This interview originally aired on KALX on May 14, 2026
Berkestir: You’re listening to Mighty KALX, University of California and listener-supported free-form community radio. And, uh, we are joined by Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift. And, uh, and, uh, welcome Robyn and Emma. Welcome.
Robyn Hitchcock: Thank you for having us.
Berkestir: Oh, yeah.
Robyn Hitchcock: How are y’all?
Berkestir: We’re good. We’re- Beautiful day … we’re good.
Berkestir: Robyn, you’re really busy lately. You have a new book, a new live album, and a new studio album. Wow, when do you find time to do other things?
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, I don’t do other things. Um, but, you know, the less time you have ahead of you, the more you have to cram in. So I’m 73, now is not a good time for me to sit there and go, “Oh. Oh, it was jolly nice, you know, being 56. What do I remember about this?” Or patting an old song on the head, you know. You gotta get this stuff out while you’re here. You have all eternity in which not to exist.
Sparkle Motion: That leads to my question, which is, as you get older, I, I feel that I, I wanna accomplish more and more and more and more, but I’m at odds physically with the ability to work nonstop. How do you deal with that?
Emma Swift: He doesn’t sleep. He’s a freak.
Robyn Hitchcock: I’m also… I also happen to be in partnership with Emma, who achieves an enormous amount and actually works harder than I do because, you know, you’ve got your own record out. You’re also on this tour. You’re tour managing. You’re doing the merch, you know. Em (Emma) actually physically and psychologically works harder than I do. I’m just regurgitating my songs.
Emma Swift: Let it be known that we’re both deeply impractical people. Yes. And we’re both very art-brained, but somehow in this relationship, um, in the both romantic and the work sense, I’m the designated realist. Um, so things are absurd, but things still kind of happen.
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, when we got together, do you remember I texted you and said, “Are you a romantic or a realist?” And you unwisely wrote back, “Both.” That was it. Yeah. I was on your doorstep.
Robyn Hitchcock: I was just checking, you know.
Emma Swift: But we like to stay busy and, you know, it’s fun putting out records and, and making stuff. And it’s really fun touring. We played our first California show of the year last night in Sebastopol.
Berkestir How was it?
Emma Swift: It was fantastic.
Robyn Hitchcock: It was so fun … terrific. Emma was in, and, and you’ve got both- Em’s got both her guitarists, so you were on incredible form. I watched most of
Sparkle Motion: You had Those Pretty Wrongs?
Emma Swift: Yeah. Luther Russell- The guitarist from Those Pretty Wrongs and, and Rick Lawler- Yeah … who’s an amazing electric lead player. Um, but we rocked up to the venue and, um, Robyn, before a gig he’s usually very- Serious and focused, and he’s got a kind of stern face, you know. Because he’s sort of saving that energy for the stage. Uh, but-
Robyn Hitchcock: I’m at my most sober.
Emma Swift: But Barry Melton was at the show. And, and Robin was just so excited, so.
Robyn Hitchcock: Barry Melton from Country Joe and The Fish. Oh. Berkeley’s own. Wow. My, my original guitar hero, the guy that when I was 15 I tried to play like Barry Melton. Everyone else was trying to play like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, and I wanted to play like Barry.
Robyn Hitchcock: And I met him 20 years ago in France and, you know, we had a bit of a jam, and then this guy was leaning against the wall outside the gig and said, “It’s Barry Melton,” you know. So stone me, there he was, you know.
Emma Swift: It was like Robin was 73 going on 14. So it, it, it infused the night with a particularly joyous energy.
Robyn Hitchcock: It was fabulous, you know, and, and it was really great to reconnect with him. I hope we’ll… God, he’s gonna go and play in Britain of all places, so I’ll, I’ll track him aga- down again soon while we’re still here, you know. Mm-hmm. But, um, yeah, no, I, I mean, w- Em and I, you know, we’re enthusiasts, I think it’s safe to say.Yeah. You know, we absolutely- we, we both love what we’re doing. Um-
Sparkle Motion: Well, your last book you were, you were saying that you were in 1967, and your new book is called Stranded. At what point did you start to feel stranded-
Robyn Hitchcock: On … in the late ’60s or early ’70s? Uh, January the 1st, 1968.
Sparkle Motion: What happened?
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, what happened was it was no longer 1967. Even back then you could tell, like, the money had run out, the meter was empty. It was all over, you know. Bob Dylan came out with John Wesley Harding, which was a sober, beige album with no… You know, it was stark, and everybody- Uh-huh … was stark, and The Beatles got rid of their beads, and ev- everyone just like…
Robyn Hitchcock: It’s been downhill ever since. So my new book is [00:05:00] the chronicle of, of the exit from Eden, you know, the expulsion from 1967. And here in Berkeley you can feel, um, and the guy that Barry brought along with him last night, you can feel the old ’67 vibes are still there. But, you know, they’re getting further and further away. So my, my new book is just me just leaving Eden and toddling away from the-
Emma Swift: Moaning about stuff …
Robyn Hitchcock: um, well, I, I was, I’m British, I’m gonna moan about stuff anyway. So it’s, you know, it’s all dismal, but it’s fun.
Berkestir: And Emma, you have a new EP coming out?
Emma Swift: Yeah. My EP comes out at the end of August. It’s actually, it’s digitally available, um, from this week. Um, but I, um, I really like old-fashioned things, and I’ve always wanted to have a 10-inch vinyl. It seemed like a particularly niche thing to do. So it comes out in August on 10-inch vinyl, and it’s just four tracks. And then after that, I’m, I’ve just signed off on the mixes for my Lou Reed covers project, and that’ll come out next year, um- Like your- … in good time …
Berkestir: like your Dylan kind of?
Emma Swift: Yeah Yeah it’s sort of the sequel to the Dylan project, or at least it’s a sister project to the…I like, um, I like the idea of working with just one song for covers rather than collecting a whole bunch of songwriters that I like. I like the idea of just working on one artist. It’s kind of like going to school in terms of, um, as a songwriter, “Okay, what, what can Bob Dylan teach me about songwriting?”
