Roxy Music star Bryan Ferry has grabbed members of Radiohead and Red Hot Chili Peppers for his latest album.

Bryan Ferry is one of the great mis-understood figures of British music. Much like his contemporary Rod Stewart the singer’s latter crimes have obscured the stunning glory of his early years.

With Roxy Music the singer became an overnight icon, scoring a spectacular number one with their debut single ‘Virginia Plain’. However soon after producer Brian Eno left the band and Ferry began to become entranced with rather smoother sounds.

British music’s equivalent of James Bond, Bryan Ferry’s suave demeanour couldn’t hide diminishing artistic returns. Now a member of the landed gentry, the singer recently returned to his roots by reforming Roxy Music.

Playing a series of shows last year the band were even joined by Brian Eno. However since then Bryan Ferry has returned to his solo career, and recruited a number of star names for his forthcoming album.

Red Hot Chili Peppers star Flea is set to appear, fresh from work on Thom Yorke’s solo shows. The bass player will be joined, coincidentally, Radiohead star Johnny Greenwood who is also set to play on the album.

Overseeing proceedings is super producer Niles Rodgers. Once the lynchpin of disco kings Chic, the American musician has since become one of the most powerful figures in the pop industry.

With his new album scheduled for a summer 2010 release, Bryan Ferry is cresting a wave of renewed artistic endeavour. The singer most recently appeared on a DJ Hell single, with ‘U Can Dance’ set to appear in January.

Bryan Ferry is due to release his new album in summer 2010.

Source www.clashmusic.com

“In Every Dream Home a Heartache” – Roxy Music

In every dream home a heartache
And every step I take
Takes me further from heaven

Is there a heaven?
I`d like to think so

Standards of living
They are rising daily
But home oh sweet home
It only a saying

From bell push to faucet
In smart town apartment
The cottage is pretty
The main house a palace

Penthouse perfection
But what goes on
What to do there
Better pray there

Open plan living
Bungalow ranch style
All of it’s comforts
Seem so essential

I bought you mail order
My plain wrapper baby
Your skin is like vinyl
The perfect companion
You float in my new pool
Deluxe and delightful
Inflatable doll
My role is to serve you

Disposable darling
Can’t throw you away now
Immortal and life size
My breath is inside you
I’ll dress you up daily
And keep you till death sighs

Inflatable doll
Lover ungrateful
I blew up your body…
But you blew my mind

Oh Those Heartaches
Dreamhome Heartaches

Oh Those Heartaches
Dreamhome Heartaches

Oh Those Heartaches
Dreamhome Heartaches

Oh Those Heartaches
{Fades out then back again}

To buy the music of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music click HERE and HERE

A woman looks to her man for leadership. She wants a man who’s “large and in charge” and secure with himself. When she screws with your mind and plays these little games to make you jealous, she’s testing your leadership, testing to see if you’ll be a man, or go all to pieces emotionally.

You need to remain calm and show no signs at all of insecurity, otherwise she’ll think you’re pathetic and lose interest in you. I’ve seen this happening before.

If you are in a relationship and she’s flirting with other guys, you need to tell her calmly and in a civilized manner that she needs to decide whether she’s with you or whether she’s with them. No getting angry or upset, which would undermine your leadership.

Be a man. Tell her how it is and let her decide. Be assertive.

If she’s “not” flirting with other guys, then you probably have nothing to worry about as long as you don’t lose your cool and make her think you’re pathetic.

Jealousy is a sign of insecurity, and insecurity means you’re not a good leader.

Here’s a Bryan Ferry regretting being a Jealous Guy, orignally written by the late John Lennon.

Brian Eno, 1972, by Karl Stoecker

15 november 1974 släpptes Country Life. Ett av Roxy Music’s allra finaste alster. På originalomslaget ser vi tyskorna Constanze Karoli (syster till Michael Karoli från Can) och Eveline Grunwald. Naturligtvis kunde inte USA acceptera ett sånt omslag utan gjorde istället bilden till höger här ovan. Där man bara ser busken. Eller inte.

Första uppställningen av Roxy Music var ändå snyggast.

