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.

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. The album serves as a companion piece to Hitchcock's memoir. Published this summer, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left explores how that pivotal slice of time tastes to a bright, obsessive-compulsive boy who is shipped off to a hothouse academic boarding school as he reaches the age of thirteen—just as Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited starts to bite, and the Beatles’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band explodes.

When he arrives in January 1966, Robyn Hitchcock is still a boy pining for the comforts of home and his family’s loving au pair, Teresa. By December 1967, he’s mutated into a 6’2″ tall rabid Bob Dylan fan, whose two ambitions in life are to get really high and fly to Nashville.

In between—as the hippie revolution blossoms in the world outside—Hitchcock adjusts to the hierarchical, homoerotic world of Winchester, threading a path through teachers with arrested development, some oafish peers, and a sullen old maid—a very English freak show. On the way he befriends a cadre of bat-winged teenage prodigies and meets their local guru, the young Brian Eno.

At the end of 1967,all the ingredients are in place that will make Robyn Hitchcock a songwriter for life. But then again, does 1967 ever really end?

1967 is available to order here as a hardback book and pink colored vinyl LP.

**Preorders for store pickup will be held for three months after our event date. Please pick up your 1967 preorder no later than December 18th.