Philzone.org Discussion Board: Archive 2004: Music Talk Archive 2004: Roxy Music Love Fest

I had to break out the vinyl....that's another story.

But now I'm three songs into Country Life and I'm really wondering how I ever found the Grateful Dead.
Roxy Music - my first love - for many of the reasons that I love the GD - the songwriting....the melodies....
the band interplay - the Eno/Ferry split
the dissonant organ tones but also the horns and the harmonica!!! Bryan's voice.

and the popular misconception that their most popular album - Avalon - has ANYTHING at ALL to do with the sound of this band. ha ha ha

"Somebody told me
Just the other day
That you're leaving me
We're through
Well if you knew
How it hurt me so
Then you'd change your mind
I'm sure
Don't want to hear
What's going on
I don't care
What's new
Don't want to know
About anything
'Cause all I want
Is you
Going out with other girls
Was always such a bore
But since I fell in love with you
I need you more and more
Don't want to know
About one-night-stands
Cut-price souvenirs
All I want is
The real thing
And a night that lasts
For years.
If you ever change your mind
I've a certain cure
An old refrain, it lingers on
L'amour, toujours l'amour...
Don't want to learn
About etiquette
From glossy magazines
Why should I try
To talk correct
Like they do
In another scenes
Say no more
About imagery
You're starting to confuse
Just make an offer
Of more romance
Of course I can't refuse
All I want is you
Oo oo I'm all cracked up on you..."
BF

what an amazing thing.

No ENo on COuntry life. But still agreat record.

Oc, no eno on country life, freak. He left after the first album. That crazy eno....all about his ambient noise. People tried to get me into the airport stuff.....I appreciate it, I do.

But it was Before and After Science I adored. King's Lead Hat....an anagram of TALKING HEADS.

or Backwater....
"Backwater
We’re sailing at the edges of time
Backwater
We’re drifting at the waterline
Oh we’re floating in the coastal waters
You and me and the porter’s daughters
Ooh what to do not a sausage to do
And the shorter of the porter’s daughters
Dips her hand in the deadly waters
Ooh what to do in a tiny canoe
Black water
There were six of us but now we are five
We’re all talking
To keep the conversation alive
There was a senator from ecuador
Who talked about a meteor
That crashed on a hill in the south of peru
And was found by a conquistador
Who took it to the emperor
And he passed it on to a turkish guru.
His daughter
Was slated for becoming divine
He taught her
He taught her how to split and define
But if you study the logistics
And heuristics of the mystics
You will find that their minds rarely move in a line
So it’s much more realistic
To abandon such ballistics
And resign to be trapped on a leaf in a vine..."

and what were those flashcards he developed? Brilliant fucker.

Now WHO has a Country Life album with the two covers.....?!?! Do they exist? There was one printing I think. I'll pay some halfway decent money.

Eno, eno....back to the vinyl
eGADS

Fuckin before & after science is gone. GRRR
luckily I have my ferry solo gems....In Your Mind, Bride Stripped Bare....Let's Stick Together was a cassette and needs to be replaced. Needs indeed.

THE FLASHCARDS
called
Oblique Strategies.
http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

"Manifesto" did it for me. The Roxy Music show in Minneapolis on that album tour is among my top three non-Dead concerts of all time (Ramones about the same era, and Hot Tuna at London's Roundhouse in 1976 would be the other two.)
Roxy Music's "For Your Pleasure" is another favorite, as are Eno's "Before and After Science" and "Another Green World." I used to listen to his ambient stuff all the time too (Music for Films, Music for Airports).

I Love the Eno "pop" records! Although Warm Jets an Taking Tiger Mountain are MY favs. I a more of a fan of No Pussyfooting and Evening Star than i am of the Ambient and Music For series.

I own the Country Life Album with the two girls, I see the other cover out there all of the time. If I see another with the two girls in reasonable shape would you want me to pick it up Huck? I see them now and again.

I love Roxy Music with & without Eno.
Their version of Midnight Hour is a rawker.
Avalon is probably my fave overall album but Flesh & Blood is a close second.

