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🦋 On stage at the Largo

Driving home from work, I was listening to Robyn Hitchcock's April 3 1999 show at the Largo (in LA? I think so) and some of his patter caught my attention. And I thought hey, it's been a little while since I posted a transcription of Hitchcock's stage patter, why not give it a whirl? So here you go. Note: I don't think Robyn is really at the top of his game in this concert -- he sounds tired and probably drunk, and the music and patter both have a lot of rough edges -- I think he is acknowledging this when he says, after "Viva Sea-Tac", "Man, I am so rocking. Not even." He manages to come up with some interesting ideas amid the incoherence though. Patter below the fold.

("Queen Elvis" has just ended.)

That's in D.

Everything's so natural tonight. Not just me but everything. How often -- there's very little that's unnatural going on. Gravity's being obeyed by everybody and everything in this room -- there's not one rogue glass that's just floating up to the ceiling and shattered. You know, back in the bathroom the pipes are gurgling away, all the water's draining away, taking the urine and the fæces down, and they're making their way towards the recycling, so we can drink them again later. They're not stiffing around in the bathroom, drubbling their fingers, going "He-hey!" you know, or anything like that. Um... Outside everything's behaving properly, you know, like Jennifer Aniston and things, there's very little pointed out in that excellent set... you know, Jennifer Aniston's looking good, she's got her cherry, the hair's going the right way, it's not "Shut up!" or anything like that. There are obviously people slaughtering each other and poisoning each other as we speak, and we're all on course for our ultimate catastrophe, we've failed, we're massively sinful as the Catholic sages have pointed out; um, life is obviously a terrible mistake. We have to pay the ultimate penalty and erase it. But apart from that, everything is really natural. We are "in God", it's not even God being up in the heavens or something like that, this is, is all God except for the bits which aren't so good, which are attributed to the Devil. But it doesn't matter anyway, it all fits together, it's worth remembering that, how everything is so obedient...

(plays "Viva Sea-Tac")

Man I am so rocking. Not even.

Um, If you do contain a demon, you have two possibilities. You can, you can try to have it removed; or you can try and use it. The problem emerges when you find out that you are the demon -- you know, you ring 1-800-DEMON, whatever it is, see if you could have it removed, and the guy comes around, the whole thing is set up; and you realize that as it's being drained out of you, you're going too; and you think, Well, who was I before the demon got in? and that's your last thought. Um, sometimes people keep cats.... See, that's another interesting thing, is sentences that you speak: When I was much younger, years ago, I had a phase of taping everything that happened, conversations, and it was quite interesting how long the gaps were between things people said. So you'd get a little island of speech, and then it would seem to, just, sort of drift... you'd hear a kind of, even if there was no reverb or echo -- in the room, you'd kind of feel, you'd see these kind of trail of sound tapering off into silence. Yes.... Picture the word "Yes," poking up out of, out of the sea somewhere, and then there's, there's just nothing, just the waves of silence. And then there's another little island going "What did you say?" -- And we're doing this all the time, you know. Again, we're incredibly talented; it's a shame we're so brain dead.

(plays "Balloon Man")

posted evening of Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
➳ More posts about Robyn Hitchcock's patter
➳ More posts about Robyn Hitchcock
➳ More posts about Music

We call that "babbling."

(I'm a big fan of Robyn's, have seen him 4 or 5 times, love him, but the banter/patter and album jacket writing need a visit from Mr. Edit.)

posted morning of February 26th, 2009 by paledave

Yeah, we gotta agree to disagree -- to me the babbling is a key element of what makes Robyn great. Love the juxtaposition of unrelated images, love the pauses and emphases, it just generally makes my day to hear that stuff. I could understand how someone might not be into it I guess.

posted morning of February 26th, 2009 by Jeremy

I do (emphasis) love Robyn, and the oddness is one of the beauties (emphasis) of his songwriting. And performing. The stream of consciousness does get to me, likely because I've been listening to him for thirty years, which seems like forever sometimes. However, this topic is very much of a piece with other posts on Readin, so it dovetails very nicely. Also likely is the fact that I am way too harsh and critical.

Your Borges stuff is fantastic. Really enjoying it.

posted evening of February 26th, 2009 by paledave

Thanks -- I'm glad to know it.

posted evening of February 26th, 2009 by Jeremy

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