The Soft Boys’ return from the underground history

After being lost in an underground hall for two decades, The Soft Boys have reformed to represent their brand of New Wave-ish music with echo of West Coast and psychedelia thrown in. The band formed in 1976 out of Robyn Hitchcock’s love for the vigorous punk rock and mellower (early) Pink Floyd sounds, well – his near-obsession with Syd ‘Crazy Diamond’ Barrett. Following variety of try-out names, including The Beetles, the quartet finally settled on the one history records and issued debut EP, ‘Give It To The Soft Boys’, in July 1977. Guitarist Kimberley Rew joined soon after followed by bassist Mathew Seligman in 1979 to complete, with drummer Morris Windsor, the line-up we have re-grouped.

But, The Soft Boys adventure – resulting in three official albums; the last, ‘Two Halves For The Price Of One’, was half live – didn’t last long and by mid-1982 Hitchcock had already started to establish a well-respected solo career. Twenty years down the road, the band’s reformed and made an album, ‘NextDoorLand’, that acknowledges their past but it doesn’t get bogged in it. This is The Soft Boys for the present time and we can only hope this phase will be more appreciated by mass-public; their releases have never bothered either charts.

The band were outta time back then because they included influences that weren’t hip and it continues, in a way: Hitchcock talked about Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds) and his signature-chord to add a bit of countrified flavour to this evening; such topic ain’t something you hear mentioned by ignorant pop- or rockettes of today. He’d also get more current and, holding a Rage Against The Machine T-shirt, announce that if they were really good, they’d reform in 20 years time.

Mixing old material – ‘I Will Destroy You’ got dedicated to G-Dub (US Prez George W. Bush for those who are not fluent in hip-hopese) – with cuts from new disc, the audience listened intently – in general a group of humans whose brains were contaminated long time ago – without displaying many body motions but clapping neared ovations. The proverbial hell-breaks-loose arrived when the title track of the band’s second album, ‘Underwater Moonlight’ (July 1980), invaded our ears! A mini-symphony, if ever there was one. (It also makes one wonder why The Waterboys never acknowledged their debt to this lot? Or, more recently, The Verve?)

This is old-skool rocking that these days is hardly considered to belong to the genre, now being populated by heavier bands (like Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age), it’s been downgraded to guitar-pop. Times may change but quality remains and this is a re-introduction to the diverse sonic world that has always been of interest to Hitchcock. Although all musicians become burlesques of themselves, The Soft Boys have managed to avoid the trap. They might be age-weathered (Hitchcock’s increasingly looking like a younger brother of Nick Lowe) but there is still yearning, drive and satisfaction of playing together (again).

The Soft Boys’ were velvet songs at the time when we had The Clash and Gang of Four raging against the political status quo, Magazine and Echo & The Bunnymen buzzing with producing more expansive music and more image-topical bands, such as Duran Duran and Classix Nouveaux, were scoring hits; the latter had five Top 50 hits with ‘Is It A Dream’ peaking at 11). It is past high time for Hitchcock and the bo…, men, to get truly recognized.