Bucketfull Of Brains
May-June, 1987
The Complete Hitchcock
by Jim DeRogatis
"Over in Ireland, there's a race of people called "The Tinkers". But that has nothing to do with the story I'm about to tell you, which concerns a lady who gives an all-night party in the south of England very near one of the motorways (what you call the "freeways" here) which we build in England as far away from deaf people as possible. (So, say you've got a housing project for deaf people. They make sure the motorway stays as far away from that as possible, and they move it right through a housing project full of non-deaf people.)
"And anyway, there is a woman who is neither deaf nor not-deaf, because she is very rich, like most peole who live in Engalnd (unless they live in the sewers so you have to go down and say "Hello" to them otherwise they won't come up and bite your ankles when they think you've eaten too much -- like mosquitoes usually do after a party). And it's a party this woman has, 'cause she invites ten guests -- no, twelve guests -- around. You know: some judges, some gynaecologists, some lawyers, a couple of spacemen, someone who's something to do with hair (but nobody knows what), and somebody who just rolls little balls in the palm of their hand.
"And all these good people are seated around the table, when one by one -- almost spontaneously -- they have a series of heart attacks and are left dead. They're draped over the furniture with stiffening rigor mortis brought on by the rigourous English climate -- vestiges of which I won't go into. Suffice it to say they are stiff in every sense of the word (and she has to bury them).
"She freaks. She thinks, 'My god! Twelve guests, twelve corpses, twelve shovels!' She thinks, 'Where can I get twelve shovels at this time of night?' Suddenly an enormous neon sign -- actually made up of very small, tiny fishbone filaments on the ceiling of her walls -- says, 'Twelve shovels are directly above you.' She looks up, at the instant of which an enormous iron fist slowly descends towards her and little grains of rice come falling out of the gashes in its kunckles.
"Before she can count up to 23, she's buried in rice up to her nostrils, and the iron fist is just above her head. How will she get out of this? Simple: underneath her there's a dwarf with a trapdoor and six mattresses piled on top of one another. but suddenly the dwarf too has a fatal heart attack, and things look difficult for the lady.
"I'll skip the next bit. Anyway, part two. She is now driving along one of these freeways towards a home for the deaf, and suddenly a giant magnetic ear comes flying out of the bushes -- with two policemen inside it -- and clamps itself to the roof of her car. One of the policemen is foolishly carrying twelve rubber shovels. They too suffer fatal heart attacks. She intuitively guesses this because she has a periscope on the front of her car, which shows her if she has any constables on the top of her van.
"She turns a wide U-turn in the middle of the freeway (which is pretty hard, even over in England, where people are deaf), and she comes spinning back. She drives the next 33 miles back to her castle into extreme oncoming traffic. But owing to an enormous snow plow on the front of her van (with two red laser eyes), she cuts right through all oncoming vehicles, causing maybe 300 or 400 fatalities.
"She pulls up outside of her front door and tries to bury the corpses with the rubber shovels, and fails. She is...I can only describe her as heartbroken. She hasn't managed to bury them. She leans over her fireplace and weeps. As she weeps, one of her pearly tears falls into the ashes below, and a hissing sound gives way to a black figure, who comes out of the ground. And he inflates gradually, until he's got two red eyes. Beautiful red eyes. You'd never have eyes like that, even if you were undead.
"And he goes back on little ball-bearings. He slides back about fifteen yards, and then he comes towards her very, very smoothly (as you can imagine the ball-bearings do), giving a level incidental of point-North-seven tipped either way -- perhaps in marginal weather conditions spreading to the outside of Shropscher by midday, but with a series of cones growing on the back of his neck.
"Anyway, she thinks, 'Oh, God. I know this guy. He's gonna ask me to dance. I can feel it.' And he does. And she works out a way to use this guy. (I forgot to tell you: she's also been to the doctor that morning, and discovered she's got terminal bubonic plague. So she's nervous, and it's upset the whole evening for her. And she decides to use this hooded guy to rid her of the plague.)
"I've explained this partly because it always gets a laugh, and partly because it'll help you understand the song. Otherwise, you won't know what's going on. Okay?"
