The Purple Bottle

And another collage...

2010-05-22T09:50:00.001-07:00

I wonder if this one will get an adult content warning for The Purple Bottle!

Random Saturday Collage

2010-05-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

The Purple Phonogram

2010-05-22T00:16:00.001-07:00

This is what we use to play all our fab sounds at the Bottle!

Kimberley Rew - The Safest Place

2010-05-18T13:15:00.001-07:00

When I recently visited Kimberley Rew's website http://www.kimberleyrew.com/ to check on the

progress of The Bible Of Bop reissue, I was delighted to find that not

only was my old flavourite available again, but that Kim has a brand
new studio album out, albeit only available as a download. I had no
idea that this was on the cards and it seems to have slipped out with
no fanfare whatsoever. This is a great shame as The Safest Place is
easily the equal of any of Kim's previous albums and is thus a perfect
pop treat for those who love a catchy melody matched with witty lyrics
and chiming guitars.
The album opens with the Kinks-like bounce of The End Of Our Rainbow
which melts into one of the most gorgeous middle eights I've heard in a
long time. It's the perfect opener as it contains all the elements that make the album such a joy and the closing laughter sums things up. It's followed by the title track, an affecting ballad with touches of accordian and spot-on harmonies from Lee Cave-Berry (Mrs Rew) who also plays exemplary bass throughout. Next up is Put A Little Sunshine which sounds like a potential summer anthem, maybe not on the scale of Walking On Sunshine perhaps but it proves Kimberley still has the enviable knack of knocking off instant pop gems which cry out to be heard coming out of the radio on a hot summer's day.
Kimberley's love of fifties' rock'n'roll comes through on Pub Conversation Blues as he reels the lyrics off in the manner of Too Much Monkey Business, in the New Orleans strut of Wednesday Jam with its crisp drumming and excellent piano flourishes and most overtly on the homage of Domino. However the album comes across as being rootsy without being self consiously retro and Kim's understated guitar is always at the service of the song. Indeed, all the musicians are excellent which leads me to my one gripe - no sleeve notes! I'm still not used to downloads and like to have something physical in my hand to read whilst listening. Still this is a minor moan and doesn't detract from the quality of what is one of the best albums I've heard all year. I just hope that it gets a wider distribution and more publicity than it seems to have at the moment. You can buy it here:
http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/KimberleyRew2

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-safest-place/id367555053

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Safest-Place/dp/B003HLGU62/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1274214114&sr=8-2-fkmr0

Just because...

2010-05-09T10:54:00.001-07:00

Why I am so healthy...

2010-03-16T13:49:00.001-07:00

Merry Christmas Everybody!

2009-12-24T14:22:00.001-08:00

Five For Friday

2009-09-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

The Count Bishops - Best Of
http://goldenbrown77.blogspot.com/2009/02/count-bishops-best-of.html

Tomorrow - s/t

Marshall Crenshaw - s/t

Various - Boobs:The Junksop Glam Discothecque
http://fixitinthemix.blogspot.com/search?q=boobs

Have a groovy weekend, wherever you are!

Five For Friday

2009-09-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

The Beatles - Thirty Days
http://juliocmail.blogspot.com/search?q=thirty

Sandie Shaw - Pourvu Que Ca Dure
http://orlandivicastro.blogspot.com/search?q=sandie+shaw

Sandie Shaw - Reviewing The Situation
http://zakkorama.blogspot.com/2009/08/summer-series-day-39.html

The Small Faces - Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

Various - Garage Beat '66 Vol 1
http://fixitinthemix.blogspot.com/2009/08/garage-beat-66-vol-1-like-what-me-worry.html

Have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are!

Five For Friday

2009-08-14T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Bobby Fuller Four - I Fought The Law
The Moon - Without Earth
http://mygeneration60s.blogspot.com/2009/08/moon-without-earth-1967.html
Elvis Costello - Beacon Theatre NYC 10/06/09
http://zakkorama.blogspot.com/2009/06/spotlight-elvis-costello-live.html
P.F. Sloan - Best Of The Dunhill Years
Robyn Hitchcock - Spooked

Have a great weekend whoever and wherever you are!

Five For Friday

2009-07-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

The Beatles - The Little Red Album
http://juliocmail.blogspot.com/

Bonzo Dog Band - Normal Hawaiians
http://mza-acid.blogspot.com/

Nick Drake - Made To Love Magic

Sam Moore - Plenty Good Lovin'

Various - Dirty Laundry (The Soul of Black Country)

Hope you all have a great weekend, wherever you are.

Five For Friday

2009-04-24T01:29:00.000-07:00

McGough & McGear - s/t

The Yardbirds - Roger The Engineer

http://frisiansotherfavorites.blogspot.com/2008/06/yardbirds-roger-engineer-1966.html

The Beatles - Sgt Pepper (Mono)

Robert Nighthawk - Ramblin' Bob

http://dontaskmeidontknow.blogspot.com/

Margo Guryan - Take A Picture

http://frisiansotherfavorites.blogspot.com/2008/05/margo-guryan-take-picture-1968.html

Five For Friday

2009-04-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

The Beau Brummels - Introducing

http://mod64.blogspot.com/2009/03/beau-brummels-introducing-beau-brummels.html

The Rolling Stones - It's Only Rock'n'Roll

Robyn Hitchcock - Queen Elvis

The Twilights - s/t

http://frisiansotherfavorites.blogspot.com/2009/04/twilights-twilights-1968-vinyl.html

Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress

Five For Friday

2009-04-10T05:39:00.000-07:00

The Beatles - Live At The Hollywood Bowl

Elvis Costello - King Of America

Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane - Rough Mix

Blue Ash - No More No Less

The Who - Sell Out

Five For Friday

2009-04-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

The Who - Live At Leeds

The Zombies - Odessey And Oracle (mono)

http://softsoundsforgentlepeople.blogspot.com/2009/02/zombies-odessey-oracle.html

The Parade - s/t

http://softsoundsforgentlepeople.blogspot.com/2009/02/parade-parade.html

Jan & Dean - Save For A Rainy Day

http://dutchbeachboys.blogspot.com/search?q=rainy+day

The Beatles - The Alternate A Hard Day's Night

http://juliocmail.blogspot.com/2009/03/beatles-alternate-hard-days-night.html

Soft Sounds For Gentle People

2009-04-02T04:10:00.000-07:00

I've just stumbled upon this lovely blog, chock full of great stuff - The Cyrkle, Millenium, the Fading Yellow comps and all sorts of interesting-looking things to try out. Basically it does what it says on the tin - soft sunshine pop in all its forms.
http://softsoundsforgentlepeople.blogspot.com/