Do you really like that later stuff Dyer? I mean I lost interest after Manifesto or with Manifesto I should say.

WOW, Popi....you see them "now and again"? I think I HAVE actually seen one once a while back, but I heard that the production costs of the layering were prohibitive. Anyway, as far as collecting goes, I heard they were rare, those that actually still have the sleeve of the tree, as the sleeve was fragile. Are you seeing ones with both layers, Popi, or just ones with the "foliage layer" ripped off/destroyed?

and later Roxy, well, i love all that stuff too....but it all bleeds solo Bryan Ferry effort.....all that languid lounge lizard smooooooothness. Hell, I have a picture disc of Don't Stop the Dance and 12" of the song he did for Legend (Is Your Love Strong Enough?)....

Hell, I have an Angel Eyes 12" disco remix.

Riiiiiight Popi, If you like "true Roxy" - that era ends at Manifesto.

Ayyyyyy
as if the apt wasn't already enuf discomoboulated with all this xmas crap
now the vinyl strewn everywhere
caramba

I am not sure what you mean, I have Atco 106 with the two girls in their underwear covering their breasts with their hands. It is all one photograph, I do not have the original sleave. I will see what I can come up with. Too bad my local record store guru stepped off the deepend this past summer.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=306&item=4059916362&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Yeah, see, Popi, this is the tale -
(and in the tradition of Deadheads, I can lord over you with my superior knowledge - PAH )

http://www.superseventies.com/ac26countrylife.html

"While recording Country Life, Ferry went to Portugal to write lyrics. There he met two German fans, Constanze Karoli and Eveline Grunwald. Ferry had already decided to call the album Country Life -- after the British magazine for the gentry -- and he wanted the cover to contrast with "the usual Country Life magazine photography, where you normally have characters shooting ducks or jumping over fences in top hats." When he suggested a half-nude photo session on the beach, he says, the women "were very keen to do the job." They later translated the lyrics to "Bitter-Sweet" into German, which Ferry sings on the record.

Perhaps aided by the cover, Country Life was the first Roxy album to penetrate the American Top Forty. But the indelicate position of Karoli's and Grunwald's fingers annoyed many retailers, who refused to stock the album. So Atlantic Records disguised some LPs with green shrink-wrap and pressed an alternative cover that removed the women altogether, showing only the Portuguese foilage. "


So, right, I have the album with the foliage, and I've seen albums with the girls.

I want one with the green shrink wrap, though, see. And I've never seen that, in person.

A good friend of mine actually met Karoli at a party and asked him about the shoot...Karoli said the story goes that he and Grunwald and these two girls were coming home from some club at a wee hour o the AM and impulsively they jumped out and took those photos on the side of the road.
Take it with some salt
heard it from a friend who
heard it from a friend who


you know the drill ;)

Cool Huck! I will keep my eye out, and maybe go seek out the record guru, that should be interesting!

Popi,
yeah I dig later-day Roxy.
I think "Avalon" is an out-and-out gem and "Flesh and Blood" has an absolutely stunning song called "Oh Yeah" over and above the rawkin' "Midnight Hour".

I haven't read all this thread yet. But, it's cool to see there's some Roxy heads out there. I feel privileged to say I saw them on the "Avalon" tour. They were incredible. I have all their records. I love the Eno stuff too.

Who's into Phil Manzanera's efforts? Daimond Head, Listen Now, K-Scope, Primitive Guitars.....all great records. 801 Live! Killer!

I missed the chance to see them on their ill-conceived reunion tour last year.

I wish Eddie Jobson would become a rock star again. I love the stuff he did with Roxy, Curved Air, Zappa, Jethro Tull, solo and especially U.K. (now he does soundtrack work I guess)

Kinda like Hendrix's "Electic Ladyland" -- the American LP was the better pressing but you had to buy the English import to get the girls.
>>So, right, I have the album with the foliage, and I've seen albums with the girls.<<

Stranded on now - I'm just getting so much true music joy out of listening to these albums that I'm sticking with it. If it feels good....

