Send "The Soft Boys " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 First it was Rykodisc. Then Matador. And now indie rock institution Yep Roc gets its chance to bring the Soft Boys into focus for a new generation of music nerds. Robyn Hitchcock’s old band made only two “proper” albums (the technicalities get a little confusing), and it is certainly good to have A Can of Bees back on remastered plastic. Underwater Moonlight, however, has been reintroduced to the public at large several times. But none of this matters a lick because good timeless music from 30 years prior remains just that. Underwater Moonlight is a rare kind of magical little record, and its predecessor A Can of Bees comes very close. These two albums remain seminal; they belong to a period of rock history where influence and popularity couldn’t be less aligned. Just like the Velvet Underground, Big Star, and Television, the Soft Boys lacked a neat and tidy marketing classification, but launched a thousand bands in their wake. And just like their American counterpart Television, this Cambridge four-piece took the notion that two-guitar rock bands need to be blues-based and completely messed with it. Robyn Hitchcock and Kimberley Rew brewed up their own two-pronged attack where neither one really played rhythm, but you couldn’t correctly call either one the lead neither. To say that their songs were angular is an understatement, and their willingness to revel in their “Englishness” is probably was caused them to go unnoticed for so long. The 1979 to 1980 period of rock music teaches us that the music didn’t always have to be about sex and drugs, and embracing a band like the Soft Boys must have felt liberating. Not to mention cynical. “You don’t really need a brain, ducky / If you’re a girl / It’s like tonsils / They’re more trouble than they’re worth,” goes the strangely catchy “Sandra’s Having Her Brain Out”. Hitchcock bemoaning the fact that some girls feel the need to act stupid is anathema to the classic rock fantasy of seducing an easy girl, and this is a microcosm of what the Soft Boys paved the way for. How do you wade through a ventilator? Where did that guitar riff for “Leppo and the Jooves” come from? How does a song like “The Pigworker” even get written?...full text |
| Factmag |
| The new edition marks the 30th anniversary of Moonlight‘s original release via Armageddon Records. Flying in the face of post-punk fashion, The Soft Boys’ invoked a bygone era of jangly psychedelic pop, but gave it a fiercely contemporary edge – via the sarcasm, salacity and scarcely contained rage of Robyn Hitchcock’s lyrics and the incendiary, electrified guitar-playing of Kimberley Rew. REM are but one of the many bands who claim to have been directly inspired by them. The reissue presents the album in its original 10-song sequence on both CD and 180g vinyl, retaining its original cover art as well (best cover art ever?); included as free downloads are all previously released bonus tracks, most of which featured on Matador’s now highly collectible 2001 3xLP+7″ vinyl reissue. Yep Roc are also reissuing The Soft Boys’ debut album, A Can Of Bees, on CD and 180g vinyl, also with bonus tracks to download. Less well-known than Underwater Moonlight and a good deal less accomplished, it’s nonetheless a riveting listen – Julian Cope was once moved to describe it as “a red hot poker up the arse of rock music”. The Soft Boys split up in 1981, though there was a 21st anniversary reunion tour and album in 2001-2. Hitchcock has become a prolific solo artist, emphasising the folky side of his writing and earning a committed fanbase of Mojo-reading types, while Rew, unbelievably, became a member of Katrina And The Waves and wrote their mega-hit ‘Walking On A Sunshine’. Nuts....full text |
| Elbo |
| In a parallel universe, a late '70s British Invasion might sound like the Beatles totally whacked out of their gourds. First it was Rykodisc. Then Matador. And now indie rock institution Yep Roc gets its chance to bring the Soft Boys into focus for a new generation of music nerds. Robyn Hitchcock's old band made only two "proper" albums (the technicalities get a little confusing), and it is certainly good to have A Can of Bees back on remastered plastic. Underwater Moonlight, however, has been reintroduced to the public at large several times...full text |
The Soft Boys lyrics
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