Five For Friday

2009-03-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Soft Hearted Scientists - Take Time To Wonder In A Whirling World

http://www.softheartedscientists.com/

Anton Barbeau and Sue Jordan - The Automatic Door

http://www.myspace.com/antonbarbeau

Nick Lowe - Party Of One

The Poets - Scotland's Number One Group

Various - Pop

http://left-and-to-the-back.blogspot.com/2009/03/pop.html

Left And To The Back

2009-03-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

One of the most consistently interesting and entertaining blogs on the Interweb is Left And To The Back, hosted by the intriguingly named 23 Daves. Here's how he describes it:

"Left and to the Back" is a blog exploring the dark and dusty world of flop singles and albums, the kind you may find lingering near the stock room of your local second hand record store (if you still have one), or perhaps going for extortionate sums on ebay.All styles from all eras get a look in here - the only qualifying factor should be that the artist under discussion either failed to reach the top forty, or else released interesting material which fell by the wayside at some point in their careers. Odd minor one-hit wonders and early flop singles by known stars may also sometimes feature.

He also posts the occasional compilation, complete with informative and witty sleeves notes. The latest of these is called simply Pop and covers the fascinating underbelly of '60s UK pop. Highly recommended!
http://www.left-and-to-the-back.blogspot.com/

Five For Friday

2009-03-20T05:46:00.000-07:00

The Electric Prunes - Too Much To Dream

Kinky Friedman - s/t

http://frisiansotherfavorites.blogspot.com/

The Troggs - From Nowhere

http://mojorepairshop.blogspot.com/2008/05/troggs-from-nowhere-including-wild.html

The Troggs - Cellophane

http://garagerocks.blogspot.com/2008/01/troggs-cellophane-1967.html

Robyn Hitchcock - Spooked

More Nick Lowe

2009-03-15T03:28:00.000-07:00

Over at the Rare Mp3 Music blog they're posting some fine and rare Nick Lowe stuff. Here's the link to Pinker And Prouder Than Previous, Nick The Knife and an excellent rarities set:
http://www.raremp3.co.uk/search/label/NICK%20LOWE

Here are some Brinsley Schwarz LPs, including the fabulous Live In Cardiff:
http://www.raremp3.co.uk/search/label/BRINSLEY%20SCHWARZ

And finally here's a live Rockpile comp which I haven't listened to yet but I've never yet heard a bad Rockpile gig!
http://www.raremp3.co.uk/search/label/ROCKPILE

Five For Friday

2009-03-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

Nick Lowe - Quiet Please,The New Best Of

http://www.proper-records.co.uk/artists.php?action=alview&alid=2123

Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps

http://cannabusrockclub.blogspot.com/2008/06/neil-young-crazy-horse-rust-never.html

The Action - Uptight And Outasight

Elvis Costello - Live At The El Mocambo

http://capableofmore.blogspot.com/2007/07/elvis-costello-live-at-el-mocambo-1978.html

The Poets - The Poets' Singles (of course!)

The Poets' Singles

2009-03-12T16:50:00.001-07:00

The Purple Bottle is proud to announce the birth of its first upload (as opposed to just posting links to other blogs). It's a collection of the singles by Scotland's premier beat group of the Sixties, The Poets. Unfortunately, it's missing one track, Alone Am I, which appears not to have been compiled anywhere. If anyone has the track and are kind enough to send it to me, I'll add it to the upload. There's an excellent article on The Poets at

http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/poets.htm

Here's the link for the music:

http://rapidshare.com/files/208320366/Poets_mp3.rar

Many thanks go out to Derek of Dereks Daily 45s for supplying tracks

http://dereksdaily45.blogspot.com/

PS Doh! I've just discovered that Locked In A Room (and the missing Alone Am I) is not by our Scottish Poets but actually by a similarly named Irish band! But I'm going to leave it as it is 'cause it's a good track anyway.

Five For Friday

2009-02-27T10:55:00.000-08:00

Love - The Last Wall Of The Castle

http://mza-acid.blogspot.com/2007/10/bootleg-love-last-wall-of-castle-studio.html

The Mojo Men - Sit Down, It's The Mojo Men

http://frisiansotherfavorites.blogspot.com/2008/12/mojo-men-sit-downits-mojo-men-1995.html

The Vejtables - Feel The Vejtables

http://sharebee.com/87b68ddf

The Troggs - From Nowhere

http://mojorepairshop.blogspot.com/2008/05/troggs-from-nowhere-including-wild.html

Various - I Can See For Miles (free CD with this month's Mojo)

Five For Friday

2009-02-20T04:30:00.000-08:00

RH & The V3 - Goodnight Oslo

Various - Rare 60s Beat Treasures Vol 1-5

http://www.raremp3.co.uk/search/label/RARE%2060%27S%20BEAT%20TREASURES

Various - Maximum Freakbeat

http://faintlyblowing.blogspot.com/2008/10/va-maximum-freakbeat.html

Buffalo Springfield - Again

The City - Now That Everything's Been Said

I've just realised the I've posted The City album twice in a row which just goes to show how much I like it! I think I prefer it to the much better known Tapestry (although I love that too).

Chris Gone Rock!

2009-02-09T13:11:00.000-08:00

Well that was quick...the new version of Chris Goes Rock has disappeared as well. Someone must be really out to get him when all he wanted to do was share. It's a sad old world.

New Blog For Chris Goes Rock

2009-02-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

http://chrisgoesrock-blog.blogspot.com/

Five For Friday

2009-02-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

The City - Now That Everything's Been Said

Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy

The Yardbirds - BBC Sessions

http://aldouxmusicalbox.blogspot.com/2009/01/yardbirds-bbcsessions-1997-uk-rock.html

Neil Young - Unplugged

RH - Element Of Light

Five For Friday

2009-01-30T05:20:00.000-08:00

John & Beverley Martyn - The Road To Ruin

Fairport Convention - Full House

The Flamin' Groovies - At Full Speed (The Complete Sire Recordings)

Stephen Stills - Just Roll Tape

Jim Ford - Harlan County

http://chrisgoesrocks.blogspot.com/search?q=jim+ford+harlan+county

The Alternate Walls And Bridges

2009-01-28T04:32:00.000-08:00

I've been a stone-crazy Beatlemaniac since the age of 11 and always erred to the Lennon side of things (although I've come to appreciate Paul and George a lot more in recent years). However, I've never been able to get into Walls And Bridges, apart from the two hitty-toppers, Whatever Gets You Through The Night and #9 Dream. That's until I heard the stripped down early versions on this excellent collection from Pear Corps. The songs themselves are allowed to shine through and John seems to sing them with more passion and conviction. It's still not up to the standard of Imagine or Mind Games (a particular flavourite of mine despite the general consensus) but it's a very good listen. I must dig out my vinyl copy of the regular LP and give it another spin. You can get the Alternate Walls And Bridges here:

http://juliocmail.blogspot.com/2009/01/john-lennon-alternate-walls-and-bridges.html

Julio's blog is a veritable treasure trove of Fabs and solo stuff. If you've the slightest interest in Beatles' ROIOs, it's definitely a great place to start. Cheers, Julio!

