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the sound of plants.“You keep saying that, and I keep not getting a boner.” Not the thing you expect to hear at the average Robyn Hitchcock show, partially because he has the personality of a surrealist left-wing depressed wizard telling fantasy stories with the lightning-quick wit of Oscar Wilde. The remark was not from him, however, but from his bassist Scott McCaughey, formerly of the Young Fresh Fellows and now of The Minus 5 and R.E.M. … and also now, one third of the Venus 3, Hitchcock’s new backing band. (The other third are Bill Rieflin, ex-Ministry drummer, and Peter Buck. Yes, that Peter Buck.) McCaughey’s remark was precipitated by Hitchcock’s dramatic pronouncement that the sound of him retuning his guitar was the sound of sex. (If that sounds absolutely unlike a surrealist left-wing depressed wizard, imagine it in a British accent. Also imagine that this person began the show with a lengthy explanation that if you so desired, you could close your eyes and imagine the sound as plant life coming towards you, although he would not be responsible for the consequences.) Hitchcock turns, and for a moment I expect him to summon a lightning bolt to strike his boorish bassist dead. Instead, he explains, “That’s because it only works on hamsters”, and he’s off on a presumably spontaneous minute-long improv, discussing the various rodentia we are all likely to own and how this sound might effect them, somehow organically working in Jack Nicholson’s rodent impression from THE DEPARTED and the most seamless mersh table plug I’ve ever seen. I tell this story to try to convince you of one of the great reasons to see Robyn Hitchcock live: the storytelling experience. (If this doesn’t convince you, the several-minute retelling of MAGNUM FORCE, seamlessly blending actual content from the film with ludicrous invention, would have, had you but heard it.) There’s another reason, and it’s that he’s put out probably his best and definitely most entertaining album in at least fifteen years. It’s called OLE! TARANTULA, it’s with the Venus 3, and it, rather unexpectedly, rocks. I’ve been a Hitchcock fan for about fifteen years, though not a die-hard one. PERSPEX ISLAND and EYE were seminal albums for me, and the live GOTTA LET THIS HEN OUT! stands as a great summary of his solo work, but a lot of the earlier albums are a little too stuffy, a little too polished … aw, fuck, I’ll just say it: a bit too British for me. (Which is probably why I listen to HEN more than any of the albums it draws from – live, the sounds aren’t as polished.) In more recent years, Hitchcock seems to have spent more and more time making quiet acoustic music, on albums like MOSS ELIXIR and SPOOKED that seemed nicely atmospheric but not very memorable to my ears. (Although, to be fair, JEWELS FOR SOPHIA has some excellent rock on it as well.) Anyway, OLE! TARANTULA is near-great, and the more I listen, the more I’m tempted to strike-through that “near”. I doubt I’d have prescribed a bar band as what Hitchcock needed, but it turns out it’s a perfect mix, from the propulsive “Adventure Rocket Ship” to the shimmering “(A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations) Briggs” to the downright sexy sway of “Ole! Tarantula”. How good is it? Here’s how: at the end of the show, a set favoring the new album and skipping many old favorites (although “Madonna of the Wasps”, “Vibrating”, “Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)”, and “Chinese Bones” made the cut), when everybody’s yelling out songs, someone yells “Play ‘Ole! Tarantula’ again!”. And it sounds like a good idea. Not convinced? Download the first two tracks Gotta get to bed – I’m recovering from a 24-hour movie marathon and super-busy with work – but hopefully next week, should my body and finances permit, I’ll have reports of both Guitar Wolf and Animal Collective live. Either would be noteworthy, given that usually there’s maybe two touring shows a month I’m remotely interested in; that both are on back-to-back nights is an event. 6 comments to the sound of plants. |
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Awesome. When you said that he was going to be playing with a band I thought for sure you weren’t going to get to hear the stories. I’ve seen him a few times solo and with a band and when he has had a band, he didn’t do as much of the rambling. I’m glad to hear that has changed. His performance for the Eye tour is one of my favorite shows ever. I remember discovering some live recordings on a 12″ single of “Madonna of the Wasps” that ktru had (possible still has) where he told one of the same stories that I heard him do live and then segued into “One Long Pair of Eyes.” I think I played that thing dozens of times on my radio show.
“Take you this, prawn, onion,
bicycle cap?”
Actually, you can find the whole text of it here. Magic, magic internet.
Hey he’s playing on my birthday cool, thanks for the tip. I haven’t been paying much attention to the rock calendar lately but I may very well go to that.
I’ve been putting Hitchcock’s Uncorrected Personality on cd comps for my friend’s with kids. <– there it is linked on youtube but the recording is something he did by himself with a four track.
Funny, I played the live version of “One Long Pair of Eyes” a bunch of times too, I can’t remember if I heard it on another shift first or just stumbled into it. When I bought QUEEN ELVIS used, I opened the disc to find that the disc said it was the CD-single to “Madonna of the Wasps”, and while I was slightly disappointed I was more ecstatic that I’d got a recording of “One Long Pair of Eyes”.
