The Times Union
March 6, 1997
Robyn Hitchcock Rocks To His Own Beat
by Greg Haymes
Success in the wild world of Rock 'n' Roll is most often attained by mainstream performers, those whose image and music are conventional enough to appeal to the largest number of people possible.
At the other end of the spectrum are the cult artists, whose singular artistic vision and often bizarre idiosyncrasies inspire devotion among small but loyal groups of fans.
Robyn Hitchcock is a cult rocker.
A quintessential cult rocker.
Since his early days as the leader of The Soft Boys (in the late-'70s) and later with The Egyptians (on-again, off-again till '94), Hitchcock established himself as a songwriter of considerable talent with a knack for surreal, stream-of-unconsciousness lyrics -- songs like "Brenda's Iron Sledge", "Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl", and "(I Want to Be An) Anglepoise Lamp".
These days, British singer-songwriter Hitchcock -- who celebrated his 44th birthday on Monday -- is touring as a solo performer, including a stop at Park West in Clifton Park on Saturday. And he's as off-kilter as ever. For instance, when Warner Brothers released his latest album, Moss Elixir, last year, Hitchcock also served up a limited edition vinyl-only album, Mossy Liquor (Outtakes And Prototypes), which featured a batch of alternate versions of songs from the CD as well as other new songs.
An odd duck? Oh, yes, but a wise odd duck to be sure.
Here are some semi-random thoughts from the off-kilter mind of Robyn Hitchcock culled from a recent trans-Atlantic phone interview:
Next Big Project On The Horizon:
"Back in early December, Jonathan Demme filmed some shows of mine for an upcoming feature-length concert film. We did four separate shows with live audiences in a storefront on 14th Street in Manhattan, and we filmed each of them with four cameras.
"Jonathan likes to work live -- to film musicians performing live rather than lip-synching -- and we both share that. So gradually the project grew from four songs to an hour to 90 minutes to where it is now, which is a full-length movie that clocks in around two hours. Hopefully, he's going to trim it back some from there.
"The film has several working titles right now. One is Storefront Hitchcock, and another is Goodnight Oslo. But the one that I'm most inclined toward at the moment is Bad Hair Life.
"The movie will probably debut in August and really hit the circuit in October. It's a documentary of what I am and what I do."
On Janathan Demme:
"I'm a big fan of Married To The Mob and I've enjoyed quite a few of his other movies, although I still haven't actually seen Stop Making Sense [Demme's acclaimed concert film of the Talking Heads]."
The Next Album:
"In late September, Warners will be releasing a live album from the shows that Jonathan filmed. Discounting half a side with The Soft Boys, I've only done one other live album, and that was with The Egyptians.
"This album should be good. It's got a lot of word solos and guitar solos and all the things that people recommend about my shows."
Music Videos:
"I think Rock videos are pretty dumb. They encourage people to watch too much TV, and they encourage musicians to be something other than musicians.
"There are some musicians for whom it works as an art form, like Madness and R.E.M.. But on the whole, music videos are a waste of time. I know the corporate ones that I've done for A&M Records simply suck."
Favorite Record Album:
"The first album I bought was Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan, and I would still put that at the top of the list as my all-time favorite record. I still love that record.
"Other things like Country Joe And The Fish or The Incredible String Band just didn't last. They didn't stand the test of time. They sound like period pieces."
His Reputation As A Wacky Eccentric:
"Sometimes it gets to be a bit annoying, but it's understandable. I mean, I've always, sort of, done what I felt like doing.
"At times, I think that maybe I should have let people take me more seriously than I did, but I didn't want to be scrutinized too much, to get nailed down."
The Pitfalls Of Fame:
"The whole Rock 'n' Roll thing ends up getting very messianic. I like to stay to one side of things. I like to make a living, and I'm glad if people listen to my songs, but I've never felt comfortable at being a public figure, of being in the spotlight offstage.
"I'm actually quite a timid person, and I don't really want to be up there with a lot of people pointing and shouting at me. And I don't think that that kind of fame and adoration really makes people happy.
"Fame is kind of like the horizon. No one ever visits the horizon. The horizon is an illusion.
"Especially in The States, you are supposed to want fame and money, and of course, the auxiliary drugs, girls, and the whole lot of success. That's what you're supposed to want, and the music business sniffs you to see if you want this badly enough. Then they'll give you a little taste of it, and you're off.
"You're supposed to start off lean and hungry and get fat and satiated, by which time the business has made a million billion dollars off of you. One of two things happen. You either stay interesting and burn out or you, kind of, look after yourself and become a bland, harmless figure."
Missed Opportunity:
"Jonathan Demme sent me a script for the Tom Hanks movie That Thing You Do, and I was one of hundreds of songwriters who submitted a song titled 'That Thing You Do'. Mine was short-listed, but ultimately, they didn't use it.
"That was my first-ever attempt at journeyman songwriting. The movie was set in 1964, so in writing the song, I produced as simple a piece of music as I could and I limited myself to a vocabulary of about 15 words. Somehow, I still managed to use words like 'motorcycle', 'tattoo', and 'burning'; which maybe weren't exactly what they wanted for that kind of thing."
His Ideal Audience:
"My ideal audience would just be a whole lot of Robyn Hitchcocks...because I know that they would get it."
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