Comments Please!

2009-01-25T09:13:00.000-08:00

I'd be very grateful for any comments you have on this blog, even if it's just to say "Hello". Then I'll be able to tell if anyone's reading it and whether or not it's worth continuing. The future of The Purple Bottle is in your hands, folks!!

Pure Pop For Lowe People

2009-01-25T01:55:00.000-08:00

Amongst the candidates for the title of Greatest Living Englishman, the name of Nick Lowe must figure quite highly. From his early work with Brinsley Scwarz to his current mature grooves he's hardly put a foot wrong in this writer's humble opinion. His songwriting is shot through with his wry wit, wisdom and melody and that's not to mention his production work on some of my flavourite records. The good folks over at t.u.b.e. have posted an excellent live set from 2001:

http://theultimatebootlegexperience.blogspot.com/2009/01/nick-lowe-2001-10-14-london-uk.html

And Kihn at PVAc to 44.1kHz has put up the BBC Four show from 2007 plus another disc of radio sessions:

http://digivinyltal.blogspot.com/2007/08/nick-lowe-2007-basher-back-at-bbc.html

Many thanks to these great bloggers!

Five Faux Fab Four For Friday

2009-01-23T08:45:00.000-08:00

The Rutles - Archaeology

Utopia - Deface The Music

http://adeodato.blogspot.com/search?q=utopia+%22deface+the+music%22

Liverpool Echo - s/t

http://best-keptsecrets.blogspot.com/2008/06/liverpool-echo-liverpool-echo-1973.html

Rockin' Horse - Yes It Is

Liverpool Express - Best Of

http://freemusic07.blogspot.com/2007/12/liverpool-express-best-of-liverpool.html

Five For Friday

2009-01-16T09:16:00.000-08:00

RH & The Psychedelic Trams - Wild Hare Club

RH - Gravy Deco

Bob Dylan - Love And Theft

Thomas and Richard Frost - Visualise

http://psychspaniolos.blogspot.com/

The Rezillos - Can't Stand The Rezillos

http://rockblaine.blogspot.com/2007/08/rezillos-cant-stand-rezillos-1978.html

Five For Friday

2009-01-09T02:55:00.000-08:00

The Lovin' Spoonful - A Spoonful Of Soundtracks

http://dreamsnevergetold.blogspot.com/search/label/Lovin%20Spoonful

Gary Walker & The Rain - No 1 Album

http://onwingsdream.blogspot.com/2009/01/gary-walker-rain-album-1-1968.html

Gram Parsons - The Alternate Takes

http://nevergetoutoftheboat.blogspot.com/2008/12/gram-parsons.html

The Rolling Stones - Nasty Music

http://nevergetoutoftheboat.blogspot.com/search?q=nasty+music+stones

The Who - Who's Next

Five For Friday

2009-01-02T03:03:00.000-08:00

John Lennon - The Alternate Mind Games/Shaved Fish

http://dinostunz.blogspot.com/2008/09/john-lennon-alternate-mind-games-shaved.html

Bob Dylan - Sydney 13/04/66

http://dinostunz.blogspot.com/2008/05/bob-dylan-sydney-4131966.html

The Velvet Underground - Lost 1966 Acetate

http://mza-acid.blogspot.com/2008/11/velvet-underground-lost-1966-acetate-us.html

Vivian Stanshall - Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead

http://sharebee.com/3c851f74

The Rolling Stones - It's Only Goat's Head Soup...But We Like It

http://dinostunz.blogspot.com/2008/09/rolling-stones-its-only-goats-head.html

Have a great weekend, y'all!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

A very merry Christmas and a healthy and prosperous 2009 to all readers of The Purple Bottle (all three of you!).

PS Click on the cartoons to get a readable-sized image.

Five For Friday

2008-12-12T11:13:00.000-08:00

RH & The Egyptians - Globe Of Frogs

Bob Dylan - Blood On The Tracks

Elvis Presley - From Elvis In Memphis

Love - Forever Changes

The Clash - Give 'Em Enough Rope

Five For Friday

2008-11-28T11:40:00.000-08:00

Robyn Hitchcock - Bad Case Of History

The Who - Tommy

Various - Lysergic Diversions (http://www.left-and-to-the-back.blogspot.com/

The Cops'n'Robbers - s/t (http://faintlyblowing.blogspot.com/)

The Floor - 1st Floor (http://faintlyblowing.blogspot.com/)

Have a groovy weekend (if there's anybody reading this - comments welcome!)

Five For Friday

2008-11-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Soft Boys - Raw Cuts
Robyn Hitchcock - Spooked
Roky Erickson - I Think Of Demons
Los Vidrios Quebrados - Fictions
Various - Dive Into Yesterday:1968

http://diveintoyesterday.blogspot.com/2008/11/1968-dive-into-yesterday.html

The Seeds

2008-11-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

As you may be aware, the title of this blog comes from The Seeds' publishing company, so it's only right that they should feature, if only in a small way. I discovered The Seeds when I was 15 and a local remainder record shop had copies of the debut LP, Future and the blues LP. I bought the debut and was hooked from then on. The Mehm Sahib and I were lucky enough to see Sky and his new Seeds on their UK debut at the Borderline a few years ago and the above poster comes from that tour. I'm posting it here because I think it's a fantastic piece of work, echoing and paying homage to the classic SF poster artists. Unfortunately I don't know the name of the artist but if you do, please let me know via the comments.