Emma Swift: And this time around, it was, “What can Lou Reed teach me about songwriting?”
Sparkle Motion: Are you gonna cover the metal album?
Emma Swift: I don’t cover- No … the metal album. I, I like it, though. What- I, um, yeah, I’m, I’m a big Lou fan … and, uh,
Berkestir: How have you decided what songs to play, or have you decided, and what are some that you play?
Emma Swift: Yeah I recorded about 16 or 17 songs. Um, and that’ll get cut down to 10 songs for the record. Yeah. Um, but, and you sort of decide, I decide in a very haphazard way ’cause I’m, it’s mostly if I put a Lou album on and then I think it sounds cool, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll be like, “I’m gonna play it.”
Berkestir: Mm. All right.
Gregory Scharpen: I, I just wanted to ask a follow-up about that. You said, you know, “What can Dylan teach me about songwriting, and what can Lou Reed teach me about songwriting?” Um, I think there was a story about Hunter S. Thompson sitting down to type out Charles Dickens to feel what those words felt like to come out- Oh … of his fingers, to kind of teach about writing.
Emma Swift: Absolutely. I totally get that. And when, when I was at school too, like, even learning poetry by heart was a thing that I used to do because you could kind of get inside the, the meter- Mind … and the mind and, um-
Gregory Scharpen: And the physicality, the idea of the physicality of it.
Emma Swift: Totally. And um, and the great thing about the Lou Reed thing is a lot of his songs, he recorded over and over again. So, like, I’ve done a take on Ocean. Um, and there are lots of recordings of both Lou and the Velvet Underground doing Ocean, and the lyrics change, and the phrasing changes, and, and the vibe’s different. And, uh, it’s cool to go in and explore what, what might work when I do it, you know?
Gregory Scharpen: Yeah. But, but is there a, is there, like, an articulable- thing that you’ve learned, or is it just something that you can’t really put your finger on but you know you’ve learned something?
Emma Swift: Yeah, I think the one thing that I’ve learned from both of them is that a song never really ends. For both of those artists, they continue to work on the song long after it’s been recorded. Um, it’s, it’s like an ongoing draft in a, in a way. A- and, and that’s kind of part of the great thing about live is that a song doesn’t have to reach its final form. If you play live enough, you know you can let that song shape-shift.
Sparkle Motion: Should we play a song?
Berkestir: Um, yeah. Um, Emma, w- I was gonna play, you wanna talk about the song Down and Out in Party City?
Emma Swift: Yeah, totally. All right. Um, so I stole that title from, um, from George Orwell. You know, speaking of taking things in, it’s like it’s down and out in Paris and London. Um, and Party City itself is a now recently bankrupt party supply store, um, where you can buy balloons and streamers and things. But Party City in my mind is also Nashville, and the Party City that I’m thinking about specifically is, um, the kind of Nash-Vegas persona that it has where, uh, you know, I moved to Nashville because I loved the music of, like, people like Guy Clark and Gillian Welch. Um, but there’s a whole other side to Nashville that’s quite gaudy. Um, and, um, and this is, like, about, like, basically being depressed in a town full of, like, really, um, jubilant bachelorettes.
Berkestir: Wow. All right.
Robyn Hitchcock: And they are jubilant. They, they are.
Berkestir: Let’s hear Emma Smith’s Down and Out in Party City.
Musical excerpt: Down and Out in Party City by Emma Swift
Berkestir: Wow. Wonder- wonderful song, Emma. Thank you. And I know, Sparkle, you had a question for Robin.
Sparkle Motion: So I haven’t read your new book, obviously. It comes out October 25th, right?
Robyn Hitchcock: No, July 7.
Sparkle Motion: Oh, it’s been pushed up. Yay. That’s the album I’m thinking of. The new album.
Robyn Hitchcock: No, the album’s July 24.
Sparkle Motion: I’m so wrong about everything. Anyway-
Robyn Hitchcock: Something will come out on October the 25th. Something will. I don’t know what but yeah, yeah. Make no mistake.
Sparkle Motion: Anyway, um, I wondered, I’m interested in the idea of stranded-ness because I too think the music of ’67 and around that period was amazing, and then the punk scene started in England. It started here as well, maybe here first. Um, what do you mean by stranded, and what were, what are you talking about when you think about that philosophically?
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, the book’s called Stranded in the Future. Because to me, I not only came of age in 1967, but I also stopped there. Basically, I’m a case of arrested development, you know? I was a very bright kid. I reached puberty, and the demands that the hormones made on my body and the, uh, influence of the outside world caused me to degenerate as I got older. So not only did I degenerate, but also the music around me degenerated. It was no longer the, the explosion that it was in ’67. You know, nothing, nothing could equal that. So by the time I was 15 and a half, you know, I was a nostalgist. So, you see me going deeper and deeper into… And I was a little old man by the time I’m 18.”Oh, it’s not like it was when I were 15.” You know? I, I, I wasn’t… I mean, I was always like this. I was always a miserable old bloke, you know? When I was-
Sparkle Motion: But the scene in Cambridge was also like that versus London at the time, right? Didn’t it kinda hang on to the…
Robyn Hitchcock: I didn’t even make it to, I wasn’t, didn’t get to Cambridge till I was 21 or 22 or something. I went up there to look for the people that- Formed the, the Soft Boys. ‘Cause it was a small place, and my ego was too fragile to, to survive in London. But Cambridge was sort of, it was a confined space. I could make my way around there and, and kind of make myself unpopular in various folk clubs until I found the, the hapless kind of people who would just follow me around as a songwriter. So I, I just colonized this little area, um, Cambridge. Yeah.
Emma Swift: And what year was that?
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, ’75, ’76. The Soft Boys started in ’76
Emma Swift: So the Stranded book though, it goes from 1968 through to 1970. ’78. Yeah. Yeah.
