Robyn Hitchcock - Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London, Britain, 11-1-2009 (Abbey Road)

From 2003 to 2011, Robyn Hitchcock held yearly benefit concerts at a small venue in London called the Three Kings, with the funds going to various causes opposing the U.S. war in Iraq. Each year, he performed one of his favorite albums by the musical acts that most influenced him. In 2009, he tackled "Abbey Road" by the Beatles. Here it is.

Hitchcock is a massive Beatles fan. I've already posted his versions of "Revolver," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," and "The White Album," done in this series of benefit concerts. I waited on posting this one due to sound quality concerns. Namely, there was a fair amount of echo on the recording, which I find annoying. But, thanks to improving audio editing technology, I could finally fix that problem, so I did. First, I used the MVSEP program to split the vocals from the instruments. Then I used that program's "denoise" function on the vocals. Then I put the vocals and instruments back together again. I think it sounds much better now.

Hitchcock was backed by a full band, as he typically was in this series of concerts. He has a singing voice with lots of character, but he doesn't have an exceptionally high range. So, for a few of the songs that were more difficult to sing, he had other band members take the lead vocals. 

After playing the album straight though, in the correct album order, he played four more songs done by the Beatles in 1969. 

This music here is unreleased.

With this post, I believe I have posted all of the known recordings from these Three Kings benefit shows. However, there have been other occasions when Hitchcock has performed entire albums by other musical acts. So I'll keep working on posting those.

This album is an hour and 17 minutes long. 

01 talk by James Orbinski (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Come Together (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Something (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Maxwell's Silver Hammer (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Oh, Darling (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Octopus's Garden (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 I Want You [She's So Heavy] (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Here Comes the Sun (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Because (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 Because - Take 2 (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 You Never Give Me Your Money (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 Sun King (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Mean Mr. Mustard (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 Polythene Pam (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 She Came in through the Bathroom Window (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 Golden Slumbers (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Carry That Weight (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 The End (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 Her Majesty (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 I've Got a Feeling (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 The Ballad of John and Yoko (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 Old Brown Shoe (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 Don't Let Me Down (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NjVRqZ2g

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mbFRvs1rGTzU3rb/file

For the cover image, I thought it would be interesting to post an outtake from the photo shoot that resulted in the iconic Beatles cover. This picture was probably taken a minute or less before the photo that was used for the cover. 

Robyn Hitchcock - Robyn Hitchcock Plays 1967, The Chapel, San Francisco, CA, 5-22-2025

Robyn Hitchcock has always been fascinated by the rock music of the 1960s, even though he was born too late to be part of the music scene then. (His first band was formed in 1976.) In 2024, he released a studio album consisting entirely of covers of songs from the year 1967, called "1967: Vacations in the Past." That was a companion to a book he wrote, called "1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left." I just recently discovered that in May 2025, he performed a unique concert which consisted entirely of cover songs from 1967. So here it is.

I first discovered this concert about a week ago (as I write this in January 2026). When I gave it a listen, my initial thought was that it wasn't worthy of being posted here, due to sound quality issues. The recording I found was an audience bootleg with mere middling sound quality. But it's fortunate I discovered this when I did, and not earlier, because in recent weeks I've learned some audio editing techniques to improve problematic recordings like this one. 

The first thing I did was use MVSEP to separate the vocals from the instruments. Then I ran just the vocals through MVSEP's "reverb removal" feature. I've discovered that doesn't do much to the instruments, but it can really improve the vocals if they're separated out first. That got rid of a lot of echo and murkiness on the vocals. But the sound of his talking between songs was still problematic. So I additionally ran all of those tracks through Adobe's vocal enhancer. It only works on talking, not singing, but it does wonders it enhancing vocal clarity.

Doing all that took a lot of work. But I think it made a big difference. This recording still has some issues, but I think it sounds pretty close to a soundboard-level bootleg now. 

Note that the previous year, Hitchcock did a special concert at the same venue, which consisted entirely of covers of Syd Barrett songs. I've posted that here as well. He made a comment in this concert that he's already thinking about doing another theme type show in 2026. Let's hope this becomes a new yearly tradition for him.

Curiously, even though he played virtually all 1967 songs, there wasn't much overlap with the songs from his "1967: Vacations in the Past" album. The only songs from that one were "Waterloo Sunset," "See Emily Play," "No Face, No Name, No Number," and "A Day in the Life." And by the way, a couple of the songs were actually first released in 1966: "Sunshine Superman" and "Rain." And "Only a Northern Song" by the Beatles wasn't released until 1969. But I could see why he included it, because it actually was recorded by the Beatles in February 1967. It was considered for inclusion on their "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album but didn't make the cut, so it didn't come out until the "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack.

Hitchcock was supported by a small band, with a few guests coming and going. The last song, "A Day in the Life," sounds a bit different because he got off the stage and performed it in the middle of the audience, with the crowd singing along.  

This album is an hour and 33 minutes long. 

01 Baby, You're a Rich Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Only a Northern Song (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Astronomy Domine (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Lucifer Sam (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 See Emily Play (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Waterloo Sunset (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Soul Kitchen (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 The Crystal Ship (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 No Face, No Name, No Number (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Andmoreagain (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine - Sunshine Superman (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Electricity (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Zig Zag Wanderer (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 I'm Waiting for the Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 The End (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 I Am the Walrus (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 Rain (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 A Day in the Life (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uVBniauz

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Mvp8hiR5cwbcNHw/file

The cover is from promotional material for the concert. It's almost unchanged, except I widened it some to get it to fit into a square space. 

Robyn Hitchcock - Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London, Britain, 8-8-2004 (The White Album)

A few days ago, I posted a Robyn Hitchcock concert from 1996 that consisted entirely of songs Bob Dylan performed in a famous 1966 concert. That reminded me that I have some other albums of Hitchcock performing entire albums by others in concert that I haven't posted yet. I've been slow to post some of these because they come from audience bootlegs and the sound quality is merely good, not excellent. But with improving sound editing technology, there's a lot one can do. So I've fixed this one, and now it's good to go.

From 2003 until 2011, Hitchcock held a benefit concert most years at the small Three Kings club in London, and each time he performed one of his favorite albums by some other musical act, from start to finish. This, the second such concert, was his version of the classic "White Album" by the Beatles in 1968. Usually, he played some extra songs at the end of the concert. But since this was a double album, he just played every song from the White Album, in order, and nothing else.

Hitchcock was backed by a small band that included Kimberley Rew and Morris Windsor, two members of his 1970s band the Soft Boys. They were occasionally joined by others, for instance on "Revolution 9" (where backing tapes were also used).

