Customer Reviews

Sex, Food, Death and Tarantulas

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I bought this Cd for two reasons: Peter Buck of REM was on it, and Hitchcock was coming to my town to perform and I planned on going. I had not bought anything of his since Perspex Island (1991), but I enjoy a casual listen. This CD is excellent! The live cuts are well produced; so much so, if you didn't hear crowd applause after and before, you'd think it was a live studio recording. Hitchcock's backing band (REM's Buck, Scott McCoughey and Bill Reiflin from REM's touring band and The Minus 5) is superb and well-suited for this album's brand of power pop, and this CD includes songs fom the "Ole' Tarantuala" CD as well as some older Soft Boys songs. Standouts here are "(A Man's Got To Know His Limitations) Briggs", "Queen of Eyes", and "Ole Tarantula", the only studio song here.

Incidentally, the show was fabulous. Hitchcock is charmingly quirky onstage, and his band, The Venus 3, were having a blast. It was a bit surreal seeing Peter Buck perform in a club one week after seeing him get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of fame, but it was obvious that these guys were having an immensely good time, and the songs and performance proved it. The show was so good that I feel like I have missed out on some great music by not having invested in more Robyn Hitchcock before this. Afterwards, the entire band stuck around to talk to the crowd and sign autographs. Please go check them out if you can!

I was tempted to give this e.p. a few less stars due to the fact I got a speeding ticket while listening to it yesterday, but that would be unfair to Robyn & the boys wouldn't it (it was during "Queen Of Eyes", one of my favorites, I guess I got a little too excited).

Anyway, this is a cool companion to "Ole! Tarantula", it contains the title track (same as the album version) and six live songs from the tour with The Venus 3 as his backing band. Amazing sound quality and performances throughout, I'd love to hear a recording of a full set from this tour, as they didn't come to my town (Robyn did, however, come through on a solo tour shortly after this and it was spectacular!)

Most surprising are a couple of Soft Boys tunes reworked here, "Queen Of Eyes" and "Give It To The Soft Boys", both awesome versions. If you dig Robyn Hitchcock and his oddball style of psych pop/rock don't hesitate on this one.