V03-T03 The Man Who Invented Himself

.....Many of the recordings I used for this series of compilation tapes were rare at the time that I used them. Of course, since all of these recordings, including the ones created for broadcast or promotional purposes, were mass produced, 'rare' is a relative term. If you manufacture a David Bowie title in quantities less than 50,000 that item would be considered somewhat rare because his international sales are typically in the millions. That same number would make an appropriate first pressing for a band on a small, privately owned label. Of the recordings used here that I would think were hard to come by, many have since been reissued (or issued) on CD. While their original format issue is still technically rare the newly pressed sources often ship in even larger quantities than the originals. By contrast, the recording used below may have actually become more rare since I compiled the tape due to very unusual circumstances.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 3

• 02:59 "THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIMSELF" (Robyn Hitchcock)
• performed by Robyn Hitchcock
• original source: LP BLACK SNAKE DIAMOND ROLE Armageddon ARM 4 (UK) May, 1981
• and my source: CD BLACK SNAKE DIAMOND ROLE Aftermath AFT CD 1 (UK) 1987

.....In March 1980 The Soft Boys finished the recording sessions that would be pieced together to form their last original studio album, UNDERWATER MOONLIGHT. That spring, a Virgin Records employee named Richard Bishop set out to launch his own label, Armageddon, and The Soft Boys would put any future releases on it. As it turned out, their recordings from that point on fell into four categories: songs released as Soft Boys singles; songs packaged with earlier outtakes to fill out a Soft Boys posthumous album; songs retroactively credited to guitarist Kimberley Rew for singles; and songs retroactively credited to Hitchcock for much of his first solo album and parts of a later compilation, INVISIBLE HITCHCOCK. These were mostly released over the course of the next year and a half, after Rew had tracked down a pre-Soft Boys bandmate from his old band The Waves. In his absence they had become a rock-and-country cover band called "Mama's Cooking" with an American female guitarist. They needed Rew's writing skills, so he agreed to join on condition that he play guitar and the American woman sings his songs instead of him. And "Katrina And The Waves" was a much better name.

.....In January 1995, the year after this tape was assembled, Rhino Records put out the first US release (on CD; keep reading) of BLACK SNAKE DIAMOND ROLE, the first Hitchcock solo album. The liner notes by Grant Alden answer some questions and raise others. On page 2 he states "Sessions began simply, just Robyn and Morris [Windsor] on drums"... and quotes Hitchcock:"So 'THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIMSELF' and 'ACID BIRD' were just Morris and me. I think the first thing we did was 'ACID BIRD' on a four-track machine that Pat Collier had." Then on page 3 Alden mentions,"Additional sessions took place on a barge, where Richard Branson [founder and head of Virgin Records] had installed a 16-track studio." Hitchcock: "Morris and I did 'THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIMSELF' in the middle of the night, on the barge... Howie, our roadie, came along, and there was about an 18-inch gap between the barge and the quay just out by the bow... Howie managed to fall in... so he took his trousers off and dried them over the piano." These two unrelated statements place the song both when "sessions began" and also "additional sessions". The Barge also turns up in the liner notes for INVISIBLE HITCHCOCK as the source of the songs "GIVE ME A SPANNER, RALPH" and "MY FAVORITE BUILDINGS" in June, 1980.

.....Songs that eventually made it onto BSDR included some that had been part of the Soft Boys' live set in the fall of 1980. It isn't so surprising then that each of the other band members show up in some capacity on the solo album. To this day they appear on each other's recordings, and their split early in 1981 was far from acrimonious. It was more due to exasperation with the music press in England, who at some point decided that The Soft Boys weren't wearing the right brand of shoes and shouldn't eat lunch at the cool kids' table. After they broke up their records caught on in the US, especially among upcoming musicians who routinely name-checked them and covered their songs. Unable to foresee that in their future, they had their post-band projects already prepared when their split was announced. In April 1981, the 7" Armageddon AS008 (UK) single for "THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIMSELF" was released followed in May by the BSDR album. (Although the title song doesn't appear on the album, it does exist; a live recording by The Soft Boys surfaced in October on a posthumous album.) The album version of "THE MAN WHO..." features a saxophone part by prolific session man Gary Barnacle and muted piano. However, during the long gestation period for the album it went by several working titles before release, the last of which was ZINC PEAR, for which there was a test pressing with a slightly different track selection and a different mix for "THE MAN WHO...", one without the saxophone overdubbing and the piano clear as a bell. Being a test pressing it wasn't available commercially but wasn't a secret either. When the album was reissued on the Aftermath label (on vinyl in 1985 in Germany and on CD in 1987-- which says 'Made In England' but may also have been made in Europe for UK distribution), it still carried the saxophone mix. The 1995 US Rhino CD I mentioned earlier replaced that track with the original mix from ZINC PEAR. [NOTE: When that Rhino CD initially shipped, it came with a circular blurb sticker that announced "U.S. Debut!" While the album had never before been released here in the CD format, it was briefly available on vinyl from Relativity in 1986. Having never heard a copy of that particular pressing, I can't say which mix was used. I'm also not certain that it was made in the US and not Canada, which would absolve the blurb sticker.]

.....Subsequent reissues of the album on Sequel and Yep Roc, as well as the appearance of the song on compilations, have all utilized the ZINC PEAR piano version, making the saxophone mix relatively rarer with every new release because it makes up a smaller percentage of the total versions available to an increasing audience. Of course, I learned all of this only after I made the compilation tape. I only knew that the CD was more difficult to find than later solo albums. I could have used any other song on the album, I just liked the breezy feel of this one. I've also yet to find why the sax overdub was used in the first place. Was it dubbed over the Barge recording because a wet pair of pants muted the piano? Was it even the same take as the ZINC PEAR mix? Chime in on the comments if you have any insights on this.