The Great Airscape
Airscape Artist
This guy has never failed to amaze me, Robyn Hitchcock in all his quirky English eccentricity with his wonderfully abstract lyrics and somewhat psychedelic alt rock sounds. From my teens listening to The Soft Boys and also hearing him with The Egyptians.
The Soft Boys as a band were formed in Cambridge in 1976 at a time when punk was kicking off, their musical style probably seemed slightly out of step with the punk trend at the time, less three chord thrashing of other bands of the day and a bit more psychedelic and rock influenced. The band broke up in 1980 after releasing the album 'Underwater Moonlight'. Kimberley Rew leaving and forming the more mainstream pop group Katrina and the Waves, while Hitchcock went on to a prolific career with a similar whimsical, surrealistic style as Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians and also The Venus 3. Have a listen to the Instrumental, 'You'll Have To Go Sideways' from the Underwater Moonlight album from 1980...
The whole album is pretty awesome and I still have it on vinyl, one of those few albums you could put on and leave running without having to skip over any tracks. Ranging from angry and slightly more punky 'I Wanna Destroy You' to psychedelic 'Underwater Moonlight' and 'I Got The Hots' to the slightly darker 'Tonight' and 'Insanely Jealous' and finally the comical if not a bit weird 'Old Pervert'. All I can say is please go buy the album it is well worth a listen.
And also catch 'Only The Stones Remain', again just a wee bit tongue in cheek...
Other personal favourites from The Soft Boys are:
- Black Snake Diamond Rock
- Rock n Roll Toilet
- I Wanna Be An Anglepoise Lamp
- Sandra's Having Her Brain Out
The Band
- Robyn Hitchcock - Guitar/Vocals
- Kimberley Rew - Guitar
- Andy Metcalfe - Bass
- Morris Windsor - Drums
Matthew Seligman was to replace Andy Metcalfe in 1979.
With The Egyptians
This song is really quite beautiful and one of my favourites by him, 'Airscape' taken from the 1986 album 'Element Of Light'
The song written by Hitchcock about Compton Beach on the Isle Of Wight a favourite place for Mr Hitchcock and also providing many of the cover shots for the album, clearly a place of inspiration and comfort for him, allegedly this song being one of his favourite compositions.
Also from the same album catch the wonderful 'Raymond Chandler Evening' at the link complete with the equally strange video, none the less still another beautiful song, and equally a bit of a homage to the novels of Mr Chandler writer of many detective fiction novels. The whole album was self-financed evidently on the Glass Fish Record Label.
The next song 'Not Dark Yet' was originally written and recorded by Bob Dylan in 1997 and on his album 'Time Out Of Mind'. This is a brilliant cover of it by the legendary Robyn Hitchcock and features on his album 'Robyn Sings', an album released by Hitchcock in 2002 containing a whole album of Bob Dylan covers, Robyn, clearly a big fan!
As Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians (re-united with Morris Windsor and Andy Metcalfe again) they continued in slightly wacky and surrealist style with wonderful tracks such as:
- Brenda's Iron Sledge
- The Man With The Lightbulb Head
- Listening To The Higsons
And As For The Others...
They have pretty much all been involved in other ventures, below lists some of the other bands featuring ex-Soft Boys...
Local Heroes
Local Heroes SW9, 'Another Modern Romance' taken from the album Drip Dry Zone released by Oval Records in 1980.
The band were:
Kevin Armstrong - Guitar
Matthew Seligman - Bass
Kim Barti - Drums
Both Armstrong and Seligman having the honour of working with Thomas Dolby and David Bowie to name a few, sadly he passed away not so long ago from complications caused by Covid. Kim Barti is on Twitter and appears to live very near me!
More about Local Heroes SW9 at: www.ovalmusic.co.uk
Released on 7" on the Sequel label in '79.
Fish Turned Human
Fish Turned Human with 'The International'.... and if you are thinking this sounds a little like The Soft Boys it could be because Andy Metcalfe (Soft Boys) was originally in this band. The song actually coming from the E.P 'Turkeys In China' released on the Sequel Records label in 1979.
The band were:
- Andy Metcalfe - Bass
- Julian Treasure - Drums/Backing Vocals
- Michael Ikon - Guitar
- Adrian Cole - Piano/Backing Vocals
- Philip Furei - Vocals
Another band that recorded at Spaceward Studios as per my other post on this site entitled 'All Hallows'.
You can catch other tracks from the E.P. including the marvellous 'Here Come The Nun's' at Discogs at the link.
Thanks and all credit to :
punkmusiccatalogue.wordpress.com
Katrina & The Waves
The Waves actually started out around the Cambridge area from 1975 -1977 before splitting and Rew joining The Soft Boys.
Katrina Leskanich was previously in a local band from Norfolk and was originally of American descent, she graduated from R.A.F. Lakenheath in 1978 and joined a local band called Mamma's Cookin' who were predominately a pop covers band chugging out American mainstream rock numbers by bands such as Foreigner and Heart. After splitting from the Soft Boys Rew contacted his old Waves band mate Alex Cooper who persuaded him to join the band he was in ... Mamma's Cookin'.
The band initially were:
- Vince De La Cruz - Vocals/Guitar
- Alex Cooper - Drums
- Katrina Leskanitch - Keyboards/Vocals
- Bob Jakins - Bass
Rew joined as guitarist and bringing with him many of the songs he had written, the band changed names back to The Waves where both Rew and Cooper had started out. Katrina took over vocals, De La Cruz hopped over to Bass and the band began performing less covers and more original material.
They released their first mini-album on Aftermath Records in 1983 containing an early recording of a song later re-released by Katrina & The Waves called 'Going Down To Liverpool'. Their first full album would be released in 1985 and called 'Walking On Sunshine'. the actual track being released as a single and became a massive commercial hit in the U.K. at the time, a complete upbeat, feel-good pop song if ever there could be, it deservedly reached #8 in the mainstream U.K. charts in that year, they had reached their pop success....Eurovision was waiting around the corner for them!
Robyn Hitchcock is still going strong releasing a new single 'Shuffle Man' in 2022...