--Robyn Hitchcock introduces "Lady Waters And The Hooded One" onstage at Maxwell's, November, 1986.
You're probably a deaf-dumb-and-blind-person-locked-up-in-a-rat's-hole-in-one-of-those-mental-institutions-just-off-the-freeway-in-England if you don't know who Robyn Hitchcock is at this point. "Media-saturation" is an understatement, with Hitchcock being featured on the cover of everything from xeroxed handout fanzines to Creem magazine. And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
For the first time in more than a decade of music-making, Hitchcock is getting recognized for his talent as a songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, and unique thinker. Fame has its problems (as he points out in the follwing interview), but it also has some nice side effects: Hitchcock was recently picked up by A&M Records in America, who reportedly offered a healthy arrangement whereby he'd be able to create at will, pay the rent, and feed himself and the lobsters at the same time (something that's often difficult to do when you're recording for the indies).
Will success spoil Robyn Hitchcock? Don't bet on it. Despite what you may have read, Hitchcock is not god, and he doesn't aspire to be. He's a regular, friendly, good-natured bloke who's got his head screwed on tight, despite the wiggy, absurdist sense of humor he's so fond of letting loose. Hitchcock talks here about maturity and going the distance as a songwriter, and there's no indication that he's any less a talent than Van Morrison, Lou Reed or Neil Young -- all of whom have made wonderful albums as teenagers AND as adults.
The BOB caught up with Hitchcock before the first of two shows in November at Maxwell's in Hoboken. He was playing with drummer Morris Windsor and bassist Andy Metcalfe, the same chaps he'd played with as a teenager in The Soft Boys. This particular evening was that group's tenth anniversary. "We've just done a whole tour, and I assume you've all seen us at least fifteen times on this," Hitchcock said at the outset of the set. "It's our tenth anniversary, so actually we're just fucking around and doing all sorts of things we used to do years ago."
The Egyptians ran through a galvanizing set that included a handful of covers (John Lennon's "Don't Let Me Down" and The Beatles' "Rain" among them), a number of Soft Boys chestnuts, and samplings from Hitchcock's diverse solo works. So it may have been particularly appropriate that the BOB decided to forego the usual interview format (we did that with Hitchcock in the September, 1985 issue) and play "Autodiscography", a staple of the old Trouser Press.
You must be sick of interviews at this point.
It's been like this since the very beginning. One day they gave me five solid hours of interviews. It's just ridiculous. I did about 40 interviews in New York. And I was living in this boxey little hotel, and I'd, sort of, walk up and down 44th Street for exercise. And then I'd have to go and be witty for an hour. You don't usually sit down and talk about your career ten times a day. I've rather lost interest in my career at this point.
So are you going to ask me the same questions, tell me what I said, and ask me if I still mean it?
Actually, we were hoping to just toss your albums at you one-by-one, and let you ramble on about them. Just tell us whatever comes to mind when you see these album covers. How they were recorded. What the time-period was like. How you came up with the cover idea....
Wading Through A Ventilator
The Soft Boys
DeLorean Records, 1984
My favorite Soft Boys record is the first one, which was done in '77 with Wangbo (Alan Davies), the old guitarist. It's been re-released with a, sort of, bright-green cover. I think that's brilliant. I love that.
I think I've said all this before. I really can't find anything new to say about these records. I think they're good.
How did this release come about?
Well, it's a semi-bootleg. The contract doesn't really exist for it anymore. We never got paid for it by the guy that put it out -- only by the distributors. And the guy that put it out is a crook. He paid for the recordings of those tracks in '77, with our original guitarist (Wangbo) -- and I think The Soft Boys was at its best then.
My favorite record of my own is probably Black Snake Diamond Role, but I'm also very fond of "Eaten By Her Own Dinner" (the old one, the seven-inch), 'cause I think it's really very unconfined. It does exactly what it likes. There's no attempt to really fit in with anything.
Wading Through A Ventilator" and "Vyrna Knowl Is A Headbanger" are virtually the same song.
They're the same backing track. I just changed the words to avoid being sued by Vyrna Knowl. (But that's not her real name, either).
