Somehow, Cleveland has survived, with her gray banner unfurled -- the banner of Archangelsk and Detroit, of Kharkov and Liverpool -- the banner of men and women who would settle the most ignominious parts of the earth, and there, with the hubris born neither of faith nor ideology but biology and longing, bring into the world their whimpering replacements.
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Robyn Hitchcock
And when the sun goes down on her
So beautiful, my heart just stops
Robyn is one of my very favorite musicians. I liked his early records a lot as a kid, then mostly forgot about him, and rediscovered his music as an adult.
He has a huge catalog of records; the two that played possibly the largest role in rekindling my interest were Moss Elixir and Perspex Island.
Nearly all of Robyn's lyrics are online at The Asking Tree. You can download a huge number of live recordings for free, from Archive.org.
READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
Am Am(sus)
Finding aptly chilling epitaphs in Robyn Hitchcock lyrics,
Am Em
All I want to do is fall in love while there's still time
Am Am(sus)
Sitting crosswise on the centerpiece and shining off the mantlepiece
Am Am(sus) Am
A skull, a suitcase and a long red bottle of wine.
I was playing in a pubful, of afternoon drinkers
And I asked them as I strummed my guitar, who's got all the chunes
And he crawled along a centipede and rode on his velocipede
Cutting paper napkins into little crescent moons
Tom and Kevin citing happily the sages of their destiny
His living words were dying words he smiled and he said "Yeah"
Searching sadly for that bluegum you can take my eyes I've used 'em
Searching sadly for a quaint old fashioned way to say goodbye
Andy Metcalfe has, in his Soundcloud role as flatpicker, been posting some rough mixes from the Queen Elvis sessions -- that is one of the Hitchcock records that I'm least familiar with and it is great listening to these versions.
I compiled a video playlist of most of these songs on YouTube -- particularly recommend checking out the almost hallucinatory quality of the two The Byrds versions and the really striking fan video for the Rave-Ups' version. And the Venus 3 number, while it strays a bit from the theme of the playlist, fits in quite nicely and fits into a broader playlist theme of "Songs I would wish to cover". (Plus some bonus tracks added, if you listen to the end...)
Knight from Presto MusiCo in Point Pleasant was at the show in Freehold and made some lovely, ghostly videos of a couple of songs. Look at his YouTube channel for "Crystal Ship" and more. The impressionistic quality of the video -- its pixellations, its lacks of focus -- is really key to capturing the weary feeling of "River Man". Watch it full screen.
posted evening of November 21st, 2011: 1 response ➳ More posts about Gig Notes
This afternoon's show was fantastic. I have really been anticipating it for a month or more now, and it was worth the waiting for. The whole concert was acoustic, no amplification at all, just Robyn and his guitar, about 50 people in the audience -- his amazing voice and his guitar. (There was a pleasant cognitive dissonance between that and the much larger, packed Bell House show last night. Both shows were in best-ever territory but the two could not have been more different.)
He comes in to Mark's garage where we are sitting and starts talking about the show, says Thank you so let's see what it sounds like... I'm going to play as many of your requests as I have time to play. First a little context, I'd like to play a couple of cover songs. "In the unlikely event of a water landing, please locate the exits nearest you..." and starts strumming, blocking out chords, "Mark and Elaine will equip you with flotation devices should you not feel sufficiently buoyant.But remember... God wants you just the way you are..." His Dylan cover takes you away, seizes hold of you -- the music and the voice will have complete control over the events of the coming hour.
Thank you he says, and without a beat lost continues laying out his context -- "Dear Prudence" he dedicates to Michele and Montague, he plays a Barrett tune -- Thank you he says Thank you, that's what I'm all about. That's what I've been aiming for and missing all these years. What you're hearing today is what I've come up with over the years, how I've fallen short of my aspirations. But this is a collection of Robyn Hitchcock songs. And here starts playing his own music. He tells us that a song is always, properly considered, a form of invocation or of exorcism, a summoning up or a getting rid of. Plays for us devotional songs. (Last night's songs had been more of the exhortative genre.) After the set we went out to Mark's back yard and he played a few more cover tunes in the unseasonably pleasant outdoors. (It felt as my friend Jeanne remarked, "like being extras in Rachel Getting Married.")
The whole afternoon had a pleasant patina of starstruckness to it. It was weird and enjoyable to be chatting with and eating dinner with one's musical idol, to be able to listen to his music in such an intimate setting. Many thanks to hosts Mark and Elaine Costanzo. Set list below the fold.
I'm counting the hours going by until this weekend -- have tickets to see Robyn Hitchcock at The Bell House on Saturday night, and tickets to see Robyn Hitchcock at Mark and Elaine Costanzo's studio on Sunday! This is going to be a great weekend... Here is some classic Hitchcock to tide us over in the mean time.
I've been listening to "All I want to do is fall in love" a lot lately, it is on its way to replacing "Birds in Perspex" as my favorite love song. John and I covered it the other night and I think we did a really good job... The studio concert is being billed as "requests only" -- this is a strong candidate for my request.
Update with some further posts about the Sunday show -- the Food Pie I brought along for the potluck; my notes and set list (which he signed for me!)
posted evening of November 17th, 2011: 1 response ➳ More posts about Projects
