Hitchcock @ the Knitting Factory

Music Review Robyn Hitchcock

Compassion, Indifference and Several Other Things Too

By JON PARELES

Published: March 29, 2007

Robyn Hitchcock's longtime fans cherish his whimsical free-associating banter between songs nearly as much as the catchy, surreal songs themselves. But on Tuesday night at the Knitting Factory, in an unusual burst of straightforwardness, he explained the artistic strategy he has been using since he arrived in 1977 as the leader of the Soft Boys, a neo-psychedelic band in the punk-rock era.

"It's all not so much meaningless as inconsequential, or ultimately painless, if you find the right level to watch things from," he said. "The trick is to have one eye full of compassion, and the other one has about 500 mil of indifference, and you kind of blend it."

That blend wouldn't be complete without a few more balances: close observation and unhinged fantasy, humor and an unsparing recognition of death and deterioration. Add a lifelong fascination with insects, from an old song, "Kingdom of Love," which describes an infatuation as "You've been laying eggs under my skin," to the title song of his most recent album, "Olé! Tarantula" (Yep Roc). Mr. Hitchcock's imagery arrives in music that's a happy throwback to the mid-1960s, when psychedelic bands were packing their ideas into tuneful four-minute songs. At the Knitting Factory Mr. Hitchcock and his band played the early Pink Floyd single "See Emily Play," written by Syd Barrett, a compendium of ideas that would turn up in his own songs.

They also played "Eight Miles High," the Byrds song about a West Coast band visiting London. Lately Mr. Hitchcock's music has made the return trip. He's an Englishman transplanted to Seattle, and his band, the Venus 3, is three members of R.E.M. who also live in the Pacific Northwest: R.E.M.'s founding guitarist, Peter Buck, and two current members, Bill Rieflin on drums and Scott McCaughey on bass. (R.E.M.'s members were early and enthusiastic Soft Boys fans.) While they can rev up to the near garage-rock of the early Soft Boys, they often give Mr. Hitchcock's songs the pealing guitar interplay and country tinge of California rock.

The sound makes Mr. Hitchcock's songs a little more reflective; at 54, he doesn't pretend to have no past. Some of his newer songs, like "N.Y. Doll" - an imagined deathbed letter from the New York Dolls' original bassist, Arthur Kane - are unabashedly tender. But he hasn't changed so much in 30 years; what might be a narrow niche for some songwriters has proved to be endlessly productive for Mr. Hitchcock. His newest songs, and some of his oldest, strike the same quizzical balances: nutty and thoughtful, flinty and sympathetic, and always with a good tune to cling to amid joys or disasters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/arts/