Was she someone you knew?
She was a horrible old lady over the road who used to complain when we made too much noise. Although looking back on it, she might have had a right to complain. We did make a lot of noise. That's sort of the way we did it in The Soft Boys. We had no right to make all that noise and disturb the neighbors. But all the other neighbors were, sort of, mature hippies who felt it was unfair to object. Who thought it was cool to be near a band that was rehearsing. She looked a little like Margaret Thatcher, and her husband looked like Jim Hallahan (who was the prime minister at the time). I thought they were really full of meat.
Where did you rehearse at the time?
In those days we rehearsed in the house where I lived -- the front room of the house I was in, on this, sort of, domestic sidestreet in England. A backstreet in Cambridge. I left there six years ago.
Were you born and raised in Cambridge?
No, no. I wasn't at all. I went there as a student, and then I came back. I didn't spend very long as a student -- I dropped out. And then I went back in the mid-'70s to look for musicians, 'cause I thought that would be a good place to go. And I met Andy and Morris. Andy lived there, Morris had been at the university. Andy went to Sussex.
What was it about college that turned you off?
I was very young. It was a hell of a long time ago. I wasn't really interested in what I was doing. And it was partly academic. In those days, everyone was into the "free spirit, man". You know: "Rock 'n' Roll, take your trousers off, peace, man." I was too young to handle it, anyway, but I was really more interested in playing the guitar and drawing. So I went to art school for a few years -- and I really didn't like that either. I went back to Cambridge just to live. I had some friends there, and I eventually met the others. I left there in 1980, and since then I've lived just generally in the south.
A Can Of Bees
The Soft Boys
Two Crabs, recorded in 1978
[pointing to the back cover] That's the front window of the house where we used to practice. Taken by my girlfriend, Rosalind, who also took the fish, and stuck it together. That was the room where a lot of those songs were written, and first rehearsed. There's even a tape of that stuff, which will come out sometime. Just demos with Wangbo. They were pretty good. They had a good feel.
What happened to Wangbo?
Well, it was like if The Stones had kicked out Brian Jones and put Jimi Hendrix in. It was, sort of, greed. We saw this guy Kimberley [Rew], and we thought, "What a performer! Let's have him. Give ol' Wangbo the boot." Wangbo didn't have much stage presence, and he was a rather hapless person. But in fact, it was much better with me and Wangbo than it was with me and Kimberley because we didn't really clash that much. We were quite complementary-sounding. You know, it was like Television: Kimberley went into overkill. And I've never liked A Can Of Bees much.
Why was it "A Can Of Bees"?
Well, a can of bees was just what it was. That music is like a load of insects inside a jar, just humming trying to get out. A load of insects that have been drinking paraffin (or something pretty lethal) and they're all trying to get out. Insects that are on fire because they've been soaked in brandy.
Invisible Hits
The Soft Boys
Midnight Music, 1983
Invisible Hits was three-quarters recorded by the time Andy left the Soft Boys in 1979, and the first few recordings with Matthew Seligman. So it is literally the link between A Can Of Bees and Underwater Moonlight. The original Soft Boys was designed to be experimental. And I was getting more interested in just writing songs -- experimental or not. The original Soft Boys was more like pieces of music with words over them, rather than songs. So on here, you've got some very straight stuff like "He's A Reptile" (which I think is a good Pop song). But it's completely incompatible with, say, "The Asking Tree" or "When I Was A Kid", which are more, sort of, experimental.
You don't think it works as an album?
I don't know if it's an album or not. I suspect that it doesn't. But I think the actual material is good. It would have been bootlegged anyway, so we put it out. I don't listen to it.
How about this piece of writing? [A short story on the back cover about Detective Sergeant Nolan and Inspector Pobjoy] Did you write this?
Yeah.
Relativity put out this, sort of, fanciful press release about you. Did you write that, too? And is there any truth in any of that?
I don't know. Possibly. And I wouldn't say if I knew, really.
Have you done any other writing?
