Here is the sort of admission you won't hear me make every day… I have never really heard anything Robyn Hitchcock has performed. No, really. Robyn has been around since the late 1970s with the Soft Boys and while listening closely to UK music, and living in the UK some of the time, I managed to miss the Soft Boys. No idea how.
Then I missed the Egyptians
And now I am missing the Venus 3… impressed? You should be.
Well, not really missed. I've heard songs here and thee, I am listening to Venus 3 as I write… but none of it has quite stuck ith me,. And listening to I Often Dream Of Trains In New York as I write, I can hear why. The man us talented, the title of the album itself is a strange surrealistic piece of wordage (it is not actually playful, just odd). I mean, why would he do that? On the other hand, why wouldn't?
I guess he gets homesick, though he plays nyc so often -oh wait, it's a live album Robyn is SINGING IT IN NEW YORK.
In such a long career, Robyn has gone against the grain of mainstream music, the Soft Boys were neither punk nor new Wave, they weren't even psychedelia as promulfated by A Teardrop Explodes or Echo And The Bunnymen -they were like UK psyhedelia played a little too fast,
So what does he sound like in 2013? Out of tune folk music, to be a little brutal about it! But maybe I am wrong. Maybe I'm not listening hard enough. Let's wait till April, 26th and Webster Hall -with Peter Buck opening!, and decide then!!