The Beach Bullies

2008-11-16T10:04:00.000-08:00

The Beach Bullies were the brainchild of James A. Smith, aka The Great One, friend and sometime collaborator of Robyn Hitchcock. Along with vocalist Jill Fricke, he recorded just the one LP under the BB monicker, We Rule The Universe. As far as I know, it was also the last thing he released but it is an absolute lo-fi gem - witty, catchy songs with endearingly shambolic vocal harmonies and minimal instrumentation. For years I thought I had the only copy but it's now surfaced on the Blogosphere and you can judge for yourselves here:

http://mysteryposter.blogspot.com/2008/08/beach-bullies.html

Five For Friday

2008-11-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

The Beatles - Please Please Me

Various - WannabeBeatles

The Talismen - The Talismen's Style

The Wheels - Road Blocked!

The Ro-D-Ys - Earnest Vocation

WannabeBeatles is a wonderful collection of early period Fabs covers from around the Globe, and it's available here:

http://michaelvee.livejournal.com/

If nothing else, it made me play the real thing straight after!

Five For Friday

2008-11-07T03:26:00.000-08:00

The Koobas - Live 1966

Los Macs - Kaleidoscope Men

Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders - Best Of

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Rattlesnakes

The Clash - s/t (US version)

The Koobas Complete Singles

2008-11-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

Aldo at Dive Into Yesterday has uploaded my collection of The Koobas Complete Singles plus 9 fabulous live cuts from the German TV show Beat Beat Beat, so here's the artwork for the booklet. Here's the link for the music: http://diveintoyesterday.blogspot.com/

Five For Friday

2008-10-31T07:44:00.000-07:00

The Twilights - Once Upon A Twilight

The Twilights - The Way They Played

The Bee Gees - First

The Easybeats - The Definitive Anthology

Various - Peculiar Hole In The Sky

Australia week here at Tulloch Towers, inspired by the wonderful Twilights (see previous post). The Bee Gees is an old vinyl flavourite that I've recently upgraded to the 2CD reissue and the Easybeats is one of the first CDs that I ever bought (being a late starter to the little silver buggers). Peculiar Hole In The Sky is an interesting comp of Aussie beat, pop and psyche. Not every track is a winner but it does serve as a good introduction. It's been blogged here:

http://feintoperation.blogspot.com/2007/10/various-artists-peculiar-hole-in-sky.html

The Twilights

2008-10-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered this wonderful Australian band, initially through one track on the Pepperisms Around The Globe comp. Their second LP, Once Upon A Twilight.., is an absolute classic to my ears. Great songs, gorgeous harmonies and lots of groovy psychedelic sound effects. You can find it here:

http://indie-pop-heaven.blogspot.com/2008/09/twilights-once-upon-twilight-1968.html

There's also an excellent compilation which charts their development from beat group beginnings to psych-pop heroes (mine anyway!)

http://faintlyblowing.blogspot.com/2008/03/twilights-way-they-played-1966-69.html

I really can't recomend The Twilights enough - my new flavourite band!

Five For Friday

2008-10-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

The Tages - Tages! Tages! Tages! (Fabulous Swedish '60s band)

Various - Pepperisms Around The Globle

Various - Chilean '60s

Various - Venezuela A Go-Go

Various - Colombia A Go-Go

Four of these five came from the ever wonderful Dive Into Yesterday blog - cheers, Aldo!

http://diveintoyesterday.blogspot.com/

The Koobas

2008-10-16T16:09:00.000-07:00

I've been fascinated by the Koobas ever since the age of 11 or 12 when I was given a Monkees annual which had the picture of the band that you see above. It wasn't until many years later that I actually heard their music when I got the CD reissue of their sole album but I wasn't disappointed! It's an excellent pop-psyche record full of great tunes, strong vocals and great musicianship. You can get it, plus a compilation of their earlier singles at the wonderful Dive Into Yesterday blog;

http://diveintoyesterday.blogspot.com/2008/10/koobas-re-charged-and-re-uploadedand.html

There is also some excellent footage of the band (wearing the floral trousers!) up at You Tube;

http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=koobas&search_type=&aq=f

Ray Lowry RIP

2008-10-16T02:37:00.000-07:00

("Bad news, I'm afraid - there ain't no cure for the Summertime Blues")

Very sad to hear of the death of Ray Lowry whose cartoons were a highlight of the NME in the late seventies. I couldn't find my flavourite of his which shows two figures in sunglasses walking down a street with the caption "My manager thought I was getting out of touch with the street, so he bought me this one". Here's a link to the BBC report on his passing:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7672448.stm

Five For Friday

2008-10-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

Various - Real Life Permanent Dreams (4CD set of UK psych)

Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby - s/t

Anton Barbeau & Sue Jordan - The Automatic Door

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Rattlesnakes

Various - Brace Yourself; A Tribute To Otis Blackwell

Anton Barbeau

2008-10-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

One of my flavourite live acts is Sacremento native Anton Barbeau. Luckily for us in sleepy North Berkshire, he regularly spends extended periods in Oxford so there are plenty of chances to catch his original, eccentric and anarchic shows. He's great on record too and I'd reccommend his latest, The Automatic Door, as a good place to start, or his psychedelic magnum opus, In The Village Of The Apple Sun. You can get a taster of his skewed pop genius on his My Space page:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=9229185

Try You Can Move A Mountain which features former Soft Boy Kimberley Rew on guitar, and then go to Anton's website and order his back catalogue...support your local cult hero!

http://www.antonbarbeau.com/entry.html

Five For Friday

2008-10-03T11:12:00.000-07:00

The Who - BBC Sessions

The Beatles - The Alternate Abbey Road (Pear Corps version)

George Harrison - Best Of Dark Horse 1976-1989

Rainbow Ffolly - Sails Fforth

The GTOs - Permanent Damage

After last week's somewhat disappointing Alternate Abbey Road, a very kind friend sent me a copy of the far superior Pear Corps version which has no Anthology tracks or faked mono mixes. The sound is mostly crystal clear and all in all it's a much more pleasant listen. Grateful thanks go out to a certain gnome...

I was delighted to find the George Harrison CD the other week in a charity shop for one of our English Pounds. I'm not that familiar with the Quiet One's eighties output, but this is a very nice comp with some of his strongest songs.

Five For Friday

2008-09-26T02:30:00.000-07:00

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions

Chris Britton - As I Am

The Troggs - Trogglodynamite

The Beatles - The Alternate Abbey Road

Various - Pebbles Vol. 6

More downloads this week. The real find is the Chris Britton LP. The only solo album by the Troggs' guitarist, it's never been issued on CD and original copies are rare as hen's teeth. It's as unlike the Troggs' output as you could imagine, being pastoral pop-psych with some lovely baroque flourishes such as harpsichord and tablas instead of drums on many of the tracks. Highly recommended! You can get it here:

http://psychspaniolos.blogspot.com/search?q=britton

I would have felt more than a bit cheated if I'd bought the Alternate Abbey Road at a record fair as half of it consists of Anthology tracks and the so-called mono mixes are just the released versions that somebody's knocked up on their computer! Having said that, it's still quite an interesting listen but I'm glad I didn't pay for it!

