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Storefront Hitchcock

No, not that Hitchcock — the other one. In Storefront Hitchcock, Academy Award winning director Jonathan Demme (Silence Of The Lambs, Stop Making Sense) pays homage not to the master of suspense, but rather to Robyn Hitchcock – musician, wit and career eccentric. For Storefront Hitchcock, longtime fan Demme (who must surely be in to be canonised as patron saint of lost causes for his efforts here), filmed Hitchcock in front of an intimate audience in a downtown Manhattan storefront. No stranger to the concert film genre, Demme wisely chooses to put the focus squarely where it belongs – on the songs and the performance of Hitchcock himself. Replete with Hitchcock’s macabre, surrealistic and invariably hilarious between-song narratives, the set includes several new songs as well as select highlights from through-out Hitchcock’s 20+ year career. With occasional musical support from violinist Deni Bonet and guitarist Tim Keegan, Storefront Hitchcock is an endearing portrait of Robyn Hitchcock as acoustic troubadour and part-time absurdist comedian. Imagine Monty Python colliding with Syd Barrett or a twitching, Salvador Dali painting set to music and you’ll be some way towards understanding the fascin-ating universe that Robyn Hitchcock inhabits. — Martin Bell
What listeners get to hear (and see) on Storefront Hitchcock is Hitchcock’s musical ideas distilled in a way they’ve rarely been before. The stripped down, off-the-cuff feel is the music’s greatest asset, and the performance features Hitchcock at his jauntiest. — Mark Athitakis, Salon.com, 25/11/99

Although there is much humour in his act, he is not a comedian. His songs address a huge span of ideas and emotions and Demme’s close-up style allows all Hitchcock’s nuance and subtlety to register. — Neil McCormick, Sight and Sound, 1/99