The Plain Dealer
April 11, 1995
Hitchcock Going Mostly Solo In Flats
by John Soeder
Robyn Hitchcock's favorite Robyn Hitchcock song is "Airscape", a surreal ditty inspired by an out-of-body experience.
"It manages to convey a feeling I had quite well -- a feeling of hovering over a beach," the British singer-songwriter said in a phone interview from a tour stop in Philadelphia. He's set to play a mostly acoustic, mostly solo performance (accompanied on several songs by violinist Deni Bonet) Thursday at Peabody's Down Under in Cleveland's Flats.
"Airscape" appears on Element of Light, one of eight vintage Hitchcock albums recently reissued by Rhino Records. The ambitious retrospective also includes a new collection of previously unreleased material, You & Oblivion.
"Looking back, what's peculiar to me is that the '80s are in the past," Hitchcock said. "In Europe, a lot of us were convinced that America and Russia would start a nuclear war. We really felt that by 1983 or '84, we'd be incinerated. I certainly didn't think I'd be around in 1995."
A native of West London, the 42-year-old Hitchcock is one of the most prolific and eccentric voices in Post-Beatles Pop music. His first band, The Soft Boys, came together in the mid-'70s. Hitchcock's career has yielded no shortage of psychedelically skewed songs -- including "Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl", "The Man with the Lightbulb Head", and "Queen Elvis".
"I've gotten used to lying in wait for songs," Hitchcock said. "I know what exit they'll come out of, and I know what kind of bait they like. When I get slightly unhinged and not too self-conscious, suddenly those old familiar guitar chords will bring me something new."
The Rhino reissues cover the particularly fertile creative period that commenced with Black Snake Diamond Role, the solo debut Hitchcock released in 1981 after The Soft Boys broke up.
A sub-par follow-up, Groovy Decay (repackaged by Rhino as Gravy Deco) left him disillusioned with the music business. Taking a cue from one of his heroes, Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, Hitchcock went into semi-retirement.
Hitchcock bounced back in fine form on 1984's I Often Dream of Trains, an elegantly understated album that yielded one of his funniest songs: the a cappella "Uncorrected Personality Traits". The following year, he hooked up with The Egyptians, a new backing band featuring ex-Soft Boys Morris Windsor on drums and Andy Metcalfe on bass and keyboards.
They went on to record seven albums together. The first three -- Fegmania!, the live Gotta Let This Hen Out!, and Element of Light -- have been peppered with bonus tracks and rereleased by Rhino.
These days, however, The Egyptians are no more.
"We stay in touch, but I don't see us doing any more records or tours together," Hitchcock said.
For the Rhino retrospective, Hitchcock spent nine months salvaging tapes that had been stored under his bed, in his closet, and at his mother's house. It was an arduous process.
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