College rock begins here, with Robyn Hitchcock and The Soft Boys. These guys were a riot. Didn’t have an original idea in their heads. Lyrics were gross. Couldn’t hack it with the punks ’cause they couldn’t leggo the Byrds riffs, but they sure did a mean “Mystery Train.” Gave Cambridge a jostle in the late ’70s, then gave up. Donated a guitarist to Katrina and the Waves.
Underwater Moonlight is the better of the only two ‘real’ records The Soft Boys ever made, a sprawling amalgam of punk, pop, psychedelia, and Hitchcock’s own sicko vision. The Boys sang, often in fiery yet immaculate three-part harmonies, of love and war and sex and death and things that go bump in the night, always with a keen sense of ironic detachment (or so you hoped). Close scrutiny of the lyrics results in scrunched-up noses; this is the same expression I have seen on the faces of unwillings exposed to Ween or The Flaming Lips.
If Moonlight now sounds somewhat dated, the songs are not to blame. The album was recorded all wrong -- the production is a bit suffocating, reminiscent of what John Cale did to The Stooges. Fortunately, the 2001 Matador reissue added an entire disc of dusty studio tapes (more than a little crud, but the best moments -- “She Wears My Hair,” “Goodbye Maurice or Steve,” and the awesome take on Roxy’s “Over You” -- are looser and fuller than anything that made the record).
I’ll admit it -- I’m a sucker for melody, certainly something indie rock has delivered more consistently than has That Other Stuff. You can draw a line from The Soft Boys to R.E.M. to Pavement to Modest Mouse to Tapes ’n’ Tapes -- all catchier than anything the kids are dancing to today. But in the words of Louis Armstrong, “There are some people, if they don’t know, you can’t tell ’em.” That, to me, is what indie rock is really all about. We know we’re right. Certainly, The Soft Boys knew. “They say I’m weird,” sang Hitchcock, “but cleanliness of the soul is more important, don’t you think?”