is good! maybe one or two songs I'm not wild about, but good overall production, really nice vocals. he sounds pretty lively!

I'm always finding stuff in his catalog that I've overlooked — like this week, I was blown away by this one, a late 80s outtake:

!

xp cool, link it here when up plz

Awesome, Jon! That’s for a bunch of songs I can’t immediately remember, I will be going through that today and tomorrow looking for gold :)

I rely on my brother for all my Robyn Hitchcock knowledge, and I've only heard like 1/3 of these songs, but one that I really like that I haven't seen mentioned is "Solpadeine."

That’s for a bunch of songs I can’t immediately remember...

this is one of the most confusing things i've ever written, and that is hard to do. sorry about that!

what i meant was, there are a bunch of songs in your playlist that I don't think I'm familiar with, so I'll be looking forward to listening!

"veins of the queen"

Forgot to say, having this song in my head over the past week led me back to Queen Elvis! Would love if somehow A&M allows a deluxe edition sometime, given how good the live versions of these songs can be.

Yeah, the live stuff from the "Luminous Groove" box is ace.