We’re very excited to welcome Robyn Hitchcock to Grimey’s to celebrate the release of his new album, 1967: Vacations in the Past, a collection of covers from 1967 (with one original song by Robyn) recorded to accompany his memoir, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left. On Wednesday, September 18th at 4:00 PM Robyn will perform a short set in record shop and sign copies of 1967 albums and books for event attendees! You can preorder your copy of Hitchcock’s 1967 album on vinyl as well as his 1967 book in the record shop and on our webstore now. All orders placed for local, instore pickup will receive a a signing wristband. Wristbands are required for the signing for all 13+ and guarantee entrance to our event. Wristbands are limited and non-transferable.
Robyn Hitchcock is a rock’n’roll surrealist. Born in London in 1953, he describes his songs as “paintings you can listen to”. As much a child of Dali, De Chirico and JG Ballard as of his 1960s musical heroes, he is a master of the absurd, reveling in the beauty of the unexpected. His first band The Soft Boys (1976 – 1981) has remained an influential art-rock touchstone for generations of musicians.
Without ever breaking the surface of pop culture, Hitchcock has floated at a tangent to the mainstream for nearly five decades. He has recorded more than 20 albums, and his songs have been performed by R.E.M., The Replacements, Neko Case, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Lou Barlow, Grant Lee Phillips, Sparklehorse, and Suzanne Vega with the Grateful Dead among others.
His latest album, 1967: Vacations In The Past is a loving acoustic tribute to his favourite year in rock music, featuring songs written by Jimi Hendrix, Ray Davies and Syd Barrett amongst others.
In 1996 Hitchcock was the subject of Jonathan Demme’s in-concert film, Storefront Hitchcock. Hitchcock came of age in the 1960s when he attended Winchester College, an eccentric hothouse boarding school in the south of England. This is the subject of 1967, which is both a memoir and an album. The memoir is a book 1967: How I Got There And Why I Never Left, describing how the music of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and others drastically transformed the direction of his life when he left home for this strange new world. The companion record album 1967: Vacations In The Past is a selection of the (mostly) hit songs of that year, re-recorded acoustically by Robyn with the help of some friends in Cambridge, San Francisco, and Sydney. He is currently preparing new material to release in 2025. “I like to keep busy”, he says: “We have all eternity to not exist”.
We’re huge fans of Robyn and so excited to host him while he’s in Nashville to participate in the AmericanaFest 2024 Conference at the Embassy Suites downtown, where he’ll sit in conversation with award-winning author Holly George-Warren on Friday, September 20th at 1:00 PM. Don’t miss your chance to catch him while he’s here in the record store on this special occasion! Preorder his upcoming album and his new book in the shop or on our site here. See you soon, Nashville!
