The Seattle Times
March 21, 1986
He Doesn't See Himself As Pyschedelic, Just...Different
by Patrick MacDonald
Robyn Hitchcock is weird.
The British Rock singer, who appears with his band, The Egyptians, at 8 p.m. tomorrow at The Moore, is a Rock eccentric in the tradition of Captain Beefheart, Lou Reed, and John Cale. He has a morbid fascination with death and psychosis, as well as a florid imagination triggered by intense interest in odd subjects such as crustaceans, insects and Egyptology. His songs usually are non-literal and have no meaning, he says, except that which listeners choose to give them. He claims he doesn't even like Rock music.
Yet Hitchcock is innately musical and creates highly danceable, rhythmic, fascinating Rock that's like Talking Heads -- only more bent.
Although he writes darkly foreboding lyrics, there's always an element of black humor. "My Wife and My Dead Wife", for instance, is about a guy who sees and hears his dead wife and is devoted to her as well as to his live wife -- a ghost story with a romantic twist.
Although the words may be heavygoing, the music never is.
Hitchcock is a fine guitarist with a spacey, ringing style reminiscent of The Byrds and R.E.M. (the Southern band influenced by Hitchcock's previous group, the New Wave Punk Soft Boys). His songs often include long guitar passages, reminiscent of the psychedelic '60s when such solos would go on forever.
Because his arrangements sound like those of such bands, Hitchcock often is credited with starting the recent psychedelic revival in England, a movement that has reached the American Top 10 with The Dream Academy's "Life In A Northern Town". But Hitchcock denies any connection to such a movement and decries such labels, calling them meaningless.
Not surprisingly, Hitchcock was an unusual interview subject.
Reached at his hotel in San Francisco, where the band played earlier this week, he spoke in a colorless monotone, routinely answering questions for about 10 minutes before abruptly signing off. He didn't talk long but he had a lot to say about the tour so far (it started last week in Los Angeles) and his music.
"L.A. looks very nice, but it gives you the impression that something fleshy is going to creep into your room at night, lie under your bed, and start to decompose -- like an orchid that blooms and then rots."
"You never can tell what's going to end up in my work. It's a bit like trolling, really. If you take a troller across a bay, dragging a net through the water, it'll pick up anything -- fish, wrecked ships, old boots, a weighing machine someone's chucked into the sea. That's my approach to songwriting -- anything may turn up in it. I don't try to edit things out of the songs; if a weighing machine wants to come into a song, then let it."
"I don't move around very much [onstage]. I'm dead from the waist down. I move my arms about quite a lot, but I don't think visually I'm a very interesting performer. My main aim is to try and get the songs out so you can hear the words.
"I don't listen to Rock music at all. I haven't for about 10 years. I've grown out of it. I play it because I used to like that kind of stuff. But it's not of any remote interest."
"I don't enjoy performing. It's a, kind of, fight, really. It's a public struggle and I suppose it's a good experience to try and get through it. I have no idea what effect it has on people."
Hitchcock And The Egyptians have two American releases on Slash Records -- Fegmania!, a collection of songs that reinforces Hitchcock's neo-psychedelic image with tunes reminiscent of The Velvet Underground, The Mothers Of Invention and other '60s bands; and Gotta Let This Hen Out!, a great live recording that's much more intense and varied. The latter album gives the impression that Hitchcock is more involved and interested in performing than he says he is.
The show will be opened by Grapes of Wrath, a Vancouver, BC, band.
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