Robyn Hitchcock: So you know, a- and as this happens, the musical trends change. So you go through sort of the kind of big pink era and glam rock and all the rest of it, and then you get to punk, and there’s me still, you know, holding the candle of ’67 aloft. You know, “Come all ye who wants to be psychedelic.” And I go from sort of being passe to more passe to being a curio, you know? God, who is this bloke? He’s still listening to Revolver. But, you know, people also-
Sparkle Motion: No, but then bands like The Replacements and R.E.M., a lot of bands started to..
Robyn Hitchcock: No they were eight- they were the ’80s. You know, this is, this is
Sparkle Motion: I know, but you were their influence. That, I think that you influenced them greatly.
Robyn Hitchcock: I think what I, what I and the Soft Boys did was we were the missing link, and I think what happened was that we had the same record collections. And basically, uh, not long afterwards, a bunch of slightly younger Americans were also realizing that they liked listening to, you know, Syd Barrett and, uh, and Revolver and Jimi Hendrix and, um, Satanic Majesties Request and Country Joe and all the rest of it.
Robyn Hitchcock: And actually, there were quite a lot of…It built up. You know, I was, we might’ve been the first people to go public about it, but by the ’80s, like the, you’re talking about Paisley Underground, there was quite a lot of American kids who felt the same- and they latched onto us, me and the Soft Boys, um, our records because they could see we were into the same stuff.
Robyn Hitchcock: I don’t think I influenced them at all. I think, but what I think we did was just act as a sort of bridge, you know- Oh, a catalyst … oh, someone else, someone else is listening to that stuff.. You know, we were- Thankfully, yeah … and I think that our function was to be a, a conduit, but I don’t think I had any influence at all stylistically um, indeed because I had no style. I simply, I simply took the styles that people had and, uh, you know, a bit of backwards guitar, a bit of double tracking, a bit of phasing, free range lyrics. You know, this all came from other people. I just selected what I liked. And then people caught onto it. Uh, or they just realized they could do it as well. So yeah, we were, we were, we were the bridge, you know. Yeah.
Sparkle Motion: Yeah and so I follow you on Substack, and one of the things you said there was that you were talking about portals. You were talking about being a tenant in your body… and that occasionally you’ll be traveling and you’ll find a portal where, where songwriting comes to you just naturally.I was just curious where your latest portal is.
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, well, the, actually the songs come to me. You just have to have… I think we all have a portal in us, but some keep, people keep it more open than others. It comes, you know, even accountants have dreams.. But it’s just that I’m, I’m very un-self-censoring, so we all have things that occur to us. I’m just really happy to spill them out.
Emma Swift: But Sparkle was talking about geography, so, so
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, where the physical portals are. Yeah.
Emma Swift: So what, like- like, so how the Isle of Wight used to be a kind of a… geographic inspiration for you, and you would go to Yarmouth and sit in the pub and smoke your ciggies and then go, “Oh, I think I might go write a song now.”
Sparkle Motion: You talk about a conveyor belt and being a tenant- Oh … and you’re traveling along and…
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh I suppose there w- there are places. Uh, you’re right. Yeah. I’d sort of forgotten. Yeah, no, I used to, I used to pick up a
Emma Swift: like a politician.
Robyn Hitchcock: I used to pick-
Emma Swift: Well, I mean, I got,
Robyn Hitchcock: I’ve got a bad memory like a politician.
Emma Swift: No I mean like there, there was a question, and you just went somewhere else.
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, that shows-
Sparkle Motion: And we were nodding our heads yes.
Robyn Hitchcock: That, that shows diplomatic skills then. Yeah. Ask me a question, I’ll tell you what I want to actually say. Yeah. That’s right. Now, as for the price of carrots, they’re, you know, in real terms…
Emma Swift: When you went to Tulum, and then you wrote The Feathery Serpent God after that-
Robyn Hitchcock: Ah, but that’s because you got me to have that massage in a tree. And I hadn’t finished a song-… I hadn’t finished a song for three years, and then you said, “Gramps, go up in the tree.” I was, I was kvetching about my back. “Oh, my back. I’m in such pain. Oh, what shall I do, dear wife, Emma?” “Why don’t you go up that tree with that Mexican bloke and he’ll sort you out?” So I did, and he gave me some scrunchie back thing. And I thought no more of it, and then three weeks later, I was in, um, I was in Florida doing a, a Florida January gig, where they send all the old songwriters. And, um, and, uh, out popped this song in, in one piece called Feathery Serpent God. And I think, uh, Kukulkan or, uh, Quetzalcoatl, however do you pronounce it- was summoned into my system and then reopened a portal. Then I wrote that whole album that year. That was an interesting one. Otherwise, San Francisco is a portal, but I’m not quite sure what to. Um, and the Isle of Wight was one, but I, I definitely….
Sparkle Motion: To KALX!
Robyn Hitchcock: To KALX exactly. To KALX it’s a portal. Yeah, I wanted to come to KALX. Something summoned me up, you know. And will it create songs? But, um-
Emma Swift: You’ve written lots of San Francisco songs, though.
Robyn Hitchcock: Yeah. Yeah. Did I write them in San Francisco? I’m not sure. Or were
Emma Swift: you just thinking about San Fran- San Francisco as a muse.
Robyn Hitchcock: I think I w- I think I wrote about them, I think I wrote them on the Isle of Wight. But I’d been coming here, yeah. No, no, San Francisco, I would say is a trigger. I’m not sure if it’s a portal. The island probably is a portal. You’re either a portal or a trigger. Or more a muse, I’m not sure. Okay. I impose a lot of my feelings on you, as you probably know, as we’re married.
Gregory Scharpen: Well, that, wouldn’t that be both, you know, both pragmatist and realist and, or pragmatist and romantic? Trigger and portal.
Robyn Hitchcock: Trigger and portal. That sounds like a pub, doesn’t it? I don’t know. Pub down at the Trigger and Portal. It does. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma Swift: Have a nice pint.
Robyn Hitchcock: You know. But, but then I’ll sort of, you know, I’ll find that your songs are often sung to me, or I’m partly in there. They’re not entirely, but I, there’s bits of, bits of them where- There’s bits of you-bits of me … and there’s bits of other people. Yeah. You know. Which is what, same in mine. Yeah. You know.