I only have a limited number of editing techniques that I know, but they were pretty useful for this album. First, I ran every song through the MVSEP program to remove the crowd noise during songs, while keeping the cheering at the ends of songs. Then, I ran all the songs through MVSEP again, this time boosting the vocals relative to the instruments. I think these edits made a big difference. Now, this sounds more like a soundboard than an audience bootleg, though it still sounds far from pristine.  

This album is the hour and 48 minutes long. 

01 Back in the U.S.S.R. (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Dear Prudence (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Glass Onion (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Wild Honey Pie (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Martha My Dear (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 I'm So Tired (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Blackbird (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 Piggies (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Rocky Raccoon (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Don't Pass Me By (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 Why Don't We Do It in the Road (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 I Will (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 Julia (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 Birthday (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 Yer Blues (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Mother Nature's Son (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 Sexy Sadie (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 Helter Skelter (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 Long, Long, Long (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 Revolution 1 (Robyn Hitchcock)
37 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
38 Honey Pie (Robyn Hitchcock)
39 Savoy Truffle (Robyn Hitchcock)
40 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
41 Cry Baby Cry (Robyn Hitchcock)
42 Revolution 9 (Robyn Hitchcock)
43 Good Night (Robyn Hitchcock)
44 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9zvsPiTL

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/UaGH8rZEC5P12Kd/file 

For the album cover, I did a parody of the official Beatles cover. I basically just replaced the text "The Beatles" with Hitchcock's name, in the same light grey font. Then I added some additional information at the bottom.  

Robyn Hitchcock - Dylan's Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert, The Borderline, London, Britain, 5-25-1996

On May 26, 1966, Bob Dylan gave a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London that became legendary. (Mostly that was due to a popular bootleg that actually turned out to be from a concert in Manchester a few days earlier, but the set list was the same.) Thirty years to the day (well, one day off), Robyn Hitchcock gave a concert in London with the exact same set list. So it was all Dylan covers. He later released much of this concert as the official album "Robyn Sings," but that had some problems I will explain shortly. This, in my opinion, is much better than the official album.

Before I go any further, I want to say this album posting wouldn't have happened without the editing work of musical associate Lil Panda. A couple of weeks ago, he emailed me and told me he'd made a bunch of improvements to this concert. Then I got his permission to post it here. I asked him to summarize what he did, and this was his response: "I separated the ambient audience from the music, left only the applause. Then did azimuth, phase correction, voice de-click, and a slight EQ boost." So kudos to him, because he's far better at that stuff than I am. Hell, I barely even know what azimuth is, much less how to fix it.

Now, let me explain how this compares to the official live album "Robyn Sings." In fact, only half of that album was taken from this concert at the Borderline, specifically, the second half. The first half was taken from a variety of concerts in 1999 and 2000, and consisted of all Dylan covers. In terms of exact overlap, the songs on both "Robyn Sings" and this album are tracks 12 to 24. That makes up about half of the total run time.

As I've said before, I much prefer full concerts to those taken from lots of different sources. I think that's a more honest live album. So just having the full concert here is a big improvement over the official album, in my opinion. But it also turns out the official album had numerous problems. Oddly for an official release, it clearly was taken from an audience bootleg type source. One can tell because of a constant background noise of the crowd all through the songs, as well as other problems. Lil Panda fixed most of those, as mentioned above. I also took the extra step of running all the songs through the UVR5 editing program, to get rid of the lingering ambient crowd noise that Lil Panda missed. So, in addition to this being more complete than the official album, it also sounds better. 

To quote Wikipedia, Dylan's 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert (which, as mentioned above, actually took place in Manchester) "is famous for Dylan's confrontational stance against a heckling audience who objected to his electric instrumentation." Hitchcock didn't talk much during this concert, as he usually does, to stick closer to the original comment. But some of his banter between songs actually repeat what Dylan said in the 1966 concert. For instance, at one point Dylan muttered incoherently until the unruly crowd quieted enough to try to make out what he was saying, and Hitchcock repeated that exactly.

Let's just say Hitchcock is an extremely big Dylan fan!

Oh, by the way, the last two songs, "Dignity" and "Queen Jane Approximately," are the only two songs not played in Dylan's 1966 concert, though they are Dylan covers as well. "Queen Jane Approximately" had been written at the time and could have been performed, but "Dignity" is a song Dylan wrote in the late 1980s.

Anyway, thanks again to Lil Panda for his work on this. Enjoy.  

This album is an hour and 30 minutes long. 

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 She Belongs to Me (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Visions of Johanna (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 4th Time Around (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Desolation Row (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Tell Me, Momma (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 I Don't Believe You [She Acts like We Never Have Met] (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Just like Tom Thumb's Blues (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 One Too Many Mornings (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Ballad of a Thin Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 Like a Rolling Stone (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Dignity (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 Queen Jane Approximately (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/57SVUW36

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6NXYau3lI9pt6uV/file

The cover photo is a still taken from the movie "Storefront Hitchcock," which was recorded in 1996. 

Robyn Hitchcock - Syd Barrett Birthday Tribute, The Chapel, San Francisco, CA, 1-6-2024

Egads! Here's something that's actually from 2024 already. (I write this in February 2024.) It's a Robyn Hitchcock concert that took place last month. This one is special, because it was a one off tribute concert for Syd Barrett, the original leader of Pink Floyd. Barrett was born on January 6, 1946, and died in 2006. He would have been 78 years old on the day of this concert had he lived longer.

Instead of mostly playing his original songs, as usual, Hitchcock stuck to singing nothing but songs written by Barrett. Barrett led Pink Floyd, but only briefly. He left the band after their first year of big success, which was 1967. Tracks 4, 15, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 37, and 39 are Pink Floyd songs from when Barrett was the lead singer and main songwriter. The rest are either banter tracks or songs from Barrett's brief solo career, which petered out around 1970.

The first six songs were done in solo acoustic style. Then other band members began to gradually join in. By the song "Dominos," the full band was on stage. It was a small band, with just three musicians supporting Hitchcock, but they rocked pretty well for the rest of the concert.

Hitchcock has been heavily, heavily influenced by Barrett for his entire career. I previously posted an entire album of him doing solo acoustic versions of Barrett's songs over the years, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/09/robyn-hitchcock-acoustic-syd-barrett.html

Furthermore, he's done previous Barrett tribute concerts. I have one from 2007 that I'll probably post here someday. But this is the most thorough tribute I've seen from him yet, with some songs that he'd never performed before.

