The Hollywood Reporter
November 12, 1996
Hitchcock, Bragg
by Ethlie Ann Vare
The danger of being ahead of your time, musically, is that when people finally catch up to you, your hair is turning grey and no one wants to put you on MTV. Taste has finally caught up to Postpunk legends Robyn Hitchcock and Billy Bragg -- but can you still be a college act at 40? Happily for both British
singer-songwriters, Warner Bros. (Hitchcock) and Elektra (Bragg) think so.
The El Rey was packed for this acoustic doublebill, as both artists rarely perform Stateside. Who goes on first? One could flip a coin, although Hitchcock commented that it's better to leave with the taste of Bragg in your mouth -- lest you rush up to your room and commit suicide. It's not so much that former Soft Boy Hitchcock's songs are morbid. It's just that he's, well, a little mad. Not Roky Erickson/Syd Barrett mad. But decidedly to the left of, say, Dave Davies. It's an effort just to follow him. This is Hitchcock's idea of a compliment (to his violinist, Deni Bonet): "That shaved the top of my head off and filled it with tomato pips." This is his idea of a romantic lyric: "I know who wrote the book of love/He's a slobbering fool with a speech defect".
Of course he's also funny and appealing and many of the songs are entrancing: "You And Oblivion", with its wonderful guitar work; the hypnotic "Beautiful Queen"; the sweet-natured "I Something You". He kicked off the set with the hookiest tune on the new LP, Moss Elixir -- a song that would be extremely radio-friendly if he hadn't named it "The Devil's Radio".
Longtime fans hoped for something from The Soft Boys or Egyptians period, but Hitchcock was there to play the new album and even some as-yet-unrecorded songs he will put in Jonathan Demme's upcoming concert film. Maybe Demme could use
subtitles to help us understand the tomato pip parts.
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