Then it turned out that the disc itself contained the music of QUEEN ELVIS, not the “Madonna of the Wasps” single. Which makes it some kind of rarity, I suppose. Still have never seen the CD-single for sale.
Anyway – I didn’t get to see him til the late 90’s, due to various streaks of bad timing, so perhaps there’s less storytelling than the EYE era, but there was more than enough to feel I’d gotten my money’s worth – more than enough, I think, for even somebody who disliked the music to think they got their money’s worth.
Happy almost birthday, Kilian! “Uncorrected Personality Traits” was another track I played a lot in my later years – I think KTRU didn’t have a copy til the Rhino reissues.
DD, you must give me the rundown on the marathon. The mere thought is killing me. Troll 2 is complete lunacy. I assume there were plenty of gems included therein? Do tell.
That’s Klaus Kinski from COBRA VERDE, isn’t it? Everyone better be careful, John and I are going to run off and start a cult film blog.
The contents of the marathon are supposed to be secret til Friday, so as not to ruin the surprise for anyone in Wellington who’s going to see a similar lineup, so if you think you might fall under this category, don’t read it:
1. LADY TERMINATOR – 80’s Thai (?) TERMINATOR knockoff, so naturally it features (RASA SPOILER FOR SOMETHING YOU LEARN IN THE FIRST TWO MINUTES) a woman with a snake in her vagina that kills men by biting their cocks off. Also a shitload of guns. Anyway, this fucking rules. Never a dull moment, plenty of batshit insane ones. Fans of THE STABILIZER should check this out.
2. STREETS OF FIRE – never saw this before, actually not just a nostalgia trip but pretty fucking cool despite the 80’sisms and Meat Loaf tunes, sure I appreciated it a lot more than I would’ve at 10. What’s up with Willem Dafoe’s hair?
3. BURIAL GROUND – turgid but wildly entertaining in its ineptitude, and astonishingly perverse to boot. Plus the only film I’ve seen where zombies make extensive use of tools, which puts them one up on the human protagonists in this film.
4. CRANK – the 2006 film, the only new film, and one fucking twisted and relentlessly entertaining piece of work.
5. TROLL 2 – everyone knows that Nilbog is goblin spelled backwards, right? A hard sit insofar as I’ve watched it once already this year, and it plays much better fresh, but seeing it with a room of unwitting people was a treat. Even better, afterwards we had a call from the father in the film, who’s now a dentist in Alabama, and only recently discovered the burgeoning cult following. Apparently the Italians who directed the film spoke no English, so everybody was pretty much freewheeling their performances, and most of them hadn’t done much acting beyond high school theater. Gee, go figure.
6. TOP SECRET! – holds up surprisingly well.
7. BEHIND LOCKED DOORS – unreedemably tedious and unpleasant without actually being transgressively interesting. Although the male protagonist who locks the doors is very similar looking to Henry Kissinger, so there’s that.
8. LISZTOMANIA – I’ve loved this film from my only viewing on a pan and scan VHS eight years ago, and seeing a near-pristine 35mm print of it was pretty much a religious experience. (I think just about everyone else there hated it.) What makes the film is the audacity of the direction it goes with the ending, which is apart from LISA AND THE DEVIL the least predictable ending ever.
9. THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO! – I didn’t grow up with the thunderbirds, but this movie is really fucking boring. I swear it opens with a ten minute spaceship getting ready to launch sequence.
10. TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA – Had never seen it before. A bit slow in pace to play this late in the ‘Thon, and the cliched opening meant it took a while to get into it, but still really fucking good.
11. HOLY MOUNTAIN – Not sure if it’s mean or brilliant to play this after 18 hours of consecutive movie watching. I’d never seen any Jodorowsky before, and was shocked that despite it being very easy to argue it’s a load of crap it sort of seemed like a masterpiece. (*TINY LITTLE SPOILER*) It says something when you’re watching a movie where suddenly a guy’s breasts turn into tigers and he’s shooting milk into another guy’s mouth, and you don’t even *react* because it’s just par for the course.
12. BLACK AGENT LUCKY KING – Never heard of this blaxploitation film before? There’s a reason. Pretty much the lamest crimefighter of all time. Also a crap print, so it’s possible that all the action scenes have disappeared over the years.
13. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) – Never saw this before. Fanbloodytastic. Go, Donald Sutherland’s hair!
Good lord, I wish I was there to catch that. I’ve seen too many of those movies without having to have them shoved down my throat in a marathon (and liked them too, which is probably worse). Showing Holy Mountain is both brilliant and cruel, by the way. Yes, that’s Klaus. I mean hey, I was in the Mike Gunn, so what can I say? He was our muse. And don’t get too serious about the movie blog, I would probably take you up on it.