Stranded In The Future From The Founding Father Of Alternative Robyn Hitchcock
STRANDED IN THE FUTURE is a kind of dystopian self-portrait. It's about obsession, and obsessive behavior. Spanning from 1968 to 1978, it takes in the mythology that teenagers weave around their musical heroes and their early loves: in this case, one specific hero and one specific love. The book explores the way that Hitchcock, in his own head, linked these two figures to each other, although they never actually met.On the way, the story mines the incremental hangover of the 1970s as Hitchcock begins to play live, teaches himself to write songs, and eventually forms the Soft Boys. There's a side order of trolleybuses too! Hitchcock's beautiful prose will resonate far beyond the fans of his music, and build on the literary following he established with his first book, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left.
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Speaker 1: Wow, there you are. Where have you been? I mean,
it's about showing up right, You on your side, me
on my side. That's why we created aro dot net
A r r oe dot net because I know what
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when I'm in the middle of traffic and I can't
get to another podcast because it's on a different platform.
That's why I'm trying to do it all on arow
dot net A R r oe dot net. Keep your
eyes on the road and the job. Enjoy the exploration.
Speaker 2: I Bill's here with me, or I'm here.
Speaker 1: With Bill and we're all together harmony. How about that? Man,
let's create a song about that.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, here we are. How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic and I'm very excited to share a
conversation with you because you're releasing this book at a
time where I want to believe that today's music searching
and seeking through fans of music is greater than it
was during the days of Tower Records and even music Land,
because people to know, they want new things, they're trying
new things, they want to explore, and you're given us
that avenue of not only are we going to find
your music, but we're going to get the story as well.
And I commend you for that.
Speaker 2: Oh well, I hope you do get the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to bring it to life. I mean
that had to be an emotional draw for you in
order to bring it to life and to be able
to be you know, right in tune with everything.
Speaker 2: Uh you mean in him with what was going on.
Speaker 1: Then, absolutely compared to today, because I always believe that
we can't get anywhere today without yesterday, and yesterday had
to happen for today to happen.
Speaker 2: That is so true.
Speaker 3: Yesterday is the stepping stone to tomorrow. Let's hope there
is one. Yeah it was, you know, it was a
long time ago, but I like to I've got to
that time in life where I want to try and
make it, preserve what I remember, you know, and make
it into a story.
Speaker 2: So that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Did your songs become your journal then? I mean, because
I mean when you're like that, you charged up my
energy when you start talking like that. Because I totally
believe in keeping a written journal.
Speaker 3: I do that, but I didn't do that back then.
I think I just wrote the songs. I've journaled more
in the last ten years, I think, since I've been
based in the States. But my songs were I don't
know what they were. I just know that I wanted
to write them, and I spent a very long time
training myself to write them. And to begin with, they
were pretty terrible, but eventually I kind of learned to
do it.
Speaker 1: You know what I love about what you've done with
this project is the fact that the book cover itself
is such an attraction. The hot pink, a touch of yellow.
But I see clocks. It's almost like you're saying, I'm
a time traveler. Let's go for a let's go for
a trip through time, because there's something you need to
know about this journey. So are you? Do you love
time as well?
Speaker 3: I'm fascinated by time. I don't know if if time
is my friend, but.
Speaker 2: I know that.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't get anywhere without it, nor would the rest
of us. You know, if there was no time, everything
would happen at once.
Speaker 1: So now, how do you handle that? When time is
basically I mean when you jump from stage to stage
or from song to song, you know that that's going
to require time, and sometimes it feels like, well, I
only spent fifteen minutes on it. You turn around and
it's like, well, no, it was two hours, dude. How
do you get that back or do you even want
that time back?
Speaker 3: I think you have to accept how it makes you feel,
and just you know, sometimes time is going slower than
you think, Particularly for me on stage, I feel like
I've been up there for hours and actually it's only
sixty five minutes.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So I think time moves very slowly when I'm on stage.
It's probably the opposite of being drunk or something. I
don't know. You know, you you're I think I'm just accelerated.
When I'm on stage. My mind is working much faster,
so time goes slower. But you know, if you're not,
if you're not thinking about it, time just slips through
your fingers, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: So like when you're up on stage, Robin or you
like me in the way that you'll look out at
everybody and it's almost like you can see their stories
happening right before your eyes. Because to me, it's just
as entertaining watching people as it is for them to
watch me.
Speaker 2: Oh is that what you do? Oh?