Sparkle Motion: This is a little off the subject, but I saw that Gillian Welch is on, is singing on your new release, Robin? She- Is she a backup singer?
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, she sings harmony on a, on a song, but she also then does some, she brought some notebooks along, and she started doing a recitation. So she goes into sort of freak-out mode. She’s, she’s very off-brand- For her. I mean, she starts out sounding like Gillian Welch, which is beautiful. Um, and then she just starts ranting which is fabulous
Emma Swift: It’s fantastic!
I’m screaming. You know, I’m doing a sort of John Lennon r- in the background thing. Kimberley Rew from the Soft Boys is playing guitar overdubbed, and Gillian’s ranting
Berkestir: And what song is this? It’s called, uh- It’s called
Emma Swift: Ghost in Sunlight
Berkestir: We only have one song from your new album, I Am This Thing. Do you wanna talk about that for a second, and we can- uh play it
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, that was, you know, Emma said, “You should make another record. You’ve written that song. Make another record. So write, you know, write some songs with it,” ’cause M runs the record label
Emma Swift: I think that’s … I mean, uh, more than that, I went on tour for seven weeks last year, and Robin was at home with our cats for most of that tour
Berkestir: And how are your cats doing?
Emma Swift: They’re fantastic. They’re absolutely gorgeous. Tubby and Mr. Ringerson, incredible.
Robyn Hitchcock: Um- Yeah, so I, I had time to write some songs
Emma Swift: So Robin had time, ’cause it’s funny, you know, when you live with another creative person, um, it’s hard to necessarily disappear into yourself enough to write songs. So with me out of the way, I sort of gently pushed Robin to start working on another record. Um, and-
Robyn Hitchcock: I finished writing it. The last song on that, on, uh, Wasted, I wrote in San Francisco-
Emma Swift: There you go …
Robyn Hitchcock: in the hotel. And you have-
Emma Swift: It’s about the Isle of Wight
Robyn Hitchcock: And, you know, it probably is.
Emma Swift: Yeah so the new record is, yeah, it’s called- it’s called The Confuser. Yeah. And, and, it’s out on July 24th
Robyn Hitchcock: Yeah Okay But Emma’s the executive producer of that,
Berkestir: you know, so All right. Did you wanna introduce I Am This Thing?
Robyn Hitchcock: I Am This Thing, yes. Uh, Bobby Bare Jr. said, “It’s a love song to your parents,” which I thought is a fantastic way of putting it. Uh, you know, it’s, it’s a celebration of existence, the shock of existence, realizing that you’re contained in something that you won’t be in for very long. You’re wearing the costume of yourself. And, uh, it’s all of two minutes, 30 seconds or something. It’s a, it’s a very snappy celebration.
Berkestir: All right. Well, let’s- Let’s hear it …
Robyn Hitchcock: let’s hear it.
Musical excerpt: I’m This Thing by Robyn Hitchcock.
Berkestir: All right. Hey, we should give away some tickets to the show.
Sparkle Motion: Passes?
Berkestir: Passes, yes. Okay. Passes.
Sparkle Motion: Let’s do that. All right. These are two passes to The Chapel tonight, Thursday, May 14th at 7:30 PM. The Chapel’s located at 777 Valencia Street in San Francisco. It’s all ages and wheelchair accessible. And Robyn, do you have a trivia question in order for the lucky caller to get these two passes to see Robyn Hitchcock, Those Pretty Wrongs, along with Emma Swift?
Robyn Hitchcock: A trivia question. Gosh
Sparkle Motion: Yeah, it can be anything. Emma, you too. Let’s make it hard. Not too hard, but-
Emma Swift: Do you want it easy or difficult?
Sparkle Motion: Medium.
Emma Swift: Medium. Okay.
Robyn Hitchcock:. So let’s see. An easy one is what question would you like us to ask you?
Emma Swift: I know…At what recording studio in San Francisco did Robyn Hitchcock make the Eye album?
Sparkle Motion: The Eye. Oh, I love the Eye. Okay, here’s the question, and don’t call until you know the answer, to see Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift tonight over at The Chapel is, what record studio did he record Eye at in San Francisco? If you know the answer, then you can call 510-642-KALX. That’s 510-642-5259.
Berkestir: All right. And, uh-
Robyn Hitchcock: Wow, it’s a landline.
Berkestir: It, it’s- We, we do have, uh, some landlines. Uh, Robyn, on your live album that you made, it’s, it’s acoustic, and you did old songs.
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh. Oh, the Acheron sessions. Yes, yes. Yeah, they’re all old songs from the 1980s Um, that I originally recorded with a band, and now they are without a band, so they sound sort of folky. You know, the guitar was very well-recorded, so, and they’re songs I’ve played a lot. So it- it’s as if I was, uh, in a folk club, which I used to, you know, I started out in folk clubs before the Soft Boys. So you can hear all that.
Emma Swift: Yeah, in a somewhat confusing manner, because everything that Robyn does is confusing. He’s on tour for the most part with a band this year, but a lot of Robyn’s touring is just him and a guitar. So we wanted to have an album that we could have at shows where people, they come up to the merch and say, “Have you got something that sounds like what I just heard?” And I can now say, “Yes, this is it. It’s just Robyn, just the guitar.”
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, is that why we did it?
Emma Swift: That’s why we did it.
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, oh, God, okay.
Emma Swift: Why did you think we did it?
Robyn Hitchcock: I thought we did it ’cause it was because you filmed it.
Emma Swift: Yeah, I did.
Robyn Hitchcock: But I didn’t really know why.
Berkestir: Okay. And then, um, and then also, uh, not too long ago, yo u, uh, remastered and re-recorded, uh, A Globe of Frogs.
Robyn Hitchcock: Um, we, we remixed it.
Berkestir: Oh, you remixed it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, what was, what was behind that? Why did you pick that particular album to remix?
