Hitchcock's Guide to The Galaxy

Robyn Hitchcock came to Exeter Phoenix on Wednesday 6th March, I interviewed him for the student newspaper 'Exepose'- in case you missed it in print, here's the article with bonus embedded music and pictures.

Read on for Robyn's take on songwriting, psychedelia and the human condition...

Saving Private Jukebox

As we jive into 2013, we have broader musical horizons than ever before. The wonderful Internet gives us access to more music than we know what to do with, all genres from all corners of the world and from as long as sound recording has been invented. On top of that, we're getting ever closer to the dream of the Celestial Jukebox – any piece of music, any time, anywhere. We can all agree that we're damn lucky in that respect. And we should be careful not to neglect our near-magical powers. 

The New Folk Revival

No, I don't mean the current crop of earnest young beards singing the songs of the harvest. The digital folk revival can look and sound however it wants, because it's the revival of a tradition.

As mashup man Girl Talk mentions excitedly at the end of Good Copy, Bad Copy, the music industry is getting back to the old way of doing things. He remixes a Brazilian remix of Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy' and marvels at how far the song has traveled, changing along the way, until the documentary ends on his unrecognizable loop of about a second of the chorus. Despite all the attempts at corporate control of the digital music industry, there seems only one way that the music industry will survive in the age of networked abundance, and that is by going back to how it was done before the big money balls took over.

The Art Of Buying Music You Ent Ever Even Heard

In the digital musicscape we all seem to have stumbled into, the norm for album consumption is online streaming, where we judge an album over 1-5 listens (spotify limits grr), then maybe torrenting it, buying it, putting it on the ever-growing wish list or just ditching it altogether. This has its pitfalls: the growers slip through the net, stuff on the wish list stays there for so long you miss the window of when you'll really dig it, we get a bit too cosy in our comfort zones and miss out the excitement of the unusual and unexpected. I've been wondering lately whether it's possible for anybody to get into any music, and while I'm not sure on that one I do know that there's endless horizons of sound out there just waiting to bring me joy in return for a little adventuring. So to the topic - record shopping where I follow my nose to the future of my ears!

Charity Shop Favourites #1 - The Regulars

Being as I am a tight-fisted music obsessive, as well as a seeker of curiosities, a charity shop vinyl trawl is my idea of a grand way to spend an afternoon. Through much squatting and hunching, a hoard of the bland and bizarre is made to yield its gems – the intriguing, the ridiculous, the unexpected, and even the odd surefire winner. Part of the fun is that you never know what you're going to find.

But that's not quite true...there are some records which I come across over and over again, which I always pass by with scorn. “You again!”, I think, “I'll never buy you, even if you do only cost 50p.” With my lack of interest there is mingled distain and the lurking knowledge that everything in the shop has been rejected by the original owner. And also, lately, I feel a little pity. So to this article, in which I will lend a few of these regulars my ears and best attempts at an open mind.

The Folk/Jazz/Blues Crossroads

Somewhere in the tortured souls of those poor dears we like to call singer-songwriters, there is a crossroads. A crossroads where all the elements of their craft join in a way that makes us believe in what they are singing, and that they believe in what they are singing. The music simmers and swells behind them, their voice soars and cracks, their words prickle with their emotion and resonate with our own personal experiences. Here we are at the place called Folk/Jazz/Blues.

Music From Another World: Exotic Thrills in the Corner of the Record Store

Imagine a crowded record shop. Difficult, maybe, in the age of iTunes, but perhaps you have gone to the big city, where enough customers can be snared by nostalgia and the urge to collect and curate. Wallet in hand and with quivering ears, you slowly wander the aisles. Depending on the sadism of the shop owner, you might have to flick through boxes, get on your knees to dig for treasure, or walk with your body bent at 90 degrees for best browsing potential. Let's say you bypass Rock & Pop, spend some time in Folk, pick a Jazz/Classical wild card, and maybe even nip into Funk & Soul, Urban or Metal. You get a bit absorbed in the blurb on the wad of sound already gathered, and when you look up you find yourself in a part of the store you have never seen before. Peering at the racks, you see no names you recognise. Some are even in foreign languages. It dawns on you a second before you see the sign: you have found the World section.

WELCOME ONE AND ALL

-So...what kind of music do you like?
-Um...well...a bit of everything really...

Here is a blog for sounds of all kinds, a musical zoo where you might find the rarest species of jazz parrot alongside the familiar punk rock goat from the petting zoo, the slinky trip-hop snake, or the mutant sea creature from the abyss of avant-garde. Amongst these, and other sonic beasts, you'll get to chomp the odd waffle related to music as a cultural phenomena, maybe some opinions on a messy genre or formats or the dreaded industry or anything else that pops into my head. ENJOY.