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Roxy Music

Started by kalowski, November 03, 2018, 11:24:45 PM

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kalowski

I seem to start a few negative, moaning threads so let's be positive.


Aren't Roxy Music fucking wonderful?

When I was a kid I heard Avalon and just thought, "Who are these soppy jokers?" It put me off for years. Hearing Eno was involved piqued my interest a good fifteen years later and around 10-15 years ago I first heard their debut.

And that was that. This was real Art-Rock. They create such an amazing sound.

Don't agree? "Kiss my arse," as Alan Partridge once said.

Sebastian Cobb

I'm not sure where Roxy Music officially end and Brian Ferry's solo work officially begins, but yes, they are brilliant.

Ferry's Hard Rain's Gonna Fall is fantastic.

pigamus

Same Old Scene is one of my favourite songs. And it only got to number twelve!

My favourite ever band.

The run of albums which consists of Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, These Foolish Things, Stranded, Another Time, Another Place, Country Life, Siren, Let's Stick Together, In Your Mind, The Bride Stripped Bare is as stellar a 6 years as any act has ever had. Have to say that I really struggle to get on with anything after that, with Ferry's album Frantic being the only thing that comes vaguely close to previous heights.

Here's an unsung Ferry/Eno reunion song, the lovely 'I Thought': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRZUHRZYmW8

Over You and Both Ends Burning are probably among their least-remembered hits, but are their best ones for me.

another Mr. Lizard

Before his ridiculous "mock rock" summation of the New York Dolls, Bob Harris gave a couple of similar kickings to Roxy on OGWT. Here's one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j2R8sZ4SlXI

Aside from those classic band albums, the solo ventures are well worth investigation too. Eno must have had a few threads on CaB already over the years; Ferry's stuff is often underrated; and then there's 'Diamond Head', 'Rock Follies' etc.

kalowski

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on November 04, 2018, 12:33:01 AM
My favourite ever band.

The run of albums which consists of Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, These Foolish Things, Stranded, Another Time, Another Place, Country Life, Siren, Let's Stick Together, In Your Mind, The Bride Stripped Bare is as stellar a 6 years as any act has ever had. Have to say that I really struggle to get on with anything after that, with Ferry's album Frantic being the only thing that comes vaguely close to previous heights.

Here's an unsung Ferry/Eno reunion song, the lovely 'I Thought': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRZUHRZYmW8

I've not yet delved into Ferry's contemporaneous solo stuff. Looks like I should.

NoSleep

Quote from: another Mr. Lizard on November 04, 2018, 09:02:13 AM
Before his ridiculous "mock rock" summation of the New York Dolls, Bob Harris gave a couple of similar kickings to Roxy on OGWT. Here's one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j2R8sZ4SlXI

One of the presenters of the precursor to OGWT, Disco Two, was (nowadays mainly sports- but back them mostly music-) journalist Richard Williams, who was the man who championed Roxy Music in Melody Maker in the early days and was also involved in getting them signed to Island Records. It was through Richard Williams recommendations and writing that I found many of my now-favourite artists, so I was all over Roxy Music from the day their first album was released and even got to see them perform at the Black Prince pub in Bexley with almost the same lineup as on a the LP (bass player had already been replaced) before they had released their first single (Virginia Plain) after which they got too big for such smaller venues. They somehow transformed the atmosphere of the Black Prince in a way that no other band I saw there was able. I remember thinking how nice the place smelled, for once, when I first arrived in the then-empty function room, and they had decorated the place with posters, too. Amazing to witness live how Eno transformed the sound of Phil Manzanera's guitar in the outro of Ladytron (one of my favourite Roxy moments).

seepage

Quote from: Phoenix Lazarus on November 04, 2018, 05:56:42 AM
Over You and Both Ends Burning are probably among their least-remembered hits, but are their best ones for me.

Both Ends Burning and Pyjamarama are my favourites

Clownbaby

Nobody can do sexy Dracula crooning quite like Bryan Ferry. I think Roxy Music was the first music I ever took an interest in, at 5 years old, cause my dad always had it playing in the car. They may have influenced my whole taste in music.

bgmnts

I like that Street Life song.

PaulTMA

I Thought is incredible, it's like a lost song from Siren.

There seems to be an occasionally held view that Roxy is no good after Eno (suuuuure), after Country Life, or from the 1978 reunion onwards, but I would say they never put a foot wrong on their albums, save for those three crap covers on Flesh & Blood.

One of my favourite things about the Roxy Music I've heard is their ability to take the absurdly camp and melodramatic and make it genuinely moving and emotional. If There Is Something has that ridiculous, cartoonish, despondent "growing potatOES by the scooOooOooOre" part, which is then immediately offset by that gorgeous coda: In Every Dream Home A Heartache is over the top as they come and yet is still really creepy and sordid.

No, no, nooooooooooo!

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: A Car With No Doors on November 04, 2018, 02:43:51 PM
One of my favourite things about the Roxy Music I've heard is their ability to take the absurdly camp and melodramatic and make it genuinely moving and emotional. If There Is Something has that ridiculous, cartoonish, despondent "growing potatOES by the scooOooOooOre" part, which is then immediately offset by that gorgeous coda: In Every Dream Home A Heartache is over the top as they come and yet is still really creepy and sordid.

No, no, nooooooooooo!

I don't reckon it's self-aware though Ferry was all about that life.


Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 04, 2018, 02:48:50 PM
I don't reckon it's self-aware though Ferry was all about that life.



