Hithcock Ages Gracefully

"Over 40 you should have to have a permit to be in a band, and over 50 it should be illegal," quips Robyn Hitchcock on Saturday, just before his show at the Paradise. At 46, Hitchcock is fast moving toward his own age cap, but with a career of over 20 years already on the books, the veteran British folk-rocker doesn't seem fazed. He recently released a new album, Jewels for Sophia, and is now touring with a full band for the first time since the early '90s.

Hitchcock's career began in the late '70s with the Soft Boys, who broke up in 1980. He spent the '80s and early '90s with the Egyptians, steadily building a huge underground of connisseur-grade fans who came to shows as much for his surreal, almost Dadaist rants between songs as for the music. In May of 1996 he played a 30th anniversary remake of Bob Dylan's seminal Royal Albert Hall concert in a pub near the famed original venue, and later in the year he released a solo album dubbed Moss Elixir. In 1998, longtime fan Johnathan Demme, who directed "The Silence of the Lambs" and the Talking Heads' famed concert film "Stop Making Sense," filmed him playing in a storefront window in New York to create "Storefront Hitchcock." This year saw the release of Jewels for Sophia and a reunion with former Soft Boys guitarist Kimberly Rew for the tour.

Jewels for Sophia showcased Hitchcock at his best, spouting cryptic, conceptual lyrics over a mix of soft acoustic guitars and driving rock riffs. Its songs ranged from absurdist character studies ("Antwoman") to a genuinely haunting love story ("Dark Princess"). There are also two sneering but comical tributes: "Viva! Sea-Tac," on which he proclaims that the Pacific Northwest has "the best computers and coffee and smack," and a live hidden track on which he tells a giggling audience "Don't talk to me about Gene Hackman/he's in every film/sometimes wearing a towel/and if it isn't him you get Andie Macdowell." About his friend, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, who contributes to a few tracks, Hitchcock jokes "is never happier than with a glass of wine...he's more of a traditional musician in that respect."

But Hitchcock is anything but traditional, as his show at the Paradise would prove. It opened with a set by the soft-spoken British act Departure Lounge. Though the dark venue at first seemed to swallow the seated four-piece, they soon set an intimate mood with their introspective lyrics and friendly conversations between songs. The singer remarked after one ballad that "someone once told me that was the best song ever written about telephone break-ups." "Didn't you write that song about a long distance relationship?" asked the drummer. "Yeah, but I took it as a compliment anyway," came the sheepish reply.

After Departure Lounge's brief set, Hitchcock took to the stage alone, strumming his way through the opening song of Jewels, the misanthropic "Mexican God," on which he waxes Learian about "Moonly-lit cop-crashed garlic and babies." Hitchcock then embarked on a rambling between-song odyssey, describing two almost identical pumpkins standing beside each other on a lake shore, admiring each other. "It must be totally horrendous to be in love with something so like yourself," he remarked before launching into the next song. The songs themselves were a mix of old and new work (Hitchcock describes the show as "a resum of what I've done in music.") but it was the man's intermittent rant that was most fascinating. Interrupted occasionally by the entrance of other band members, he told of a higher plane of existence that is like a rock club, a dark place full of "the smells and spirits of the wreckage of the past, with things glowing off in the distance."

By the end of the night Hitchcock had succeeded in drawing the entire audience into his little world of metaphorical associations. Though he is often described in the rock press as eccentric (Details magazine once went so far as to show him Rorschach blots; the verdict was complete sanity) and frequently compared to Pink Floyd's Syd Barret (pre-permanent acid trip), by the end the crowd assembled was ready to call him a lyrical genius, albeit a cryptic one.

As Hitchcock approaches his self-declared age limit for rock and roll, he beginning to turn his creative energies to another medium: he is writing a novel. The plot? "It's about somebody whose past changes, so by the time the book ends the beginning couldn't have happened," he says. Odd? Certainly. As brilliant as his music? One can only hope.