Robyn Hitchcock: uh- Uh, well, we just happened to have the tapes lying around. You know, so it just seemed like a nice idea. Um, but-
Emma Swift: And it’s also a popular record. People ask for it. And it had been out of print for a while. Oh, okay. Um, but, um, when you go to press vinyl, um, you need for the recording to be high quality, so you can’t … When people hear a, a repress and it sounds not good, it’s because someone is just repressing off, like, a, a reissued CD or something. So you kinda have to go back to the tapes, and then if you’re going back to the tapes, then you may as well have a little bit of fun with it. Because if, if someone wants Globe of Frogs how it came out, they can go to Discogs and buy that.
Berkestir: Right, right, right. They, um, it’s- I have, I have it on cassette- Yeah … CD, and vinyl for the older.
Gregory Scharpen: So how much fun did you have in, with, with this one?
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, I’m, uh, I had 37 years of distance between the original mix and this one, so I had, I had some perspective. So I, listening with older ears, and with Brad Jones, who I work with in, in Nashville, we just made it sound what s- you know, sounded good to our 60, 70-something ears, rather than whatever I’d done back then, you know?
Emma Swift: Some of the ’80s production has been sort of- shaved off- Mm-hmm … if you will.
Robyn Hitchcock: There was a patina that settled on recorded, in rock music in the ’80s-… which was kind of very hard to dodge, particularly the sort of what I call the snare drum sound you could land a plane on.
Berkestir: Right.
Robyn Hitchcock: Doosh. You know, that big old thing. And the way guitars got shrunk down to a little sort of ping, ping, ping. You know, it was a, it was the triumph of the rhythm section. And things got coated in, in digital reverb and stuff like that, and the, the bass was put through all sorts of things that’s made it steroidally enhanced. And plus I sang, I thought my singing was lousy, so I put my-
Emma Swift: ‘Cause I wasn’t there to tell you.
Robyn Hitchcock: You weren’t there-
Emma Swift: “That’s lousy. Do it again.”
Robyn Hitchcock: You were, you were only five or something. So sadly you were unable, and in Australia, so you were unable to, to come in and, and, um, you know, add your strength to the recording session. So although it would’ve been great, I’d have loved that. Um, um, so with that perspective, I was a- I was able to get in there and go, “Actually, let’s, let’s take a few overdubs off. Let’s, um, alter the bass and drum sound. Let’s make my voice sound as pretty as it possibly can.” Sadly, there was, there isn’t an app to get rid of sort of adenoidal faux London singing and, you know- So I’m still ah, like that a lot.
Gregory Scharpen: Not yet. There will be. Wait two months.
Robyn Hitchcock: But, uh, and that’s another reason w- to do things like the Acheron sessions, because I think I’m singing more naturally.. I, I had, I was very uncomfortable with my voice. I didn’t know what kind of voice to use. Um, now I just sing like John Lennon. It’s fine. But I didn’t realize that actually that’s what I needed to do. So I, you know, I’d sound like some sort of squawky Syd Barrett person or something, horrible kind of nasal frequencies, and I’ve got rid of all that s- I tried to. So if you hear on me on The Confuser, the new album, I’m singing the best I’ve ever done, ’cause Emma forced me to go back in and do it properly, and I’m not singing through my nose so much, and I’m,
Robyn Hitchcock: You know, I’m singing lustily, man. I’m singing like I’ve found Jim Morrison in the shed. There’s been a slaughter here. Yeah. Shatters the child’s eggshell mind. You know, so that’s what I’m going for now, p- pure shaman, none of this kind of- … you know, home county stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, I’ve re- reborn, constantly shedding my skin, rising from the ashes like a little, little cat. With folded down ears.
Berkestir: And Emma, how is it managing your own career, the record company, and Robyn’s career?
Emma Swift: It’s fun. It’s really challenging. Um, I think that, um, I mean, Robyn is an intensely productive person, and sometimes I have to remind myself to work on my own things. You know, he’s got two records and a book coming out this year, and I’ve got one EP in comparison. Um, but it, but I really like it, you know? And we love what we do. Um, and having a record label is a super, um, great way to spend time. It’s, um, uh, it’s not something I imagined I would do with my life, but I’m really happy that I, I get to do that. Um, and I love vinyl, and I love going to vinyl shops, and I- I mean…
Sparkle Motion: and you’re wearing vinyl right now, aren’t you?
Emma Swift: Am I?
Robyn Hitchcock: It’s an astrological gown.
Emma Swift: Oh. Oh, yeah. It’s, uh, it’s, these are… Yeah.
Robyn Hitchcock: All the signs of the zodiac- … in, in white on black- Mm-hmm … Em’s wearing. Yeah.
Sparkle Motion: So, um, w- I guess we should talk about the, what we can expect tonight. I’m just, I think our listeners would like to know what it means by live electric. How is that different than your usual show?
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, actually, San Francisco, I’ve played electric for a while- Yeah … because of Kelley’s band, and this time we’ve got the Nashville band. Kelley Stoltz. Yeah, that’s right. Kelley Stoltz’s band.
Emma Swift: But mfor the most part, like we were just saying, Robyn has… tours a lot acoustically. So, so this is the most extensive run of band tour dates in the United States in ages.
Sparkle Motion: Well, the last time you were here, that I Am The Walrus cover was so incredible. When you were at The Chapel. Oh, yeah. It was unbelievable, honestly.
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, we had, um, in fact, um, Luther, who, who was playing guitar on that, is with us tonight. He’s playing with Emma.
Emma Swift: But what can people expect? It is a retrospective look through Robyn’s career, about four-plus decades of songs with a tiny smatter of favorite covers thrown in at the end.
Sparkle Motion: Anything from The Confuser?
Robyn Hitchcock: Yeah, there’s, there’s, uh-
Emma Swift: But not so much from The Confuser that people won’t wanna come.
Robyn Hitchcock: No, there’s, I mean, there’s, there’s like, there’s like four songs from the 21st century, and everything else is, is from 19, uh, up to 1992. Mm. So most of the show, you know, I’m an oldies act, like Paul McCartney and Graham Nash. People come along to see me because it makes them feel young again, or because they missed it and they wanna hear these fabulous old things, you know?
Berkestir: Do you do the astronaut song?