There was a period when Stranded was hands down my favorite album; they're all interestingly uniquely great. "Amazona" - god, that intro is just too sweet.

Have to say, though, breaking out the vinyl reminds me how SHORT one album side is...getting up to flip it seems an archaic inconvenience.

Oh God.


Vinyl is quaint.



Never thought I'd see the day. Records - once talismans and treasures. They were the road signs that led me down the path to being a "grownup" - now they're these weird imperfect pieces of plastic that today's kids have no history with.

And what did we lose with the phase out of records? Well, popi, I'm sure you know, as a visual artist. THE FUCKING LINER NOTES!!!!! CDs have made the canvas so much smaller, limited. Now we download so much - iTunes "art"!?!?!? pathetic substitute.

hmmmmm my top five album covers. This might take a little while.

Psalm!

>Constanze Karoli

is that Michael (RIP) Karoli's wife?

>>And what did we lose with the phase out of records?<<
Something to sort out the seeds with!

Who has the live ROXY?..this brought me out of 3 years of lurking..I LOVE ROXY?ENO

>>>Well, popi, I'm sure you know, as a visual artist. THE FUCKING LINER NOTES!!!!! CDs have made the canvas so much smaller, limited. Now we download so much - iTunes "art"!?!?!? pathetic substitute.

I rarely buy cds, My friends buy them and I rip them to Itunes. I seek and spend my music dollars on vinyl. Shopping for vinyl is like a treasure hunt, sometimes you come up with nothin but sometimes you come up with real gems. I would classify myself more of a record hunter than a collector so to speak. I rarely buy things on ebay, I prefer to find the records in bins. There is nothing like fingering through the F bin and finding a copy of Faust IV, or walking up to the counter and seeing a freshly bought stack of used records and come to find the seller was an elderly jazz buff and find the whole coltrane catelogue in first issues.

I bought my boy a cheap turntable for his stereo (all vintage gear) and pick up $3 copies of classic rock records, I call it home schooling.

Album Art, I believe is some of the greatest controbutions to popular art. It is indeed sad that that canvas has been so marginalized.

>>>There is nothing like fingering through the F bin and finding a copy of Faust IV, or walking up to the counter and seeing a freshly bought stack of used records and come to find the seller was an elderly jazz buff and find the whole coltrane catelogue in first issues.

Nicely said!

Popi, there is this place here in Pittsburgh called Jerry's Records. You would love this place. This place is huge. You could probably spend an entire week their fingering through records and still not have covered everything. Things are so disorganized but thats the fun of it I guess. I asked the guy if he thought they had any Pharaoh Sanders records and he pointed me in five different directions on where there may be some.

I am getting some live Fripp/eno discs in the mail next week. If there is any interest here?

You bet! If you do a b&p count me in. Thanks, John.

Me Be thinkin that Roxy is one of the greatest bands ever!
Avalon for instance was my first entrance and i think it still stands as the best record ever recorded. I never get too tired of the that release. Ive heard it described as 'funk that's been distilled until it floated'

....and then i used my cheese and creamery store income to buy the back catalog and got a totally different band backwards...starting with Flesh & Blood, then Manifesto (which i thought was eh) and worked all the way back the 1st album which is my favorite.

I even enjoy the Ferry Solo discs (last 20 years that is) - but they are up against Avalon which always made for a tough comparison and didn't seem to break new ground. However - Frantic - the last release from two years ago was excellent and so was his first 4 releases.

Perhaps one of the best live performers I have ever witnessed - alway's alot of energy - great band and tastey setlists.

Outside of our universe of improvisational music - Roxy stands as perhaps my favorite fresh sonic boom!

Roxy is one of my early faves as well, and it does sound better on vinyl.

Caught a show in Boston a couple of years ago called "Project Eno". It was a local all-star band of sorts doing an Eno tribute, complete with costumes, props, and a trippy AV presentation between sets. It was very cool and very well performed. Their website is gone so I guess they only did a few shows.