'Sweet Home Quarantine' online show on StageIt.com
all 70's songs

Review by Adrienne Meddock from Zub Records
Tonight’s show features songs from the 1970s. Robyn reminds us that's pretty good as the 70s is the decade he started to write, the 80s were a flower bed from the 70s compost heap from which he grew. Take that, 70s!

So the plan is that Robyn will play mainly covers of 70s songs but he'll bookend the show with songs that he wrote in the 70s. Hence, the opening song is ‘Insanely Jealous’ from Underwater Moonlight.

Humans are capable of enormous emotional swings: Robyn moves to the 70s covers with Rupert Holmes’ ‘Escape (The Pina Colada Song).’ He asked us to imagine what was going on in the 70s as he adds lyrics about “Jimmy Carter,” and intejects a few more 70s movers and shakers into the lyrics of the old AM radio chestnut. It is a fairly spirited cover with the silly scat bridge matching the absurdity of the truly inane song. Upon finishing, Robyn assures us he'd like to take us down Columbus Avenue in the rain and spin us around and sing the song to us as he'd like us to hear it. As Rupert would like us to hear it.

Next up: Nick Drake's ‘Parasite’ from 1972’s Pink Moon. It sounds like a cousin to ‘Dear Prudence’ in RH’s hands but without the psychedelic overtones, if you can imagine that.

Robyn doesn't miss a chance to conjure Bryan Ferry and he selects the song Ferry dedicated to Humphrey Bogart, ‘2HB’

Em and Tubby appeared and Tub is very much enjoying the scritches he was getting, for a change. Either R.H. or Em makes the great comment “I talk about you because I like your hair.” Emma comments about the ring light needing adjusting and Robyn comments “better the ring light than the ringworm.” They’d both make great characters for a future Hitchcock composition, 'The Ring Light and the Ringworm.'

RH then sings the inescapable 70s soundtrack staple, ‘Stayin Alive,’ with Emma harmonizing. Since the Bee Gees spanned the homelands of both Robyn and Emma they each swap personal stories of friends of friends who had encounters with the young Gibb family. Robyn tells us that his former father-in-law told stories of running off the Bee Gees from rehearsing in the TV studio where he worked on Saturdays.

Emma and RH experiment with Robyn singing falsetto with Emma singing the lower part and then they switch it up, vice versa. It's very fun and silly but also well done. As the song ends Emma giggles saying "the Gibb Brothers: the biggest influence on the Soft Boys.” They wonder if Morris (Windsor, drummer for Soft Boys and Egyptians) likes the Bee Gees as he very much likes the Beach Boys. I don't think they came to a resolution.

Still “in the 70s” Emma professes her love for Rod Stewart. Robyn comments, “ legally he can only marry models.” He goes on to suggest that Ron Wood is Rod’s sleeper cell in the Rolling Stones and can get him in if he needs. Perhaps model shopping.

When we get to the Rod song it's ‘Maggie Mae,’ with Emma singing and pulling faces at the surprisingly problematic lyrics. I guess it's a little more thought provoking and stark singing those words without the pop radio accompaniment as most of us learned to sing it. It’s like sunlight showing how aged some of the lyrics seem. Still It reminds me how much I loved this song as a kid, not yet 10. It was the sort of song I'd listen to and think one day I will have these big feelings or at least have cause for the big feelings I'm already feeling.

It is interstitial time, and Robyn pledges he'll learn sitar the next time Emma is out of town. Emma goads him “just like you learned to play the banjo that you got when you first moved to Nashville?” Robyn answers that he sees the banjo is a kind of corrupted sitar.

They move into the next request proclaiming it to be almost the right thing like a gift from your grandma, and instead they provide a different Bowie song than requested, ‘Drive In Saturday.’

Then Robyn performs solo ‘Green is the Colour’ from the movie Move, music Pink Floyd wrote the 1969 film.

He follows this with one of the greatest love songs of the 70s or any decade, ‘Kung Fu Fighting.’ I have great affection for this song. The Beef People, our band, rehearsed above some storefronts. In one room of our upstairs “Beef Nest” were personal effects of what looked like a circa 1974 divorcee. There were period albums, polyester clothes, TV Guides with time capsule schedules. The gem of them all was the Carl Douglas album, Kung Fu and Other Great Love Songs. I’ve never listened to the song the same way again.

Emma returned with Tubby and Robyn realizes that he played a 1969 song on a 70s show and apologizes profusely. He tells a story of Lou Reed’s bass player as the bouncer at Irving Plaza and I lose the thread but it was very funny. Ephemera into the ether.

They share vocals on the next 70s nuggets, ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen.’ Robyn adds a very low voice for the verses while Emma does interesting things vocally that are appropriate and fun. When they conclude, Emma announces that RH is wearing a polka dotted onesie.

For Harold Lepidus they play the request ‘Only Living Boy in New York’ by Simon and Garfunkel; it's very lovely. Recall Paul Simon recently sold his publishing catalog, so there's been a lot of focus on his songwriting on my social media. In many ways he's been unfairly forgotten as a writer. I guess he’s the Donovan of American folk, unfairly dismissed as a mere Bob wannabe.

Emma then performs Blondie's ‘Heart of Glass’ and at her invitation Robyn make up his own verse and it's all great fun and that's our 70s grooving night. You know, I don’t think we got the other RH bookend.

--Adrienne Meddock, Looking for her Elephant Flares