From jnewton@athena.cs.uga.edu Wed May 12 10:42:47 1993 Received: from athena.cs.uga.edu by wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) with SMTP id ; Wed, 12 May 93 10:42:47 -0400 Received: by athena.cs.uga.edu (4.1/25-eef) id AA02660; Wed, 12 May 93 10:38:26 EDT From: Johnny S'traction Message-Id: <9305121438.AA02660@athena.cs.uga.edu> Subject: Robyn Interview #6 To: fegmaniax@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Wed, 12 May 1993 10:38:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4393 ROBYN HITCHCOCK HAS CULT STATUS DETROIT FREE PRESS (FP) - MONDAY April 4, 1988 By: GARY GRAFF Free Press Music Writer Edition: METRO FINAL Section: FTR Page: 3F Word Count: 759 MEMO: sound judgment TEXT: When he was a child, Robyn Hitchcock had a particular, and peculiar, career interest -- time travel. "I wasn't interested in growing up to be a pilot or a doctor or a sex symbol or anything," the 34-year-old British performer-composer said. "All I wanted from life was to invent a time machine. I just wanted to travel through time. I remember bursting into tears when I was 12, saying 'I'm gonna crack time! I will! I will!' "They led me out of the classroom and said, 'Never you mind, Robyn, it'll be all right.' You can quickly become very cynical when you have wishes like that." Off-beat, rather than cynical, is the best word to describe Hitchcock, who first came to prominence during the early '80s with his band the Soft Boys. A self-proclaimed "category of one," he uses fish as recurring images in his songs. In one tune on his latest album, "Globe of Frogs," Hitchcock introduces us to a man whose bulbous head explodes, splattering "tomatoes, humus, chick-peas and some strips of skin" on the narrator. He even wrote one ditty about the bubonic plague. The crafted eccentricities extend off-stage and off-record. Asked if it were any different making records for a major label (A&M) than for the independent company that released his previous albums, he replied, "Not at all. They're done in completely the same fashion, crafted by old Welsh ladies. They actually knit the records, using old Welsh wool made from old sheep." Kevin Kane of Canadian pop band Grapes of Wrath remembered finding Hitchcock outside the Grapes' dressing room before one show, "just standing there, bewildered. I said, 'Can I help you,' and he said, 'Oh, I'm just looking for an empty beer can.' I found one for him; I guess he wanted to use it for an ash tray because he didn't want to dirty a regular ash tray. I didn't ask why." Push aside the oddities, however, and Hitchcock emerges as an impressive songwriter with a knack for catchy melodies and roller-coaster rhythms; "fun-house pop" is what Rolling Stone called it. You can hear the surrealistic influences of Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett and Capt. Beefheart, but there's also an energy steeped in late '70s British punk and new wave that keeps Hitchcock from sounding like just another psychedelic flashback. His particular difference is the lyrics, full of oddball images and discordant themes. Songs about sailors drowning in the ocean, after all, aren't easy Top 40 fair. But they keep the fans guessing. "People are free to interpret you as they like," Hitchcock said, though he feels his songs are often misunderstood by those who try to read too much into them. "I'm trying to reflect the totally jumbled society in which we live," he said. "We're a very confused people, aren't we? People don't seem to be able to help themselves; they need trouble, can't survive without it. We've got a planet of 50 billion people, all looking for trouble. It's amazing we haven't blown each other up yet." That explanation offered, Hitchcock offered one other piece of advice for listeners: "I think people could listen to the music more. The lyrics tend to get stuck in their digestion." With "Globe of Frogs," more people are listening to Hitchcock and the Egyptians -- bassist Andy Metcalfe and drummer Morris Windsor -- than ever before. The record has topped the college radio charts, where Hitchcock has long been a cult favorite. And with the weight of A&M's strong record distribution system behind him, Hitchcock seems to be tiptoeing toward the pop mainstream. "As long as they don't try to market me like Bryan Adams or the Psychedelic Furs or something," he said, "I can live with it." But would he really like a hit single? "No," he said. "I'd rather have an alligator." And what would he do with it? "I'd keep it as far away from me as possible, that's for sure." ON STAGE: Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians and the Grapes of Wrath will perform Thursday at St. Andrew's Hall, 431 E. Congress. Call 287-8090 anytime. From jnewton@athena.cs.uga.edu Wed May 12 11:29:51 1993 Received: from athena.cs.uga.edu by wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) with SMTP id ; Wed, 12 May 93 10:45:55 -0400 Received: by athena.cs.uga.edu (4.1/25-eef) id AA02765; Wed, 12 May 93 10:41:33 EDT From: Johnny S'traction Message-Id: <9305121441.AA02765@athena.cs.uga.edu> Subject: Robyn Interview - LA Times 3/14/86 To: fegmaniax@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Wed, 12 May 1993 10:41:32 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5036 HITCHCOCK JUST AIMS TO MAKE A LIVING LOS ANGELES TIMES (LT) - FRIDAY March 14, 1986 By: RICHARD CROMELIN Edition: Home Edition Section: Calendar Page: 2 Pt. 6 Col. 1 Story Type: Profile Word Count: 828 TEXT: "People assume that I sit there in a paisley shirt with colored sunglasses in a cloud of colored fumes dreaming of Nowhere Land or whatever," says Robyn Hitchcock, lamenting what he feels is a distorted public image. "That isn't the case," continued the English rocker, who plays the Lingerie tonight and Saturday. "I live in the same world as everybody else --or I live in my version