The recording is an audience boot. That's a bit of a bummer, since those usually don't sound as good as soundboard or FM boots. But in this case, the sound quality is very nearly as good. Furthermore, for all of the talking tracks, I ran them through the audio editing program UVR5 and got rid of a lot of background noise while boosting Hitchcock's voice. After that, I think that this generally sounds just as good as typical soundboard boots. 

There was a problem with one of the talking tracks though, track nine. For the first half of three minutes of talking, it's apparent that he moved well away from the microphone, because his voice was very distant compared to everything else. So I had to do a lot of extra work on that, but in the end I think you can hear most of what he's saying. That's why that one has "[Edit]" in the title.

This album is an hour and 39 minutes long.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Terrapin (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Jugband Blues (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Late Night (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Dark Globe (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 If It's in You (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk [Edit] (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 It Is Obvious (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Long Gone (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Wined and Dined (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Chapter 24 (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Dominoes (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Effervescing Elephant (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Bike (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 Astronomy Domine (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 Lucifer Sam (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 See Emily Play (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 Vegetable Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 Gigolo Aunt (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Baby Lemonade (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 Octopus (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 Rats (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 Wolfpack (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
37 Arnold Layne (Robyn Hitchcock)
38 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
39 Interstellar Overdrive (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MYfcEThF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/eP09MwEdP8gNYEW/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/amnBG

The cover is based on a promotional poster for this exact concert. All the text and design is exactly the same as the original. However, I made one big change: I used Photoshop to reduce the entire image vertically so I could get the rectangular poster to fit in a square space. I did that for everything but the central image of Syd Barrett. I kept that unchanged, but cropped some off at the bottom so it could fit the shrunken space it was in.

Robyn Hitchcock - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA, 7-18-1987

There are probably thousands of Robyn Hitchcock concert bootlegs available on the Internet. But a few of them rise above the rest, and in my opinion, this is one of them.

The reason I really like this one is because it's one of his first solo acoustic concerts, coupled with the fact that the sound quality is excellent. Either this is a soundboard recording or it's an audience boot that sounds every bit as good as a soundboard.

Back around 1987, Hitchcock was mainly busy with his backing band, the Egyptians. He put out a truly solo acoustic album in 1984, "I Often Dream of Trains," but as far as I know, he didn't support it with solo acoustic concerts. His next solo acoustic album, "Eye," came out in 1990. After that, he started doing a lot more solo acoustic concerts. But such concerts were still very rare for him in 1987. The songs he played here were often quite different than the ones from 1990 and after.

This unreleased recording actually consists of both the early and late shows. This includes the entire early show (tracks 1 to 24), and only the songs in the late show that weren't played in the early show (tracks 25 to the end). One aspect of his live shows that I like are his lengthy strange dialogue between songs. For the late show, it happened that most of the songs included here didn't have banter before them, but some of the ones I didn't include had some long, interesting bits. So, in some cases, I stuck them in anyway, a little out of order.

Hitchcock was really bursting with creativity at this time. For instance, there's a long spoken section in the middle of "Raymond Chandler Evening" that was probably made up on the spot. He also recited two poems, one with guitar accompaniment and one without, that I don't think he did at any other time. He even made up a song about Donna Summer on the spot after someone shouted out her name. I had to double check with a Hitchcock song database (https://askingtree.com/) to confirm that was an improvised song, because it doesn't sound like one.

Nearly all the songs are originals, but he finished with a couple of covers, "False Knight on the Road," a traditional, and "Went to See the Gypsy," by Bob Dylan.

This album is an hour and 32 minutes long.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 A Globe of Frogs (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Autumn Is Your Last Chance (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 I Got the Hots (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Raymond Chandler Evening (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Trash (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Insect Mother (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Agony of Pleasure (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 The Man Who Invented Himself (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Ted, Woody and Junior (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 The Angel Upstairs (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 I Got a Message for You (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 Sleeping with Your Devil Mask (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 Sandra's Having Her Brain Out (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Glass (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 Recited Poem (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 I Often Dream of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Flavour of Night (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 52 Stations (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 The President (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 Guitar and Vocal Improv (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 Donna Summer [Improvised Song] (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
37 False Knight on the Road (Robyn Hitchcock)
38 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
39 Went to See the Gypsy (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wC3qd4kB

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/OZix9ZhFW7g1mEk/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/jjkiR

I didn't find any good photos of Hitchcock in concert in 1987. But I found this one from the Metro, in Chicago, Illinois, on April 4, 1988.

Robyn Hitchcock - Covers Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London, Britain, 7-1-2007

From 2003 until 2011, Robyn Hitchcock held annual benefit concerts at the Three Kings pub in London where he played one of his favorite albums by other artist in their entirety. I've already posted his versions of "Revolver" by the Beatles, "Hunky Dory" by David Bowie, and "Naff 70's Hits," a collection of cheesy 1970s songs. Next up in this series is the all time classic from 1967, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," by the Beatles.

Once again, this is completely unreleased. I don't know if the recording was an audience boot or a soundboard boot, but the bottom line is it sounds very good, though maybe not excellent. I did a little remixing of all the songs to hopefully make them sound a little better.

The only song I had a problem with was "With a Little Help from My Friends." That's because someone else in his band sang the lead vocals, while Hitchcock sang the main harmony part. (As an aside, his backing band included Kimberly Rew and Morris Windsor of the Soft Boys, so this was close to a Soft Boys reunion.) The problem was, Hitchcock's microphone volume was much louder than whoever was singing lead. So I manually went in and boosted the lead vocals wherever I could. The backing vocals are still too prominent, in my opinion, but at least it's less than before. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

After the Sgt. Pepper's album finished, Hitchcock went on to mainly play other songs the Beatles released in 1967, as well as "Hey Bulldog," recorded in early 1968. But additionally they played two songs by the Kinks from that time period ("Sunny Afternoon" and "Waterloo Sunset") and one by Jimi Hendrix ("Are You Experienced"). Furthermore, there was one song Hitchcock originally first did with the Soft Boys, "Kingdom of Love," probably a nod to the fact he was playing with some of his old Soft Boys band mates.

As usual, Hitchcock plays cover versions pretty close to the originals, in terms of the arrangements. However, they end up having his personals stamp anyway. And sometimes he does veer off, such as breaking into "In the Midnight Hour" in one of the songs. Plus, there's a lot of his typically strange banter between the songs that is always entertaining.

