Chicago Tribune
October 29, 1999
Mellowing On
Robyn Hitchcock's Dark, Psychedelic Pop Acquires A Warmer Edge
by Greg Kot
Of all the words and phrases used to describe Robyn Hitchcock's subversively engaging brand of Rock the last 20 years, the one that amuses him most is "strange".
"It isn't a term like 'green', is it?" he says. "People know what 'green' is. But what's a 'strange' piece of paper. Well, it's a piece of paper that you're not used to. I don't think there's anything 'strange', per se, about what I do. I simply have fewer limits about subject matter. My enemy has always been the cliche. I always wanted to take songs where they don't normally go."
So over the years, lightbulb heads, mutant reptiles and oozing insects have mingled freely with images of death, decay and the devil in Hitchcock's highly melodic, lyrically fanciful brand of Psychedelic Pop. Similarly, his music has always been slightly out-of-step with the times, ranging back to his days with The Soft Boys, the band he founded in Cambridge, England, with guitarist Kimberley Rew at the height of the Punk era to update the '60s glories of Dylan, The Byrds, The Beatles and Syd Barrett.
On his most recent album, Jewels For Sophia (Warner), the singer-songwriter mines a more optimistic emotional language than ever before, while reuniting with Rew for the first time in nearly two decades. The two once-feuding guitarists will also tour together, as Hitchcock brings a Rock band to Metro on November 10 for a career-spanning concert.
You've managed to sustain a successful career without once ever being the flavor-of-the-month. Now we stand on the cusp of a major industry upheaval with the arrival of MP3 downloads and Internet radio. Are you thrilled?
The fact that people in the industry are getting frightened means they're actually placing safer bets all the time, and their whole focus is on artists who will inevitably yield massive amounts of money for a short time and whose spent carcasses they can then jettison by the roadside to bloat up like dead cattle afterward. Why are most Hollywood films garbage and why is most popular music crap? Basically because people are fed the lowest common denominator time and again so their standards are lower, their ability to absorb anything different is weakened and they are continually patronized. It's about churning out product that can't fail but which will never truly inspire. Where does that leave the rest of us? Maybe very happy to run to the Internet, that big global jukebox in cyberspace -- assuming we can safeguard our ability to actually make money out of it.
Have you made any of your music available on the Internet?
No. I don't even have a computer. But after this project I will have to become more inclined that way. I've never liked being railroaded toward buying things, and there has been an enormous drive to buy personal computers. I've avoided it, the same as I avoid going to see a big movie if it's had a lot of hype. I was always pleased that I didn't see Close Encounters Of The Third Kind 'til 20 years after it came out. I don't like big crowds, generally. And I am probably an artist for people who don't like big crowds [laughs].
Why the return to Rock on Jewels for Sofia?
I wanted to get back to that after years of recovery, to hear Kimberley's guitar coming out of the right channel and mine in the left. We used to be really combative, to the point of getting hateful -- and he's still louder than me! But now that we're not tethered together in a band, it sounds good. I haven't made Rock albums for a long time because the circumstances have been considerably different than they were when The Soft Boys were born. Back then, we didn't have much to do except rehearset hree or four days a week. They'd come around to my house and we'd play 'til the neighbors complained, which they pretty consistently did, and we were young enough not to care. "What's wrong with a Rock band rehearsing the same 16 bars for half an hour?" "What? Do you mean you don't like hearing nothing but bass in your living room?" In other words, we had a lot of time to put into arrangements. I got more into a songwriting mode later on.
Your songwriting has taken a turn toward optimism and beauty. Even a song like "Antwoman" is kind of sensual in a funny way.
Yes. Once upon a time that song would have been about bugs crawling over corpses, I suppose. There's a lot less celebration of the grotesque in my stuff. My songs have gradually gotten more warm-blooded, and the Antwoman is not alien in a repellent way. She'd be quite attractive if you drew a picture of her.
So you're mellowing?
That happens with time. I think you gravitate toward beauty rather than (dare I say) strangeness.
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