Speaker 1: I love me a live audience. Oh my god, I
love a live audience. I mean, did you find yourself
being addicted to it?
Speaker 2: I seem to keep doing it, so I guess I must.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. You can't put it away in the top drawer,
can't you. I mean, this is one of those things
that it's just going to hang out with you for
a long time.
Speaker 3: No, my top top drawer is too crowded to put
that in there. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I'd have to
throw out some socks.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you have to go into a time zone in
order to write the music, because it's almost like you
have to become the actor in order to have the
emotion when you do start putting it with the instrumentation
of a song. Did you have to slip away from
this world?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how much I'm ever in this world anyway.
Some people don't think I am at all, you know,
I always I've always got half of me is connected
to somewhere else. I guess it's maybe it's just a
safety say, you know, locate the exit nearest to you
kind of thing, you.
Speaker 1: Know, But I totally understand that because people accuse me nowadays.
Oh you can't hear a word I'm saying. And I
look at them and I go, it's not that I
can't hear you. I'm just not here to listen to you.
Why don't you give me like a hands up that
you're going to speak to me?
Speaker 3: Well, I guess you look at someone and they open
their mouth, the chances are they going to say something.
Speaker 2: Whether you listen to it or not is up to you.
Speaker 1: Really now, Now, being the founding father of alternative rock,
I got I got to tell you. I was a
music director of ninety five point one. I was really
so much against alternative music because I didn't want it
to be played every five minutes like radio tends to
do with their songs. So I was fighting to make
sure that it stayed underground. What was your side of
the journey when all of a sudden it was being
played everywhere.
Speaker 3: Well, by that stage, I was probably not so much
part of it, you know, I was part of the
I was part of a small the kind of thing
that was played on Sunday night on MTV, you know,
one hundred and twenty minutes, and the kind of stuff
that was on college radio and uncertain I don't know
where was ninety five point one was that in Charlotte.
Speaker 1: It was in Charlotte, it sure was, yeah, And we
were trying to become the different one, and so therefore,
you know, alternative music was our only answer. So in reality,
we were the first, but then everybody started copying us
after the popularity of alternative music started taking over.
Speaker 3: I think once it started taking over, it was no
longer truly alternative is the answer, you know, So things
like when Nirvana and Pearl Jam broke it became mainstream
and that whole the whole grunge thing, but also r
Em you know, they they were definitely alternative with a
small A, and then they became alternative with a big A,
and then they became global chart toppers. So at that point,
you know, all kinds of stations were playing them. They'd
only play people like me still on the sort of
specialist shows. I had a couple of songs that maybe
got daytime play, but I was much more on the
other side.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Well, see, you're absolutely right about that, because what we
would do is we would do the cross format, which
is like the center dot was was the hit song,
and you were always going to be on either side.
Of that X. In other words, I would do the
center song out to the side, center song out to
the side. And that's how we got your music on year.
Was that we put you inside the mix, but we
had to go through formatics in order to break it.
Or we would create a specialty show and put your
music on that and give you the limelight there.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, thank you. That was that was much appreciated.
Speaker 1: Now to grow with that though, because I mean this
is pre social media. We didn't have that. Oh I'm
just gonna jump on to chat, GPT or I'm going
to go on to you know, some sort of like
LinkedIn or anything like that to put your song up.
I mean, if you were going to TikTok something that
was gonna be generations up the road, what did you
do personally in order to stay socially networked in.
Speaker 2: Back then? That's a good question.
Speaker 3: I mean, how did people communicate before cell phones? You know,
I remember people stopping at a payphone to call the
gigs to find out where we were playing, you know,
And so I think I mean it was actually largely
through the record company or the promotional people the record
company used.
Speaker 2: So all of what we're doing.
Speaker 3: Now would have just been on a you know, a landline,
a dial phone even, and so people would arrange phoners.
What were n if it's still called phoners, but you know,
so the short answer, arrow is it was all all phones, telephones,
not phones like they are now.
Speaker 1: Well, it was such an exciting time for radio, that
alternative movement, because it was like, you guys totally got
what the grassroots movement was all about. And that meant
that you had to get out there and you got
to hoof it up. You got to go out there
and meet the jocks, and you got to go out
there and meet the people. And that's what I loved
about that whole entire movement is it reminded me so
much of being a folk rock era more than anything.
Speaker 2: Ah, were you around in the folk rock times?
