I was inspired to make this post even though it might sink like a stone. I have been a Robyn Hitchock fan for more than fifteen years. He is one of the last musicians from my youth that I still listen to all the time. Like many musicians his early stuff, with the Soft Boys and then solo, was great, but some of his later work lacked the early punch.
I still love him so when I saw he was playing near me in Annapolis, MD, my wife and I got tickets as far in advance as we could. Not only is his new album, Ole Tarantula, the best album of any kind I have heard in the past couple of years, the show was wonderful. He is now in his mid-fifties and just exudes joy at playing. There wasn’t a single forgettable song in the set he played and it is the perfect mix of older songs (Balloon Man, Kingdom of Love and Brenda’s Iron Sledge) and songs from the new album.
He now plays with the Venus 3, which is Peter Buck from REM, the singer from Minus 5 and I believe the drummer from Ministry. It was so odd to see Peter Buck, undoubtedly one of the wealthiest rock musicians in the world, just playing for the love of it with his friends.
I know there must be some people who were around when Robyn had his few modest hits and maybe hadn’t kept up, but if you get a chance to see his show on his mini-tour I highly recommend you go. For a bonus the band just ends the show and hangs out and chats in the lobby afterwards.
I quite enjoy Mr. Hitchcock’s music as well so you aren’t entirely alone.
I have Storefront Hitchcock on dvd and pop it in from time to time.
The Pete Buck thing is pretty cool. I remember seeing Robyn on his Queen Elvis tour and remember Pete coming out and playing on several songs.
I also remember an unannounced show from quite a few years ago here in Chicago. REM was on tour and Robyn was opening for them. The night before the show Hitchcock, Buck, Mills and Berry took the stage unannounced and unadvertised and spent a good 90 minutes playing all manner of stuff including a number of Beatles covers. Of course, I missed this but a good friend told me about it the next day.
Mr. Legend and I have tickets to the last show of the mini-tour and I’m really looking forward to it. Ole Tarantula may turn out to be my favorite Robyn Hitchcock album in the end.
Huge fan. Seen him (alone and with the Egyptians/Soft Boys/Venus 3) more times live than any other performer. I’ll write more tomorrow when I’m not exhausted, but I wanted to ask: anybody see the Sundance Channel documentary on him? It was pretty good.
Love the guy; saw him live back in '99 and was an instant convert. You might think of yourself as an army of one, but any time he comes around here the show sells out well in advance.
Hits? Oddly enough Kimberly’s had a couple of hits but not Robyn. I’m a huge Soft Boys nut and was a big fan of his early solo stuff. If you have the Gotta Let This Hen Out video (The Egyptians live at the Marqee) you can see me (a much younger me) and my friends squished up right in front of the stage. I sort of lost touch with his progess after a couple of disappointing gigs and albums (I forget which). What I missed at the the bigger gigs was his between song ramblings which always had us in stitches. (They were always made up there and then and are pretty much impossible to describe) There’s a bit of this on the Portland Arms recording but he often went on at much more length than he does there. Is there any of this in the Storefront film?
I’ve not been able to get hold of Storefront Hitchcock maybe I’ll take the online plunge and get it from Amazon.
Wow, I wonder if I can get hold of this somehow? He contributed quite a lot to the Channel 4 Syd Barrett documentary which is available on DVD.
I am not totally familiar with his oeuvre, but I love Brenda’s Iron Sledge and have done since I first heard it in the 1980s, and also I’ve Seen Nick Drake; a lovely song.
I love his music. His lyrics are consistently fascinating, and even at times when the music itself is a little off-putting, it’s always worth listening to. When he toured qa couple years ago with the reunited Soft Boys, I got to hang out with Robyn and his wife backstage. Naturally I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say, but I’m glad I had the opportunity.
I guess hits might be a bit too strong a word, but ‘Madonna of the Wasps’ and ‘Balloon Man’ were alternative or college radio hits. Strangely enough ‘Balloon Man’ is part of the standard repertoire of songs played over the PA during Washington Nationals baseball games. Also, youtube has a clip of ‘Madonna of the Wasps’ play on the David Letterman show. The Sundance documentary was great, I have a friend who is sending me a DVD copy shortly, but I don’t know when it will air again.
I’m a huge Robyn Hitchcock fan. I first saw him live in Boston around 1991, and I’ve seen him many, many times since – he plays Los Angeles a lot. I’ve lost count, but I’ve seen him live at least 20 times at this point. I also saw Soft Boys twice on their reunion tour a few years back. He’s actually going to be playing a show here in about two weeks, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to make this one.
I’d say I Often Dream of Trains is my favorite album by him, if I had to choose one.
That would be me. I lurrrved his early stuff (I first started listening with the “America” single followed by the Groovy Decay album) and saw him live a couple of times (I’ve got t-shirts with his “I’m growing Betsy in a bag” and “Madonna of the Wasps” drawings)–but I just somehow lost touch after Eye.
For those who gave up on him after his post-Egyptians stuff: check out last year’s Ole Tarantula album with the Venus 3. Very reminiscent of 80s Robyn.
I’m a fan. And I just finished watching the Sundance Channel special off the DVR. Zyzzyva, who invited me to post on this board, also influenced me to check out his stuff back in college, and I thought it was interesting. It wasn’t until I bought a vinyl copy of “Fegmania!” that I really got into him, though.
Unfortunately, I jumped on the bandwagon just in time to miss all the Rhino reissue/remasters of his CDs… the only one I could find was “I Often Dream of Trains,” and the others are all out of print. So I have several records I bought used, Trains, Ole Tarantula, a crap-ton of mp3s, and the Storefront Hitchcock DVD.
Incidentally, I’d recommend that DVD as a perfect starting point for anyone interested in checking him out. You get a bunch of great songs and between-song banter that’s almost even better.
“If it weren’t for our rib cages, we’d just be spleens a-go-go.”
