Robyn Hitchcock - Shadow Cat - Alternate Version (1999)

I've been posting Robyn Hitchcock albums chronologically, but I when I got to 1999, I didn't post "Shadow Cat." That's because it's an officially released album that came out that year. I generally have a policy not to post official albums unless I've changed them in a significant way, so the artists can at least get some of what's left of a shrinking amount of royalty payments.

But I've changed my mind for a few reasons. One, "Shadow Cat" is an obscure Hitchcock album, even by his standards as more of a niche artist. It's actually a compilation of songs he did all through the 1990s. However, there's no information about when most of them were recorded. For the few that did have that info, I put those songs on the albums I made for those years of his career. So, if you're following my reorganization of his musical catalog, it's good to have what's left of "Shadow Cat," which is still enough to make up a full album.

On top of that, I recently came across a couple of unreleased songs from this time period (one is from 1999 and the other from 1998). Remarkably enough, both of them were created on the spot. Hitchcock has long had a habit of doing this, usually when someone in the audience said something that struck his fancy. For instance, I have a recording of someone shouting for him to sing "something about the IMF," so he came up with a song on the spot called "Something about the IMF!"

But normally, these spontaneous songs are done when it's just Hitchcock playing solo, because only he knows where he's going to take the song from moment to moment. But these two spontaneous songs are an extra treat because both of them were done with a full band. In both cases, they were played at a club called the Largo in Los Angeles, California. A talented musician there named Jon Brion is permanently based there, and he usually plays as part of a house band whenever Hitchcock comes to town. (He does this for many other artists, for instance Glenn Tilbrook and Aimee Mann.) Brion is known for being able to play along with just about any song, even one he's never heard before, even if it's a song that's being made up at that moment.

The two extra songs are "Gonna Build a Bonfire" and "Pigeon Lips (Shania)" (though of course the song titles are just guesses). "Pigeon Lips (Shania)" in particular is a real hoot. Someone in the audience suggested the phrase "Pigeon Lips" and Hitchcock started singing a song about that. But halfway through it somehow turned into a mocking song about country musician Shania Twain, while also going through drastic musical changes! Grant Lee Philips is also part of the creative madness. Unfortunately, I don't have more of the recording, but apparently it was part of a longer "suite" of songs spontaneously created in that concert about carrier pigeons, of all things. The comedian Paul F. Tompkins was also there and helping out.

So here you have "Shadow Cat," minus a few songs, and plus a couple other songs.

01 For Debbie Reynolds (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Never Have to See You Again (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Love Affair (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 The Wind Cries Mary (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 High On Yourself (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 The Cat Walks Her Kind of Line (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 The Green Boy [Acoustic Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Beautiful Shock (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Baby-Doll (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Shadow Cat (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Gonna Build a Bonfire (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Pigeon Lips [Shania] (Robyn Hitchcock, Grant Lee Phillips & Jon Brion)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122241/RobynH_1999_ShadwCtAlternate_atse.zip.html

The cover is the exact official cover to the "Shadow Cat" album, unchanged.