I've written a bit more about Nolan and Pobjoy. But my output is pitifully small. I'm trying to write more. I want to -- if we can have an unpressurized year, and work on an LP in our own time, comfortably and with enough money so we didn't have to worry about it. I can also do some painting, and write more, and all that. I'd like to put on an exhibition some time in New York. And hopefully I can do a feature film sometime. But that will take me years to get the backing. They're all things I'd like to do, and hopefully I can.
I haven't got many stories. I've got some. I've got "The Professor", which is about this professor who gets kidnapped by three ghouls, and put into a bath full of compost. And they try and turn him into a plant, and tubers and stuff start growing from his flaking skin. And I have another story which I've written with another guy called James Fletcher (who played sax on "Flavour Of Night" [I>I Often Dream Of Trains]). And we're hoping that we can find a publisher for this sometime. I've done some illustrations for it as well. But my stuff is scattered. I've burned a lot of it. I burned most of my notebooks last year or the year before -- about ten years' worth of my stuff I destroyed (so I don't have access to it).
Why did you do that?
Who was it...one of those romantic poets, when his girlfriend or his wife died, he buried his poems with her. Then he became an opium addict, and he dug her body up so he could sell the poems, because he was desperate. And I didn't want to be in a position where I'd be tempted to sell those stories to make money off them if I didn't think they were very good. Or, if anything happened to me, I didn't want anyone to get their hands on all that. Because for the maybe 10% of inspiration there is 90% garbage. But someone'll always release it. The fans. So I thought I had better just get it out of the way.
Underwater Moonlight
The Soft Boys
Armageddon Records, 1980
Recently re-released on Relativity
A lot of Soft Boys fans say that if they had to pick one album to take to a desert island, this would be the one.
I think it's pretty good. I listened to it six months ago, I think. It's surprisingly consistent. But some of the stuff I don't think fits at all. Things like "Old Pervert" and "You'll Have To Go Sideways" don't really fit in with the rest of it. It's, sort of, Guitar-Based Pop/whatever -- stuff that's, sort of, descendent of guitar bands of the '60s. There's guite a lot of that on there. Then there's stuff like "I Got The Hots", which is more like the older Soft Boys -- that, sort of, more intricate band with funny riffs. I think it's pretty good. But it's guite a long time ago. I don't think I had written very many good songs before about '79 or '80. That came out in '80. The songs were all written in '79. It's fine. It probably deserves to sell a million. I hope it does, because I've got the rights.
Only The Stones Remain/Lope At The Hive
The Soft Boys
Armageddon Records, 1981
That was an idea thrown together to try and make some money out of tapes that had already been paid for. I don't think I ever saw a penny from it. Nobody has the rights to it anymore. I thought it was a terrible cover, and a lousy record, and I haven't listened to it in ages. But I don't think much of it.
Did you have a say in the way it was put together?
Oh yeah. The Soft Boys was over, and I was really quite brutal about it. It was kind of like kicking the corpse of a dog. As far as I was concerned, The Soft Boys had failed, so if there was any chance of making any money out of it, I was quite happy. But I wasn't involved in that artwork at all. And it was stuck together by other people, really. And I never even made any money out of it, really. I don't feel very sentimental about it.
When were those tunes written?
"Only The Stones Remain" was written in 1980. I was in somebody's flat, very hungover. "Where Are The Prawns?" was written in '77. I was just walking around this street corner, and I thought, "What would be a good song title?" I came up with "Where Are The Prawns?", and thought that was a good idea. I was in somebody's flat a few days later, and suddenly started playing it. A prawn is a shrimp. It's like a shrimp. It's transparent, translucent. You can hardly see them.
This is the crustacea obsession rearing its head again?
I don't know. That's not for me to say. I'm not aware of having an obsession with them. All you have to do is mention a crab here, a prawn there and everyone says, "Oh boy, he's mad about shellfish." Someone gave us a live lobster in Chicago. We had to give it to the people who run the club. I couldn't really be responsible for it.
How about the covers on the record? ["Astronomy Domine", "Outlaw Blues", and "Mystery Train"]
They were all done live at the Hope And Anchor, on 4-track. "Astronomy Domine" I'd been doing for years, "Outlaw Blues" I'd always liked, and "Mystery Train" we had done once in The Soft Boys. We did a much better version than that one, actually. We still play "Mystery Train" very occasionally (but I don't, as a rule, do covers much).