Marmalade Skies

2008-09-24T03:11:00.000-07:00

One of the best resources for UK psychedelia on the Interweb is the wonderful Marmalade Skies site. They have a plethora of information, groovy pics and useful links on both the big hitters and the woefully obscure of the sixties underground. The site also houses the archives of the late lamented Sweet Floral Albion e-zine where you can lose many happy hours. Here's the link:

http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/

Five For Friday

2008-09-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

A long-standing tradition on the Vegetable Friends group is the posting of Five For Friday, a list of some of the sounds that have got you through the week. I thought I'd start posting my choices here as well, so here goes:

Bob Dylan - Biograph

Bobby Charles - s/t

The Squires - Going All The Way With The Squires

The Escorts - From The Blue Angel

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions

The Dylan and the Bobby Charles I bought today with my birthday money and the other three are recent downloads. I bought the Bobby Charles on the strength of a review and I'm not disappointed - it has an excellent feel to it and the playing is tight but loose. Great songs too. Biograph is an upgrade from vinyl to CD - more preparation for the dreaded vinyl sell-off!

Robyn's New Guitar

2008-09-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

When Robyn had his telecaster stolen on tour last year, Eastwood guitars stepped in and gave him this fetching blue Airline Twin-Tone.

More Psych Blogs

2008-09-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

http://wcpaebelectricflower.blogspot.com/

http://psychspaniolos.blogspot.com/

http://garagerocks.blogspot.com/

Robyn In The Times!

2008-09-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a good little piece from The Times of all places!

Politicians should take note: it’s difficult to conduct a hard-hitting interview with a man who has a kitten on his head. There might be rock history to contemplate and lyrical imagery to discuss, but the distracting fact remains that the singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock has Molecule, his kitten of ten days, prowling over his shoulders. “Nicely! Not the jugular!” chides Hitchcock, sitting at his kitchen table in the West London cottage where he lives with the claw-happy Molecule and his artist wife Michele.
There is tea, cake and a domestic calm enchantingly at odds with the traditional rock’n’roll set-up. It’s fitting: after all, Hitchcock himself has spent the past 30 years enchantingly at odds with that world.
“I would define myself,” says Robyn Hitchcock, “by saying I’m Robyn Hitchcock. I know it sounds arrogant, but it’s the easiest way.” As the frontman of Cambridge’s brilliantly awkward Soft Boys, he unleashed a stream of psychedelic consciousness into a punk-rock world; as a solo artist fascinated by love, death and all the hatching creatures of the planet, he was the toast of America’s Eighties college rock underground; and in recent years, he has worked with alt-country heroine Gillian Welch and, on the tremendous Ole! Tarantula (2006), his backing band the Venus Three, consisting of REM’s Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin.
REM aren’t the only American band to acknowledge his influence: Flaming Lips and Yo La Tengo are fans while the Decemberists’ frontman Colin Meloy recently admitted he was “still pretty much obsessed” with the singer.
“Mostly my stuff doesn’t fit into any particular place in the chronology of rock music,” the rangily charismatic Hitchcock says. “It couldn’t have happened before 1967 but I’m happy to say it could have happened any time after. It means I’ve probably never seemed particularly relevant – but it also means I don’t really go away.”
He’s currently not going away by releasing Luminous Groove on Yep Roc Records, a box set of his work with the Egyptians, his Eighties band. It includes the beguiling Fegmania! from 1985, Element of Light the following year and the commanding live album Gotta Let This Hen Out! Given Hitchcock’s assertion that he writes songs as a way of “bottling time”, posterity is important. “They’re not bringing back the miners’ strike or the birth of my daughter – they’re actually more just how I felt. That’s what makes them important to me and why I dream of them being found under a pyramid one day. The drive behind every artist is to pass the message in the bottle to the next generation. These dead hands are thrusting these scrolls at you – ‘It’s my life! Take it!’ – because our culture is what lives. We’re going to peg out somewhere between 70 and 110 even with all the yoghurt in the world. But our books and songs and pictures, what we’ve distilled, can carry on – and who knows what will be there to receive them?”
Hitchcock himself willingly received the musical transmissions that electrified his youth. Given a guitar by his parents at the age of 14 – just in time for the far-out musical reinventions of 1967 – the Dylan-obsessed teenager “felt like an outsider. By the time I was 19 or 20 I had managed to alienate myself from enough people – including myself – to feel it was Robyn Hitchcock against the universe. And I had to look around for other people who were talented but marooned, who communicated best through music. I think that fitted all the other guys in the Soft Boys.”
The band was too tightly wound to join the fashionable calls for anarchy in the UK. Their single I Wanna be an Anglepoise Lamp spoke of an alienation, a discomfort in your skin so profound, it wasn’t enough to change gender, or even species – you had to transform into an inanimate object. They split up in 1980 shortly after releasing their defining album, Underwater Moonlight.
“We had the bad luck in the Soft Boys to appear at a time when people weren’t ready to take their nutrients from the great Sixties music,” Hitchcock explains. “There’d been the funky denim wilderness of the Seventies and then the furious attempt of punk to sever itself from all of that. It was very Maoist. We didn’t fit into that because we came from stuff that is now in every rock critic’s top five albums – Pet Sounds, Revolver, Highway 61.”
Hitchcock took these classic rock icons and bent them through his own mental prism.
Insects and molluscs, eating and being eaten, slow decay, the sheer messy physicality of being human: his lexicon lends itself to looping flights of fancy as well as the skull-faced truths lurking behind life. Hence his reputation as an eccentric. “I’m probably relatively everyday compared with what I sound like,” he says. “The songs and stuff, it’s the essence of me. It’s not me pretending to be someone or wishing I was anything.”
When it comes to the absurdities of the human condition there are few better chroniclers. “How strange it is that you’re actually here in this particular moment and what a rare and beautiful thing that can be for all the terror of existence. It’s still an extraordinary thing that you are there and everything is obeying the laws of gravity and the walls are keeping the house up, the electricity is flooding through into the lights and a lot of things are working. Although,” he pauses, “obviously the grail is always doom and entropy is waving through the window.”
He might never have become an insider, but he is at the centre of his own inimitable universe. “I suppose now you just think about the similarities between people rather than the differences,” he says. “I know I’m a very different creature from Wayne Rooney but we breathe the same air and we use the same drains. Our DNA is almost interchangeable and if someone digs us up in 2,000 years they might easily think we were related: ‘Well, Rooney’s albums took a strange turn round about now.’ ” As he understands all too well, stranger things have happened.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article4666878.ece

