Robyn Hitchcock sought out some old friends to record his new album, Ole! Tarantula, and he found the Venus 3: Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin. By enlisting "3/4s of the Minus 5 and half of R.E.M.," Hitchcock has created what he calls, "the rockingest record I've made in years." While the album roars with the garage-fueled energy of his Soft Boys days, Hitchcock's lyricism continues to drive his songs. The New York Times says, "[His songs] bridge the psychedelia of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett and the archetypal English 'nonsense' of Edward Lear." In addition to the Venus 3 core group, Ole! Tarantula was engineered by Seattle mainstay Kurt Bloch and features a cast of recurrent and new characters in the Hitchcock story: Morris Windsor (Soft Boys/Egyptians), Sean Nelson (Harvey Danger), Chris Ballew (Presidents of The United States of America), Kimberly Rew (Soft Boys) and Ian McLagan (The Faces). Tracks: Adventure Rocket Ship / Underground Sun / Museum Of Sex / Belltown Ramble / Ole! Tarantula / (A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations) Briggs / Red Locust Frenzy / Cause It's Love (Saint Parallelogram) / The Authority Box / N.Y. Doll.
