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No Schoolboys Except Regulars - The Face Of Death

On the eve of the re-issue of The Soft Boys first two albums A Can Of Bees and Underwater Moonlight, Robyn Hitchcock describes the early days of the band and explains the inspirations behind two of his early songs...

The Soft Boys incubated in Cambridge in the mid 1970's, through several freezing winters and baking summers. 'Pushbike City' as it was known on local CB radio sometimes nurtured people that lived at a tangent to the 'job - family - mortgage pension' highway that most people expected to travel back then. Some of these people eventually found their way into my songs.

I lived off an often-frozen artery into town, Chesterton Road. There was a strip of shops, all independent and all now long-vanished. On the corner stood the greengrocer's, manned by Hamster Dan, his face and fingers pink from the east winds; then came the co-op shop where a police sergeant would rock back and forth in front of the meat counter and point a plummy finger at the goods, leering to the demoralized lady who quavered above the glass: "I'll have some of your beef, if I may...'

Next door to the co-op stood Hambis's place. Hambis Costas ran a greasy spoon cafe, where I would often go mid-afternoons for an inter-meal snack. The egg and chips were the answer to everything at 25 pence. Hambis was plagued by kids, however, or felt that he might be. He would ook around, unsmiling, his dark eyes clouded by an anxiety that manifested itself as a dread of youngsters, but seemed deeper-rooted. One of his feet dragged, and he frequently rubbed his hands on his apron and across his furrowed brow. Had he been a partisan in wartime Greece, perhaps, still wary of German paratroops here in mid-70's East Anglia? Was his damaged foot-fall from a wartime wound? I was too young and English to ask him, I was just a customer. In the window were two hand-written notices in spidery capitals, as if written in a mirror: NO CHIPS ALONE and NO SCHOOLBOYS EXCEPT REGULARS.

Around this time, a man in a black leather jacket appeared on the scene. He had a rubbery face, and slightly protruding ears. He would pass me daily as I went to the Chesterton Road strip. He walked slowly and deliberately, like a man from whom most hope was gone, yet who must keep moving or the last few dregs would be drained away. He held a plastic bag from each hand, weighing him down further, anchoring his steps. He may have lost hope, but he wasn't aimless: he stalked back and forth, many times a day, carrying his bags with an almost menacing sense of purpose. Even the regular schoolboys would have thought twice about interfering with his plastic bags. A distant light was kindled deep in his eyes, as if he was on a thousand-mile hike through the void, and Chesterton, Cambridge was but one of many zones he must pass through. I nicknamed him The Face Of Death.

After seeing the Face most days for a couple of months, it began to feel odd if I didn't run into him. He had become a fixture on my internal landscape, and In my solipsism I would think: 'Well, I'm here - why hasn't the Face shown up?' He and I never acknowledged each other - not even a nod. The Face didn't seem aware of anyone, but who knows what he felt? I began to identify with him, and pictured myself ending up like him - restless and solitary, passing through people like a ghost, without engaging with them. According to local gossip, he lived in a room full of milkbottles, and the odd syringe: he was diabetic, apparently. His actual name was Arthur, I discovered.

In the spring of 1977 I wrote The Face Of Death, which we recorded on the first Soft Boys EP, Give It To The Soft Boys. "The Face Of Death is my best friend/He lurks behind my favourite bend/ And though we meet, we never speak...". By now we were all eating at Hambis's in rehearsal breaks. One day I noticed that the walls, chairs and floor of the cafe had all turned green - a corporation 1950's green, glossy and reflective. What had triggered this makeover? I managed to ask Hambis.

"Oh" he shook his head and pointed to the ceiling "It's Arthur - he live upstairs now. Pays rent with paint." And he looked thoughtfully at the floor, then pivoted back to the kitchen to collect two more plates.

So the Face became Hambis's lodger. This meant he no longer needed to walk past my place on the way to shops - he was already at the shops. Meanwhile the band got busy. We were gigging in London more now, and for a while didn't have much time to rehearse. Returning late up the A10, The Soft Boys ate at Dismal Derek's in Baldock at about 2am. There were no mobile phones back then and yet everything functioned normally. We got up, we lived, we went to sleep again. It was the same whether you were John Travolta or The Face Of Death...

For most of 1978 The Soft Boys were attempting to make records. We recorded a lot, but almost none of it was good to listen to - we were loud, fast and intricate, like an unholy grafting of Yes onto Motorhead. Our live shows became a joyless melange of prog-folk-metal played to a bemused audience who had only just been converted from hippies to New Wavers and weren't ready to be piped into a parallel universe where Lemmy had joined Yes. What we did connected with almost nobody, but like the Face Of Death, we entered a few private worlds and lodged there, painting the furniture green.

