The Independent
April 13, 2001
Let's Hear It For The Boys
Cambridge, 1977: The Unlikely Birthplace Of One Of The UK's Most Influential Bands
But By 1981 They Were Gone
"Whatever Happened To The Soft Boys?" Asks Robert Webb
by Robert Webb
One spring evening in 1978 I joined a small crowd of bobble-hatted hippies, late-season punks and the odd biker gathered in the sweat and smoke to hear the Soft Boys, fast becoming the finest band to emerge from Cambridge since Pink Floyd 10 years earlier.
The venue was the Alex Wood Hall. Venues and bands often seem to go together like spit and sawdust. The Sex Pistols honed their sneering skills at London's 100 Club. The Stones got their mojo working at the Crawdaddy in Richmond. The Beatles, of course, had The Cavern. The Soft Boys worked it all out at the Alex Wood Hall, a Labour Party meeting house in the Mill Road area of Cambridge -- capacity about 100, standing room only.
For a few Saturday nights in the dog end of the '70s the Alex was Cambridge's cradle of Pop, East Anglia's answer to CBGBs. That night The Soft Boys ran a buzzsaw through a bunch of songs with such Pythonesque titles as "Wading Through A Ventilator", "Sandra's Having Her Brain Out", and "(I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp". Their singer, Robyn Hitchcock, looked a mean chicken and sounded uncannily like the original Pink Floyd singer Syd Barrett. Their performances were tense and witty and great things were expected.
In fact, not much happened. During their brief career the Soft Boys released an EP, a couple of singles -- one on Elvis Costello's label -- and two barely-noticed albums. The second and best, Underwater Moonlight, appeared in 1980. Long out of print, I'm pleased to report it's now reissued, this time with a companion CD of outtakes from early recordings.
I tracked Robyn Hitchcock down to a New York hotel midway through the first Soft Boys tour for more than 20 years and asked him about the long and winding road from the fens. "I moved to Cambridge in 1974 and started to do open-mic nights at the Portland Arms and the Anchor folk clubs," he says. Teaming up with local axe-man Kimberley Rew, "The best guitarist in Cambridge, the most respected local player," drummer Morris Windsor, and bass player Andy Metcalfe, Hitchcock formed Dennis And The Experts, renaming them The Soft Boys mid-show in 1977. "The rest of the band had more U.S. influences," says Hitchcock. "I was a big Syd Barrett fan, so I started singing in that flat, bloke-y kind of way."
Tucked away on the upper floor of a rowing-team clubhouse on The Cam they rehearsed a heady blend of Right-Angled Pop, four-part vocal harmonies and cheesy Psychedelia. Hitchcock recorded everything and it's these boathouse sessions that comprise the bonus CD on the new release.
"Cambridge is the matrix," says Hitchcock. "But there wasn't much of a music scene there really. It's always been difficult for bands who stay there to make it in the wider world. Anyway, it was always so cold." As the decade turned, with Metcalfe replaced by bassist Matthew Seligman, the Boys shivered down the A10 to London where, in a studio in the arches underneath Waterloo station, they recorded the album that would later be their calling card in America. Six months after Underwater Moonlight was released they called it a day. "It was 20 years ago last month, in fact," says Hitchcock. Audiences were small and the records largely viewed as irrelevant. "It just seemed right at the time. Each of us had different eggs to lay."
Like Big Star and Nick Drake, The Soft Boys' influence is essentially a posthumous one. In the early-'80s, Underwater Moonlight was a cult hit on the U.S. college circuit and a blueprint for the studious Jangle of bands like R.E.M. and The Replacements. "It gradually began to get picked up by guys working in record stores across The States, like R.E.M.'s Peter Buck," says Hitchcock. "There were hundreds of others like him who would import the album, listen to it, and try to re-create the sound." I think of the wiry, bald shop assistant in the film High Fidelity, earnestly pressing this obscure English band on unsuspecting browsers. "Even back then we knew it was good," says Hitchcock. Suddenly the defunct Soft Boys were hailed as the missing link between The Byrds and the emerging indie scene. Twenty years on "Positive Vibrations", "Queen Of Eyes" and the opener, "I Wanna Destroy You", sound as fresh as a daisy.
In the intervening years, the Boys have kept in touch with each other. "Especially over the last four years," says Hitchcock. "Kimberley played on my last album, and I played on his, Tunnel into Summer." Since 1981, Rew, central to The Soft Boys' sound, has forged a nice little career for himself with his band Katrina And The Waves. "He's a songwriter with an ear for a great Pop song - and a real Kinks fan," says Hitchcock. "His solo stuff reminds me of Ray Davies." A couple of years ago Katrina won the Eurovision Song Contest with Kim's "Love Shine A Light". This year Rew's entry "Men" brought up the rear in the short-list of UK entries. I wonder if Robyn has ever been tempted to have a go himself. "I don't know," he laughs, "'I Wanna Destroy You' might do well in Swedish."
Hitchcock has also acquired a devoted following as a solo artist, with a score of albums under his belt. So why get back together now? "Well, we're using the album reissue as the excuse, but in fact not so long ago we were all sitting around in the pub and it was Matthew who suggested we re-form. We all said: 'Yeah, right.' Matthew has been a barrister for the last 10 years, but he was as keen as the rest of us. Anyway, here we are."
The new tour is going well, he assures me. "It's the same lineup that recorded Underwater Moonlight." So, let's see, that's a barrister, an old folkie with a Syd Barrett fixation, and a Eurovision winner. "We've been rehearsing hard since July and we've spent a lot of time jamming," Hitchcock says. It's the old-school approach. Not many bands can claim that these days, at least not after two decades. "The thing is, we're now filling bigger venues than we ever did back then. Last week we played to 3,000 Texans in an aircraft hanger." Appropriately, the British leg of the tour kicks off at The Junction in Cambridge, a considerably more prestigious venue than the Alex Wood Hall. "Our very unsentimental manager booked it. It was just the first date that was available," says Robyn. Nevertheless, it'll be a welcome homecoming.
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