This album is an hour and 32 minutes long.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 With a Little Help from My Friends [Edit] (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Getting Better (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Fixing a Hole (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 She's Leaving Home (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Within You, Without You (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 When I'm Sixty-Four (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Lovely Rita (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Good Morning, Good Morning - In the Midnight Hour (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [Reprise] (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 A Day in the Life (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 Strawberry Fields Forever (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 Penny Lane (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Sunny Afternoon (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 Waterloo Sunset (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 Are You Experienced (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 Hey Bulldog (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 Kingdom of Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
37 All You Need Is Love (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PBtiv4ox

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ZehZ2BLEmEAmqN0/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/mWaaj

The cover appears to be promotional art made for this very concert. However, it was repurposed from a cover of a Sgt. Pepper's tribute album put out by Mojo Magazine. A commenter named Carlos helped me find the best version of this. I made a change to the bottom, replacing some text in the red area with more fitting text of my own.

Robyn Hitchcock - Covers Hunky Dory by David Bowie, Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London, Britain, 10-31-2010

From 2003 to 2011, Robyn Hitchcock performed annual benefit concerts where he covered one of his favorite albums by others in their entirety. I've already posted two such concerts, one a collection of "naff" 1970s hits, and the other the "Revolver" album by the Beatles. This time, it's "Hunky Dory," the 1971 David Bowie album.

Hitchcock has been a huge fan of Bowie's music for his entire career, so it's no surprise that he decided to cover a Bowie album. In fact, I'm surprised he only did one out of all his yearly benefit concerts. He started the concert performing the songs from the "Hunky Dory" album in order. But that would have made for a rather short concert if he stopped there. So he played another seven Bowie songs to finish off the show. Those were all hits from the 1970s, including "All the Young Dudes," which was a 1972 hit for Mott the Hoople, but was actually written by Bowie.

The source is an audience bootleg. Those usually don't sound as good as soundboard bootlegs, but luckily this one sounded better than most audience boots. However, to make sure this was up to snuff with other albums posted on this blog, musical friend Mike Solof volunteered to improve the sound with some remixing. He boosted the lead vocals relative to the instruments for all the songs. In my opinion, that was a significant improvement.

Like the other annual benefit concerts he did, he played with a full band that attempted to duplicate the original recordings as much as possible. They did a good job of that, even nailing little details, yet it was still very much a Hitchcock performance with his distinctive singing style and banter. 

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Changes (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Oh, You Pretty Things (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Eight Line Poem (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Life on Mars (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Kooks (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Quicksand (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Fill Your Heart (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Andy Warhol (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Song for Bob Dylan (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 Queen Bitch (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 The Bewlay Brothers (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Soul Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 The Jean Genie (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 Rebel Rebel (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 Golden Years (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 TVC-15 (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 All the Young Dudes (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 Sound and Vision (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15932462/RobynH_2010_HunkyDryThreeKingsClerkenwell__10-31-2010_atse.zip.html

 At first, I didn't know what to do for the cover art. So I did an Internet search for images related to David Bowie and Hunky Dory. I found a photo of Bowie in 1972, during his Ziggy Stardust persona phase, with the Hunky Dory album in his hands. That gave me an idea. I found a photo of Hitchcock in 1986 with his face at a similar angle and similar lighting. Then I pasted his face over Bowie's. The result is pretty weird, but hopefully in a good, amusing way.

Robyn Hitchcock - Covers Revolver by the Beatles, Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London, Britain, 8-29-2011

From 2003 to 2011, Robyn Hitchcock performed a series of charity concerts that benefited the victims of the Iraq War. There was about one such concert a year, and they almost always involved Hitchcock covering an entire album, and were always held at the small Three Kings pub in London. Back in April 2023, I posted the first one he did, which consisted of covers of "naff" 1970s hits. It's time I post another one, so here you are.

This actually is the last of these concerts. I picked it mainly because I remember the sound quality was especially good for the series. I believe all the recordings are audience bootlegs, and some just sound okay. This one, though, was nearly soundboard quality. The one snag was that the lead vocals were often low in the mix, and the drums were too high in the mix. But that's the kind of thing I can fix with the audio editing program UVR5, so that's what I did for every single song here. I believe it sounds markedly better than before. Now, I think this could easily be mistaken for a true soundboard boot.

Hitchcock is a huge Beatles fan, and he's covered the Beatles albums "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "The White Album," and "Abbey Road" in this concert series. This time, he did the 1966 Beatles album "Revolver." He played the songs in the exact same order as the album, starting from the first song. But that doesn't make for a very long concert, so when he finished with "Revolver," he played an additional bunch of covers. He did the Beatles songs "Rain," "Old Brown Shoe," and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." 

But oddly, he did even more David Bowie songs: "Soul Love," "Golden Years, "TVC15," and "All the Young Dudes." (That last one was a big hit for Mott the Hoople, but it actually was written by Bowie, and he's done his own version of it.) Hitchcock is also a huge Bowie fan, and he'd done a Bowie themed concert in this series the year before, covering the "Hunky Dory" album. I figure he had many or most of the same musicians backing him in that show and this one, so it would have been easy for them to do the Bowie songs. (He did all four of those Bowie songs in the 2010 concert.)

Speaking of musicians backing him, I think a particularly interesting aspect of these concerts is that he really went out of his way to perform cover versions that were faithful to the originals. If one of the originals had an oboe in it, he'd get someone to play an oboe for that bit, and so on. He even knew the little bits of chatter or other "Easter eggs" the Beatles sometimes had in their songs, and he would reproduce those as well. But at the same time, Hitchcock is known for his stream-of-consciousness style banter between songs, and this concert had plenty of that as well.

Just one song here, "Rain," has "[Edit]" in the title. That's because it was the only song I had that wasn't complete, since it got abruptly cut off before the end. Luckily, the song had a false ending when it briefly came to a stop earlier in the song. So I was able to do some editing to repeat that ending at the end. Then I patched in some applause after that, taken from another song earlier in the concert. 

By the way, I believe this was the last concert in this series mainly because the Three Kings pub was closing down. Hitchcock lamented that a bit in some banter during this concert. Of course, he could have chosen another venue, but it seems he had a special arrangement with the pub to perform these benefit concerts there without any costs whatsoever. Plus, the military involvement of the U.S. and Britain in the Iraq War was winding down around this time, so that may have been a factor as well.

This album is an hour and 29 minutes long.