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you I played enough with that folk
rock to know I had to study it, yes, sir.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, okay, yeah. Well I certainly met a
lot of people, and I'm still friends with some of
the DJs now who are retired or you know, got
a Saturday morning show or something. But I've still got
some people I met wow forty years ago.
Speaker 1: Now, so did you. Did you ever run into those
jocks though that always thought that, oh I can sing
that song, I can have a good time with that song,
because I think radio people are just musicians that didn't
make it. So we chose a different form of getting
our microphone out there.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean.
Speaker 3: I think you know, you run across DJs who are
definitely performers themselves, and you know, would like to be
rocking out or whatever, and they do it at the
mic instead. You know, you get very extrovert broadcasters. You
I think you're one, you know, and it's great and
entertains people. It kind of caffeinates people.
Speaker 2: You know. It's a sort of way here we are.
Speaker 3: Let's go right, you know, Hey, ho and what I
call what I call caffeinated.
Speaker 1: He's the founding father of alternative music. We're gonna be
right back with Robin Hitchcock coming up next, the name
in the book Stranded in the Future. We are back
with the frontman of Soft Boys, mister Robin Hitchcock. You've
got something on here as a quote that really I
would love to see on a T shirt, some sort
of merch here, and that quote is your music paintings.
You can listen to Oh my God. Yeah, when I
came across that robin, I sat there. I literally I
had to I had to close my eyes and go
this man just spoke to my soul.
Speaker 2: Oh really, well, well thank you very much. No, it's good.
I mean, you know, my dad used to paint and draw,
and so it's just so I do.
Speaker 1: And so I.
Speaker 3: Think of myself as a visual artist. But I'm but
I'm in music, you know. So when I write a song,
I have pictures, you know, like like like Crase to
have videos. In the height of MTV, everybody had to
make a video to go with a song, otherwise you
wouldn't get airplay. You know, even people like me did
little low budget ones. And I suppose it's the same
thing basically means giving something to look at. Yeah, well
only my song's basically you shouldn't really need a video.
You just listen to the words and then the pictures
will appear in your head.
Speaker 2: That's the idea.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: See, that's what I love about the word interpretation, because
your interpretation versus my interpretation. All of a sudden, we
now have a conversation while we see you live on stage,
and we both come out with even a third interpretation,
because now we've seen it live.
Speaker 3: Well exactly everybody walks away with how they see it.
Speaker 1: But that's what makes music phenomenal. And that's why this
period in music history, with these streaming outlets, gives us
the opportunity to go explore Robin, to find you all
over again, to sit there and see the Soft Boys
and see and if people have never seen the Soft
Boys before or even heard them before, it's brand new, man,
it's brand new material to hate you hear that new
band Softboys. Oh you know they've been around for a while, right,
Not in my heart? They just arrived.
Speaker 3: Well, we just re released the first, the second Softboys album,
Underwater Moonlight, on Tiny Ghosts, that label that my wife
Emma runs, And yeah, you know we've so the Softboys
can be rediscovered anew. There it is Underwater Moonlight available now.
Speaker 1: So do you find yourself in love with the beauty
of the unexpected? Because I kind of like that shock
value of the everyday world when things hit you unexpectedly.
Speaker 3: I like the unexpected, although I don't really like it
when it happens to me.
Speaker 2: I like reading I like reading about it. I'm not
very good with surprises.
Speaker 1: That to me is like, Okay, somebody's telling me I
need to be writing a song or some poetry right now,
so you grab the pen and you start putting it down.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm much prefer to live in that world than
actually have to deal with things firsthand.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm very happy.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I personally do unexpected things to people.
I hope not too much, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, one of my favorite places in a book to
go to someplace that's very unexpected. I love going to
the dedication, and of course my mind is going, oh
my god. My unexpected moment right now is I don't
know who TK is? Oh my god, who is TK?
Why did TK make this part of the book. I
need to know. I need to know.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and I have no idea who TK is either.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but see, that's what's great about writing a book.
Now you've putting your words in people's hands. This is
almost like giving us that opportunity to return to the
old fashioned days in a modern way.
Speaker 2: Well, if you can, absolutely, what.
Speaker 1: Did you learn from this project, Robin? Because when you
go in and you start reshing, often everything that's happened
in your life. You get a clearer picture of the
journey that you walked on.
Speaker 2: Sort of.
Speaker 3: But I'm also selective. I'm not writing about everything that happened.
