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A Can of Bees by The Soft Boys.

Tracks:
Give It to the Soft Boys
Pigworker, The
Human Music
Leppo and the Jooves
Rat's Prayer, The
Do the Chisel
Sandra's Having Her Brain Out
Return of the Sacred Crab, The
Cold Turkey
Skool Dinner Blues
Wading Through a Ventilator [Live]
Let Me Put It Next to You
Blues in the Dark
When I Was a Kid
Love Poisoning
Asking Tree, The
Muriel's Hoof/Root of the Clones
Have a Heart Betty [Mark 1]
Rock 'N' Roll Toilet [Mark 1]
Heartbreak Hotel

Performer Notes: The Soft Boys: Robyn Hitchcock, Kimberly Rew (vocals, guitar); Andy Metcalfe (vocals, bass); Morris Windsor (vocals, drums).
Additional personnel: Jim Melton (vocals, harmonica, percussion); Gerry Hale (violin).
Recorded at Spaceward Studios, Cambridge, England from August to November, 1978. Includes liner notes by Robyn Hitchcock.
The Soft Boys, like so many other underground miscreants in the '70s, spent their formative years (unbeknownst to them) generating enough critical capital to earn much sought-after biographical adjectives like "influential" and "underrated." The Robyn Hitchcock-led, Cambridge, England-born, pseudo-psych rock outfit's shared love for all things Byrds, Beatles, Dylan, and Syd Barrett was both venerated and blown to smithereens on their 1979 debut long-player, A Can of Bees. More angular and jarring than the band's beloved 1980 follow-up, Underwater Moonlight, Hitchcock, Kimberly Rew, Morris Windsor, and Andy Metcalfe sounded positively possessed, channeling both '60s progressive rock and late-'70s punk into an unholy guitar-driven onslaught fueled by Hitchcock's surreal lyrics: opening a record with a line like "feel like asking a tree for an autograph" is one thing, but backing up those words with an atonal, apocalyptic blues riff is another. It's an often brutish affair that works more often than it should, with highlights arriving by way of the pounding and addictive "Leppo and the Jooves," the incendiary "Do the Chisel," and the impossibly dumb but nearly perfect pop gem "Sandra's Having Her Brain Out." A Can of Bees has seen its fair share of iterations over the years, often boasting multiple bonus cuts and conflicting track listings (the impossibly prolific Hitchcock would eventually become notorious for this with his solo releases), but they're all more or less complete, and the material continues to inspire, even if it's only a handful of ears at a time. ~ James Christopher Monger

Professional Reviews: Mojo (Publisher) (p.122) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "'Human Music' indicates Hitchcock's sense of cosmic wonder..."

Format: Vinyl (1 Disc); Stereo

Country: USA

Studio/Live: Studio

Release Date: 11 January, 2011

Label: Yep Roc

• Additional personnel: Jim Melton (vocals, harmonica, percussion); Gerry Hale (violin).
  
• Recorded at Spaceward Studios, Cambridge, England from August to November, 1978. Includes liner notes by Robyn Hitchcock.
  
• The Soft Boys, like so many other underground miscreants in the '70s, spent their formative years (unbeknownst to them) generating enough critical capital to earn much sought-after biographical adjectives like "influential" and "underrated." The Robyn Hitchcock-led, Cambridge, England-born, pseudo-psych rock outfit's shared love for all things Byrds, Beatles, Dylan, and Syd Barrett was both venerated and blown to smithereens on their 1979 debut long-player, A Can of Bees. More angular and jarring than the band's beloved 1980 follow-up, Underwater Moonlight, Hitchcock, Kimberly Rew, Morris Windsor, and Andy Metcalfe sounded positively possessed, channeling both '60s progressive rock and late-'70s punk into an unholy guitar-driven onslaught fueled by Hitchcock's surreal lyrics: opening a record with a line like "feel like asking a tree for an autograph" is one thing, but backing up those words with an atonal, apocalyptic blues riff is another. It's an often brutish affair that works more often than it should, with highlights arriving by way of the pounding and addictive "Leppo and the Jooves," the incendiary "Do the Chisel," and the impossibly dumb but nearly perfect pop gem "Sandra's Having Her Brain Out." A Can of Bees has seen its fair share of iterations over the years, often boasting multiple bonus cuts and conflicting track listings (the impossibly prolific Hitchcock would eventually become notorious for this with his solo releases), but they're all more or less complete, and the material continues to inspire, even if it's only a handful of ears at a time. ~ James Christopher Monger

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