Robyn with Jonathan Demme
RH on Storefront Hitchcock
One chilly night in April 1995, my partner, Mich?le
Noach and I were backstage, sitting upstairs between sets
at a little club in New York state. Suddenly a man burst
into the room and pointed at the trapdoor. "It's
Jonathan Demme!" he yelped. "He's coming
up." "Oh I very much doubt that," I said.
Moments later, the trapdoor creaked open and Jonathan
himself appeared, followed by his wife Joanne Howard and
some friends.
"That was him alright" said Mich?le, half an
hour later, after they had dematerialized into the fog.
We had managed to exchange phone numbers, and I had the
impression that Jonathan would be interested in directing
a live video. "Gosh," I said to Mich?le,
"I'd better get a record deal." So I rang
Geoffrey Weiss at Warner Bros. Records and he said that
would be no problem.
But eighteen months later, it was clear that what
Jonathan Demme had in mind was to make a film of my live
show. This was pretty incredible! People had long
threatened me with live albums, but no one had ever
suggested making a live movie! And the beauty of it all
was that Jonathan always records live takes. He dislikes
lip-synching as much as I do. We both aim to be
spontaneous, within the bounds of professionalism.
The details of how the movie, and its close friend, the
budget, evolved are available elsewhere. Suffice it to
say, that in early December 1996, I found myself in a
shop window on 14th Street in New York City, playing to
four cameras, a sound truck and an invisible audience.
Deni Bonet (who accompanied me at the show Jonathan and
Joanne had seen the previous April) joined me on violin,
and Tim Keegan -- whose band 'Homer" graces Moss
Elixir -- dropped by to play the guitar on a couple
of songs. Jonathan Demme's concept was very simple -- I
was to perform my current state-of-'95 show in this
location, with maybe a few extra songs thrown in. We both
made suggestions and very politely cancelled each other's
ideas out. He had suggested some old 12-inch B-sides and
out-takes, stuff of mine he had heard in his days as a
record collector in Melrose in the early '80s. I can't
remember what I'd wanted to play. But the final selection
was songs that we were both happy with. So the show
hinges around material from Moss Elixir, with a
few new songs, and some older ones from the '80s. Jeez! I
never thought I'd be looking BACK on the '80s.
"I'm Only You," "Freeze" and the
"The Yip! Song" are descended from my days with
the Egyptians, "Glass Hotel" is much as it was
on Eye. "I Something You" appeared on a
K-Record 7-inch. I've been playing Jimi Hendrix's
"The Wind Cries Mary" for years.
"1974," "I Don't Remember Guildford,"
"Let's Go Thundering" and "Where Do You
Go?" were written with the movie in mind.
It's worth pointing out, however, that a concert movie
and a soundtrack record are radically different things. A
film doesn't have to bear the repeated scrutiny that the
soundtrack does. An album has to survive a degree of
repetition. So I've reduced the number and volume of
introductions to the songs and they have been cued up on
the CD as separate tracks, so you can skip them. It's
also worth mentioning that a song like
"Airscape" worked better visually than
sonically, so it didn't make the CD. Conversely,
"Beautiful Queen," although a great
performance, didn't make it into the movie.
Finally, the LP all I can say is that I've always wanted
to make a double-album, ever since Blonde on Blonde.
Un-used British variations of the movie poster
