Live albums are a dime a dozen. Often motivated by contract fulfillment or a lack of new material, they're usually not even considered as part of the musician's canon. They're generally collected only by the hardcore fans, and are either overproduced or underfunded, so as to overlook the point -- which is to capture the essence of the live performance, to make you feel like you are in the room as the songs unfold, the atmosphere settles and the lights come up. |

As usual, it's different with Robyn Hitchcock. For his second live album, the singing/songwriting avant-bard took a totally new approach, which takes the form of Storefront Hitchcock. Filmed over the course of two days and four shows by director Jonathan Demme (Stop Making Sense, Silence of the Lambs, Beloved), the movie faithfully recreates the live setting: you get the inter-song patter, the fragile vocals, the nervousness and the juxtaposition of old gems and new material. The only thing you don't get is the big hair obstructing your line of vision. Demme has removed the audience from view, but left its tangible energy and responsiveness intact. It's a simple spin on the live-before-a-studio-audience formula, but it's genius.

But Robyn Hitchcock has always been a Renaissance man of sorts. These days find him holed up in London, putting the finishing touches on his first novel, The Ballad of Jacob Lurch, and his latest studio album, Jewels for Sophia, both due next spring. From his city cottage, Hitchcock gave a glimpse into the esoteric artist's uncorrected personality traits.

Why did you decide to do a live album this time?

We didn't decide to make a live album, we decided to record a concert, or to fake up a concert from footage in New York and make that into a film. And then there is the soundtrack to go with it.

So this album is many different shows patch-worked together?

It's actually only four. It was all done in a disused clothing warehouse on 14th Street in New York.

Did it feel like a staged event?

No, not really. I was concerned that there was a live audience. I was concerned with singing to the audience and their reactions.

They recently began showing Bob Dylan's Eat the Document at the Museum of Radio and Television, I suppose surrounding the Royal Albert Hall release. So lately, that film and Don't Look Back, the real Dylan documentary, are getting a lot of attention. Were you influenced at all by the director, D.A. Pennebaker?

Oh, no. I didn't have any Don't Look Back fantasies. Because Don't Look Back is a documentary. What Jonathan Demme was doing was creating a Robyn Hitchcock concert, which would then remain on film. The idea was just to create a show. That's why you don't see the audience. The audience is there, and you hear them responding to the songs, but you can't see them. Which means that if you're in the movie theater, you're just in the audience. And I've seen it screened twice where people have actually all laughed and clapped at the end of songs. It's very gratifying.

Why Demme in the first place?

He and his wife Joanne just came up to see a show, and they quite enjoyed it, so they came up to say hi. It turned out that he wanted to do a full-length movie. His idea was, let's recreate that show, but in a shop window. Or a storefront window, as y'all call it.

How do you think your songwriting has changed since you started back in 1976?

I think that I've realized how much simpler songs can be. I've been trying to write songs with fewer chords since the late Eighties. Because in the early days, I just thought a song was a series of chord changes. I remember in 1990, I wrote a song with only one and a half chords. I was really pleased. And I also try to have fewer words. It's just that it's not as dense as it was. I like to have more space between the words, or have longer notes or something.

Do you find that the words and melody are competing against each other for meaning? Which is more important?

I think people associate me with words and they go, "Oh, man. Check out his wacky lyrics," or whatever it is. And my words are more unconventional than the music I write. But actually, I think they all go together. I wouldn't swap one for the other. The emotion is in the tune, not in the words. What makes you feel a certain way when you hear something is the sound. The meaning of the words resonates later. So I think, definitely, the music is more important. The fundamental change in me as a songwriter since 1976 is that the music, the melody, the emotion, is what I'm after, rather than whatever impact the lyrics have on the listeners.

Maybe a part of maturity is not caring what people think so much.

It's probably a sign of some emotional maturity. It would be better to ask somebody who is more familiar with it than me. I know what I'm trying to do, but I don't know whether it succeeds.

Is the fact that you're critically acclaimed, but that you never reached mainstream success a point of contrition for you?

No. I'm still alive. That kind of speaks for itself, really. I've never supernova-ed and I never wanted to. I would never want to be all the guys I admired when I was young, Dylan included. They've exploded one way or another. So many of them are husks now. I think the big problem with my stuff is that there's been nothing that's encapsulated me. What I mean by that is that you can't take a three-minute song or video and play it for people and say, "This is Robyn Hitchcock" -- either you like it or you don't. Because I have such a broad spectrum of styles and things, and I kind of ease in and out of pop music, but I'm not necessarily an avant garde artist, I'm not necessarily an intellectual. It's not clear, really, where I belong. I can see that in some ways it's been a problem, and in other ways, it's been a blessing. I'm still working at forty-five. I've never been a big star, I've never been spoiled, I've never burned out. I've never really gone out of fashion. I think one of the things about Storefront Hitchcock is that it's the first artifact that has summed me up. If you don't like it, if the movie turns you off and the songs bore you, than you're not going to like anything I do.

HEIDI SHERMAN(November 2, 1998)