olé! tarantula

The prolific godfather of modern psychedelia started a new band with "3/4s of the Minus 5 and half of R.E.M." It had been thirteen years since the dissolution of his last band the Egyptians, though there had been collaborations with numerous musicians in the interim on at least ten solo albums. For this project Robyn Hitchcock is joined by Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, and Bill Rieflin (who was also in Ministry); as well as ex-Soft Boys Kimberley Rew and Morris Windsor (who was also in the Egyptians), Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan, Harvey Danger's Sean Nelson, and Chris Ballew from the Presidents of the United States of America. Engineered by Kurt Bloch, 'Olé! Tarantula' was recorded with lots of laughter in Seattle. The songs run from the profound to the perplexing, mixing straightforward emotional pieces with catchy and clever hooks and harmonies to provide excitement, anxiety, tension, and release. After the low-key solo acoustic vibe of his most recent work, the addition of this stellar backing band infuses Hitchcock with renewed vigor and confidence, and the resulting surreal janglepop makes 'Olé! Tarantula' his most solid and satisfying album in years, ranking with his best. "We sound like a smart garage band, to my ears, when we play live. The record is a little more tidy, but they still rock, and rock me along with them. This is the rockingest record I've made in years," Robyn says. "To me, the whole record is sadness cloaked in fun. But under that fun, more sadness."






http://www.robynhitchcock.com/

'Adventure Rocket Ship' might harken back to the driving sound of yesterbands like the Soft Boys and the Egyptians...if you were a priest.

"Adventure rocket ship

Inside a head parade

A message from the future

You crash upon a star!"

The cheery pop of 'Underground Sun' is an unlikely eulogy for a friend who had just died. Robyn says: "she’d been ill for a long time. But she was a very upbeat person, so I just wanted to.. Again, it wasn’t very conscious - I didn’t sit down and say, "Well, I’m going to write a eulogy for her." But I found that what came up was a quite snappy kind of fresh-air song, if you like. I was trying to get a sound between R.E.M. and the Soft Boys, but to me it sounds more like Oasis....but with the Byrds harmonies, which I love, with the other guys. Because Chris went in and did one harmony, and then Sean came in and said, "Huh, OK" - like making a move in chess, he listened to what Chris did and thought, "Oh, right," then came in and did something else. Lovely interlocking vocal part. Then Morris Windsor listened to it back up in Cardiff and put some lovely high notes on it. I enjoyed that."

"I know you're there

I can relive you

Silhouetting on the golden sea

I feel with you

Even though I know

You're not with me"

'Belltown Ramble' jauntily wanders around a Seattle neighborhood mixing local landmarks with references to Uzbek warlord Tamerlane.

"And you wanna know what is

And also what is not

Don't you girl?

It's an independent life

And you want to see your eyes

Reflected in the world"

The joyous title track evokes the country sound of the Mekons. Robyn says 'Olé! Tarantula' is about where babies come from: "It’s all to do with how people feel about what brings them into existence - how some people kind of recoil from it and some people are delighted by it, and some people are just shocked that they exist at all. I think I’m in the last group. A lot of my songs are about the shock of existence, so I suppose this is another take on it, if you like."

"Look at his fingers

Caressing your keys

If he don't please you

Well you just can't be pleased"

'(A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations) Briggs' originally appeared on a Japanese only release 'Obliteration Pie'. Robyn recalls: "Well, I did record it before, about three years ago on Peter’s roof, and it was Scott and Peter. It wasn’t quite right - it went on a Japanese album, which isn’t out anywhere except Japan. And we had another go at it this year, and it just felt like it was ready. "Briggs" has rather a long introduction when we do it live, to set the scene, so I’m reluctant to do it every time, because it involves explaining the plot of 'Magnum Force' ... I’d never sought 'Magnum Force' out - it was just a movie that kept being on. In fact, I only saw it from the beginning for the first time last year, I think. So many times without planning to that I began to - what had been something I was indifferent to became a sort of minor obsession. I would start seeking it out. I remember watching it in German once. And I began to sort of remember bits of it - obviously the catchphrase is, "a man’s gotta know his limitations" or "a good man always knows his limitations." I actually misremembered it, because I thought at the very end Callahan says, when Briggs explodes in his car at the end, Callahan says, "A man’s gotta know his limitations, Briggs." But actually he says, "A man’s gotta know his limitations" - there’s no "Briggs." But it can’t be helped."

"We were riding in your car in San Francisco

We were riding through the weather and the rain (Weather and the rain)

Riding in your car in San Francisco

But we're never gonna ride that way again

We've all got a Briggs in us (Oooooh)

Somewhere down the road (Somewhere down the road)

I don't know about you folks but (Oooooh)

This Briggs will explode"

The new wave magic of ''Cause It's Love (Saint Parallelogram)' goes back to his Egyptian powerpop. The music was co-written with XTC's Andy Partridge. Robyn says Saint Parallelogram "evolved out of a need to keep things at a certain distance. Everything is - what’s the word for it? - everything is a at a distance to Saint Parallelogram. He operates parallel to life, not actually in it. It’s as if he’s behind glass. And who can say who he’s based on. But he wasn’t a martyr - in fact, it possible he isn’t even dead. But he definitely has the constitution of a saint. He can levitate and he can move at the same speed as you, like your reflection. Wherever you turn around and look in the window, you can see, behind your reflection Saint Parallelogram desperately trying to keep up with you. Like a sort of cartoon shadow."

"I'm just a crab

on a verdigris slab

But it's love (love)

It's love

What can I do

I just want to be you

and it's love love love"

'N.Y. Doll' is about New York Dolls bassist Arthur Kane. "He fell through a window and discovered Jesus, and lived out the last fifteen years of his life, or twenty years of his life, as a Mormon librarian in LA. But I think the Dolls had always been a peak in his life, which as it receded it seemed more unbelievable to him that he’d actually been living like that, even though it was a lifestyle that he couldn’t sustain, which eventually sort of poisoned him. But it was obviously a really mythic time for him, and it was incredible for him to come back to it right at the end. I don’t know if he knew how ill he was, if he knew he was ill or not, but the fact that he died two weeks afterward is pretty amazing."

"I was a New York Doll

I was really something on the map

that never ends

I was the pulse of it all

But there's always poison to drink alone

Or to share with friends

One in a million

People hit you like a window pane

Sincerely I remain,

Arthur Kane"