Black Snake Diamond Role
Robyn Hitchcock
Armageddon Records, 1981
Now this is an album you're happy with?
Yeah. I love that.
Why does this work?
I don't know, really. It's rather weird reviewing my own records. I think it was fun to make because I didn't have to use the same people on every track. I had the facility -- this little company Armageddon said, "Yes, you can make a solo album." I'd just done Moonlight. And they gave me enough money to make it. It's done in a whole bunch of different studios, on 4-track and 16-track and 24-track and 8-track. It's got the whole works on it. None of the musicians really knew the stuff when they went in to do it. Morris, for instance, had never heard "Acid Bird" when we played it, or "The Man Who Invented Himself", or "Love". Vince Ely [Psychadelic Furs] didn't know the stuff much. I wanted to make a record of stuff we couldn't do live, because I saw The Soft Boys as an increasingly manic sort of thing (because of Kimberley).
The Soft Boys seemed to be very heavy-handed. We played here [Maxwell's] in 1980, and we made a tape of "I Wanna Destroy You", and it sounds like one of those, sort of, New Wave/Hardcore/Minimalist Punk sort of things. An extraordinary sound that makes The Jesus And Mary Chain sound like Tom Jones. And whilst that'd probably be lapped up in droves now, it was a drag. And I wanted to be a songwriter (he said, leaning on the table in, sort of, songwriter fashion).
The previous records, we had always performed what we did live in the studio, and that was it. There was no attempt to differentiate. This time, I could do things like have an acoustic guitar and no lead. In fact, we did do stuff like that -- stuff we do to this day. I think they're also a good crop of songs. And they're the first time I, sort of, developed as a songwriter. A bit less of a novelty songwriter, a bit less of a freakshow. But still not being Jackson Browne (or anything like that).
Is "The Man Who Invented Himself" about the whole, sort of, Rock 'n' Roll thing: creating your own persona, like David Bowie, or Syd Barrett?
It's about herioic figures in general. Religious ones as much as rockers. A general wave of heroism.
I don't have Groovy Decay.
It's terrible.
Groovy Decoy
Robyn Hitchcock
Midnight Music, 1985
What is this?
It's the demos for Groovy Decay, plus four tracks that were produced by Steve Hillage -- "Fifty Two Stations", "America", "St. Petersburg", and "Nightride To Trinidad". The others were produced by Matthew Seligman, with whom I worked after we stopped The Soft Boys. The project aborted, really, because Matthew was enticed into the Thompson Twins -- which at that stage were a lot bigger. Looking back, I don't blame him, really. And so there's a lot of Matthew's Funk/Dance-oriented ideas. And I was very happy about getting away from the guitar straitjacket of The Soft Boys, and having things like horns, and not having the old guitars and harmonies that we usually had. I was open to those ideas. Unfortunately, Matthew went, and the record itself was produced by Steve Hillage with a bunch of session men who I really didn't know very well.
How was he chosen? Were you a fan of his?
No, not at all. He was chosen by my manager. I think he just thought, "Oh, yeah. Psychedelic, all right." Steve Hillage just got into his, sort of, 1980s King's Row suits, and was trying to be anything but psychedelic. He was into club mixes, and all that sort of stuff. I was really lost -- and getting lost-er -- in those days. I was really drunk all the time, and I was particularly unhappy. We had to record at night, and it was just so slow. It was like walking through congealing toffee. And Steve Hillage's idea of pace was very different from mine. I like to work fast. I like to do the initial thing fast, and then you might do anything you like later. But I'm very impatient. We used the best Hillage tracks, and those that were produced by Matthew -- which at least carry his original ideas. And it's all right. It's better than it was.
I Often Dream Of Trains
Robyn Hitchcock
Midnight Music, 1984
That's another one of my favorites. It's like wanting to see what you're like when you take everything else away. We talked about this the last time you interviewed me.
What time-frame does this fit into?