of it." Hitchcock, 33, might not relish that stereotype, but it's the kind of thing that happens to cult artists, especially one who's often identified as an heir of legendary loony Syd Barrett's offbeat legacy. But Hitchcock says that Pink Floyd founder Barrett is just one of many influences, which include authors as much as rock singers. Hitchcock also bristles at the suggestion that his songs are eccentric. But vignettes about a fellow who's torn between his current wife and the ghost of her predecessor, and about an "Egyptian Cream" that changes one's sex when applied, seem to fit that bill. So does his recollection of his childhood. "The only ambition I ever had was to build a time machine," Hitchcock said during a phone interview this week from his home in London. "But I wasn't really good at science or physics, and I also noticed that people who were hadn't managed to build a time machine. So I didn't have any ambition at all. I was really totally aimless." He gravitated to music ("It was a natural way to express yourself at the time I was growing up") and eventually made his mark as the leader of a group called the Soft Boys. The band gained a loyal following in England in the late '70s, but it never managed to overcome the trend of the day. Said Hitchcock: "It was very catholic at a time when everybody else was trying very hard to trim everything down to two chords and pretend they couldn't play or sing. At the time the dictatorship of punk came up we were much too eclectic. "It was like trying to cross the Atlantic in a canoe, upside down. It was a totally desperate, futile attempt. At the time we were really kind of despised, apart from a very small hard core of people. People would criticize us for the most ridiculous things, like being middle class, as if you deliberately choose to be middle class. We just didn't disguise the fact that we were." The band (which included Kimberly Rew, now the musical force of Katrina & the Waves) is doing better now that it's the stuff of semi-legend. Its albums, never released in America, will be available here soon through the Important distribution company, along with outtakes and other miscellany. After the Soft Boys, Hitchcock made an unusual move in the keenly competitive rock world: He took a two-year hiatus from music. "I was really tired. I'd done a lot of stuff and I just wanted to stop for a while," he said. "I think you can oversaturate the place, like (Elvis) Costello or someone, releasing too many records with too many songs and too many words. I think it makes it hard for people to digest. I just wanted to stop and think for a while." Since returning to action, Hitchcock has conducted a deliberately low-key career, releasing three albums under his own name and two with his current band the Egyptians (which includes fellow Soft Boys Andy Metcalfe on bass and Morris Windsor on drums). Hitchcock's music might take off on flights of fancy, but his outlook is down to earth. "I'm not interested in being blown up out of proportion, but I'm not an avowed enemy of the music business," he explained. "I just aim to make a living, really." Accordingly, Hitchcock's position as a cult artist is fine with him. "I'd rather be that than the Thompson Twins," he said. "You know, people are always blown up way beyond their actual worth and then they're given all these things they don't know what to do with. "I mean, I know when you're a cult figure your followers can get sort of funny ideas about you. But I just don't want that sort of thing to intrude on my life very much. I do the occasional tour and put out records to make enough money to keep alive the rest of the time." As for the prevailing opinion that his songs cover the spectrum from dark to deranged to twisted, Hitchcock observed: "I can really understand it, but it's not how I really would want to be remembered. I'm not sitting around trying to reflect evil or trying to create it. "I'd like to be a positive force. I certainly wouldn't want to be an excuse for people to cut their wrists or jump under a bus. I hope the stuff doesn't actually bring people down. Hopefully it makes them laugh." CAPTION: Photo: Robyn Hitchcock: "I live in the same world as everybody else."--ROSALIND KUNATH Copyright Times Mirror Company 1986 From Jemiah.Levon.Jefferson@altosax.reed.edu Wed May 12 20:48:12 1993 Received: from dharma.reed.edu by wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) with SMTP id ; Wed, 12 May 93 20:29:48 -0400 Received: from 134.10.2.28 by dharma.reed.edu (/\==/\ Smail3.1.25.1 #25.21) id ; Wed, 12 May 93 17:29 PDT Message-Id: <12452@altosax.reed.edu> Date: 12 May 93 17:21:07 PDT From: Jemiah.Levon.Jefferson@altosax.reed.edu (Jemiah Levon Jefferson) Subject: I watch the cars. To: fegmaniax@gnu.ai.mit.edu (society of dark birds) Hey, I happen to be a girl. You are excused. =) I think there should be an FAQ. I mean, I've gotta lotta questions... would anybody be willing to write me the unofficial Robyn Bio? Other pertinent things, like stuff about the multiple Cynthias, the breakup of the Soft Boys, what other projects the Egyptians have been in (Andy Metcalfe's name rings a bell but I can't think of who else he's played with), how old he is and where he's from, you know the usual Smash Hits information. I'm on _Black Snake Diamond Role_ now. pretty useful, eeyore From gsa@Panix.Com Wed May 12 22:09:43 1993 Received: from sun.Panix.Com by wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) with SMTP id ; Wed, 12 May 93 22:09:43 -0400 Received: by sun.Panix.Com id AA03179 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for fegmaniax@gnu.ai.mit.edu); Wed, 12 May 1993 22:09:38 -0400 Date: Wed, 12 May 1993 22:09:02 -0400 (EDT) From: Gary Assa Subject: andy metcalfe To: fegmaniax@gnu.ai.mit.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII He played with Squeeze.