Los Angeles Times
November 27, 1986
Hitchcock Fishing For Pop Fame
"God, the sun's shining, it's fantastic. I ought to take off my clothes and go swimming down the high street. Oh, wow."
Not every busy Pop singer-guitarist excuses himself from an interview the way Robyn Hitchcock does. But Englishman Hitchcock, long a popular favorite, seems a little punchy after doing more than his share of lunches with the press on this American tour.
"I got to New York," he said from a San Francisco hotel room, "and it was just like I was a hog-chained down. A series of meals -- rotating meals -- I had to eat one after another. I wasn't allowed to pull my head out of the trough."
That absurd, psychedelic sense of humor is endearing Hitchcock to a growing cult following who tend to show their appreciation through gestures just as strange. "I was given a beautiful wooden blue fish, a carp, recently in Washington," he said, "And also tentacles later on the same evening. I don't know who these people are, but I think they read articles about me and see that I'm into crustaceans."
Crustaceans?
These gift-bearers participate in an in-joke Hitchcock admits to perpetuating. Hitchcock has flaunted his seafood fetish on five solo albums since the breakup of his Punk-era Soft Boys. Relativity Records has just released his latest, Element of Light. Meanwhile, he continues to tour clubs and languish in semi-obscurity.
But if the Pop audience doesn't know him yet, many young Rock bands look to Hitchcock for inspiration. His neo-'60s re-invention of Guitar Pop has influenced such groups as R.E.M. and Salem 66, both of which are interested in the same style.
The relationship has been one of trading economic and creative support. R.E.M., which has since achieved a wide following, has offered Hitchcock the opening slot on each of the group's tours.
"We kept being asked to do the last tour, but we couldn't afford it," Hitchcock said with a note of frustration. "So Peter [Buck, R.E.M's guitarist] has been playing with us. He's made so much money, he can afford to fly and meet us everywhere. He fits in well with our sound. But I expect he'll be guesting with 400 bands next year. I think R.E.M. has got the year off. They've all got to buy islands off the coast of Scotland."
Though Hitchcock's early musical forays into Psychedelia gave way to the wave of "Paisley Underground" bands, he has received little attention for this at home. "Very probably I'm more popular here than in England," he said. "Correspondingly, a lot of American bands -- The Replacements, The Long Ryders, Green On Red -- get feted incredibly in England."
Meanwhile, cuts such as "Winchester" and "Ted, Woody And Junior" from his Element of Light LP show Hitchcock moving in a more somber direction after the upbeat Fegmania!.
"I don't know why people say this record sounds like John Lennon," Hitchcock said, referring to Lennon's angst-ridden albums of the early-'70s.
In the past his stubborn, perhaps oblivious, individualism has drawn comparisons to a line of such eccentric geniuses as Lennon, Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett and Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson. "I've suddenly stopped being Syd Barrett, now I'm John Lennon," Hitchcock complained. "I don't know what I'm going to be next time -- probably Bob Marley."
One comparison Hitchcock doesn't mind is to avant-obscurist Captain Beefheart. "That's the only person I'd like to meet in Los Angeles. I went to his art exhibition in London. Although I prefer his music, I think he's a brilliant man," Hitchcock said.
"So, Beefheart, if you're reading this, come to [my next] gig," he added, laughing.
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