4. Robyn HitchcockBlack Snake Diamond Role
On the go at the same time in the 80s were a bunch of Syd Barrett heads – myself, Henry Badowski, Julian Cope, TV Personality Dan Treacy and daddy of them all, Robyn Hitchcock. We should’ve put a band together – that might’ve been fun. Well, for us anyway! I first met Robyn when the Soft Boys were supporting at The Damned’s first farewell show at London’s Rainbow theatre in 1978. I wasn’t best pleased to be doing the show, saying goodbye to the best fun I’d ever had, so I thought it would be a good idea to go out with a bang and had a dinosaur suit made up for the occasion, which needed air pumped through it – so had a built in vacuum cleaner on blow. I thought things were going quite well for a while until I wafted the outfit’s tail in the faces of the audience one too many times and the bastards pulled me off the stage. When I emerged the suit had gone, completely, and I played the rest of the set starkers. But that’s enough about that – Robyn Hitchcock’s records are never boring, but on this one he takes the Telecaster through a spectacular bunch of alt-psych tunes – getting the same acid tinged tone he used on ‘Brenda’, a song we co-wrote for my Women And Captains First album. I don’t make a point of letting other guitarists play on my records but Robyn has a style all of his own. Definitely my favourite weirdo!
