The Michigan Daily-Thursday, October 18,1990- Page 7 Hitchcock meets the Great Pumpkin by Nabeel Mustafa Zuberi A fter exchanging obligatory "Englishmen abroad" pleasantries, * get to the serious stuff with song- writing surrealist, ex-Soft Boy and English eccentric Robyn Hitchcock: The Balloon Man speaks from his hotel room in Ithaca, New York where he's in the early stages of a U.S. tour promoting his latest mas- terpiece Eye. America the Beautiful I NMZ: Do you have cable TV in your hotel room? RH: Yes. Last night we saw a Marlon Brando film, The Freshman. It was fairly slight but had the por- tentous Brando in it. Like seeing a Brat Pack movie and suddenly Humphrey Bogart appears. Or like the Tower of London stalking across Arizona. Dear Old Blighty * RH: I was born by the North Circular [Road]. I lived in Sussex and Surrey. Very unspectacular. NMZ: Did this background have an influence on your becoming a songwriter? RH: No. I could have been born in suburban L.A. It was wealthy and middle class. The main cultural in- put was The Beatles. Actually, three of The Beatles bought houses in my area [Weybridge], which is the Sur- rey equivalent of Bel Air. It was when The Beatles went through the bourgeoisie loop.... Growing up in England was much the same as the U.S. except we didn't have brown paper bags and as many things. Give us our daily bread NMZ: Last time you played at the Continued from page 5 by bringing in freindship, love and women's struggles to beat the odds. The constant intervention of the mil- itary, coupled with self-reflective character names ("Whitman" is a bigoted white man, for example), - serves to create a two-dimensional script. New Times playwright Judlyne Lilly worked as a radio anchor in Washington D.C. while working on Blind Pig someone in the audience gave you a loaf of bread. How was it? RH: Quite dense. We chopped it up. We came to do the Schoolkids' Records anniversary show. We flew from Dallas to Detroit, drove to Ann Arbor, did the show, and the next day flew to Tucson, Arizona. So we were sitting in the sun in Tucson eating the bread. It was potato bread and we smeared cheese on it. It was very nice. War in the Gulf NMZ: "Cynthia Mask" is kind of political in that it mentions Cham- berlain and Hitler and Poland. Well, I'm sure there are songwriters out there hoping there's a war in the Gulf so that they can write a decent song? Have you felt the need to write about the situation? RH: I just hope it doesn't happen. There's a lot of terror in the media in Britain. Actually, I have written a song about it. The whole thing reminded me of how people talked about the long hot summers before the war. There are great similarities. The way nothing happened. In September 1939, there were sup- posed to be gas attacks and nothing happened. The leaves were falling; people knew others were getting killed in Europe. Then in 1940, in the space of a few months there was Dunkirk, the Blitz, and the Battle of Britain.... I do write political songs, but they're really dour. I never record them. I play them and think, 'God, how depressing. No fun to listen to.' Vitamin B NMZ: I've heard that vitamin B tablets help you remember your dreams. Do you take them before you go to bed? RH: No. I wouldn't want to re- member my dreams. I'd hate all those songs which would say 'May all your dreams come true.' Addictions NMZ: When do you write? RH: First thing in the morning. I sit down with my guitar and a cup of tea. I have to write before dealing with the rest of the day, the rest of life. NMZ: What kind of tea do you drink? RH: English breakfast tea. I usually carry my own supply of tea bags and a portable kettle when I'm here. We're more apt to make it in England. Here they make such a fuss. When they give you tea, they clutter up the stuff with spoons and pots of water. It's like drug para- phernalia. But I'm pretty much a meat and potatoes man when it comes to tea: Earl Grey and English Breakfast. I'm addicted to it. Robyn Ballbearing NMZ: Apparently David Lynch ate the same lunch every day for a year at Big Boy. Do you feel the need for this kind of habitual behavior? RH: He needs to be anchored. The more parts of you that are all over the place, the more one part of you needs to be anchored. I'm very different. You put me down in one spot, I'll be there six months later. Though I might roll downhill like a ballbearing. I tend to follow the line of least resistance, though I'm trying not to these days. Robyn Grandmother NMZ: What's your favorite song? RH: The Byrds' version of "Mr Tambourine Man." It evokes all that history, whereas something like Country Joe and the Fish has fallen by the wayside. NMZ: What do you listen to on the road between shows? RH: I'm not like Peter Buck. I don't have an encyclopedia rack of tapes. I've been listening to Julian Cope and John Higley [an English comedian]. Joni Mitchell too. You know, classic rock. NMZ: No 2 Live Crew or NWA? RH: No. It makes me sound like a grandmother, but I like a good tune. Lots of God NMZ: I've been listening to the new Prefab Sprout album and I wanted to ask you if you believed in God, Robyn? RH: There's a God. The real question is are there lots of gods? NMZ: Lots of God? RH: Yeah, actually. Lots of God... You look at two kids and you think there must be a parent. So you look at human beings and think the same. NMZ: Do you write about God? RH: I'm burbling on about God in a lot of my songs, but its never 'An Essay On God by R. Hitchcock in Verse.' America the Beautiful II NMZ: Do you get to see a lot of the country when you're traveling between shows? RH: Not really... Yesterday we went to this pumpkin ranch - the Intergalactic Farm. Though it wasn't the hippie commune it sounds like. They had great scenes from fairy tales with pumpkins in them. Like Goldilocks and the Three Pumpkins. ROBYN HITCHCOCK will be free associating at the Blind Pig tonight. Doors open at 9:30 pm. Tickets are $15 in advance available at Schoolkids (plus an evil service Robyn Hitchcock's guitar whispers its dreams into his ear. charge) and Ticketmaster (plus a larger evil service charge). Need the hot news fast? Find it in the Daily. her MFA. at the same time. Her honors include the 1990 Lorraine Hansberry Award from the American College Theater Festival. Patterns, the winning play, deals with a woman's attempt to open an all- Black private school in an urban area. New Times has also garnered awards for Lilly including a first- place finish in a national playwriting competition sponsored by Source Theater in Washington D.C.. Director Mary Resing, a doctoral student in theater and drama and named Best Director for her staged reading of New Times at the Wash- ington Theatre Festival, says, "I've read hundreds of scripts, and I thought [New Times] was great. It is one of the most thought provoking plays I've read in a long time." NEW TIMES will be performed by the RC Players in the Residential College Auditorium in East Quad tonight through Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 2 pm. Tickets are $4 for students and $Sfor non-students. }" .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... . . .:-:11.. . .'v 1 ::NL. 1,L~'C'3 . { s~: 4% M.;. r i chiganrr". BIi 7 '; y"'kewu.sti.v ,T\ .k t :4.;;'"' ,'v'Jy'S rvice 1.that br :}ing yo to yor 'teer Sandas, clgsv&shoe for:i};v "ly1 i:"1th r cm o ti'.yV , 1;} ". Repa}.:': s ir evi{" c e }Rti'.'i;'}:q:' 644 R;i;'1 i 209 : N::1Yf.1t v ei:1':".:(By:!:"::1-rry.Lown) Mon.}:St 10-6{ OOKIES Enjoy the Game with Mrs. Peabody's 1 ~ I> Voted Ann Arbor's Best Cookief.,