…richiami lontani di magiche atmosfere

For your pleasure
In our present state
Part false part true
Like anything
We present ourselves
The words we use tumble
All over your shoulder
Gravel hard and loose
There all night lying
With your dark horse hiding
Abhorring such extremes

You´re rubbing shoulders
With the stars at night
Shining so bright
Getting older
But you´ll wake up soon
And fight
In the morning
Things you worried about
Last night
Will seem lighter
I hope things
Will turn out right
Old man
Through every step a change
You watch me walk away
Tara tara….

Das ist aus meiner Sicht einer der schönsten Songs, der je veröffentlicht wurde. Er wirkt auch heute noch.

If there is something that I might find
Look around corners
Try to find peace of mind I say
Where would you go if you were me
Try to keep a straight course not easy
Somebody special looking at me
A certain reaction we find
What should it try to be I mean
If there are many
Meaning the same
Be specific just a game

I would do anything for you
I would climb mountains
I would swim all the oceans blue
I would walk a thousand miles
Reveal my secrets
More than enough for me to share
I would put roses round our door
Sit in the garden
Growing potatoes by the score

Shake your hair girl with your ponytail
Takes me right back (when you were young)
Throw your precious gifts into the air
Watch them fall down (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
You used to walk upon (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The hills were higher (when we were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The trees were taller (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The grass was greener (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
You used to walk upon (when you were young)

…até que enfim assisti flashbacks of a fool.. assisti na hora certa.
nunca um filme falou tão direto comigo .

. nem sempre o que a gente busca esta fora , é só olhar pra dentro e conseguir ver .

minha juventude esta se esvaindo.

thanks roxy music thanks david bowie

I know I´m supposed to like Roxy Music, but they´ve never really been able to get a hook on me like many of their peers have. I really don´t know why this is, since I love may of their songs like “Same Old Scene”, “The Main Thing”, “Angle Eyes”, “Pyjamarama” and of course the one featured here.

This is an edit of “Love Is The Drug” by Fully Fitted´s Prince Klassen, and is very nice for a Tuesday afternoon.

MP3 Roxy Music – Love Is The Drug (Prince Klassen Edit)

Having chatted about New Romanticism a bit lately, I was going to save a discussion of this compilation disc for a little later. However, I have a philosophical disagreement with a friend of mine, wherein she would tie musical genres to flash-in-the-pan moments of when their popularity was at its height, while I would extend them through the entirety of their context within musical history–preferring to see them as living and growing still.

Recall my argument earlier over whether “punk is dead.” No, it’s not. It is only if you close your ears to it.

Music historians have a consensus that the roots of New Romanticism were alive in glam and progressive rock in the early 70’s and that the height of the genre carried through to 1985, where Live Aid sort of served as the last party that everyone could afford to attend.

New Romanticism, as a music genre, is still out there today. I’m sorry that the Blitz Club isn’t around anymore, but the genre grew way beyond that.

Anyway, EMI last month released a three-CD compilation called The New Romantics, which has been embraced by Steve Strange. The first disc starts out with Strange’s own band Visage and it’s number one hit “Fade to Grey.”

The first disc continues with selections largely from 1980, the year the movement crystallized around its demi-god, David Bowie, who appears on the compilation with “Ashes to Ashes.” Also having set the sound and trends of the music as far back as 1973, Roxy Music too have become fully enveloped in the fashion with their appearance on the compilation with “More Than This” from their extraordinary 1982 album Avalon.

Disc 2 starts out familiar enough with Gary Numan and his bolt-from-the-blue hit “Are Friends Electric” but then veers into more expansive territory with the inclusion of the Thompson Twins in the genre. The 1983 song “Love on Your Side” does not alone herald the extension of New Romanticism beyond when the party-going public at large were all dressed like pirates but it’s not alone here or in time.

In 1984, Dead or Alive released “You Spin Me Right Round,” the bombastic dance hit that refuses to die, and it too is included here for good reason. Singer Pete Burns and his androgynous look with synth hooks so catchy that the backbeat to the song is perhaps the most recognizable in the world.

In 1985, Human League frontman Phil Oakey, whose voice first provided a stark and deep companion to the electronic beats of what would become commercial synthpop and thus New Romanticism, teamed up with disco producer Giorgio Moroder to make the album named after them with the top song “Together in Electric Dreams,” which also appears on the compilation.

