Gotta Let This Hen Out! | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Live album by | ||||
Released | October 1985 | |||
Recorded | 27 April 1985, The Marquee, London "Repaired" at Alaska Studios 15 June 1989, The Ritz, New York City | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length | 49:46 | |||
Label | Midnight Music Relativity Records Rhino/WEA | |||
Producer | Pat Collier, Roger Jackson, Andy Metcalfe | |||
Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians chronology | ||||
|
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Chicago Tribune | [2] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [3] |
Gotta Let This Hen Out! is a live recording of Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians recorded in April 1985, shortly after the group had come together for Fegmania! .
The set was recorded at the Marquee and the tapes cleaned up for release at Alaska Studios with minor drop-in overdubs. The gig was also videotaped and appeared on VHS with a few additional numbers, interspersed with several studio recordings available through their promo videos.
The material selected for this album includes titles ranging through Hitchcock's back catalogue, from Soft Boys songs ("Kingdom Of Love", "The Face Of Death") through his first solo album ("Acid Bird", "Brenda's Iron Sledge") and up to the recently released Fegmania! ("Heaven", "My Wife and My Dead Wife"). The live recording captures the new band just it was defining its sound and fairly documents the highlights of Hitchcock's live set and musical focus in the mid-1980s.
The cover features a painting by Hitchcock depicting airborne fish, jellyfish and an array of ducks and chickens. As with a number of his albums, Hitchcock handwrote the liner notes. The album title is taken from the lyric of the song "Listening to the Higsons", the penultimate track on the album. Hitchcock has stated that this lyric comes from mishearing the chorus to the Higsons' "Gotta Let This Heat Out." [4]
The Midnight CD issue adds "Egyptian Cream", "The Fly", and a staple of his live sets, the Soft Boys' "Only the Stones Remain", as does the 1995 Rhino reissue. The Yep Roc issue adds a further 5 tracks from a June 1989 gig at The Ritz, New York.
All songs written by Robyn Hitchcock.
Sleeve erroneously omits last track "Egyptian Cream 2", and as such, lists the 'new' bonus tracks as 14-18 not 15-19.
The Soft Boys were an English rock band led by guitarist Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano, and bass guitar. After leading the Soft Boys in the late 1970s and releasing the influential Underwater Moonlight, Hitchcock launched a prolific solo career. His musical and lyrical styles have been influenced by Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Syd Barrett, Captain Beefheart, Martin Carthy, Lou Reed, Roger McGuinn and Bryan Ferry.
Fegmania! is the fourth studio album by Robyn Hitchcock and his first with his backing band The Egyptians.
I Often Dream of Trains is the third album by Robyn Hitchcock, released in 1984. It is Hitchcock's first acoustic-based album.
Black Snake Dîamond Röle is the debut solo album by former Soft Boys frontman Robyn Hitchcock.
The Higsons were an English funk-punk band, who existed between 1980 and 1986.
Spooked is the fourteenth studio album by Robyn Hitchcock. It was recorded in collaboration with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at Woodlands Studio in Nashville, TN in 2004, and released later that year. The set comprises twelve new recordings, all Hitchcock compositions with the exception of "Tryin' to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door", a cover of a Bob Dylan song.
Terry Edwards is an English musician who plays trumpet, flugelhorn, saxophones, guitar and keyboards.
Eye is the eighth studio album and fourth solo album by Robyn Hitchcock. It was released in 1990 on Glass Fish (UK) and Twin/Tone Records (US). This was Hitchcock's only solo album released between 1985 and 1995, a period in which he recorded most of his music with his backing band, the Egyptians.
Invisible Hitchcock is a studio album by Robyn Hitchcock. A collection of leftovers and out-takes recorded from 1981 to 1985, Hitchcock's sleeve notes explain that the album was assembled because the songs "didn't fit in with what I was doing at the time and do fit in with each other now".
The Kershaw Sessions is an album by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, comprising nineteen titles recorded live between 1985 and 1991. The album was released in 1994.
Uncorrected Personality Traits is a compilation album by Robyn Hitchcock, released in 1997 on Rhino Records. Following A&M's 1996 Greatest Hits, this compilation was assembled from earlier, pre-A&M recordings, spanning 1981 to 1995 and selected personally by Hitchcock.
Live At The Cambridge Folk Festival is a 1998 album by Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians, containing live recordings from the Cambridge Folk Festival of Hitchcock's back catalogue.
Robyn Sings is a double album by Robyn Hitchcock, released in 2002. The set is made up entirely of Bob Dylan covers, performed live at various dates.
Obliteration Pie is an album by Robyn Hitchcock, released in Japan in 2005.
I Wanna Go Backwards is a Robyn Hitchcock box set released in 2007 on Yep Roc Records. The set contains reissues of three of Hitchcock's albums, each with bonus tracks, and also a two-disc rarities set, While Thatcher Mauled Britain. The set consists of five CDs, and was also released as a limited edition of eight vinyl LPs.
Andy Metcalfe is an English bassist, keyboardist, and producer, who played mainly with The Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians (1984–1994), and with Squeeze off and on during the period 1985–1994.
Luminous Groove is a 2008 compilation box set of the albums Fegmania!, Gotta Let This Hen Out and Element of Light (1986) by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians. The box set was issued on CD and vinyl. The versions included in the CD box set are the extended reissues from YepRoc. The set also includes 2 discs of B-sides and rarities called Bad Case of History.
Give It to the Thoth Boys – Live Oddities is a live recording of Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians recorded in 1991 and 1992 at various locations. It was released on cassette only and sold on the Respect tour in 1993. It was compiled by Andy Metcalfe from soundboard tapes done by the band themselves. There is a companion cassette released of the reformed Soft Boys tour called "Where Are The Prawns?".
Respect is the tenth studio album by Robyn Hitchcock and his sixth with backing band, the Egyptians, released on A&M in 1993.
Grant Alden, "The Rhino Reissues."