Meanwhile, rumours abounded that Syd Barrett had returned to Cambridge: I revered Barrett and kept my eyes open for him. However, he was now called Roger and apparently looked nothing like he had done in his Syd days. I may have walked past him a dozen times and never known, which was all to the good for Roger/Syd, who was plagued by his fans and perhaps turned into somebody else partly to escape them. In any case, it's best to avoid meeting your heroes : you'll creep them out and they'll let you down, most likely. The Face Of Death/Arthur had no past that I knew of, so I could take him as he seemed to be.

One afternoon in September that year I had the jones for egg-and-chips and stopped into Hambis's. He actually greeted me - perhaps because I'd been away for a while. Shocked at this bantering opportunity, I asked him how Arthur was doing:

"Ah", replied Hambis, and for the first time in 3 years I saw him smile: "Arthur, yes" - he threw both hands up in a fait-accompli gesture - "he fall down dead - boom! Just like that".

...and the Kingdom Of Love

Another wanderer through the flat cold streets of Cambridge in the mid-70's was Harold. He wore bright robes and pantaloons that he sewed for himself from curtain material, and he carried a bed-roll on his back. His head was wrapped in a gold cloth bandana, and he coasted along the pavements like a galleon, sometimes singing to himself. He slept outdoors in a plastic-sheeted shelter that was also home-made. The fenland air being cruel and damp for much of the year, Harold was a hardy man. He ate crackers and cold baked beans, gargled disinfectant and had watery blue eyes that whose focus would come and go.

One morning his eyes happened to focus on me while I was playing guitar in my front room, gazing out into the street. Mesmerised, I maintained eye-contact (something I''m usually sparing with) as Harold lurched into the front garden and tapped on my window. 'Bless you, father' he said through the glass ' Have you got a cup of tea?' I did have a cup of tea on my desk, and so I made one for him, which I handed him through the window - having opened it first. 'Oh, thankyou father' said Harold. He spotted my guitar, leaning against my desk. 'Ah, you like music?' he said, as the tea warmed him beneath his striped apparel. 'Er...sometimes', I replied. Harold, still standing in the front garden, handed me the empty cup, closed his eyes and leaned back his head. 'Oooh' he chanted, in an operatic croon ' I was in Royston/ sitting in Royston/ my sister was in Royston/ and that old catfish was there/ bless the little catfish/ in the Sacred Light of Life/ and they said it was a naughty catfish/ but it was only a friend/ bless the catfish/ and my sister's friend...' slowly the song unwound as I held the cup.

At this point my six-month-old daughter awoke and began to cry. I fetched her downstairs from her cot and prepared to shut Harold back in the outside world. 'Ah, bless the baby ', he intoned, as her mother came in to take her for a feed. 'Any chance of a fried egg?'

Harold wasn't really a beggar. He was more of an old-time mendicant friar: in exchange for provisions he would leave you with a song, a prayer, or a blessing. A while later, he reappeared at our window and got his fried egg. The Soft Boys were rehearsing in the front room, and Harold stepped up to the mike to give an amplified blessing: "In the Spiritual Kingdom Of Love, bless the father, the mother, the little baby, and the boys in the Sacred Light Of Life....." Over the months, he repeated the phrase Spiritual Kingdom Of Love until it became a mantra to me. This was at the height of the punk era, unemployment was on the rise, beards and hair were whisking away like mist in a typhoon: the concept of a Spiritual Kingdom Of Love was anathema to everything the New Wave police stood for - so I just had to make it into a song. It wasn't about Harold as such, but he was the portal to it, and his intensity fuelled the obsession I felt in singing it.

Harold's second name was revealed as Fordham (I think) when he had an exhibition of his artwork at Kettles' Yard in Cambridge in the mid 1990's, shortly before his death. He was a vital figure, with far more energy in him than the Face had. Occasionally, his expression would cloud with rage and he would curse out entities that only he could see: then the anger would evaporate, leaving him again in a priestly mode. He also had a twinkle reserved in his eyes for any dame that attracted him, though he never did more than twinkle. With his his spiritual and erotic tendencies, he was a classic shamanistic front man: the Jim Morrison of Chesterton Road.

We recorded Kingdom Of Love in February 1980 for the Underwater Moonlight album. Currently re-released for the 5th time, on YepRoc Records.

Robyn Hitchcock's website.
A Can Of Bees and Underwater Moonlight are out on reissue now.

11:05 AM | 30/11/2010