Luminous Groove

2008-09-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

Yep Roc have released the second of their Robyn Hitchcock box sets, this one featuring Fegmania, the peerless Element Of Light and the live Gotta Let This Hen Out plus two discs of previously unreleased material (one studio, one live) entitled A Bad Case Of History. The latter is the real meat for hardcore Fegs and it doesn't disappoint, worth the price of admission for the legendary Surfer Ghost alone! You can read more (and buy it!) here:

http://www.yeproc.com/artist_info.php?artistId=171

Rick Wright RIP

2008-09-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

Just heard the very sad news about the death of Rick Wright, Pink Floyd's keyboard player, from cancer at the age of only 65 - gone to "The Great Gig In The Sky".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7617363.stm

Faintly Blowing

2008-09-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

I've recently discovered an excellent blog by the name of Faintly Blowing (named after the Kaleidoscope UK album) which has a wonderful selection of obscure psychedelic goodies available for download, usually with full artwork attached. I stumbled across it whilst searching for the Jagged Time Lapse comps of UK psyche, of which they had all five - bingo! There are loads of other fab things there and I'd heartily reccomend it. Here's the link:

http://faintlyblowing.blogspot.com/

The Poor Mouth

2007-01-11T16:19:00.000-08:00

A cursory glance at the index of The Purple Bottle will tell you that I've been an infrequent blogger and have confined myself to music. My friend and fellow Robyn Hitchcock fanatic, "Jams O'Donnell", is at the other end of the spectrum - he seems to post at least once a day and covers any subject that takes his fancy, upon most of which he is informed, amusing and passionate. His blog is called The Poor Mouth and you can find it here: http://thepoormouth.blogspot.com/
I'd post a picture of him but I'd better get his permission first, so here's one of me that he took:

It's due to the encouragement of "Jams" that I've started posting here more often, so you've got him to thank/blame! By the way, if anyone is wondering where the name "The Purple Bottle" came from, it's the name of Sky Saxon and the Seeds' publishing company.

Robyn & The Venus 3 (or 5) at Oxford Zodiac

2007-01-11T16:00:00.000-08:00

(I posted this to the various Robyn Hitchcock groups straight after the gig. As it's been quoted quite a lot on the net -my blushes! - I'd thought I'd copy it here for posterity. Unfortunately, my photos weren't very good but there are some great photos out there. The one here is from the BBC Radio Oxford site).

Well, I don't know when I'm going to come down but I've just got back from one of those gigs of a lifetime. Not only did Robyn and the V3 play one of the best sets I've ever seen in 20 years of Hitchcock gigs but the encore was Robyn and REM - yes, Michael Stipe and Mike Mills were there (and Thom Yorke in the audience) and the little old Zodiac rocked like it probably never has before! And it was only half full! I'll just post the setlist tonight but I took quite a few pics and my mate got nearly all of it on his phone/camera - pray that it comes out and that someone got a good recording of the audio (I didn't see Matthais there but I hope he was!)

Adventure Rocket Ship
Afterlife (? new song)
Sally Was A Legend
Ole Tarantula
City of Shame (Thom Yorke was bopping to this one, just next to our group)
If You Were A Priest
NY Doll
Somewhere Apart
Flesh #1
Television
Not Dark Yet (Dylan - this was a highlight for me)
Authority Box
Creeped Out
Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)
Madonna of the Wasps
Jewels For Sophia
Kingdom of Love

1st Encore (enter Michael Stipe & Mike Mills who played Peter Buck's rickenbacker)
Electrolite (REM song)
Arms of Love
I'm Gonna DJ (At The End of the World) (new REM song, Mills switched to bass, Scott on guitar)
Listening To The Higsons (Buck on drums, Reiflen bass, Scott guitar, Stipe backing vox, Robyn ditched his guitar)

2nd Encore (with Mike Mills but not Stipe)
Give It To The Soft Boys
Eight Miles High (and I was by then, without alcohol or drugs! An absolutely stunning extended version)

I may have got the encore details a bit skewed but by that time all hope of writing anything down had gone out the window!

Soft Hearted Scientists

2006-12-19T10:01:00.000-08:00

Back in April we saw The Eighteenth Day Of May at the Oxford Zodiac, supported by Soft Hearted Scientists (we also saw The Decemberists in March, but failed to see either The June Brides in July or The March Violets in September). I'd heard the name before (probably attracted by the S-word) but knew nothing about them. I still know almost nothing about them, except for the very fine music that they produce. The line-up on stage that night was two acoustic guitarists and a chap with a small array of vintage synths. They proceeded to play about half-an-hour's worth of witty, offbeat songs with almost child-like melodies which seemed instantly familiar, yet impossible to pin down exactly from where they might have been "borrowed". Afterwards, I snapped up the last remaining copy of their debut album, Uncanny Tales From The Everyday Undergrowth, from the merchant-icing stall. It's a delightful record which I wholeheartedly recommend, especially if you're fond of the work of Mr Hitchcock or XTC or The Young Marble Giants - not that it sounds like any of them in particular but it definitely occupies a similar territory. Here is a link to the group's website where you can download some excellent work-in-progress demos. My flavourite is I'll Be Happy but all three are excellent. Then go and buy the CD!

http://www.softheartedscientists.com/index.html

Robyn on Syd from Uncut Magazine

2006-08-17T10:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/pink_floyd/special_features/8787