Robyn Hitchcock: I do The Dead Astronaut, yeah. So I basically, I, there’s about a 30-year gap between 1992 and… I do, uh, I think Autumn Sunglasses is, is the first 21st century song. So I do a few recent songs just- Because I think they, they still, they work, you know? But, uh, but the object of the show is, is to make people feel good, you know?
Robyn Hitchcock: And, and especially in times like these, um, people want the reassurance of things that they heard when they were, when they were much younger, and we can still deliver it. I’ve got a much younger band. Em sings with me in places, you know, so, uh, it- I- we do a good show, and also on my defense or I think those old songs have lasted well. I don’t feel that my songs from 1980 or ’85 or whatever have particularly dated. I think they, they’re as irrelevant now as they were then, you know? So I, I’m, I’m from outside of time, you know? And so I, I think there’s no, there’s no shame in playing those old songs, and I throw in some new ones to show people I can still do it, which I think I can.
Gregory Scharpen: I mean, well, I think one of the things about, um… You were saying you’d… I’m, I’m not sure if I influenced anybody, but I mean, looking back at some of the ’80s stuff, the stuff that you released in the ’80s and even into the ’90s, the fact that such strange things got funneled through a relatively major label, um, I thought was, was like, how did he get away with this? And I think that’s actually very inspiring, the fact that you were able to be so unabashedly odd, um, and still get your records out.
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, I don’t really know how that happened, but I think a lot of people picked up on us on college radio, and they picked up on us at, in mom-and-pop shops, as has often been said, and a lot of those people were musicians. So when I worked with The Venus 3, you know, the, the R.E.M.- Mm-hmm … sub module, Scott McCoy, Peter Buck, Bill Rieflin, they’d all sold my albums and Soft Boy’s albums in indie record shops, you know? And later
Emma Swift: And later when you worked with Kelley Stoltz, he’d sold them too, right?
Robyn Hitchcock: and when I worked with Kelley. So, so we- yeah, I think there’s a lot of music- people who became musicians heard- Our records and probably thought, “Oh, well, okay. If he can do it, I can do it,” you know? Um-
Emma Swift: But you’re right. There was a kind of wonderful time when, um, major labels were, uh, permitted to sign things that were kind of weird. And, and now that we’re, every, music and particularly the big business end of music is so algorithm driven, um- It’s- We’re in this kind of, it’s quite a sad era really for trying to do anything that’s at odds with what is relentlessly on trend. Yeah. Fort- fortunately, we’re both too old to really care. Yeah.
Gregory Scharpen: But also, I mean, the boutique label that you have is actually really, really remarkable for that. The fact that you’re still getting stuff, really good quality books, really good quality records and pressings out there, um, is really, really remarkable.
Emma Swift: Thanks.
Gregory Scharpen: Yeah. And I, I really like the, the material that’s been coming out of Tiny Ghost.
Emma Swift: Thank you. That’s really kind of you to say. Yeah. It’s, um, it’s, it’s a really-
Sparkle Motion: It’s a great name.
Emma Swift: Yeah. Um, it’s just a lovely way to spend time, you know? And- Yeah … and, and the thing about being a musician is, like, I think all musicians have a tendency to grow up and hate their record label. And- and the only way to avoid disliking your record label is actually to be the record label.
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, yeah. Or, or in my case, be married to it. Yeah.
Berkestir: I wanna remind the listeners that you are listening to KALX Berkeley, and we are interviewing Robin Hitchcock and Emma Swift.
Sparkle Motion: As we approach the noon hour, and Arts in Review will follow this interview, what else do you wanna tell us about, hmm, what’s on your mind besides the, the new album and what are you thinking about these days besides that? Let’s talk about other things besides-
Emma Swift: Besides music? I mean, we talk, we think about cats a lot.
Berkestir: Cats. Yeah. And, yeah, I lost my cat.
Emma Swift: Oh, I’m sorry. Oh. When?
Berkestir: About two months ago we lost our cat. Oh. Oh. It was very sad. Natasha.
Robyn Hitchcock: How old was Natasha?
Berkestir: 13.
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, lord. Yeah. That’s way too young. Way too young.
Berkestir: Yes, it is too young. It is too young.
Emma Swift: How tragic.
Berkestir: But yeah, our Russian Blue who-
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, Russian Blue. Yes. Yes.
Berkestir: Yes. I know you had a Russian Blue. You-
Robyn Hitchcock: My parents did when I was little.
Berkestir: Yes, yes.
Robyn Hitchcock: My mother ran over the first one, but she got another one. Um, no, no, well, I mean, Ringo and Tubby are, God, they just, are, our two Scottish Folds that just turned nine, and I dread the idea of them not being around. Um- Yeah, it’s really sad … and that, that’s the worst thing about being away.
Sparkle Motion: You could maybe do the regenerative. Isn’t there a way to redo your animals now?
Emma Swift: Oh. Oh, no, no. Barbra Streisand cloned a dog some years ago. But we don’t quite have Barbra Streisand money unfortunately. No, no.
Berkestir: I, I would never
Emma Swift: No, you wouldn’t
Robyn Hitchcock: And just ’cause you clone them doesn’t mean they’ve got the same soul
Sparkle Motion: Of course.
Robyn Hitchcock: You know, that’s true.
Berkestir: Yeah, yeah.
Robyn Hitchcock: Um, I mean, I suspect Tubby, I suspect we’ve run across Tubby in a previous life, or we’re gonna run across him in a, in another life.
Emma Swift: Tubby’s eternal.
Robyn Hitchcock: Tubby is eternal. Um, Tubby’s my familiar, but he, he… I mean, he’s, Ringo and Tubby work for both of us, as it were, you know? Um, and they are, they’re key figures to whatever we’re doing. And, and indeed, when, when Em’s out of the house and I’m alone with the guitar and, or the piano and, you know, making stuff up, they’re always there.
Sparkle Motion: They remind me of- Well… of the Philip Pullman daemons, you know?