The deep down sincerity honestly makes it even better. It's like the pilot of Twin Peaks where nobody can stop crying, and it's uncomfortable and devastating and actually kind of silly all at once. Ferry should be classed along somebody like Peter Hammill in the bombastically emotive vocalist stakes.


kalowski

Quote from: A Car With No Doors on November 04, 2018, 02:43:51 PM
In Every Dream Home A Heartache is over the top as they come and yet is still really creepy and sordid.

Just incredible. The band can rock. The minute he drops that, "But you blew my mind..." and the band rock out is delightful

pupshaw

Because on TOTP and OGWT there was always some degree of miming going on, back in the day most of us never knew what Roxy Music really sounded like live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMBeqNfYEYY

I love Paul Thompson as a drummer, and it was a genius insightful move by Bryan Ferry to put a powerhouse rock and roll drummer behind the art school boys.
You could erase Eno's squeaks and warbles and not much would be lost, but the drums drive the sound.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: PaulTMA on November 04, 2018, 12:45:36 PM

There seems to be an occasionally held view that Roxy is no good after Eno (suuuuure), after Country Life, or from the 1978 reunion onwards, but I would say they never put a foot wrong on their albums, save for those three crap covers on Flesh & Blood.

My favourite Roxy line-up was the Eddie Jobson band (and Viva my favourite album) - he REALLY made the rest of the band up their game significantly.

But after Jobson leaves I have no interest in the subsequent cabaret band.

And, as I've said many times on CaB, the 2001 reunion tour show at the NEC is one of the most disappointing concerts I've ever been to.

massive bereavement

Quote from: NoSleep on November 04, 2018, 09:38:16 AM
One of the presenters of the precursor to OGWT, Disco Two, was (nowadays mainly sports- but back them mostly music-) journalist Richard Williams,

You might be confusing Richard Williams with early editions of OGWT, I think "Disco 2" was Tommy Vance and Pete Drummond.

NoSleep

I was going from memory, but...

QuoteThe regular presenter of the first series was Tommy Vance, who was replaced for the second series by Pete Drummond; other presenters used occasionally included Mike Harding, Richard Williams and Mike Raven.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_2_%28TV_series%29

massive bereavement

Quote from: NoSleep on November 04, 2018, 06:23:49 PM
I was going from memory, but...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_2_%28TV_series%29

As the tapes were practically all wiped, it's thoroughly depressing seeing some of the acts that appeared on those two series. There's no surviving contemporary footage whatsoever of quite a number of them.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: massive bereavement on November 04, 2018, 06:37:06 PM
As the tapes were practically all wiped, it's thoroughly depressing seeing some of the acts that appeared on those two series. There's no surviving contemporary footage whatsoever of quite a number of them.

The surviving tapes of Rock Goes to College are excellent (the specials one especially), why the fuck is there not anything like it these days?

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on November 04, 2018, 04:00:40 PM
And, as I've said many times on CaB, the 2001 reunion tour show at the NEC is one of the most disappointing concerts I've ever been to.

The reunion shows were hampered a bit by the very noticeable weathering of Ferry's voice. He stopped doing the vampire croon in about 1980, going for a somewhat more conventionally emotive singing style, and there's been a downward slide ever since.

His voice has taken on a hushed, melancholic quality that can still work wonders, as it does in his lush, spectral cover of Robert Palmer's 'Johnny and Mary': https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuSxgL83dE

poodlefaker

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on November 04, 2018, 12:33:01 AM
The run of albums which consists of Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, These Foolish Things, Stranded, Another Time, Another Place, Country Life, Siren, Let's Stick Together, In Your Mind, The Bride Stripped Bare is as stellar a 6 years as any act has ever had. Have to say that I really struggle to get on with anything after that, with Ferry's album Frantic being the only thing that comes vaguely close to previous heights.

You could add Here Come the Warm Jets to this list: it's got all the band apart from Ferry on it, iirc.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on November 05, 2018, 12:11:18 PM
The reunion shows were hampered a bit by the very noticeable weathering of Ferry's voice. He stopped doing the vampire croon in about 1980, going for a somewhat more conventionally emotive singing style, and there's been a downward slide ever since.

It wasn't just Ferry's voice, the whole thing just seemed very...workmanlike is the way I've always described it, just like when I saw Pink Floyd in Italy (I happened to be on holiday nearby) on the Division Bell tour - in both cases I may as well have just stayed at home and listened to the albums.

I've seen FAR worse gigs in terms of shitness, of course (nothing has ever come close to L7 at the Fleece and Firkin, or Bob Hall at Queen Victoria Hall), but Roxy and Floyd were particularly disappointing because, as a huge fan of both, they should have been highlights for me.

Quote from: poodlefaker on November 05, 2018, 01:36:52 PM
You could add Here Come the Warm Jets to this list: it's got all the band apart from Ferry on it, iirc.

Very true, I highlight the 1971-1978 period especially because it feels like an continuous cohesive project to 're-make/re-model' pop music and to invent and refine a fresh approach. So Eno's 'glam' albums also fit snugly into this overall project that began with the first Roxy demos.

a duncandisorderly

wetton/jobson/thompson line-up for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9QpI3wVvek

there's footage somewhere of a tv appearance they did in this form where the bloke putting out the mics was clearly a fan of king crimson, & set ferry & wetton up as joint lead singers.


neigemont

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on November 05, 2018, 12:11:18 PM
The reunion shows were hampered a bit by the very noticeable weathering of Ferry's voice. He stopped doing the vampire croon in about 1980, going for a somewhat more conventionally emotive singing style, and there's been a downward slide ever since.

His voice has taken on a hushed, melancholic quality that can still work wonders...

Indeed.

The world-weary voice  in the version of Bitter Sweet used for Berlin Babylon really slays me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXCL2n7MleQ