July 9, 1985
Hitchcock: The Dark Side Of Fizz-Pop
by Glenn Kenny
If Nick Lowe in his heyday was, as Greil Marcus put it, "Chuck Berry for perverts", then Robyn Hitchcock must be...let's see, a cross between Syd Barrett and John Lennon for really bad perverts. No wonder fanzine Anglophiles, justifiably depressed that the horrifying visage of Howard Jones is being served up as the face of Britrock future, have taken such a shine to Hitchcock. Most of the time, Hitchocck delivers everything you ever loved about British Pop Rock: eccentricity, humor, mordant irony, and relentless hookiness, all emanating from a persona that's by turns genteel, wistful (cf. Ray Davies and Alistair Cooke), cracked, nasty, and sometimes just out-and-out revolting.
All this and catchiness too, but fortunately said catchiness is unattended by the sort of Arch-Pop wimpery that makes you want to go out and strangle the first cute-but-smart thing you run across. Hitchcock's Pop is like the old Coke: there's lots of fizz and acid to counter the sweetness, providing the consumer with more full-bodied, complex pleasure.
Hitchcock was the leader of The Soft Boys, yet another British band that was not a Punk group but just happened to emerge at that time and only managed to confuse people and therefore not sell many records at all. The Soft Boys also boasted Kimberley Rew, now of Katrina And The Waves and that rare breed of Rock musicians who look like they're only 12 years old. Their first album, A Can Of Bees, sounded like one. Lots of upside-down songs with cheap, raw guitars and charmingly awful background vocals. But Hitchcock really had his Pop smarts together for the followup, Underwater Moonlight. Along with a better sound, the songs were more cohesive; Hitchcock had become secure enough in his craft not to overstuff his tunes 'til they burst, a tendency that made some potentially nifty cuts on the debut a little daunting. And really, who wants to be daunted by a track called "Sandra's Having Her Brain Out"?
Since starting his solo career in 1980, Hitchcock hasn't recorded a bad song. A couple of so-so performances, maybe, but no bad songs. I know this is an extravagant claim, and several folks are apt to disagree. Because of his whimsy, Hitchcock gets knocked as a novelty act a la Neil Innes; because of his "psychedelicism" (chiming guitars and lysergic imagery), he's pegged as a revivalist. He's neither. His best songs plumb the perennial themes of sex and death; the way these things exist in his mind, which he describes as being full of "tendrils", is a little more exotic than the way they exist in, say, Richard Butler's mind. And I say thank god for that.
Hitchcock's most appalling pronouncement also served as his introduction. A Can Of Bees opened with his proclamation that he'd like to make love to a photograph because "Photographs don't smell", displaying not only insensitivity but a decided lack of darkroom experience. Of course, the screech that followed his bold declaraation suggested that he didn't feel his desire was a normal one. On his first solo LP, the mighty Black Snake Diamond Role, he sang about "the nowhere girl", sneering, "She's not just a pretty face, she's a big black hole as well". On Groovy Decay, he got run over by the cars his ex-girlfriend used to drive.
Since I'm a fan, I tend to perceive Hitchcock's nastier observations not as misogynist rants (which are definitely no-nos) so much as expressions of sheer horror in the contemplation of sexuality itself (which aren't exactly au courant either, except with Samuel Beckett and some fanzine Anglophiles). This attitude is hardly surprising from a man who'd name his band The Soft Boys and then write a song demanding that someone "Give It To The Soft Boys". But I'm relieved to see it waning; Hitchcock's latest (and first U.S.) release, Fegmania!, does contain the token look-out-boy-she's-bad-for-you song, but "Another Bubble" is a refreshingly mild and compassionate one: "She's just another human/And when you get up close you'll see/So whatcha gonna do man?/Don't make her what she'll never be". Why, some of the advice proffered here is practically sage: "It takes two/And one of them is always you/It takes two/And one of them is someone too".
As for death, that and mental disorder are the stars of I Often Dream Of Trains, an all-acoustic album that features Hitchcock stripped of artifice and hysterically morbid to boot. Dark, unhappy childhoods, insects, incest, alcoholic poisoning, and sexual confusion intersect and intercept lyrical pictures of autumn and old railway stations. "Put your faith in god, he won't expect it/Put your faith in death, because it's free/If you believe in nothing, honey, it believes in you". It's not Yeats, I grant you, but it's not the work of a mere novelty artist either, and I Often Dream Of Trains is a bracing record that's no less effective for its off-the-wall humor.
Fegmania! has a little extra sweetening added, but the results are hardly as disastrous as the new Coke. The most consistently lighthearted of his records (believe me, he must have needed a break after Trains), it adds tenderness to his work, particularly with "Another Bubble" and the haunting "Glass". Only one cut, "The Man With The Lightbulb Head" veers into Bonzo Dog Band territory, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the first time he's done it.
Similarly pleasing was his June 21 show at Irving Plaza, where he proved himself to be a delightful performer and quite tall to boot. Refreshingly free of Rock star attitude, Hitchcock and The Egyptians (featuring two ex-Soft Boys) presented a tight, career-encompassing set that belied the fact that he hasn't done all that much live work lately and also called into question his self-professed lack of enthusiasm for it.
Hitchcock's working from a tradition, but you can't call him retro; none of his songs challenge you to spot the stolen riff. Though his music harks back to others, he really has created his own Pop universe, the surface of which I've only begun to scratch. There are billions and billions of things to like about Robyn Hitchcock.
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