Robyn Hitchcock Gravy Deco The Complete Groovy Decay/Decoy Sessions 1. The Rain 2. The Cars She Used To Drive 3. It Was The Night 4. Young People Scream 5. How Do You Work This Thing? 6. When I Was A Kid 7. Midnight Fish 8. Night Ride to Trinidad 9. Fifty Two Stations 10. Young People Scream 11. The Rain 12. America 13. The Cars She Used To Drive 14. Grooving On An Inner Plane 15. St. Petersburg 16. When I Was A Kid 17. Midnight Fish (_Groovy Decay_ was comprised of tks 8-17, and originally issued as Albion [UK] # 110, 3/82; _Groovy Decoy_ was comprised of tks 1-9, 12, 15, and originally issued as Midnight Music [UK] #CHIME 00.19, 12/85) Bonus Selections: 18. Night Ride to Trinidad (Special Disco Mix) (Originally issued as a 12" maxi-single, Albion [UK] #12ION 1036, 5/83) 19. Kingdom of Love (Previously Unissued Mix) All Songs Written by Robyn Hitchcock, except: "Midnight Fish" written by Robyn Hitchcock and Dan Discovert. All Songs Published by EMI Virgin Songs, Inc. (BMI)/Two Crabs Music (PRS). R2 71821 1995 Rhino Records Inc. "I was just a man with a dirty white shirt." - Robyn Hitchcock It just won't do to savage the album you're holding in your hands, because, in all fairness, it has its moments. Experiments, even those gone awry, always have a certain charm. But, truth to tell, Robyn Hitchcock would prefer never to revisit the time and, by extension, most of the songs that became _Groovy Decay/Decoy_. After the joyous low-budget camaraderie of his first solo release, _Black Snake Diamond Role_, he found himself somehow tugged in quite the opposite direction. And so there he was, only a year later, in an unknown studio, surrounded by strangers, with Steve Hillage (late of Gong) for producer. The production budget ended up 24 times larger than what Hitchcock's previous band, the Soft Boys, had spent on their masterpiece, _Underwater Moonlight_. It is an index of Robyn's dissatisfaction at the time that he chose to release the demos for the songs - which had been produced by friend and former Soft Boy Matthew Seligman - as _Groovy Decoy_. But, as he learned with the "lost" first Soft Boys record ("It was crap, it wasn't lost; we know exactly where it is and why it's there"), people always want what they haven't got. "If it didn't come out, everybody would say 'Why?'" Robyn sighs. "People just love things that you don't release." He begins the story, reluctantly: "Bluntly, _Groovy Decay_, to me, was a complete abortion. I hated making it, I've never listened to it. The demos were produced by Matthew, and then Matthew had enough of the whole thing and went off and joined Thompson Twins, for which I don't really blame him. But he secured Sara Lee [bassist with the B-52s and Gang of Four] for me as a replacement. And I had these other guys, Anthony Thistlethwaite, whom I got out of _Melody Maker_, and a drummer called Rod Johnson. "Thistlethwaite was quite nice. In fact, he went on to be a mainstay of The Waterboys. He basically wanted to be in the Rolling Stones, but he's actually quite sensitive, he comes from Leicester, he's got very delicate hands, and he plays sax. Rod had worked with the Psychedelic Furs, but basically wanted to be a machine. I don't know what's become of him." So there they all were in the summer of 1981, not at the comfortably low-rent Alaska Studios Robyn has made his home away from home for the better part of two decades, but at the 24-track AdVision Studios, recording deep into the middle of the night. At the time, it all seemed a logical progression. "After working with Kimberley [Rew] and the Soft Boys, I figured that I didn't ever want to work with another guitarist again," Robyn says. "Kimberley was _it_. He was deafening, and I just didn't think I ever wanted to repeat the experience, nor did I want a milder form of it. I just thought, 'That's it with guitarists, it's been done as far as I'm concerned,' which I think was probably true, although I've worked with odd guitarists on and off since. "I was trying to do something different, trying to get away from guitars and use a sax, and I'm not a very adventurous person. I've worked with the same two guys [the rhythm section of Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor] for about 18 years, very on and off. I just wanted a different sound, really, and to use sax instead of guitars and emphasize more of a rhythm section. I wanted to do what other people were doing at them time, rather than doing what the Soft Boys had always been associated with, which was being retrodelic. I wanted to try to do something that sounded like it was of 1981, but in the end it was miserable. "The awful truth is I don't really like sax that much. One of the plans I'd had was to get a violinist, rather than a sax player, and I think someone said, 'Oh, you don't want a violinist, they're boring; get a sax player.' And I just copped out and got a sax player. I mean, Thistlethwaite was great; he played guitar and he's a good guy to have in a band." _Groovy Decay_ has a depressing, alienated air to it, and sets up a mood similar to David Bowie's _Low_. (Or maybe it's just that Robyn's vocals are miked so they sound a bit Bowie-esque.) Small wonder, since Robyn was not enjoying life: "Steve Hillage is a nice guy. He was one of the first people to have computers. He used to sit there at the end of the night and type in everything that'd happened to him. I couldn't really see the point of it. Then he'd put in - usually about 3:15 or 3:30 - 'Breakdown,' which was the point where I became too drunk to do anything and he would have to drive me home. 