I'm curious how much people like this sort of thing. I could post other concerts in this series of covered albums, but I hesitate because the sound quality may be rougher for some or all of those. I might be able to improve the sound quality in some cases, but I don't know how much. So I'd only take those on if there's sufficient interest.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Taxman (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Eleanor Rigby (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 I'm Only Sleeping (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Love You To (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Here, There and Everywhere (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Yellow Submarine (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 She Said, She Said (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Good Day Sunshine (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 And Your Bird Can Sing (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 For No One (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 Doctor Robert (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 I Want to Tell You (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 Got to Get You into My Life (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 Tomorrow Never Knows (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 Soul Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Golden Years (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 TVC15 (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 Rain (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 Old Brown Shoe (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
37 I Want You [She's So Heavy] (Robyn Hitchcock)
38 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
39 All the Young Dudes (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15824556/RobynH_2011_RvolvrThreeKingsClerkenwell__8-29-2011_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from a YouTube video of a song, "Eleanor Rigby," from this exact concert.

The Soft Boys - The Astoria, London, Britain, 1-13-1994

I recently commented here that I hadn't posted enough (a.k.a. any) live albums from the Soft Boys, so here's concert from them. The Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock's first band, broke in 1981. But they've reunited occasionally since then. This was part of a very brief reunion in 1994 to help promote the release of a best of compilation called "1976-81."

This was officially released, so the sound quality is great. But I'm posting it because it's long out of print. In fact, it was only ever released on cassette in a limited way. I don't even think anyone makes new cassettes anymore.

Although Hitchcock went on to have success with a solo career between 1981 and the year of this concert, 1994, this was strictly a reunion concert, with all the original members. Only Soft Boys songs were played. It's really nice to have this, because there are so few Soft Boys recordings from their main time together with this level of sound quality.

This album is 54 minutes long. I suspect this is edited down, especially since there's almost no banter between songs.

01 Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole (Soft Boys)
02 The Face of Death (Soft Boys)
03 Queen of Eyes (Soft Boys)
04 The Pigworker (Soft Boys)
05 Underwater Moonlight (Soft Boys)
06 Old Pervert (Soft Boys)
07 Hear My Brane (Soft Boys)
08 Where Are the Prawns (Soft Boys)
09 Insanely Jealous (Soft Boys)
10 Kingdom of Love (Soft Boys)
11 talk (Soft Boys)
12 Give It to the Soft Boys (Soft Boys)
13 Only the Stones Remain (Soft Boys)
14 Zipper in My Spine (Soft Boys)
15 talk (Soft Boys)
16 I Wanna Destroy You (Soft Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274766/TSoftBys_1994_AstriaLondnBritain__1-13-1994_atse.zip.html

The original cover was a weird doodle by Hitchcock. But I found this nice image of a ticket from the exact concert here, so I decided to use that instead.

The Soft Boys - Dingwalls, London, Britain, 12-7-1980

I recently said that I haven't posted enough music from Robyn Hitchcock's first band, the Soft Boys. I posted a 1978 concert album then, and now here's one from 1980. There aren't many Soft Boys live recordings that sound excellent. This one hadn't, but I made some edits to make it a great listen.

This concert comes from near the tail end of the existence of the Soft Boys, not counting occasional later reunions. Crucially, it happened about six months after the release of the classic album "Underwater Moonlight," so it naturally has a bunch of songs from that. But it even has some songs that presumably would have been on the band's next album, had they stayed together long enough to make another album ("City of Shame," "I Watch the Cars," and "The Lizard," plus, arguably, "Black Snake Diamond Rock").

More and more, I'm realizing that a lot of recordings, especially bootlegs, have the problem of the lead vocals being too low in the mix. I can use the "one weird trick" of boosting the vocals to make everything sound a lot better . That's what I did here, using the audio editing program UVR5. This entire concert happened to have been filmed. The film has never been released, but you can find it on YouTube. Probably, that's why this recording sounds much better than virtually all other Soft Boys live bootlegs, which usually come from audience tapings.

Oh, and one other key factor is that, before I posted this, I passed it on to my music friend MZ. He did his usual thing, fixing the EQ and such, to make it sound that much better. Thanks again, MZ. 

One other problem this recording had was that there was a strange buzz at times. Oddly, it mostly happened between songs. I'm guessing maybe it was an electric guitar that was making a noise whenever it wasn't being played. I was able to use noise reduction to greatly reduce that, and MZ's fixes helped too. Note that, as usual, I only used noise reduction for the stuff between the songs, not the actual music. There's still some buzzing here and there, but it's not nearly as bad as before.

There was one other significant problem with this recording: the very tail end of the Pink Floyd cover song "Astronomy Domine" was missing, as well as maybe a minute and a half of the start of the next song, "Underwater Moonlight." So I used versions from another concert bootleg (Hope and Anchor, London, Britain, 3-28-1980), to patch in those missing parts.

This bootleg probably didn't get around much until now due to both the buzz problem and the low vocals problem. Now that those have been fixed, it can take its place as one of the best Soft Boys live recordings, either officially released or not.

The band was really rocking here, with barely any pause between songs. Note that they played the song "Only the Stones Remain" twice.

The concert is 53 minutes long.

01 City of Shame (Soft Boys)
02 Only the Stones Remain (Soft Boys)
03 Strange (Soft Boys)
04 I Wanna Destroy You (Soft Boys)
05 Queen of Eyes (Soft Boys)
05 talk (Soft Boys)
06 I Watch the Cars (Soft Boys)
07 Kingdom of Love (Soft Boys)
08 Leppo and the Jooves (Soft Boys)
09 The Lizard (Soft Boys)
10 Black Snake Diamond Rock (Soft Boys)
11 Insanely Jealous (Soft Boys)
12 Astronomy Domine [Edit] (Soft Boys)
13 Underwater Moonlight [Edit] (Soft Boys)
14 Only the Stones Remain (Soft Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15222438/TSoftBys_1980c_DingwllsLondnBritain__12-7-1980_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from the video of this exact concert. It's rather low-res and blurry, unfortunately. That's Robyn Hitchcock singing into the microphone and Kimberley Rew to the side.

The Soft Boys - The Portland Arms, Cambridge, Britain, 11-1-1978

I recently noticed that while I've posted a ton of Robyn Hitchcock solo music - over 70 albums as of May 2023, and more coming - I've posted relatively little from his first band, the Soft Boys. So I'm going to post a few more albums to try to rectify that.

This is a very odd concert, even for Hitchcock. Consider that 1977 was the year of punk rock, and while the Soft Boys weren't a punk band, they were a rocking band influenced by that late 1970s punk rock energy. So, to totally buck the trends of the time, not only was this concert acoustic in format, a good portion of the songs were done acappella style! And furthermore, even though the Soft Boys had plenty of good originals already, most of the songs were covers from the 1950s or earlier, often quite obscure ones. (The only originals are tracks 1, 3, 5, 8, 22, and 24.) In 1978, there wasn't exactly a clamor for songs like "The Deck of Cards" by T. Texas Tyler in 1948 or "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" by Shep Fields Rippling Rhythm in 1937. But that's one thing I like about Hitchcock, that he's so weird.

