Robyn Hitchcock - The Asking Tree

R.E.M. Adjacent
#1

Hello all.
I will go out on a limb and assume most of you are familiar with Robyn Hitchcock. Former Soft Boy and long time collaborator with the R.E.M. guys, from opening some of the Green tour to Peter being part of his backing band The Venus 3 for several years and all points in between. Personally my first introduction to Robyn was picking up his album Perspex Island as Peter and Michael guested on it.

For the last couple of years I have been helping with a website that tracks all Robyn’s live appearances (like the R.E.M. Timeline guys have done). If you are interested take a look at the site and if you have any info to add let me know.

askingtree.com@gmail.com

Thanks,
Marcus and The Asking Tree team.

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#2

I really love Perspex Island, haven’t listened to much else, a few tracks here and there, but good stuff.

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#3

Very cool project; gotta get the groovers checking this out. I’ve seen him almost every time he’s come through the Boston area since I’ve been living here. I don’t have any setlists to share or update, but I’ll definitely browse your site.

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#4

Thank you! I was at this show in 2006 :guitar: :musical_score: :notes: :two_hearts:
Robyn Hitchcock and The Venus 3 - Eight Miles High - YouTube

#5

There is an audio recording of that show at The Gov linked to on our gig page The Asking Tree

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#6

This is cool. Kinda like the R.E.M. Timeline, I guess. I love the songs he did at the Bingo Hand Job shows. I should delve a bit deeper really.

I saw him with the Venus 3 in Glasgow in 2006. Nice to see the setlist and some notes on your site. I remember Peter Buck getting behind the drums!

My (appropriately) weird Robyn Hitchcock story: Many moons ago, I was watching the Manchurian Candidate remake, with Denzel Washington. There was a character in it who looked very familiar, but I couldn’t place him. So, I looked it up on IMDB, and it was none other than Mr Hitchcock. It was odd!

Any idea how he came to be in that?! He doesn’t seem to have acted in much else.

#7

That version of Manchurian Candidate was directed by Jonathan Demme who was a friend of Robyn’s. Jonathan also directed the RH concert film Storefront Hitchcock. Robyn also appears in another Demme film called Rachel Getting Married. I was at a Robyn show once when his phone went mid-song and he answered it and I am pretty sure Jonathan was on the other end.

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#8

Thanks! So great to re-live this. Awesome night. :musical_score: :notes: :musical_note: :two_hearts:

#9

Ah, that makes sense.

#10

Donna and I saw Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 at Club Congress in Tucson on April 14, 2007. I don’t have a setlist, but the track listing for this torrent sounds plausible:

https://www.obatik.com/album/collections/songs/music-log/december-2007-albums/robyn-hitchcock-the-venus-3-live-at-the-club-congress

Also, here’s a sucky picture of a poster in the window of the Hotel Congress that I took:

DSC02632_poster_crop
DSC02632_poster_crop1194×1206 189 KB

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#11

It’s kinda hard to read the bottom of the poster, but Sean Nelson (of Harvey Danger fame) perfomed with them for about the first half of the show.

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#12

There’s a 1988 MTV presentation that just yesterday auto-played on my youtube queue. Mr. Hitchcock was only a lad in his thirties and was sitting on the floor while holding a guitar, right in the middle of his Egyptians band mates. Quite a nice song actually which I don’t remember to have heard before. I’m sure I should have the vinyl or the CD somewhere in my collection but I haven’t played those records in a long time.

This made me reflect on the passage of time and what it does to people, including myself. I suppose that most of us R.E.M. fans, generation Xers are pushing 50, so those old music videos certainly awake past memories. Time to undust those Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians CDs and give them a fresh new listen.

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