'I just used to get drunk every night, and I was obsessed with making sure that I could get to the pub before the pub shut. For a long time I thought that the pub was my mother, and if I didn't get to a pub before it closed then I wouldn't sleep at night, and I'd go to hell. But the truth was that I'd already gone to hell," he laughs. "It's not one of those exciting things where you can say, 'Man, he's really out of it,' or you can imagine what sort of exotic drugs I was on. I wasn't. I was just drinking beer." Still, it wasn't a total wash. "St. Petersburg" has a blunt depression to it reminiscent of _Nebraska_-vintage Springsteen, and "Night Ride to Trinidad" sits right on the verge of being a great pop song. Robyn is less charitable, though a pair of the songs do remain occasional parts of his repertoire. "'Fifty Two Stations' was a good song. And 'America' was a good song," he says. "They were actually written during the rehearsals, so maybe the band was a bit fresher with them, because I was making them up as we went along. 'Fifty Two Stations' I think I wrote in the recording studio, in fact. Probably those two are the only ones I like ... they haven't got any sax on them. I think the demos had some merit because they were done quickly, and Matthew was on them and there was a kind of spirit in there." Then there's the matter of "Night Ride to Trinidad (Special Disco Mix)." "They got hold of it and chopped it up and made it go round and round and round and round forever. I had nothing to do with mixing that. I remember there was a guy mixing it who had dyed purple hair; he had what y'all call 'eggplant hair,' and he was quite posh. He wasn't a punk, but he fancied himself a modern guy. At one point I was trying to mix something and he said, 'You don't really want the guitar in there loud, do you?' And I thought, 'Well, oh, no, all right, if you like. I'm only the artist, far be it from me. I don't know anything about music, sonny,' so I just knocked off and went back to the pub." In the end, _Groovy Decay/Decoy_ was a tough lesson, an expensive project to chalk up to experience. "I just let too much be done for me by other people who were saying things like, 'You get a proper producer in a nice, 24-track studio and some well-broken-in, well-trained session men, get a proper sound, and you'll have a hit record.' But it wasn't true. I tend to flourish in much more perverse conditions." Robyn Hitchcock didn't make another record for three years. - Grant Alden OTHER ROBYN HITCHCOCK TITLES AVAILABLE FROM RHINO: Black Snake Diamond Role (R2 71820) - I Often Dream Of Trains (R2 71822) SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 1995: Fegmania! (R2 71837) - Gotta Let This Hen Out! (R2 71838) - Element Of Light (R2 71839) SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE MARCH 1995: Invisible Hitchcock (R2 71840) - Eye (R2 71841) - You & Oblivion (Rarities) (R2 71842) Personnel: ROBYN HITCHCOCK: guitars, vocals MATTHEW SELIGMAN: bass, (1-7, 19) SARA LEE: bass (8-18) ROD JOHNSON: drums ANTHONY THISTLETHWAITE: saxes CHRIS COX: trumpet JAMES A. SMITH: low vocals ANDY METCALFE: piano (19) Produced by: MATTHEW SELIGMAN at SILO STUDIOS (1-7); STEVE HILLAGE at ADVISION STUDIOS (8-18); DAN DISCOVERT (19) Engineered by NICK COOK Remixed by PETER WOOLISCROFT (8-18) Special Assistance: RICHARD BISHOP & JAMES A. SMITH Original Cover Design for Groovy Decay: KEN ANSELL & ROBYN HITCHCOCK Photographs: GAVIN COCHRANE (Groovy Decay); DELANEY/MOON (Groovy Decoy) Reissue Produced for Release by JIM NEILL A & R Assistance: RICK GERSHON Research: PATRICK MILLIGAN & GARY PETERSON Legal Assistance: JON EARP Remastering: BILL INGLOT & KEN PERRY Reissue Art Direction: COCO SHINOMIYA Design: ART SLAVE Photographs: TONY MOON (front); ROSALIND KUNATH (inside) Illustrations: ROBYN HITCHCOCK Special Thanks: PAUL BRADSHAW/MOD LANG GET ON THE RHINO MAILING LIST Receive our special MAIL ORDER catalog featuring over a thousand critically acclaimed Rhino compact discs and cassettes. Send one dollar (check or money order, payable to Rhino Records Inc.) along with your name and address to: Rhino Catalog, 10635 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025-4900 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I SHALL BE RELEASED ... with a little help from your friends. Every year, in many countries, men, women, and children are tortured and help prisoner for their beliefs. Thousands of people are taken into "official" custody, then "disappear," while still others are murdered with no legal pretense whatsoever. These prisoners need a voice. That's why we support Amnesty International, an impartial worldwide organization working to liberate victims of human rights abuses. So please, raise your voice against this injustice, and find out how you can help. Write or call: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL[ USA 322 Eighth Ave. New York, NY 10001 (800) 55-AMNESTY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For tour, merchandise, and general information, please print your name and address on an envelope and send with a dollar bill to Mrs. Wafflehead, P.O. Box 1854, London, W10 4ZA, U.K.