A few days ago, the Soft Boys' second album was re-released to mark its release 45 years ago. Reason enough to bring this gem to mind once again. Robyn Hitchcock and Kimberly Rew founded the band at the end of the seventies in Cambridge in the wake of the punk wave and created their very own sound.
Like many others, their music was based on a few chords, but they knew how to write melodic songs spiced up with jangly guitars and a psychedelic touch like few others. Still a record I come back from time to time.
I have been following Robyn Hitchcock's work for years and he has always managed to inspire me with his small and intimate songs. Maybe some people remember him from around 1980 when he became famous with the Soft Boys and their own interpretation of folk and psychedelic.
Now he himself has travelled back in time to 1967 to record songs by bands that inspired him at the time. Mostly songs that were in the charts at the time and are now reinterpreted by him in a new acoustic style. Anything but groundbreaking, but performed with a love for the songs that should not really allow any comparison with the originals. A sentimental journey back to times when many things were different, which I enjoyed accompanying.
Robyn Hitchcock surprised me in springtime with a new album. We know him well as one of the greatest singer/songwriter from the last decades but I never expected that he will release an instrumental album. It is a little masterpiece in quiet finger picked guitar and filled with really wonderful music.
I was introduced to the music and work by our dear friend JC and Heavy Elevators was a highlight in 2021. Now he released Angel Numbers this year and it shows again his ability of creating songs. This one is not accessible as his last one and you need time to see the beauty of his songs. But when you get into this music you won't be disappointed.
Another year, another output by Steve Mason. Brothers And Sisters is another example of how flexible he is. He's still able to make an album that will stand the test of time. Not his best one but another highlight in his discography.
Kerala Dust is a band featured at this pages for several times. It is a British band now living in Berlin and they released with Violet Drive on of the highlights of this year for me. Their sound could be described as European rock because it includes elements of blues, Americana and electronic beats as well but always with great guitars alongside.
Another band I followed for long times is Yo La Tengo. Torn between folk and guitar improvisations they released with This Stupid World an album that shows every facets of their sound. Lo-Fi guitars meets great voices is their simple trademark. Thank you for making music like this.
Summer is gone and we have the meteorological autumn right now. I planed to
feature some song with the name September in it's title but found nothing
worth to be featured as September by Earth Wind And Fire. So I thought
what kind of music could be right for the upcoming season and I remembered an
artist that accompanied me during the last decades and one I come usually back
to in the second half of the year. For those who didn't know him, Robin
Hitchcock was the leading figure of the Soft Boys, a proto punk band of the
late 70s who released with Underwater Moonlight the link between
psychedelic folk and the upcoming new era of punk. During the decades since
then he moved into a singer/songwriter genre and released a couple of great
records. Many of them are worth to be listened but Luxor, released
20 years ago shows him at the peak of his career. An album filled with great
songs and instrumentals that could warm you when it is cold and rainy
outside.
From time to time something very unexpected was released. I never thought that an instrumental album by Robyn Hitchcock will ever be released. But in fact he released Life After Infinity few days ago. Since the days he formed the Soft Boys in the late 70's I followed his career because he was one of those artists who is able to write and perform songs. To be frank, I don't know every album he released during the last decades but the ones I owned were gems I can enjoy after all the years. With the release of this instrumental album he leaves the beaten paths of singer-songwriter and creates a wonderful world of playing semi-electric guitar music. It is a music to let your mind flow and take you to somewhere else. Probably the late-work of an fantastic musician and worth to be listened on a Sunday morning.
After two days of inspiration in new music the festival turned into the last day. We all were lucky that the weather gave us a perfect background for an open air festival. The forecast told us that this will be dry as the days before but the degrees will rise up to 35 degrees celcius. Never the less we went soon after lunch time for the first artists to listen to.
First band today was Mitski, lead by Mitski Miyawaki from New York. Playing their very own kind of indie music. Just between collage rock and pure indie. Lead by a great bass and unique guitar licks they persuaded me. A great and underrated band that works live as well as on the album. Real good hymns combined with their energy of playing live makes them worth listening to still.
After listening to Whitney, another folk inspired band from the US (they weren't bad at all but at will to me, because I don't remember any song of them) the first highlight of today entered the main stage. It was the Thurston Moore Group playing songs from their latest album added with classics by Sonic Youth. I never had the chance to see Sonic Youth before the more I was impressed about playing his guitar. Since know I know actually why TM was named as one of the best guitar players of all time. He made his solos not for himself like many others, they were more a substantial piece of the songs. Happy enough watching him live we took a rest in the shade to sit down and run away from the shadeless stages to watch a so called Fuck up night. We both had no idea what will happen to us but we were surprised about the general aim of this show. It means nothing more or less that a few people talk about their mistakes in (business) life and how they survived and giving the audience the possibility to learn about their mistakes. Weird experience for me.
The next artist to was a new experience to me. I knew Edward Ka-Spel as the leading member of the early 80's Legendary Pink Dots, which played a unique mixture of psychedelic inspired, art-rock and folk. Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls was a huge fan of LPD and a few years ago they started a collaboration. Finally they created a dark and slow sound with psychedelic and folk ingredients of Ka-Spels's background and Palmers music influenced by Bauhaus, The Cure and Robyn Hitchcock. Not the music for everyone but for me they took me to an one hour trip into another kind of music,
Next artist was Primal Scream and Bobbie Gillespie and I don't have to tell anyone of you about them. It was 70 minutes of pure fun. Playing the best from their last year's record Chaosmosis and a lot of songs they released during the last decades. Nothing more than fun.
The last band on the festival was one of those who gave us one of the best records in this year so far. Slowdive played a fantastic set as far as I could see (I had to leave after 50 minutes to catch my train home). Known as a shoe gazing legend they were more to me because they got the balance between Pink Floyd influenced music with the best of post-punk. Timeless music for almost every one which is involved in the named genres.
Today Robyn Hitchcock gets 60 years old. He was, together with Kimberley Rew, the head of the Soft Boys, a group that brought neo-psychedelia and folk into punk and New Wave. After their superb record 'Underwater Moonlight' the Soft Boys broke. Since then Robyn Hitchcock is still on the road, made a lot of records and look more and more as a double of Nick Lowe.
Influenced by Bob Dylan, John Lennon and especially Syd Barret he introduced me to the psychedelic sounds of the late 60s. I saw him in the late 80s in a small club in southern Germany and was still impressed, what spectrum he's able to play. It's good to see him well on stage.
I don't have their songs in digital versions - so today only the versions I found on you tube:
The Soft Boys - Kingdom of love
The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight
The Soft Boys - I Got The Hot For You
Robyn Hitchcock - Goodnight Oslo (live at Glasgow ABC)