Disc 3 gets into the slightly more eccentric stuff and potentially songs that aren’t even properly here in my opinion. It’s all well and good to include “Warm Leatherette” by The Normal (aka Daniel Miller) but Brian Eno and David Byrne’s “The Jezebel Spirit” off their first collaboration album strikes a discordant and not very ethereal nor dancey tone. Sparks’ “No. 1 Song in Heaven” seems entirely appropriate somehow although Sparks covered so much ground in their career that their own collaborations with Moroder seem almost like an accident.

It is also entirely appropriate that the compilation wrap up with several songs that include “I’ll Tumble 4 You” by the Culture Club, who kept the sonic imprint of New Romanticism alive throughout much of the 1980s with their success in the United States.

See a full tracklisting of the compilation album

Finally made my debut and had my inaugural radio show today on KOOP radio.

The show is called “From the Other Side of the Mirror” and will be broadcast every Monday at 3pm. You can find KOOP radio at 91.7 Fm in the Austin area, or stream it online at www.koop.org

The idea behind the show is pretty simple. Each week the show will focus on a song, producer, label, musician(s), venue, etc. that has a major influence on music, their fingerprints are everywhere, but are forgotten or under most people’s radar. I will help listeners connect the musical dots. Like a documentary for your ears if you will. I will tell their story and showcase the various music they have created or been involved with.

Here’s my debut show, early warts an’ all.

Subject was the inimitable Brian Eno. Set list is below;

1. Virginia Plain – Roxy Music
2. Do the Stand – Roxy Music
3. Third Uncle – Eno
4. Sky Saw – Eno
5. Kings Lead Hat – Eno
6. Boy’s Keep Swinging – David Bowie
7. M386 – Eno

MojoTwanger.com: More than This (Roxy Music Cover)

I always loved that song growing up, so I recently recorded a quick cover in my home studio. A blast from the past I suppose

“I’ve always been a fan of and identified with Wilde, Fitzgerald and Ellis, but, as a poet, it was always difficult to understand how a collection of poems could translate as well as a novel or play. Revisiting Roxy Music and Pulp led me to conclude that … if a musical act can produce an album (arguably) comparable in storytelling and tone to the works of my literary idols, then, perhaps a poet can.”

- Orlando G Gonzales III

Visit Saldado Instrúyele for more insight into & selections from the latest collection of poetry by Orlando G Gonzales III

“Somebody should have shoved him in a corner, shoved a martini in his hand, and forgotten about him.”

This week I got an email from pandora.com saying that I was close to the limit of how much I could listen to Pandora in a month for free.  Here’s hoping that I get my 10 thumbs-up tracks before I reach that limit.

1. “Polarity” – Kraan, Dancing in the Shade
2. “Flood” – Jars of Clay, Jars of Clay
3. “From the Beginning“ - Emerson, Lake, & Palmer, Trilogy
4. “Escape” – Journey, Escape
5. “Carry on Wayward Son” – Kansas, Leftoverture
6. “Secret Separation” – The Fixx, Walkabout
7. “The Sound of Muzak” – Porcupine Tree, In Absentia
8. “More Than This” – Roxy Music, Avalon
9. “The Dance of Eternity” – Dream Theater, Metropolis pt 2: Scenes from a Memory
10. “Baby Blue” – Bad Finger, Straight Up

Whew, made it.

Before home video made it possible to possess film, print was the only was the only to claim ownership of visuals. Roxy Music made records, but they made a world too – a freakish outgrowth of the style mags, and one built on print.

In the More Than This documentary, designer Anthony Price talks up the prestige of being a “Roxy girl”: “It was quite a benchmark of success. It was second only to a Vogue cover.” And Bryan Ferry reckons that print culture was part of the reason for Roxy’s success: “I think in Europe, people’s taste was more informed by magazines, by music newspapers, and music was analysed and talked about. In America, it was all about what was on the radio.”

12″ sleeves and the glossy magazines can’t define dreams and desire in the same way anymore. The music press has ground down to the NME, which seems to be more taste-chasing than taste-making, and retro-looking monthlies. With Roxy, magazines mattered.

Text © Sarah Ditum, 2009. Full review will appear in DVD And Blu-Ray Review.

