Wall Of Sound
August 25, 1998
Robyn Hitchcock Film And Album Finally On The Way
The unlikely collaboration between singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock and filmmaker Jonathan Demme will finally hit theaters this fall, preceded by a soundtrack album. Storefront Hitchcock is scheduled to open November 18 in New York City and will play in select markets around the country soon thereafter. A special screening at the annual CMJ music convention in New York is also in the works, and Warner Bros. publicist Rick Gershon tells Wall Of Sound that Hitchcock himself plans to escort a print of the film across England and will speak before it is shown.
Shot in December 1996, Demme's documentary chronicles four unorthodox live performances by Hitchcock in an actual Manhattan storefront window. The film mixes songs (both old and new) with the artist's quirky spoken-word introductions and stream-of-consciousness stories that are as much a part of his shows as the music itself. Austin Chronicle writer Russell Smith, who saw a cut of Storefront Hitchcock at this year's SXSW music conference, described Hitchcock's "whimsical, mind-bending between-song raps" in the film as "free-associative neural purges [that] range from a line or two to soliloquies of 10 minutes or more. While they're obviously delivered for calculated effect, their heedless, careening defiance of familiar narrative logic nixes all suspicion of prescripting."
On October 27, three weeks before the film opens, the soundtrack to Storefront Hitchcock arrives. Like the film, the live album highlights new songs, including "1974", "Let's Go Thundering", and "Where Do You Go When You Die?", along with Hitchcock favorites like "Glass Hotel", "The Yip Song", "Alright, Yeah", and a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary". The CD will also retain many spoken-word introductions, though they will be separately indexed on the disc, to allow users to play only the music if they so desire.
Not every song in the film is represented on the CD and vice versa, a theme which will carry over to all releases related to Storefront Hitchcock, says WB publicist Gershon. A gatefold double-vinyl edition of the album is also in the works, which will not only offer six additional songs not found on the CD (among them "Statue With A Walkman", "You And Oblivion", and "Airscape") but different "verbals" between the tracks. Fans may remember that Warner Bros. has done this kind of thing with Hitchcock before, releasing an alternate version of his last album, Moss Elixir, on vinyl only as Mossy Liquor, which included different takes than those used on the CD. Gershon adds that the eventual home video release of the documentary is also expected to be longer and offer still more performances from the Storefront gigs.
Since production on the film wrapped, Hitchcock has been hard at work writing and recording new tracks for a full studio album expected sometime next year under the tentative title Jewels For Sophia.
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