Most of this concert was officially released at one point, but in a limited way, for a limited time. It came out as "Live at the Portland Arms" in the 1980s on cassette and vinyl, but never on CD or any other format. And that record is long out of print. It also didn't include all the songs, but some extras came out on bootleg with the same high sound quality. Apparently, just one song is missing, the original "Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole," which was the second to last song. However, "Caroline Says" may also have been played.

I'm still puzzled how or why this concert came to be. This is the only Soft Boys concert I know of in the acoustic/ acappella format. According to the Hitchcock database askingtree.com, many of the songs here were only played one time ever by the Soft Boys or Hitchcock solo, such as "My Evaline," "Horns Large Horns," "Wish I Had My Baby," "White Shoe Blues," "In the Mood," and so on. Yet they must have practiced quite a bit to get the acappella harmonies right. Maybe it was all done with the intention of making that limited release live record. But for whatever reason, it's really nice that we have this.

Even though most of this was officially released, I still needed to do a lot of editing to make it sound better. The songs were fine, but the volume of the banter between songs was quite low. Furthermore, it was often obscured by crowd noise. I used the UVR5 audio editing program to add volume and clarity. And by the way, there's a lot of talking. It's interesting to see that even back at the beginning of his music career, Hitchcock had the exact same kind of stream of consciousness surreal banter that he'd been known for in later decades.

By the way, a couple of the songs are songs by other band members than Hitchcock, but I don't have the details on that. Also, there is a claim that the concert actually took place on January 13, 1979. But I haven't been able to confirm that, so I'm sticking with the dates from the official version for now.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Give It to the Soft Boys (Soft Boys)
02 talk (Soft Boys)
03 Sandra's Having Her Brain Out (Soft Boys)
04 talk (Soft Boys)
05 Give Me a Spanner, Ralph (Soft Boys)
06 My Evaline (Soft Boys)
07 talk (Soft Boys)
08 Human Music (Soft Boys)
09 talk (Soft Boys)
10 I Like Bananas [Because They Have No Bones] (Soft Boys)
11 talk (Soft Boys)
12 Horns Large Horns (Soft Boys)
13 talk (Soft Boys)
14 Book of Love (Soft Boys)
15 Wish I Had My Baby (Soft Boys)
16 talk (Soft Boys)
17 White Shoe Blues (Soft Boys)
18 In the Mood (Soft Boys)
19 talk (Soft Boys)
20 That's When Your Heartaches Begin (Soft Boys)
21 talk (Soft Boys)
22 Have a Heart, Betty [I'm Not Fireproof] (Soft Boys)
23 talk (Soft Boys)
24 The Duke of Squeeze (Soft Boys)
25 talk (Soft Boys)
26 All Shook Up (Soft Boys)
27 Postman's Knock (Soft Boys)
28 Deck of Cards (Soft Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15215229/TSoftBys_1978_ThPortlndArmsCmbridgeBritain__11-1-1978_atse.zip.html

Good photos of the Soft Boys in concert are few and far between. I couldn't find any that didn't show them playing electric instruments, which doesn't fit this concert. So instead I went with a photo of the venue. The small size of the place helps show what an intimate performance it must have been.

Robyn Hitchcock - Naff Hits of the 1970s - Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London, Britain, 4-20-2003

First off, what does the word "naff" mean? I'd never heard of the word prior to finding this concert. According to the dictionary, it's British slang for "lacking style or good taste, vulgar, or unfashionable." In 2003, the U.S. and Britain invaded Iraq. The war appeared to be over quickly by the time of this concert, though that turned out only to be a lull, and the war would go on for years. Robyn Hitchcock performed this concert for a non-profit to help victims of the war. It must have raised a pretty small amount of money, considering the venue could only less than a 100 people. But Hitchcock liked the idea and repeated the benefit concert at that venue about once a year until 2011.

Each of these concerts would focus on doing cover songs of a certain type. For this one, he explicitly used the word "naff," and targets 1970s hits. However, not all of the songs were naff, although most were. He slipped in some songs by "cool" artists like Wire, David Bowie and Lou Reed.

Hitchcock and his band clearly had a fun time with this concept. He was backed by Kimberley Rew and Morris Windsor, who, fittingly, were in the Soft Boys with him in the 1970s. From the song "Vicious" until the end, they were also joined by Jon Brion and Mark Ellen.

This sounds like an audience bootleg. However, it's very good as audience bootlegs go, almost rising to the sound quality of soundboards. But still, the sound quality isn't perfect.

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song (skipping some numbers because of the talking tracks):

02 Together We Are Beautiful - Fern Kinney
03 I Am the Fly - Wire
05 Funkytown - Lipps Inc.
07 Come Up and See Me [Make Me Smile] - Steve Harley
08 Love Don't Live Here Anymore - Rose Royce
10 Golden Years - David Bowie
12 Dancing Queen - ABBA
14 Ring My Bell - Anita Ward
16 All the Young Dudes - Mott the Hoople
18 Spacer - Sheila and B. Devotion
20 Stuck in the Middle with You - Stealers Wheel
22 Another Girl, Another Planet - Only Ones
24 Rebel Rebel - [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction - David Bowie - Rolling Sontes
25 Vicious - Lou Reed
27 A Walking Miracle - Limmie & the Family Cookin'
29 Sound and Vision - Rock Your Baby - When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman - David Bowie - George McCrae - Dr. Hook
31 Kung Fu Fighting - Carl Douglas
33 D.I.S.C.O. - Ottawan

And here's the usual song list:

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Together We Are Beautiful (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 I Am the Fly (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Funkytown (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Come Up and See Me [Make Me Smile] (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Love Don't Live Here Anymore (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Golden Years (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Dancing Queen (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Ring My Bell (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 All the Young Dudes (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Spacer (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Stuck in the Middle with You (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 Another Girl, Another Planet (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Rebel Rebel - [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 Vicious (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 A Walking Miracle (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Sound and Vision - Rock Your Baby - When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 Kung Fu Fighting (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 D.I.S.C.O. (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15821099/RobynH_2003_Naff70sHitsThreeKingsClerkenwell__4-20-2003_atse.zip.html

I must say, out of the 2,000 or so album covers I've made for this blog, I think this one is my favorite. I found a picture of a "naff" guy wearing a 1970s leisure suit. I then pasted the head of Robyn Hitchcock over that using Photoshop. But I kept the sunglasses and mustache of the original guy. Then I found a "naff" background image of disco dancers and included that. I also chose a very 1970s font, and font colors, for the text.

