April 16, 1995
Pop Artist Hitchcock On Tour
by John Bream
One measure of a music cult figure is when a record label acquires the rights to an artist's old albums and reissues them. It's happened twice -- sort of -- for Robyn Hitchcock. When he become a cult hero in the 1980s, Rykodisc reissued the albums from his late-1970s band, The Soft Boys (which R.E.M. has cited as an influence -- remember, he opened for R.E.M.'s last U.S. tour in 1989). Now that Hitchcock has abandoned his latest band, The Egyptians, Rhino Records has seen fit to re-release his post-Soft Boys solo albums. No one has made more peculiar and precious Psychedelic Pop than Hitchcock. An intellectual smart-aleck, this Brit mixes the whimsical, the poetic, and the bizarre with surrealistic sounds. A regular visitor to the Twin Cities since 1985, Hitchcock is touring solo this time. Opening is Jill Sobule, a New York Folk Pop singer whom The Roches might want to adopt as a fourth sister-singer-songwriter.
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