Robyn Hitchcock: Yes! That’s- They d- I think they, I think- I think Tubbs, I think they’re both, they’re both d- demons with an A-E as opposed to like- Oh, yeah … they’re not fiends, but they’re- Demons … although Tubby has a fiendish streak sometimes. That’s it. yeah
Berkestir: And can, when you’re creating music, can you tell whether they like what you’re creating or not? Do you use them as critics?
Sparkle Motion: Do they nix you at any point?
Robyn Hitchcock: If they go away, they may not be so keen. But they, they’re generally encouraging. I think they’re there to… W- When, when I did the record at home, um, ShuffleMania, ’cause it was lockdown, ob- obviously they weren’t, there was nowhere else for them to go, but they would sit there. I mean, Ringo practically engineered it.
Emma Swift: He’s actually…he’s in Mojo Magazine.
Robyn Hitchcock: He’s i- He’s in Mojo. Yeah, yeah. Ringo- I think we put Ringo- engineered by Ringo and Stardust. I mean, he’s a bit more technical than Tubby. Tubby’s more of the kind of vibe guy.
Gregory Scharpen: I mean, Tubby seems to own the, uh, thestudio. I mean, it’s live from Tubby’s, so, you know. He’s the landlord.. And he’s got- He’s the, Tubby’s the landlord … the booker and it’s-
Robyn Hitchcock: Yeah, yeah. I mean, as you say, it’s Tubby’s world, and we just happen to live in it- Right … really. But he’s- But- Tubby- Yeah … I mean, he’s the dominant one really.
Sparkle Motion: I read about, um, that you got some amazing responses on this tour. Um, on Substack, I was reading about how your audiences are just… You know, the, these are people who have followed you from the beginning, and that must feel really good. You know? It, it, it seems like wherever you go, it, you know, they’re sold-out shows, and they’re people who really know your music for decades.
Robyn Hitchcock: Well- That’s amazing … yeah. And, and I think that’s another reason that the shows have been, are getting better as time goes by, is that a lot of the people, as you say, have been coming along. You know, they’re invested in what I’ve done because I’ve been touring now for 40 years. So, and, and the same in Britain actually. I mean, I was talking to some people after a show, and they, this guy, it was really poignant. He said, “I used to come and see you when I was a student, then I went down to London, and now I’m back here and I’m retired,” you know? And I’m, I’m, there I’m still playing the same funny little rooms I was playing 45 years ago. And this guy’s had his whole life, and now he’s back there, this sort of gray-haired bloke, so. Yeah. So I let him buy me a drink.
Sparkle Motion: That’s so interesting. And, that’s gotta be weird … you know
Emma Swift: It’s wonderful. Yeah. It’s really nice. I mean, I think that there’s a lovely sense of community too that, like, um, a lot of folks know each other now from online-or from watching the livestreams. Watching our shows. And then, and then they can meet at the gigs and, and so they might not, they might never have talked to each other- Before. But now they can go, “Oh, you’re so and so. I know you from the chat,”
Robyn Hitchcock: or, yeah Oh, you’re Groover Jen, ’cause they- Yeah … they call themselves groovers. You know, “Oh, Groover Steve here.”
Emma Swift: Yeah.
Robyn Hitchcock: You know. and, and, and you, you’re very good at the liaison with the listeners, you know?
Emma Swift: Well, I like people, yeah.
Robyn Hitchcock: Yeah, that makes one of us, yeah.
Sparkle Motion: That helps.
Robyn Hitchcock: That helps. And, um, but I, I think ’cause of that. And you know, and we also do get, we do get younger people coming along as well, which is great, but we’ve got the old, you know, the old lot. The people that came and saw us at the Berkeley Square- and I, I- They’ll, they’ll be there tonight. Uh, they, and they can still stand just about, you know.
Emma Swift: I think it’s important to add, too, that like we both find live music very energizing, so it’s not just a purely egoic thing for us. You know, if we’re at home, like I think we saw Cass McCombs, Gillian Welch, and- I saw Flight-
Emma Swift: And Flight
Robyn Hitchcock: All in the one week, you know? Yeah.
Emma Swift: We, we also like going to shows- Yeah … and find that a tremendously important and cool way to spend time.
Sparkle Motion: Well, uh, speaking of that, is there a release that you’ve both been really enjoying that maybe we don’t know about and we should know about in your travels?
Emma Swift: We both love the new Cass McCombs record. Yeah. Yeah, and he played a lot from that last-
Emma Swift: Imperial Live Oak, it’s called. Yeah. And, um, he’s just a fantastic songwriter.
Robyn Hitchcock: I think he’s from San Francisco- Is, he is … but he lives in, he lives… we, we got to know him a bit now, which is nice
Sparkle Motion: I thought he lived in North Bay…
Robyn Hitchcock: he probably lives in both, you know, he’s a, he’s a, a man of depth, so he probably lives in several places. At once. Sure. You know, at once. And, um, I, God, I don’t know what else we’ve been listening to.
Gregory Scharpen: Well, I, I had a question just on the topic of other music and other musicians, and also looking back to earlier years. Um, uh, I’ve noticed that Paul Roland has been doing a lot of music lately, and I think the original way I found out about Paul Roland was that Robin Hitchcock was playing on very early Paul Roland records.
Robyn Hitchcock: Um- Is he still alive?
Gregory Scharpen: He is still alive.
Robyn Hitchcock: Wow.
And I think maybe living in Germany or maybe he’s in Italy.
Robyn Hitchcock: Wouldn’t surprise me …
Gregory Scharpen: um, but I’m just kind of curious about- I mean, he’s somebody who I’ve, kind of on a tangent, become really, really interested in over the- Oh … past several decades. And I’m kind of curious as to what your initial contact with him was, and if you’ve kept in touch with him at all or-
Robyn Hitchcock: No, I don’t remember. Somebody just sent me and Knox, the singer from The Vibrators, somebody sent us down to Paul Roland’s parents’ house on a train. And this is before John Lennon was shot, so it’s it’s a while back. And, uh, Knox and I went down there on a Sunday, someplace in Kent. There was nothing to eat ’cause everything was shut, and it was British countryside. And we did a something for Paul Roland, and then we got back to London. Um, it was… I, I haven’t seen him since, but I’m glad- Ah … he’s okay. I don’t know much about him. And I don’t know why we were sent down there either. But I’m glad it worked. Yeah.
