The Soft Boys were an English rock band led by

Robyn Hitchcock Robyn Rowan Hitchcock (born 3 March 1953) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano, and bass guitar. After leading the Soft Boys in the late 1970s and releasing the ...

primarily during the 1970s, whose initially old-fashioned music style of psychedelic/folk-rock became part of the

neo-psychedelia Neo-psychedelia is a diverse genre of psychedelic music that draws inspiration from the sounds of 1960s psychedelia, either updating or copying the approaches from that era. Originating in the 1970s, it has occasionally seen mainstream pop su ...

scene with the release of ''

Underwater Moonlight ''Underwater Moonlight'' is the second studio album by English rock band the Soft Boys, released on 28 June 1980 by record label Armageddon. Initially unsuccessful, the album has gone on to be viewed as a psychedelic classic, influential on t ...

''. The band formed in 1976 in

Cambridge, England Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became ...

as Dennis and the Experts comprising Robyn Hitchcock (guitar), Rob Lamb (half-brother of radio host and author

Charlie Gillett Charles Thomas Gillett (; 20 February 1942 – 17 March 2010) was a British radio presenter, musicologist, and writer, mainly on rock and roll and other forms of popular music. He was particularly noted for his influential book ''The Sound of t ...

) guitar,

Andy Metcalfe Andy Metcalfe (born 3 March 1956, Bristol, England) is an English bassist, keyboardist and producer, who played mainly with The Soft Boys (with Robyn Hitchcock, 1976–1979), Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians (1984–1994), and with Squeeze of ...

(bass), and Morris Windsor (drums). Alan Davies replaced Lamb after only four gigs late in 1976, and

Kimberley Rew Kimberley Charles Rew (born 3 December 1951) is an English rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as a member of Katrina and the Waves from 1981 to 1999 and of Robyn Hitchcock's Soft Boys from 1978 to 1981. Two of his better-kno ...

eventually replaced Davies. Matthew Seligman replaced Metcalfe in 1979. The band broke up in 1981 after ''Underwater Moonlight''. Rew formed the more mainstream pop group Katrina and the Waves, while Hitchcock went on to a prolific career with a similar whimsical, surrealistic style, forming Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians in 1984 with fellow Soft Boys Morris Windsor and Andy Metcalfe, who went on to tour and record for ten years. They were briefly joined by Rew and Seligman in a re-formed Soft Boys for a UK tour in 1994 to mark the release of a box set of their work, and then reformed again in 2001 without Metcalfe for the 20th anniversary of ''Underwater Moonlight'' and the release of a new album, ''Nextdoorland'', in 2002. They disbanded once again in 2003. Seligman died in 2020 of complications from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

Discography

Albums

*'' A Can of Bees'' (1979) *''

'' (1980) *''Nextdoorland'' (2002)

Compilation and live albums

*''Two Halves for the Price of One'' (1981) (Studio rarities and live tracks) *''Live at the Portland Arms'' (cassette, 1983; LP, 1988) *''Invisible Hits'' (1983) *''Wading Through a Ventilator'' (EP) (1984) (Contains ''Give It To The Soft Boys'' EP, plus extra tracks) *''Raw Cuts'' (EP) (1989) (A retitled version of ''Wading Through a Ventilator'') *''1976-81'' (2 CD) (1993) (Best-of, plus rarities, out-takes and live tracks) *''Where Are The Prawns'' (cassette, 1994) *''Underwater Moonlight... And How It Got There'' (2 CD) (2001) (Contains all of ''Underwater Moonlight'', plus an additional disc of demos, rehearsals, and out-takes)

Singles and EPs

*''Give It To The Soft Boys'' 7" EP: "Wading Through a Ventilator" b/w "The Face of Death" and "Hear My Brane" (1977) *"(I Want to Be An) Anglepoise Lamp" b/w "Fatman's Son" (1978) *''Near the Soft Boys'' 7" EP: "Kingdom of Love" b/w "

Vegetable Man "Vegetable Man" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, written by the frontman, Syd Barrett, and recorded in 1967. It was considered for a release as a single or for inclusion on their second album, ''A Saucerful of Secrets'', but went unr ...

" & "Strange" (1980) *"I Wanna Destroy You" b/w "Old Pervert" (1980) *"Only the Stones Remain" b/w "The Asking Tree" (1981) *"Love Poisoning" (1982) *"He's a Reptile" b/w "Song No. 4" (1983) *"The Face of Death" b/w "The Yodelling Hoover" (1989) *''Side Three'' (CD EP) (2002) An album financed by Radar Records was recorded at Rockfield Studios in 1978, at the same time Rush was recording '' Hemispheres'' there. The resultant album was never released, although one or two of the tracks have had subsequent release as part of compilations.

References

External links

The Asking Tree
database of Soft Boys and Robyn Hitchcock live appearances and releases
The Glass HotelThe Soft Boys collection
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

's live music archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Soft Boys, The English post-punk music groups English new wave musical groups Musical groups established in 1976 Musical groups disestablished in 1980 Musical groups reestablished in 2001 Musical groups from Cambridge English alternative rock groups Neo-psychedelia groups Attic Records (Canada) artists Radar Records artists Rykodisc artists Matador Records artists