Robyn Hitchcock - Relix Studio, New York City, 11-8-2022

Here's a Robyn Hitchcock acoustic concert that took place just two months ago as I write this (in January 2023). It's unreleased but professionally recorded for the Relix record company, so the sound quality is excellent.

In late 2022, Hitchcock released the studio album "Shufflemania." This concert features five songs from that album. The album is rather rocking, done with a full band, so it's interesting to hear solo acoustic versions of those songs. He also did a Nick Lowe song I never heard him do before, "Lately I've Let Things Slide."

There also is a lot of talking between songs, with Hitchcock's always entertaining stream of consciousness verbal style. The audience was extremely small. Judging by the clapping, it sounds like he played for about eight people! He was playing more for an Internet audience, since this was broadcast live over the Internet, and sometimes he checked on-line feedback and responded to it.

By the way, I lost track of his home concerts in late 2020. If anyone has those going into 2021 and wants to share them with me, please let me know. 

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long.

01 The Shuffle Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 The Inner Life of Scorpio (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 The Feathery Serpent God (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 It Is Obvious (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Tonight (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Chinese Bones (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Mexican God (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Lately I've Let Things Slide (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 My Wife and My Dead Wife (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Up to Our Nex (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Autumn Sunglasses (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 All I Wanna Do Is Fall in Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 Noirer than Noir (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 The Man Who Loves the Rain (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15292570/RobynH_2022b_RelixStdioNewYrkC__11-8-2022_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Robyn Hitchcock - Acoustic Covers, Volume 15: 2017-2019

As I mentioned in another post, I recently redid the links to all of the Robyn Hitchcock albums I've posted, because I discovered many of them had died. And there are LOTS of his albums posted here, dozens. So now is a good time to get some of his older albums.

Over a dozen of those albums are part of this series of Hitchcock playing acoustic covers, usually from concert bootlegs. That's the case here as well. All the songs are unreleased, and all but one come from concerts. The other one ("Not Dark Yet") comes from a radio show.

So if you liked the other ones in this series, you should like this one too. Unfortunately, it's the last one so far. After the Covid pandemic began in early 2020, Hitchcock stopped touring and began doing lots of home concerts instead. He's played tons of covers in those concerts, but it's a different kind of thing so I'll post them in a different way when I get around to posting some of that stuff.

This album is 48 minutes long.

Here are the original artists for each song. He loves to do songs by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Syd Barrett, and that's definitely the case here.

01 A Day in the Life - Beatles
02 The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest - Bob Dylan
03 Wolfpack - Syd Barrett
04 Not Dark Yet - Bob Dylan
05 Wined and Dined - Syd Barrett
06 Sound and Vision - David Bowie
07 Rocky Raccoon - Beatles
08 If You See Her, Say Hello - Bob Dylan
09 Ring Them Bells - Bob Dylan
10 Mellow Yellow - Donovan
11 God - John Lennon
12 Dear Doctor - Rolling Stones
13 Dear Landlord - Bob Dylan

Here's the usual song list:

01 A Day in the Life (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Wolfpack (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Not Dark Yet (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Wined and Dined (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Sound and Vision (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Rocky Raccoon (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 If You See Her, Say Hello (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Ring Them Bells (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Mellow Yellow (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 God (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Dear Doctor (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Dear Landlord (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697096/ROBYNHTCHCK2017-2019_AcusticCovrsVolum15_atse.zip.html

All I know about the cover photo is that it dates to 2017.

Robyn Hitchcock - Robyn Hitchcock - Acoustic Versions (2017)

Robyn Hitchcock released a new album last week, called "Shufflemania." I just heard it and it's very good, with an upbeat sound. I strongly recommend it, if you're a fan. It's been a surprisingly long time since his last studio album by his prolific standards. The album "Robyn Hitchcock" was released in 2017. As it so happens, I've been slowly working my way through his career chronologically, and an acoustic version of all the songs from that album is next up. So here it is.

When it comes to making these acoustic versions of albums, I usually find acoustic versions for most of the songs, but not all of them. Maybe there's a few songs he never plays in concert, especially if they don't work well in the acoustic format. But this time I got lucky and found acoustic versions for all ten songs on the album. On top of that, I've included acoustic versions for two songs, "Love Is a Drug" and "Life Is Change," that were released on an obscure single a year earlier, in 2016.

All of the performances here are officially unreleased. Pretty much all of them were done in a studio setting though, such as live in person radio station performances. I think only "Sayonara Judge" is the only one that comes from a typical concert bootleg. As a result, the sound quality is generally excellent.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 I Want to Tell You about What I Want (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Virginia Woolf (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 I Pray When I'm Drunk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Mad Shelley's Letterbox (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Sayonara Judge (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Detective Mindhorn (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
07 1970 in Aspic (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
08 Autumn Sunglasses (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Raymond and the Wires (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Time Coast (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
11 Love Is a Drag (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
12 Life Is Change (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274653/RobynH_2017_RobynHitchAcousticVersions_atse.zip.html

I'm very happy with what I did with the cover for this album. I wanted something similar to the official album cover, but different. It turns out the centerpiece of the original cover is a photo of Hitchcock holding his cat, which then was converted and abstracted into an artistic version. I found the original photo, and replaced the art version with that photo. So while the cover might look the same at first glance, it actually has that important difference. I also added some text at the bottom.

Robyn Hitchcock - Acoustic Covers, Volume 14: 2016

It's been a while since I've posted anything from Robyn Hitchcock, and a still have plenty to post before catching up to current day, so here's another album from him. It's yet another in the very long series of acoustic covers. I just have one more to post after this until the start of the Covid pandemic (where he began playing tons of home concerts with even more acoustic covers).

As with his other acoustic covers, he doesn't try to radically reinvent any of the songs, but he performs all of them very well, and has impeccable taste in source material.

Hitchcock is nothing if not consistent about the musicians he loves the most. Most of his favorites are featured here, though there's no Syd Barrett, and he did two John Lennon songs instead of Beatles ones. The first three songs are David Bowie songs because this took place right after Bowie died.