Roxy Music, circa 1972 with added bonus Brian Eno in his feather costume (designed by his then-girl Carol McNicolls)

Now the party’s over, I’m so tired. Then I see you coming… out of nowhere — much communication in a motion; without conversation, or a notion.

I’ll be off for several days, but feel free to use this as an open thread if you want for whatever purpose in the meantime. Play nice, don’t be overly rude and try to get along if you possibly can.

Let’s take a minute to talk about the style going on in this 1975 video. First, love the backup girls dressed as flight attendants. They look hot. Too bad they don’t sing very well. Now about Bryan Ferry’s look. He was working the vaguely military khaki suit thing throughout the ‘75 tour. Sometimes he accesorized with a pair of aviator shades. That look was a little bit sleazy-motocycle-cop-from-a-Shaft-movie. The eyepatch, I hate to say, was a bad move. Ferry wasn’t the only rocker trying to work this classic pirate accessory into his wardrobe around this time, and frankly, Bowie did it first and he did it better. Bryan Ferry was then absolutely one of the sexiest men alive (and still is, in the old guy category), but he was always a little wooden on stage. I don’t know if he had stage fright or he’s a naturally bad dancer or what, but he just never had the moves. With the ‘patch and the Officer Scumball suit,  he just looks really uncomfortable here (but still sexy).

As many of you remember, we’ve had a longstanding tradition here putting up a new song every day, counting down our Top 666 Songs of Alltime list all the way to #1, until we were forced to break with that tradition about three weeks ago. Since it now looks like we may not be in a position to put up a new post every day til about November 1, here are the songs in the list which take us up to that point where we will hopefully resume daily activity here:

284. Procol Harum – Homburg

Very British, very stately, very subtle slap at authority from 1967, ominous organ and piano beneath Gary Brooker’s deadpan voice and one of lyricist Keith Reid’s best early ones. The single had to wait til 1974 to be released on album on Procol’s Best; mp3s are everywhere. The link above is the unintentionally hilarious original promo video.

283. Stiv Bators – A Million Miles Away

Haunting, majestic epic, the best song and sort of title track to Bators’ solo debut Disconnected, recorded as the Dead Boys were self-destructing around 1980 but not released til a few years later. RIP.

282. The Vapors – News at Ten

Furious, exasperated punk rock from the classic New Clear Days lp from 1979 (the same one that spawned their lone American hit, Turning Japanese), a generational battle taken up close and personal: “Still I can’t hear you!!!”

281. Al Stewart – Man for All Seasons

One of the popular 70s British art-rock songwriter’s most epic moments – and he had a bunch of them. This is a classic of existentialist rock, one of his smartest, most philosophical lyrics, slide guitar in the background providing lusciously ominous atmospherics. From the Time Passages lp, 1978, frequently found in the dollar bins at your favorite used vinyl purveyor.  Mp3s are everywhere (the link above is a torrent of the whole album).

280. The Dead Boys – Detention Home

Never recorded in the studio, this careening, menacing number was a live showstopper and one of the punk legends’ best songs. The best version is on the classic Night of the Living Dead Boys album from 1981, Jimmy Zero and Cheetah Chrome’s guitars screaming with feedback as the late Stiv Bators snarls his murderous lyrics.

279. Roxy Music – Out of the Blue

Haunting, swaying minor-key art-rock anthem, one of Bryan Ferry’s darkest numbers despite the upbeat lyrics. The studio version on the Country Life lp isn’t bad, but in concert the band went nuts with it. The link above is a tasty live clip from 1976. There are also delicious versions on the Roxy Music Live lp from the same year as well as the 2002 live reunion double cd, but the best is from the first live reunion cd featuring one of Phil Manzanera’s most exhilarating solos ever.

278. The Doors – The End

Listen closely: this is a pop song that morphs into a raga. Sure, it’s a “classic rock” standard, but deservedly so. Ray Manzarek’s swirling, funereal Balkan organ in tandem with Robbie Krieger’s evil guitar runs over John Densmore’s equally evil, crashing drums make the vocals almost an afterthought. “Mother, I want to fuck you!!!” Whatever.

277. The Church – Life Speeds Up

This macabre Syd Barrett-inflected epic was a mid-80s concert staple for the extraordinary, still vital Australian art-rockers. As Steve Kilbey has noted, the studio version on the 1988 double lp retrospective Hindsight is a bit stiff, but it’s still great. And there are bootlegs out there: Church fans are obsessive and generous with their files.