Sparkle Motion: They need to answer the trivia question. We had so many callers, and only one got it wrong.
Sparkle Motion: So should we give it. But you wanna give the answer … to the person who…
Robyn Hitchcock: got it wrong?
Sparkle Motion: That’s a point, but I don’t know who that is now.
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, I love unknowns.
Sparkle Motion: Um, so what is the answer to the trivia question? What is the studio where you recorded…
Robyn Hitchcock: at Hyde Street Studios- Yes … in Hyde Street. Which was originally, I’d forgotten this, Wally Heider’s- which is where The Airplane recorded … and Crosby, Stills & Nash. And, and I did, I remember at the time that, that Michael, Mike Bloomfield, had made his last record there, but I forgot- had never taken in that these, you know, the greats were there. Phil Lesh and … Garcia and Crosby and everybody. Yeah. Um-
Emma Swift: And the demo version for Ghost in the Sunlight, the track that we were talking about earlier from The Confuser, was also recorded at Hyde Street. Robin went back there last year.
Robyn Hitchcock: So in spirit, we started the new album here. And I’d have to talk to my record company, but I would love to go back to Hyde Street and make a psychedelic album.
Emma Swift: Okay … sometime. But I’ve- When you’ve, when you’re done promoting the next two records, you can.
Robyn Hitchcock: yeah. No, I, I love… I know. Hyde Street, it’s, it’s as, the area’s as messed up as it ever was. And, um, you know, in the Tenderloin- And the studio’s still fantastic, the studio’s still fantastic.
Sparkle Motion: Yeah, you can still find pockets. I, I argue with people all the time. I find pockets in San Francisco that are, they haven’t changed, and they’re beautiful. And I can avoid all the other, you know-
Robyn Hitchcock: Well, I, I mean, I find ugly pockets, and I stay in them.
Sparkle Motion: Yeah, well, that’s, that’s what I mean.
Robyn Hitchcock: But that’s ’cause I’m British, you know.
Robyn Hitchcock: Give me an ugly pocket, and I’ll stay there …Yeah, we, we, um… No, I, I, I loved it. And actually, the rate’s quite good at Hyde Street, so I would, I definitely would like. It’s on my bucket list. But Nashville’s got so many great places.
Berkestir: All right. Well, we’re gonna wrap it up, and, uh, we wanna thank Robin and Emma for coming in.
EVERYONE: Yay. Yay. Yay.
Robyn Hitchcock: Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Sparkle Motion: It’s an annual thing now. We love it.
Berkestir: And we were- I was gonna end with a, the, a live version of The Globe of Frogs..
Robyn Hitchcock: Um, yeah, if you’ve got one.
Berkestir: Yeah I’ve got one right here.
Robyn Hitchcock: Would, would that be from the Acheron tapes… by any chance?
Berkestir: Yeah.
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, that’s quite good. That’s quite good. I’m singing in my recent voice, which I think is nicer than the one I, I sang on the, uh, the original album. But uh, yeah, this is, I think this is-
Emma Swift: Yeah, but in terms of what’s happening tonight, the sound. Tonight is more like I Am This Thing.
Robyn Hitchcock: Oh, the sound tonight is … And Emma, by the by, is absolutely at the top of her game. She’s got these two fabulous guitarists with her, Luther Russell, who was with us last time/
Emma Swift: We already said that, love.
Robyn Hitchcock: Yeah, I know, but I’m saying it’s fabulous. I’m glad you did that. I’m endorsing. I’m putting the stamp of Hitchcock. It was absolutely brilliant. I watched you. You were sensational.
Emma Swift: They’re trying to kick us out, love.
Robyn Hitchcock: And your voice was great. I know. That’s why I’m saying this now.
Gregory Scharpen: No, actually, it’s, it- I, I’m next, so, you know- … you have permission to…
Robyn Hitchcock: Yeah, no, no…[to Em] you’re just such a modest flower. No. Given, given that you’ve got a Leo moon, you’re, uh, you’re quite modest. Yeah. And, um, no, E- Em- Emma is fabulous.
Emma Swift: Given that you’ve got a Libra moon, you’re quite scruffy.
Robyn Hitchcock: You’re right, I’m a bit of a scruff for a Libra moon. Yeah, yeah. It’s my Aquarius rising. Yeah. I just like to make a mess wherever I go.
Sparkle Motion: This is The Confuser in reality.
Robyn Hitchcock: No, just catch Em, Em is just fantastic, and those two guitarists are really ace, you know?
Berkestir: And I, and I remember last time. You were also fantastic the last time.
Emma Swift: Thanks!
Emma Swift: Well, it’s great. We love- I mean, it’s wonderful to play in San Francisco. It is. S- it’s an amazing city.
Robyn Hitchcock: Yes. Yeah. And it looks like we’re going to be back, but I’ll tell you about that next time. There’s a whole special, yeah … secret project which is coming up.
Berkestir: All right!
Robyn Hitchcock: Which I will not confuse everybody with now. So come along tonight.
Sparkle Motion: That’s fantastic. Oh, good. Yeah. I’m intrigued.
Berkestir: All, all right. Well, let’s hear a live version.
Sparkle Motion: Keep listening to KALX, and you might find out.
Berkestir: All right. Do you want to introduce the song?
Sparkle Motion: No, you do it.
Berkestir: All right. All right. A live version of The Globe of Frogs. I, I, I actually added the S.
Robyn Hitchcock: The S to what? Frogs?
Berkestir: Frogs. Yes.
Robyn Hitchcock: Why? Is it globe of frog?
Berkestir: No. Uh, no, it isn’t, but-
Robyn Hitchcock: Sounds kind of Scottish. Globe of frog.
Berkestir: All right. Till next time, it’s always a pleasure having you on KALX. Thank you so much for coming in.
Robyn Hitchcock: Yeah Thanks for having us
Berkestir: All right
Musical excerpt: A Globe of Frogs by Robyn Hitchcock