I feel really sad about Syd’s death. I’d just got used to the idea that he’d never do anything again - just sit there forever in Cambridge, being Roger. And with Syd a dwindling spectre in the distance, his host body Roger could potter about, this strange combination of old man and small child. The idea that he actually died is an incredibly decisive thing to do, for him; it’s the highest profile thing he’s done since 1972, although it wasn’t his idea.I suppose I hoped, like a lot of people, that there’d be some kind of rekindling. Not that he’d write songs again, but maybe he’d give an interview -that there’d be some sort of glimpse of how he saw it all, before he went. But obviously there isn’t. That’s it. He’s taken his silence to the grave.
I think there was a struggle between “Syd” and “Roger”. I know he didn’t like to be known as Syd. The people in the Floyd camp say he was upset by being remindedof what he’d been. He had this struggle because he was briefly a glamorous popstar, but he was also an avant-garde artist, and this was back in 1967. And I think he found the two incompatible. But I think he probably also blamed himself for not being able to hold onto it. He was very frustrated with himself, but you can’t really see into how he must have felt, at having been so creative and losing it. He did paint. I think he probably rebuilt himself to carry on where he’d left off as an art student. And I know he’d had fantasies about being a doctor because that’s what his father was. So I think he tried to rebuild a life, skirting around the crater of having been Syd Barrett. We’re all talking about “Syd Barrett”, who really hasn’t existed since 1971. But behind that,there was this human who, however distorted things became, felt the emotions that produced that intense, beautiful,solitary music, which are still my three all-time favourite records. What I love about his work is that you can feel the person in there. He probably wasn’t capable of introspection; maybe that’s why he flipped out so badly. I’m one of the few who prefers the solo work. There’s a real honesty about it, in a world where so much is doctored and calculated and done for effect - even being a rock’n’roll casualty. What Barrett produced, he couldn’t help producing. And when it had gone, he could do no more. There are a lot of people making records now who’ve been stars in the past, and their records aren’t bad. But they just don’t matter. I don’t think that Barrett ever made a record that didn’t matter.
Favourite track: “Wolfpack”. Or “Rats”, the angry child taking it out on himself.

Ole Tarantula

2006-07-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

(Photo copyright Yep Roc Records)

The new Robyn Hitchcock album, "Ole Tarantula", is released on October 3rd by Yep Roc Records. Here's a link to download the press kit:

http://www.yeproc.com/press_kits.php?artistId=171

And here's the Yep Roc homepage with details of their other fine artists such as Nick Lowe, Billy Bragg, Dave Alvin (formerly of the mighty Blasters) and the Sadies:

http://www.yeproc.com/index.php

2006-03-22T17:38:00.000-08:00

This Is The BBC Hux Records HUX074

This Is The BBC

2006-03-22T17:23:00.000-08:00

Well, I was more then a little bit pleasantly surprised when this dropped through the letter box this morning, nearly three weeks ahead of the announced release date of April 10th. I ordered it a couple of days ago directly from the Hux Records website - www.huxrecords.com - and, whilst it was slightly dearer than I've seen advertised elsewhere, you can't fault them for speed of delivery (plus I figured that maybe Robyn might get a bit more money than from a third party dealer). The tracks all come from four BBC sessions for Andy Kershaw and Mark Radcliffe and break down as follows;

7 tracks from September 1999 with Kimberley, Tim Keegan, Jake Kyle (bass) & Rob Allum (drums) 5 tracks from August 1996 with Tim and Jake (although 2 are Robyn on his own) 2 tracks solo, one from Feb 1996 and one from an earlier August 1996 session.

There aren't really any surprises in the song selection, the only ones that haven't previously appeared on a Hitchcock album being the cover of Dylan's It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry and the Andy Kershaw Jingle (although I'm sure you'll recognise the tune!). Although this was initially a disappointment, I'm happy to say that the disc works really well as a whole, the small combo arrangements and mostly acoustic instrumentation giving an intimate, downhome feel to the material. Highlights for me after a couple of listens are Polly On The Shore, taken slightly slower and more seriously than on You And Oblivion, the eastern/modal intro to Cheese Alarm, the rolling, rhythmic interplay of guitar and bass on Where Do You Go When You Die? (Jake's double bass is a joy throughout the album), a storming Elizabeth Jade with Tim on lead and the lovely acoustic intro to Madonna Of The Wasps, which replaces the acappella "Is this love" of the original.

The booklet is very interesting, the front cover being a Raymond Hitchcock painting and the inside cover is Robyn's painting of his father. The back cover is a wartime photo of Jack and Ruby Hitchcock, who I assume are Robyn's grandparents, and there is a Robyn poem ("After john Hegley") in praise of the BBC which references Peter Cook and Spike Milligan. My feeling is that Robyn is paying homage to the importance of the BBC to his family and the generation that were so reliant on the corporation for entertainment, news and morale boosting during the War years. All in all, it's a lovely package for the faithful but would also make a great primer for anyone not familiar with Robyn's post-Egyptians work. It's also sonically far superior to the previous Kershaw Sessions CD - Auntie enters the digital age (smiling cryptically and holding a bunch of radishes).

PS In an odd coincidence, the other CD that the postie brought today was On The Shore by Trees, which also has a version of Polly On The Shore!

The New Moon

2006-02-21T11:06:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to the fledgling website of the excellent Oxford band The New Moon. If you're in Oxford and get the chance to see them, I urge you to check them out, particularly if they're on the same bill as the incomparable Anton Barbeau - you won't be disappointed!

http://www.thenewmoonnews.co.uk

Guardian Manchester Review

2006-01-31T07:01:00.000-08:00

Or should that be "Manchester Guardian Review"!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/story/0,,1698402,00.html
Robyn Hitchcock and Minus 3
Manchester University
Dave SimpsonTuesday January 31, 20064 out of 5 stars
Robyn Hitchcock starts the set with the wrong song. Moments later, he introduces a guest musician as "the voice of Maurice Windsor - accompanied by his body". If The Fast Show had ever wanted to do a pastiche of a whacked-out, quaint, quintessentially English psychedelic explorer, they could have simply wheeled Hitchcock in front of the camera.After 30 years in the business, the former Soft Boy identifies his music as "folk rock" - a term, he acknowledges, that tends to strike terror into the hearts of anyone not in possession of a woolly cardie and the complete works of Fairport Convention. "I don't think there's anything more threatening," he concedes, even "being strapped naked to a block of ice listening to 50 Cent". But "folk rock" doesn't describe the complexities of Hitchcock's oeuvre: he is part comedian, part social historian. One surreal monologue explains how the Germans' mistake, when invading Poland, was "not having any jokes".After congratulating the audience for having "their eyes in the right place", this vocal critic of the Iraq war serenades "our rock'n'roll prime minister" with I Wanna Destroy You. Perhaps Blair the would-be rocker could have learned from Hitchcock as others have. The Smiths' Johnny Marr is in the audience and REM's Peter Buck is on stage, relishing the smaller venue and the opportunity to weave sparkling Rickenbacker magic around Hitchcock's transcendent guitar patterns. The widely held notion that all Hitchcock's songs are about fish is misleading: here, creatures with scales feature in only one of every two. "Bring me fish eggs and a violin," he croons, beautifully. But lest this get too barmy, Hitchcock delivers a sentiment his audience seem to understand: Television - about TV addling the mind - and its chorus of "Binga bonga, bing-bong!"Hitchcock leads the Minus 3 band long into the night, acknowledging their own influences with a spellbinding take on the Byrds' Eight Miles High. Now 50, fetchingly grey-haired but still looking like an errant sixth former who clambered on stage with some crazy dudes, the genius-guitarist-songwriters' genius-guitarist-songwriter is clearly in no mood to come down.