I'm taking the things that did happen that work in
a story, and I'm also inventing a bit. You know,
what I say is true, but it's not necessarily factual.
So not everything that happens in my books actually did happen.
Speaker 2: Or could have happened.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it goes off into a parallel world, but I
think it enhances the story. My main concern is that
people enjoy reading the book. Well.
Speaker 1: See, that's the reason why I like that when people
say based on a true story, Because in reality, Robin,
aren't our real lives based on a true story. When
we're putting it on paper, we lived it, but it's
still based on a true story.
Speaker 3: Well, what we tell ourselves is based on a true
story because we probably also, even without writing a book,
we probably remember the things the way that works.
Speaker 2: Best for us.
Speaker 3: You know, we remember things selectively, and we remember things
in a way that we can so we can live
with ourselves.
Speaker 1: You know, another thing that you planted inside my imagination
was a street that doesn't lead anywhere right away. The
very second that I came across that, I'm going, my god,
this Robin really does paint pictures inside my imagination. I mean,
they're sitting right there in front of me. But yet
my imagination just took off because you started that engine.
Speaker 2: Well good, I'm glad see where it takes you.
Speaker 1: So, Nett, do you find this to be a great
place of expression or do you find yourself wanting to
go in and now make a soundtrack to this book.
Speaker 3: I don't want to make a soundtrack because I lived
it that I was writing. I was writing songs at
the time, so there are songs, especially towards the.
Speaker 2: End that I wrote.
Speaker 3: There is a kind of soundtrack I suppose you know
it ends with the early soft Boys. But no, it
makes me just want to get on and write another book.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, what do you like about that process?
Because it's one of those where because a book can
take you anywhere between a year and a half and
three years to do, and then you have to go
through that damn editing with that editor and it's like, oh,
you didn't live at miss editor, and come on, you
weren't there with me. How do you deal with that,
when the editors come in to get you to kind
of shape things up a bit.
Speaker 3: I'm lucky they haven't done that so far because I
revise the book so much. Every time I write a
bit more, I read through the whole thing. So yeah,
it's pretty edited by the time they get it now.
Speaker 1: Not to sound like that we're being selfish or anything
like that, because I'm guilty of the crime. When you
do go back and read something that you've put on
paper to me, I get emotional. I do. I can't
hold it back. And it's like, dude, you live this
life and you're getting emotional. Yeah, I really do. You
get emotional as well.
Speaker 2: Well when I read back what I've written.
Speaker 3: Yes, No. The funny thing is it looks like a story,
and I begin to detach from it. I think, oh, okay,
here's my life as a story. It's almost as if
somebody else has fictionalized it, you know, So I in
a way.
Speaker 2: It helps me let it go. I think, which is
which is good?
Speaker 3: You know, I've reached the age where I just want
to store these little nuggets of experience for other people.
Speaker 1: So what do you do with that transition period? Because
the songwriter versus the book writer. Are they one and
the same people or is it that you You've got
to be able to have that separation there between the
two because the songwriter is always going to want to
be it's going to I call it twitter speak, it's
gonna gonna want to be you know, rhythmic as well
as short words. To the point.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good point. When I'm writing.
Speaker 3: You know, if a song occurs to me, I just
write it down. So it's it's not like either or
I can do both. You know, if I've if I
suddenly find a song lyric occurring to me while I'm
writing a book, I'll just write the song lyric down
somewhere else. But the songs of just little fragments of
words and melody. You know, you have a couple of
words on a tune and you grow a song from that.
But it's connected, it's connected.
Speaker 1: Well see, that's what I love about writing music is
that it's pieces parts from a journey that you've had
and then it comes together for somebody in this modern world,
and they'll never understand that story until they pick up
a book like this one right here, stranded in the future.
Because they needed to understand where did this life come from?
Where did this story come from? And you give it
to us?
Speaker 2: Robin, Well, thank you very much. I'm glad.
Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about everything
you're doing? Because I just learned about the Softboys re
releasing that album, so now I got to know more
about everything you're up to.
Speaker 3: Well, if you go to my website, that's a pretty
good one that has a lot of stuff that's currently available,
but it has my videos and you know it's got
some backstory, it'll tell you. I'll tell you what records
still exist, and you know there's I would start there probably.
Speaker 1: I love it. Well, you got to come back to
this show anytime in the future, dude, because the door
is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Arrow, I look forward to it.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today? Okay?
Speaker 2: Robin? Likewise, great talking to you.