Magical Mystery Mess - and Robyn H.

Tired and feeling sick to my stomach – worried that the stomach virus that has been floating around Astoria – which took down The Enemy Below and the Insect Girl over the last few weeks will hit me just in time for thanksgiving. It is just my old paranoia showing up and making itself felt.

Anyway even great artists (with the exception of say Mozart and Bach) have stumbles, bad ideas or fallow periods where the inspiration just isn’t quite there – Bob Dylan had both his religious period and Self Portrait which prompted one critic to write “I said I would buy an album of Dylan breathing, I didn’t say I would buy an album of Dylan breathing softly” there is, to my ears at any rate, Beethoven’s utterly unlistenable Wellington’s Victory – Shakespeare has clunky moments (Henry VI part 1 for example – Joan of Arc as a witch – ouch) so even the gods stub their toes from time to time.

Even the Beatles – in 1967 they released a 50 minute TV show called “Magical Mystery Tour” and an EP – later an LP of the same name. Side note: In England at the time it was still common to issue a 45 with 4-5 songs on it (2-3 a side) both here and in the UK they took the original ep and added some singles to make a full length album – here endith the side note.

Frankly the film stinks – it’s not a total loss as we get to see a couple of Beatles songs done as music videos – but even there only I am the Walrus seems to have anything going for it or that the band even cares but the rest is a waste of time. Honestly,

The plot such as it is, are Ringo and his aunt buying a ticket on the Magical Mystery Tour Bus and things happen. Yep that’s it. Not a lot of this makes any damn sense or even is vaguely interesting. They were trying all sorts of ‘trippy psychedelic” images and again other than I am the Walrus nahhhhhhh. It becomes – oh lets do things like we did in Hard Day’s Night or Help but not care to make interesting.

The Beatles all looked stoned – and not in a good way anyway. They all looked doped to the gills because they are really really bored with what they are doing. And we soon we get really really bored – things happen but we don’t care – they prance about and we don’t care – they dress up in embarrassing wizard suits (yes it’s horrible – Paul esp. looks like a complete idiot) and we don’t care. Actually we care a bit because it is embarrassing as well. I don’t think much of drugs either way – they’ve killed a lot of good people over the years but that said it’s your own head but you have to know you can’t be charming and witty and spontaneous when you are wasted on was looks like a fistful of downer and red wine. And it doesn’t help that some of the songs are, well not quite the strongest the guys ever did – I love George Harrison but well, Blue Jay Way is endless and dull as hell and “flying” – the only Beatles tune credited to all 4 is just nothing – and there a fool on the hill has a maudlin undercurrent that always brings our the nasty cynic in me.

And then after all these oh so charming and light hearted moments – they go into a tent and watch a stripper while the Bonzo Dog Band does “Death Cab for Cutie” it adds a jarring sleazy low rent vibe to the show – which may have been the idea – they were all sick of the loveable teenybopper mop top image by then but still you can be an adult with out trying becoming a complete sleazebag – anyway the sequence made me want to take a shower.

And then it ends not soon enough – even at 50 minutes it was overlong bloated and god awful.

Anyway listen to the record – don’t bother with the film. It stinks.

Robyn Hitchcock.

Speaking psychedelic been giving Robyn Hitchcock some more spins or selections on the i-pod these days. Bob Dylan once described Woody Guthrie as “his last hero” and Robyn’s in that same area for me, either on his own or with the band The Soft Boys.

I just adore his stuff – where at least the best of it, it combines a childlike sense of dream world wonder, a romantic heart and dark touches – in one song he refers to romance as the little “kiss of skulls” and I think “Invisible Kingdom of Love” from Underwater Moonlight may be one of People with Insect Head’s Parents. There is a line there – “you’ve laid eggs under my skin, Now their hatching underneath my chin, all these tiny insects pushing through and all these tiny insects look like you” – Romantic Love to Robyn as to me – is not an alloyed wonder – it can be a thing of pure terror as well.

And in the same song a wonderful bridge “Ain’t no way I’m gonna be anything I outta be” which may sum up too much of my world view to be comfortable with it.

He’s not for everybody – but if you get him you get him. Best Alums are “I often Dream of Trains” the Soft Boys Underwater Moonlight, “Eye” solo and “Storefront Hitchcock”

For me – since he’s not afraid to pretty much say the first thing that comes to his complicated mind – he’s encouraged me as a song writer to go with things that normally you don’t think of as being song topics – People With Insect Heads and Killer Sheep.

Thanks Robyn.