I dropped out of music completely for a couple of years. [Following the release of Groovy Decay] I wrote some articles for a magazine. I worked with Captain Sensible. I did odd jobs, and things like that.
Fegmania!
Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians
Midnight Music, 1985
Fegmania! and I Often Dream Of Trains were made simultaneously (or at least, very concurrently). That saw the return of Andy and Morris, and the addition of Roger [Jackson, keyboards] (who is no longer with us).
What happened to Roger?
It was like trying to graft a chestnut branch onto an oak tree. It didn't work, in the end. Also, I think we've been together -- on and off -- for ten years, and we're finally accomplished enough to make it as a three-piece. It's much more exciting. I think it's good. What strikes me about a lot of this old material is how desperate it was. I just was singing one of them in there [soundcheck], for the hell of it. And they're just, sort of, desperate songs, really.
Do you think you're writing more positive songs now?
I think it's just being farther away from adolescence. The old songs are either spiteful or desperate. I see the same happening with other people as they get older (but most people make it in their 20s).
Lester Bangs said that most of his favorite music was made by adults. Not teenagers, but, people who were more mature, and had something to say about life.
To be a performer, you're safer if you're older -- although maybe you haven't got the stamina you had when you were little. Unless you're, sort of, one of those horny-old-sex-goats, like The Rolling Stones, who are just, sort of, dead from the waist downwards. They're just an incarnation of the sex drive. It's funny: The Stones outlasted The Beatles. The Beatles were love, and The Stones were sex. It looks like sex outlasted love. It's a good thing to have a grownup head on your shoulders. Otherwise, you get lost. But nobody's ever so mature that they can withstand the pressure of money. Money can break down any barrier.
You're thirty-three. Do you see yourself doing this much longer: travelling around in vans, and playing every night?
Not for years and years, no. But if I'm going to do it, I'd better do it now, rather than being coy about it and saying, "Yeah, all right, in two years." Now is probably the best time to get it over and done with.
I like Fegmania!. It's like Underwater Moonlight: a, sort of, easy, family album.
Gotta Let This Hen Out!
Robyn Hitchcock and The Egytpians
Relativity/Midnight Records, 1985
You did the cover painting, right?
Yes. I'm best at black-and-white, pen-and-ink, stuff. But I experiment sometimes with oil paintings like that. I'm quite pleased with that. But I'm not a very good painter.
What do you call this painting?
I don't call it anything. I never title any of my paintings. I'm not like Beefheart -- I don't give them names.
How were the songs chosen for this?
They weren't really chosen -- that was the set. We just left a couple of songs out because they came out badly. It was a very good night, that particular night. They filmed it and they recorded it, and we weren't even really aware it was happening. We had just been on TV in Britain for the first time, and the place was packed. We'd been going out live again for about six months, seven months, and it was still working chemically with Roger in. It's a mixture of old and new songs.
So you're happy with this?
I like most of the records. Like I said, I don't like Can Of Bees much, or Groovy Decay. But I like most of them.
The video that was released with this has the concert, your two films with Tony Moon ["The Man With The Lightbulb Head" and "I Often Dream Of Trains"], and then there's you doing an acoustic song that I haven't heard anywhere on record. It had this great line about a judge and "figs".
You probably won't hear it on record. It's called "Surgery", and I wrote it last year before I went in the hospital. (Which belies the content of the song, really -- it was all right.)
Invisible Hitchcock
Robyn Hitchcock
Glass Fish/Relativity, 1986
It's a collection of songs that (I think I explain on the notes) just weren't released at the time; because they didn't fit in either with what I was doing, or not doing. Some of them were recorded when I was out of action altogether, in 1983. It's almost chronological: "All I Wanna Do Is Fall In Love", "Give Me A Spanner, Ralph", "A Skull, A Suitcase, And A Long Red Bottle Of Wine", and "My Favourite Buildings" are all outtakes from Black Snake Diamond Role; "It's A Mystic Trip", "The Pit Of Souls", "Trash", and "Mr. Deadly" were done while I wasn't around (in Sussex, mainly) -- just demos; the others are, sort of, various demos that sounded good.
What is a "spanner"?