As with the vast majority of the volumes in this series, all the performances here are officially unreleased. They come from concert bootlegs. Not all of those are soundboard sourced, so the sound quality isn't always excellent. But it's generally at least very good. For the song "Quicksand," there were a few annoying "woo-hoo" noises from the audience in the middle of the song. So I used audio editing software to get rid of that, thus the "[Edit]" in the title.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Quicksand - David Bowie
02 Soul Love - David Bowie
03 The Prettiest Star - David Bowie
04 Pancho and Lefty - Townes Van Zandt
05 Let It Be Me - Everly Brothers
06 Candy Says - Velvet Underground
07 Pale Blue Eyes - Velvet Underground
08 Isolation - John Lennon
09 No. 9 Dream - John Lennon
10 October Song - Incredible String Band
11 Just like a Woman - Bob Dylan
12 The Butcher - Leonard Cohen
13 Isis - Bob Dylan

Here's the usual song list:

01 Quicksand [Edit] (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Soul Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 The Prettiest Star (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
04 Pancho and Lefty (Robyn Hitchcock & Grant-Lee Phillips)
05 Let It Be Me (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
06 Candy Says (Robyn Hitchcock with Sean Nelson & Emma Swift)
07 Pale Blue Eyes (Robyn Hitchcock with Sean Nelson & Emma Swift)
08 Isolation (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 No. 9 Dream (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 October Song (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Just like a Woman (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
12 The Butcher (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Isis (Robyn Hitchcock)

This album is 52 minutes long. 

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274627/RobynH_2016_AcousticCoversVolume14_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a 2016 concert, but I don't recall the details.

Robyn Hitchcock - Acoustic Covers, Volume 13: 2014-2015

Yesterday, I posted a Robyn Hitchcock album ("Mossy Liquor - Acoustic Versions") that I thought I'd posted a long time ago, but accidentally missed. I found that because I was fixing the mp3 tags of all his previously posted albums while I was getting ready to post this album. Since it's ready, I'll post it too.

Over the years, Hitchcock has played a remarkable number of cover songs in concert. This is the 13th album in this series, and there's a bunch more to go after this one! As usual, they're all done solo acoustic style, and also as usual, every single performance is officially unreleased. Sometimes, I find songs from radio station appearances, but for this album all the songs come from concert bootlegs. The sound quality varies from song to song, but they're all worthy of inclusion, in my opinion.

Hitchcock has been consistent about who his favorite influences are: Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Syd Barrett, the Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, and so on. All the usual suspects are here, with the exception of any Beatles-related cover. 

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 New Age - Velvet Underground
02 Tower Song - Leonard Cohen
03 Seems So Long Ago, Nancy - Leonard Cohen
04 The Red Telephone - Love
05 Love Street - Doors
06 The Price of Love - Everly Brothers
07 Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell
08 For the Turnstiles - Neil Young
09 All Tomorrow's Parties - Velvet Underground
10 Arnold Layne - Pink Floyd
11 I'll Be Your Mirror - Velvet Underground
12 To Turn You On - Roxy Music
13 Tiny Montgomery- Bob Dylan

And here's the usual song list:

01 New Age (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Tower Song (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Seems So Long Ago, Nancy (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 The Red Telephone (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Love Street (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 The Price of Love (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
07 Wichita Lineman (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 For the Turnstiles (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 All Tomorrow's Parties (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Arnold Layne (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 I'll Be Your Mirror (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 To Turn You On (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Tiny Montgomery [Acoustic with Drums Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)

This album is 46 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274626/RobynH_2014-2015_AcousticCoversVolume13_atse.zip.html

I've lost track of where the cover photo comes from, but I assume it's from 2014 or 2015. According to a commenter, it was taken at the Union Chapel in London.

Robyn Hitchcock - Mossy Liquor - Acoustic Versions (1996)

Today I was updating all the links to all the Robyn Hitchcock albums I've posted. I've fixed the volume balance between songs, and also changed the mp3 tags, moving information from the album tag to the comments tag. I did that for well over 50 of his albums. (Some live albums didn't need those fixes.)

While doing that, I realized that I thought I'd posted this album ages ago, but for some reason I never did. So here it is, finally.

"Mossy Liquor" was essentially an outtakes album of the "Moss Elixir" album. But with Hitchcock, all his songs are good, in my opinion, so that doesn't matter much. 

 Every single performance here is officially unreleased. Most come from concert bootlegs. Still, the sound quality is pretty good throughout.

This album is relatively short at only 30 minutes long.

01 Shuffling Over the Flagstones [Instrumental] (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Cool Bug Rumble (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Wide Open Star (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Each of Her Silver Wands (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Trilobite (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Caroline Says II (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Dr. Lucy (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Where Do You Go When You Die (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Let's Go Thundering (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15272152/RobynH_1996_MossyLiqAcousticVersions_atse.zip.html

The cover art comes from a 1997 concert, but the exact date and location is unknown.

Robyn Hitchcock - Outpost in the Burbs, Montclair, NJ, 10-8-2021

So what has Robyn Hitchcock been up to lately? As I write this is late October 2021, I can report that he's spent most of the past year and a half performing home concerts, due to the coronavirus pandemic. He's streamed these shows on the Internet, but only for paying viewers. I'd like to post some of those someday, but only after enough time has passed so that won't interfere with his revenue stream.

However, in the last month or two, he's switched to going on tour again. He has a policy where he's okay with the sharing of bootlegs from live shows (and allows an archive of them at archive.org), so that frees me up to post something new from him. This concert from earlier in the month is an audience recording, but it's a very good one. It essentially has the same high quality sound as a soundboard. So I figure it's worthy of being shared here.

I didn't do much to this, though I broke the talking parts into their own tracks and boosted their volume a bit, as I often do with concert recordings.

The set list isn't particularly unusual. He's written a bunch of new songs, enough for a new album soon, I'm sure. But unfortunately he only played one of them on this night, "Ghost in Sunlight." He seems to have been in a bit of a John Lennon mood, commenting on Lennon's voice, playing a song he said was inspired by Lennon's style, and then playing two Lennon covers during the encore.

This concert is an hour and 42 minutes long.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Tonight (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Vibrating (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 I Pray When I'm Drunk (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Chinese Bones (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Luminous Rose (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Sinister but She Was Happy (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Sally Was a Legend (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Adventure Rocket Ship (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 Ole Tarantula (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Flavour of Night (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Somewhere Apart (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 Ghost in Sunlight (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 I Saw Nick Drake (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 Victorian Squid (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 Saturday Groovers (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 Mad Shelley's Letterbox (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 I Often Dream of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 The Queen of Eyes (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 I Wanna Destroy You (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 Isolation (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 No. 9 Dream (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 Madonna of the Wasps (Robyn Hitchcock)
37 Cynthia Mask (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5cKAx7mT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/qlQ8RQ8xDV7hGDE/file

The cover art photo was taken at another concert this same month, October 2021.