Rufus Wainwright may have launched a Leonard Cohen renaissance, but, in my opinion, Robyn Hitchcock deserves to be crowned Bard of the Melancholy Sex Ballad. For one thing, Hitchcock’s voice puts Cohen’s to shame. His lyrics cover a far broader spectrum of emotions and experiences. Even when unplugged, his music fuses the speed-freak jive of the Velvet Underground with the cavalier British glamor of The Beatles and the surly surrealism of Bob Dylan. Yet he’s still out there playing small clubs for cult audiences. Why? Cohen may be a maestro in his own right, but why aren’t Nick Cave, Bono, and Rufus lining up to do a concert in Hitchcock’s honor? Why isn’t Joni playing his covers? Why isn’t Philip Glass begging him to collaborate? When will this guy get his due?
To add to Robyn Hitchcock’s misfortunes, he didn’t get nearly as good a vanity film as Cohen did with I’m Your Man (2006). John Edginton’s Robin Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death...And Insects! looks like a home movie by comparison. Oh, it’s not a bad doc. But, instead of staking its claim as a stand-alone indie, this 59-minute piece is more like a Special Feature that should be inserted into the sleeve of a deluxe edition of one of Hitchcock’s 16 solo albums.
Sex, Food, Death...And Insects! shows Hitchcock writing up a whole new sheaf of songs even as he is preparing to record his 2006 release, Ole! Tarantula! In standard cinema verité, Edginton holds a steady camera as Hitchcock expounds on his philosophy and aesthetics in the kind of verbal pyrotechnics that Dylan plied in the commentary segments of Scorcese’s No Direction Home. Longtime collaborators Peter Buck (REM), Nick Lowe, Bill Rieflin (Ministry) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) all turn up at the bard’s West London house as he lays down the last tracks of Ole! Tarantula! with his newest band, The Venus 3. In separate interviews, they all pay homage to Hitchcock’s genius, at times voicing their regrets that he hasn’t enjoyed enough mainstream success.
The West London sessions prove so successful that Peter Buck, Bill Rieflin (still gorgeous after going gray), and other old friends set up an American tour for The Venus 3. We travel with them to clubs from New York to Seattle. All the while, Hitchcock carries himself as a stand-up guy with Oscar Wilde panache, who doesn’t pull any diva stunts or bring his band to the brink of breakup like so many other bored rockumentary stars on tour. He’s a rare example of a recording artist who stays composed even amid the pressures of the studio, the road and a full-to-bursting inner life. While gearing up for another gig, Hitchcock reveals the secret to his work: "At heart, I’m a frightened, angry person. That’s probably why my songs aren’t totally insubstantial." Yet, from the looks of it, he takes his dark moods out on his guitar, not on his audience or band mates.
In the first sequence of Sex, Food, Death...And Insects!, Hitchcock speaks to detractors who dismiss him for singing about, well...sex, food, death and insects: "You need sex to get you here, food to keep you here, and death to get you out. These are the entry and exit signs." (Sorry, he doesn’t account for insects in this pithy quote.) Hitchcock’s songs are Molotov cocktails of mundane objects - tires, trains, trees, frogs - hurled on to the cultural landscape by the Whore of Babylon.
This flick shows him playing some of the best ones live, including "Queen Elvis," "I Like to Dream About Trains," "Uncorrected Personality Traits" and "My Wife and My Dead Wife." There’s a touching moment when he also croons a tribute to Arthur "Killer" Kane from The New York Dolls, whose last days are chronicled in the life-affirming film New York Doll.
Even while plumbing his own depths and reminding us of our own mortality, though, Hitchcock’s whimsicality never ceases to amaze, both on and off stage. This alone makes Edginton’s DVD worth a whirl, even if it will never rocket Hitchcock out of cult stardom.