A spanner is a wrench. It's a very old song. I wrote that in 1973. A friend of mine said to me, "If you ever sing that in America" -- it seemed a very different prospect in those days -- "they won't understand you. You'll have to sing, 'Give me a wrench'."
What I like about this album is that it's making absolutely no attempt to fit in with anything. It's a bit like the old seven-inch of "Eaten By Her Own Dinner". None of this stuff was done with the idea that it would ever be used. I don't make a lot of concessions to mass market, but...
Element Of Light
Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians
Relativity/Glass Fish, 1986
This has a different feel from Fegmania!.
What do you think of it?
To tell you the truth, I don't like it as much -- with the exception of "If You Were A Priest" and "Raymond Chandler Evening".
I get totally different reactions to that record from everybody. I think there's a certain amount of disappointment. I think what it lacks is any excitement -- it's not a physically exciting record. But then, none of my records are (except for Gotta Let This Hen Out!, 'cause that's a live album). On the other hand, I think, as a collection of songs, it's good. It's not as jaunty as Fegmania!, but I suspect it's got a bit more soul. On Fegmania!, I think "Glass" is good. But the rest of them are all, sort of, "amusement" songs, really.
It sounds as if you're trying to be more serious about things.
It's not a funny record. People either expect you to be a humorist, or not. You know: "I've paid my ten dollars, and he's not making me laugh." Or, "Wow, there's only one song about fish on it." I'm fully aware of what my so-called "image" is, but it's totally misleading. It's a landmark. In one country, you'll have mountains and deserts. What do you say America is -- a country of mountains, or a country of deserts? It's both.
Are you happy with the album? Do you get what you were reaching for?
Almost. I think it's a bit low-key. And I think it was hard to make -- whereas Fegmania! rolled off the tape very easily, it was done in little clusters. This was done like, "We've got to make a record." Two of the songs were done live. The BBC actually taped a gig.
I think Fegmania! is very polite, actually. It was done before we started working live again. We hadn't played live for two years, and I think that shows. In a way, I think this has actually got more depth (and probably more balls) than Fegmania!. I think it's a more grownup record. It's got things that we wouldn't have allowed ourselves to do -- like "Winchester". (Although it hasn't got any trumpets, or anything.)
They said you were going to give us a flexi for the new issue.
Yeah, I heard about that. That's true. I don't know what.
Robyn Hitchcock is the stage name of the little-known English author, Neal Williams. Williams was born in Dawlish, a bathing resort on the South West coast, and was brought up by his mother and her sister, Carnage. Owing to his mother's obsession with stockpiling groceries, Neal was often left for days on end out on the beach, with only driftwood and seashells for company. A bright, if unbalanced child, Williams developed a passion for books and music, which gained him an early scholarship to Oxford University, but his frail and sheltered personality soon found the tensions of University life unberable. After attempting suicide by jumping out of a window dressed as Binkie, the Human Lobster, he was committed to Port Merion Mental Hospital in Wales, at the behest of his great uncle, Denys Robyn Williams. There followed a ten year period in and out of mental institutions, during which young Neal met many of the characters that were to appear in his later work. As the gaps between depressive bouts lengthened, Williams found time to take casual jobs, write short stories (most published in the UK only) and play in various Folk and R&B bands. For the latter activity, Williams changed his name, taking the Robyn from his great-uncle, and the Hitchcock from the legendary film-noir producer. Stints with his cult band of the '70s, The Soft Boys, were curtailed by a final, massive attack of depression in the early-'80s. During this period, Williams/Hitchcock was again hospitalized, and met friend Ambrose 'The Man With The Lightbulb Head' Trotter. But in 1983, the clouds seemed to finally lift, and Hitchcock embarked on his most consistent recording and touring schedule to-date. An operation in 1985 unfortunately aborted his first U.S. tour after only five dates, causing unfounded drug paranoia stories to circulate. However, later that year saw Hitchcock and his band, The Egyptians, back for a triumphant Eastern Seaboard tour, and at the time of writing, the band are poised for their third U.S. outing. Their current album etc., etc....
--Press release Robyn Hitchcock wrote for Relativity Records' unleashing of Element Of Light.
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