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The Soft Boys | |
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Background information | |
Origin | Cambridge, England |
Genres | |
Years active | 1976–1981, 1994, 2001–2003 |
Labels | Two Crabs, Armageddon, Matador |
Past members | Robyn Hitchcock Morris Windsor Andy Metcalfe Rob Lamb Alan Davies Kimberley Rew Matthew Seligman (deceased) |
The Soft Boys were an English rock band led by guitarist Robyn Hitchcock.
The band formed in 1976 in Cambridge, England and released two albums before disbanding in 1981. [3] Though The Soft Boys’ initial career was brief, their style of psychedelic music and retro folk-rock had a big influence on the development of jangle pop, indie rock, and neo-psychedelia during the 1980s and beyond. [4] [5]
The Soft Boys formed in 1976 in Cambridge, England, initially calling themselves Dennis and the Experts. Their first lineup comprised Hitchcock on guitar, Rob Lamb (half-brother of radio host and author Charlie Gillett) on guitar, Andy Metcalfe on bass, and Morris Windsor on drums. [6] Alan Davies replaced Lamb after only four gigs in late 1976, and Kimberley Rew eventually replaced Davies. [6] It was this lineup of Hitchcock, Rew, Metcalfe, and Windsor that recorded The Soft Boys debut album, A Can of Bees, released 1979.
Matthew Seligman replaced Metcalfe on bass in 1979. [7] The band broke up in 1981 after the release of their second album, Underwater Moonlight .
Rew formed the more mainstream pop group Katrina and the Waves. Hitchcock went on to a prolific career with a similar whimsical, surrealistic style. [7] In 1984, he formed Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians with fellow Soft Boys Morris Windsor and Andy Metcalfe and went on to tour and record for ten years. They were briefly joined by Rew and Seligman in a re-formed the Soft Boys for a UK tour in 1994 to mark the release of a box set of their work. They briefly came together again in 2001 without Metcalfe for the 20th anniversary of Underwater Moonlight and the release of a new album, 2002’s Nextdoorland. They disbanded once again in 2003.
Seligman died in 2020 of complications from COVID-19. [8] [9]
An album financed by Radar Records was recorded at Rockfield Studios in 1978, at the same time Rush was recording Hemispheres there. The resultant album was never released, although one or two of the tracks have had subsequent release as part of compilations.
Katrina and the Waves were a British rock band formed in Cambridge in 1981, widely known for their 1985 hit "Walking on Sunshine". They won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Love Shine a Light".
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, in June 1980, Hitchcock launched a prolific solo career.
Kimberley Charles Rew is an English rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was a member of Katrina and the Waves from 1981 to 1999 and of Robyn Hitchcock's The Soft Boys from 1978 to 1981. For Katrina and the Waves, he wrote "Walking on Sunshine" and "Love Shine a Light". The latter was performed as the United Kingdom's entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 1997, taking the country to its first victory in the contest since 1981.
Fegmania! is the fourth studio album by Robyn Hitchcock and his first with his backing band The Egyptians.
Underwater Moonlight is the second studio album by English rock band the Soft Boys, released in June 1980 by record label Armageddon. The album received little critical notice and was a commercial failure, and the band split up a few months after its release. However, Underwater Moonlight has retrospectively been viewed as a psychedelic classic, influential on the development of the neo-psychedelia music genre and on a number of bands, especially R.E.M. It is included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
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.
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!.
Element of Light is the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock and his second with his backing band, the Egyptians. It was released in 1986.
Tim Keegan is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist. Vocalist and principal songwriter with Departure Lounge since 1999, Keegan has recorded and performed with various bands and as a solo artist. He has worked with a number of musicians including Robyn Hitchcock; he can be seen in Jonathan Demme's film about Hitchcock, Storefront Hitchcock – and played guitar on the Blue Aeroplanes' Rough Music album.
Anton Barbeau is an American psychedelic singer-songwriter and producer from Sacramento, California. He is a multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, piano, bass guitar, drums, synthesizers, and Mellotron.
Olé! Tarantula is the fifteenth studio album by Robyn Hitchcock, recorded with Peter Buck of R.E.M., Scott McCaughey of Young Fresh Fellows, and Bill Rieflin of Ministry. Together, they are known as Robyn Hitchcock and The Venus 3. It was recorded in Seattle, Washington, in 2006, the same year of its release.
"Vegetable Man" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, written by the frontman, Syd Barrett, and recorded in 1967. It was considered for a release as a single or for inclusion on their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, but went unreleased. Bootlegged for decades, the song did not have an official release until 2016, when it was included on the box set The Early Years 1965–1972.
Jewels for Sophia is the twelfth studio album by Robyn Hitchcock, released on Warner Records on 20 July 1999.
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.
Matthew Seligman was an English bassist, best known for his association with the new wave music scene of the 1980s. Seligman was a member of the Soft Boys and the Thompson Twins, and was a sideman for Thomas Dolby. Seligman was also a member of Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club and the Dolphin Brothers, and backed David Bowie during his performance at Live Aid in 1985.
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?".
A Can of Bees is the 1979 debut album by English rock band The Soft Boys. The album was reissued in 1984 with a different track listing on the second side. Both versions of Side 2 appear on the CD reissue first put out by Two Crabs in 1990, subsequently reissued by Rykodisc in 1992, and Yep Roc in 2010.
Propellor Time is the seventeenth studio album by Robyn Hitchcock, the third and last recorded with The Venus 3. It was released in 2010 via Yep Roc.
The Bible of Bop is a mini-album and the first solo release by English guitarist and songwriter Kimberley Rew, released in 1982. It mostly consists of tracks taken from three singles Rew released through indie label Armageddon between 1980 and 1982: two under his own name, backed by members of the dB's and the Soft Boys; and one as part of the Waves. In 2010, the album was reissued on CD for the first time on the CGB label with three bonus tracks.