276. The Damned – Plan 9 Channel 7

The punk legends’ best song is this ornate, darkly anthemic masterpiece. The lyrics don’t make much sense – they seem to be about falling asleep with the tv on – but the raging guitar against a haunting organ backdrop are one of the high points in goth music. There are a million live tracks kicking around, many of them excellent, but it’s the 1979 studio version from the impressively diverse Machine Gun Etiquette lp that’s the classic.

275. The Church – The Maven

The Australian art-rock legends long ago proved that they didn’t need a major label behind them to succeed – in fact, the opposite is true, and this scorching, crescendoing broadside wastes no words in making that apparent. The clanging, crushing roar of what sounds like a thousand guitar tracks as the song reaches a peak at the end is one of the most majestic, sonically exquisite passages ever recorded, in any style of music. “Just turn the light off when you go, just tell the jury all you know,” Steve Kilbey snarls. From Sometime Anywhere, 1994.

274. Radio Birdman – Hand of Law

If you’ve been following this list from the beginning, you may have noticed that Australian garage-punks Radio Birdman’s classic 1979 album Radios Appear is very well represented here – and here we go again, with another cauldron of guitar fury, almost five minutes of paint-peeling, macabre, screaming intensity from Deniz Tek and Chris Masuak.

273. The Saints – Follow the Leader

The studio version (see the link above) on the Out in the Jungle album is decent, but when the band were at their peak – as a janglerock unit, for about ten years starting in the early 80s – they transformed this catchy, swaying number into one of their most beautiful songs. The version that opens the 1985 Live in a Mud Hut lp is transcendent, a feast of jangly guitar textures and lushly metallic overtones.

272. The New Race – Love Kills

The New Race were a Detroit supergroup of sorts, Ron Asheton and Deniz Tek on guitars, Warwick Gilbert of Radio Birdman on bass and Dennis Thompson from the MC5 on drums. They did a couple of Australian tours and then ruined what should have been a phenomenal live album with studio overdubs. But their two other subsequent live cds both effectively capture the band’s transcendent, unearthly power. This is one of Tek’s most vividly lyrical songs, a deathly winter road trip from Chicago to the Murder City. The stark, semi-acoustic studio recording by Radio Birdman is unforgettable, but the New Race version from The First To Pay, driven by Gilbert’s roaring, distorted bass chords, is even better. And very hard to find in a digital format other than the grooveshark stream in the title above. Here’s a live Radio Birdman take; here’s another.

271. Radio Birdman – Monday Morning Gunk

The original, released as a single by Radio Birdman mastermind Deniz Tek’s first Australian Band TV Jones in 1972 (and included on the 1988 Tek retrospective Orphan Tracks) is a blazing, somewhat woozily psychedelic masterpiece. Others prefer Radio Birdman’s even more scorching, professionally recorded version, released on the European version of the classic 1979 Radios Appear album some nine years later.The multitracked guitars of Tek and Chris Masuak on the solo are hit a literally unreal crescendo.

270. Howlin Wolf – Sitting on Top of the World

The iconic bluesman’s 1954 studio single hews much closer to the Mississippi Sheiks’ rustic version from the 20s that he probably learned it from. But believe it or not, his best version is on the 1969 London Sessions album with none other than Eric Clapton on guitar – given sufficient inspiration, even a hack can sometimes rise to the occasion. And it’s Bill Wyman’s casually soaring bass work that carries it over the top. Wondering who that tight in-the-pocket drummer is? It’s Ringo.

269. Bob Dylan – Positively 4th St.

The prototypical anti-trendoid anthem. Hypocritical as it may have been, Dylan had nothing but contempt for class tourism and most of the hippies who shared his comfortable upper middleclass background. And it’s obvious that a lot of them didn’t like him either since being one of them, he sussed them out. “You’d rather see me paralyzed” – how true. Download this with impunity because he isn’t getting any royalties from it. 

Neil Young’s sublime masterpiece, “Like a Hurricane”, as performed by Neil Young and Crazy Horse in 1976 and Roxy Music in 1982. Getting blown awaaaaaaay….