Vegetable Friends

2006-01-29T03:52:00.000-08:00

If you've stumbled across this blog through a love of Robyn Hitchcock, then I'm sure you'll be interested in the Vegetable Friends yahoo group. It's a very friendly group that discusses all aspects of Robyn, Syd Barrett and anything related. There is also a wealth of information in the various Veggie Files and a host of groovy images in Visible Hitchcock - Join today!

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/VegetableFriends/

Marshmallow

2006-01-28T14:16:00.000-08:00

One of my flavourite new discoveries of last year was the Marshmallow album, a record full of catchy pop melodies and witty, interesting lyrics. The man behind Marshmallow is ex-Mutton Birds and Bic Runga bassist Alan Gregg, who recorded the album mostly by himself with occaisional help from friends such as Ron Sexsmith, Dave Long and the aforementioned Ms Runga. An eleven track version was released by Lo-Max at the beginning of 2003 but was rereleased with two extra tracks (and a new cover) by Storm Records in 2005. Here's a link to the official website where you can listen to samples of the album, view the two excellent videos and order the CD - if you love classic pop, you won't be disappointed! The two tracks on the Anytime Soon CD single are also excellent and well worth having as they feature the full band lineup that played a blinding set at the Cornbury Festival this summer. I eargerly await the second album!

http://www.marshmallowmusic.com/

Here's a photo of Alan Gregg:

Robyn in the Guardian

2006-01-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

There's a very nice piece in the Guardian's We're Jammin' series in today's paper featuring Robyn and the Minus 3. There's also an mp3 of "Ole Tarantula" with the Guardian's Pascal Wyse on trombone. Here's the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/jamming/story/0,,1695328,00.html
(if that does'nt work, go to the Guardian homepage and do a search for "Robyn Hitchcock")

'You know, the good guys always live near water," says Robyn Hitchcock, talking about America, his favourite place of work. "Everyone within 50 miles of lakes and oceans seems to vote Democrat; the rest are doomed cattle who vote Republican. My audience is pretty much 100% Democrat."Robyn's current band is American too, and the singer-songwriter is flattered that they have travelled over to our "freezing, dark, damp air for not an enormous amount of money to play a bunch of clubs". Smiling behind shades, they seem happy to accommodate a random trombone, too, but that could just be the jetlag. "It's pretty unusual," says Robyn. "Imagine if you had to jam with all rock journalists. What would Charles Shaar Murray be like?"What a nice bunch of people, I say to the woman who runs the studio. It then becomes clear, to her gobsmacked amusement, that I have no idea I am playing with Bill Rieflin, Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck - that's REM, just about. Robyn wasn't exaggerating when he said he had made a few American friends. Back with the band, I try to construct a nonchalant remark that reveals I (now) know who they are, without giving away the fact that I didn't 30 seconds ago."Things are so polarised in the US," says Robyn. "It's a bit more of a community. Over here, I don't know. You've got some lovely people who come along and listen to music and you've got some very weird ones. True music fans are always a bit weird anyway." Robyn's wit - apart from shackling him to Syd Barrett comparisons over the years - divides people. Some find him self-consciously nuts; for others his surreal visions get right inside life's loopy realities. "The humour is just something that people have had problems with over the years. Right back in the new wave days people thought I was ideologically unsound and that I was just taking the piss. I can actually pinpoint one of the incidents, from the Soft Boys. We had one bit in 5/4 time, which never went down very well with the new wave police because prog was officially out. Then we had a bit that was very simple, darr der darr, darr der darr ... And we nodded our heads like Status Quo, 'cause it was a bit of boogie. The cognoscenti from the music press thought, OK, they're trying to take the piss out of Status Quo, they are obviously wise guys with nothing new of their own. They're from Cambridge anyway, fuck 'em. Next!" The band have a stack of tunes to get through before the first gig of the 2006 tour. Sometimes they sound like they are trying to put together a flat-pack chest of drawers. "Pete, the verse thing has got some D in it. You know that drop-down thing the second time? It's got that D with errm ... no, C, with a ... I don't know why it is 11 beats at the end. I probably ran out of breath." Robyn listens to the trombone: "It reminds me of the air bass that Beefheart used to have. Bruce Fowler used to play trombone through effects." Bill lights up behind his kit: "Ahhh, one of the mighty Fowlers," he says, and rehearsal derails into a chat about The Magic Band. Robyn tries to sum up his reputation: "I don't know how I'm perceived at all, actually." I'm sure he does; it's more that, having survived the music business this long, he is not too bothered any more. "It's always an advantage to be a foreigner in some ways - at least before they start rounding people up. It's a generalisation, but they say we tend to have class and the US tends to have race. Just as in the 1960s rock went middle class - that's [rock manager] Peter Jenner's term for it - so in the 1970s it went faux working class. The industry was still run by middle-class people - and the journalists were 90% middle class. But there was an attempt to make the whole thing seem like it was from the terraces. We weren't: we were palpably middle class. We could barely put down our cucumber sandwiches long enough to dash off a few riffs." Robyn writes, draws - and even played a villain in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, directed by Jonathan Demme, another friend and fan. But aged 10 he heard Bob Dylan and knew he would be a musician, whatever the hardships. "You've got to be bloody-minded and stay bloody-minded. It's a paradox: you have to have a lot of self-belief but at the same time you can't expect life to kiss you on the nose every morning. It's really pretty brutal. "Dylan was like a golden comet for the first five years of his career and then, although people kept treating him like a god, he was in a wretched state. A man in deep unhappiness wandering around the world, wailing. I thought, God, that's the man I envied, that's the man I wanted to be! Jesus! I'd rather be Robyn Hitchcock."

2006-01-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

The Sacred Crab himself, currently touring the UK but not near enough to sleepy North Berkshire for us to attend. Since this picture was taken, nearly twenty years ago, Robyn's hair has become a lot greyer, but he still strikes the same poses and the music is just as great.

2006-01-24T09:52:00.000-08:00

The Vale of the White Horse in the background

The Purple Bottle

2006-01-23T21:40:00.000-08:00

Welcome to The Purple Bottle!