The Egyptians' second A&M album Queen Elvis is another one that I don't put on very often. It has two of my favorite Robyn Hitchcock songs ("One Long Pair Of Eyes" and "Veins Of The Queen") and "Madonna of the Wasps" is a catchy radio tune, but the rest of the album sounds overproduced and underwritten.The Trouser Press guide calls Queen Elvis "the nadir" Robyn Hitchcock's body of work, and while I wouldn't go that far (I like it better than Perspex Island, for one), it suffers from uninspired songs and "too much sound". It sounds like Robyn is trying to write "hits" instead of doing what he does best, and most of the lyrics seem forced.
Robyn & the Egyptians were scheduled to open for R.E.M. on a large stadia tour after the release of Queen Elvis, so Robyn had to shelf a bunch of acoustic songs he'd written (many of which ended up on Eye including the song "Queen Elvis") and had to write more "band-like" songs that they could play live.
I saw two of the R.E.M. shows on that tour (Sacramento and Oakland), and many Queen Elvis songs worked well in concert, but not as well on disc. One of the best RH gigs I saw was a secret club show at SF's Paradise Lounge in between the two arena shows. The show was billed as "Nigel & the Crosses", which many people suspected was R.E.M. incognito, but tuned out to be Robyn Hitchcock, Peter Buck, Peter Holsapple, and Mike Mills playing a bunch of 60s Beatles, Byrds, Kinks covers. The "band" was named after Nigel Cross (founder of Bucketful Of Brains fanzine) and ended up playing a few more surprise gigs in Chicago and London that year, as well as doing "Wild Mountain Tyme" for a Byrds tribute.
"Madonna Of The Wasps" had a very cool video that got regular rotation airplay on MTV (not just on "120 Minutes" and "Postmodern MTV" -- remember that show?) but none of the Egyptians' A&M videos are available on youtube. Here's a video of Robyn playing "Madonna Of The Wasps" on Late Night With David Letterman, with Letterman's band (Paul Shaffer & co.) backing him up.
As far as decades go, the 1980s couldn't end soon enough for me..
On to the 1990s!
2 comments:
No love for "The Devil's Coachman?" That's my favorite Hitchcock song, and I think the production on it works just fine.
This might be my favorite Hitchcock album! I'm surprised to hear it's so poorly rated (of course I also love Respect, which nobody seems to like either.) The drum sound is dated, but otherwise it's a pretty no-fuss production job -- true to the live Egyptians sound with some good details here and there.
MTV was a big Hitchcock supporter for awhile there, it seems. I remember seeing a feature about Perspex Island that included live clips and interviews.
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