Today is the last day before we start for proper on Friday. It's a good day to discuss BE's membership of Roxy Music. And a stereotypical song to post is Virginia Plain. And here is Ladytron at The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972. Features mucho synth knob twiddling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCzhAeukF1A I'm not rating tracks numerically before we start. But, I feel these early albums are a start for both Roxy Music and Brian Eno, and both would go on to do better things after the BE/Roxy split. At least in terms of production and performance. The early Roxy songs are good, in my opinion. But, that continuation would be for a Roxy Music thread, not this one. Previously I said that I remembered Bryan Ferry reminiscing about Brian Eno leaving the band, but despite searching for this interview that I vaguely remembered, and may have remembered wrong, I couldn't find it. I did find various interviews how Bryan Ferry and Roxy's management was unhappy with the press focus on Brian Eno, and that Roxy's management was pushing for Ferry to remain the focus of the group. This is discussed in this article from the website MoreDarkThanShark: Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK There were news reports in 2018 that Ferry wanted to make (even more, after some solo albums) music with Brian Eno again: Bryan Ferry Would Like To Do More New Music With Brian Eno But, Eno did not appear at Roxy Music's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, which was said to be due to 'commitments'. Roxy Music milks its Rock Hall Induction for all its worth I looked for Bryan Ferry actually talking about Brian Eno but didn't find much. If anyone knows of good interviews online, then please post. From the MoreDarkThanShark site comes this short biography, which mentions his teacher Tom Phillips, and 'Piano Tennis'. Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK Tom Phillips, on his own very interesting website, has painted several portraits of BE. Tom Phillips - Brian Eno And, here is a republished 'How We Met' article from Tom's site. Tom Phillips - How We Met by Brian Eno and Tom Phillips Having read up a bit on early Roxy Music, I note Ferry auditioning for King Crimson and not being given the gig, but Robert Fripp or Peter Sinfield depending on which account you believe recognising Ferry's talent and putting him in contact with E.G. Records perhaps created the link that eventualy led to No Pussyfooting. A history of E.G. Records is here: Mad As Tits But Successful! A Brief History of EG Records I've made the change to 'the list' to put Wrong Way Up into its proper place.
This has me trying to remember my official introduction to Eno. I know I had heard Third Uncle covered by Bauhaus, but never could find Tiger Mountain in order to hear the original...and then I heard Berlin Trilogy, and of course everything with U2, but the latter I didn't really put all of that together since I was a kid and not paying attention. I had/have a friend who was very much into Eno, Cluster, etc, etc and I'm guessing he probably had an album on. Just out of college I got into Roxy Music like an obsessed little school girl and that's probably what kicked me into gear around 1997. I do remember Warm Jets being my first official purchase at a small record store in Murfreesboro, TN. The guy who checked me out was so excited that I wasn't buying Smashmouth or whatever, that he gave me his employee discount and told me to come back...which I did. I also bought Another Green World and Before and After Science there. Couldn't track down Tiger Mountain for another few years.
I think Eno just guests on a few tracks, most notably Eggs in a Briar Patch which sounds like a Bush of Ghosts outtake.
I got into Eno through Another Green World, maybe through the first Rolling Stone Record Guidegiving it a high rating, and then Tiger Mountain, Science , and Discreet Music, all Top Notch albums, though Discreet is NOT like the other albums, a different can of worms
Eno is all over the first two Roxy Music albums, but his role is more catalytic than individual. He's often providing electronic treatments for the other instrumentalists, so that you'll get a Manzanera guitar solo, or a Mackay sax solo that's being performed by Manzanera / Mackay and Eno simultaneously. Flash forward to the opening track of Eno's solo album and you get a more primitive variation of this: Phil Manzanera playing the guitar while Eno hits him rhythmically. By this method, Eno permeates the music even when you can't necessarily hear an isolated contribution from him. His most prominent performance is the synth on the 'Virginia Plain' b-side 'The Numberer'. There were two mixes of this released at the time: the common stereo mix (which opens with the sound of the band trying to jump-start itself), and a scarcer, quite different mono mix that appeared on the New Zealand 7" (and possibly the Australian one - they share a catalogue number and seem to be the only international issues that used the old pink Island label rather than the colourful 'cartoon desert island' one). Here's the regular stereo version: Most of you probably know this already, but if you've only heard the reformed Roxy Music from the 80s, or 'Love Is the Drug', you have no idea what you're missing. The original incarnation started out as a completely original glam / punk / art band from Mars. The first two albums with Eno are some of the most exciting and unusual pop / rock records ever recorded, and the two after that are nearly as good (probably on a par song-wise, but a little less adventurous sound-wise). The last album of the original incarnation, 'Siren', would be a career-best for most bands, but is a decline for this one.
Ladytron at The Old Gray Whistle Test in 1972 was what put Eno on my radar. I was fascinated by his persona AND the knob twiddling LOL. I was pretty much a Roxy fan from day one, but lost track of Eno for a while after he left the band. But by the time Before And After Science was released, and of course Bowie's Low and "Heroes" in the same year Eno got my attention back, which made me delve into his back catalogue. Ferry, McKay and Manzanera were all top musicians, so the loss of Eno, while regrettable perhaps, didn't really affect the quality of Roxy Music's music on the next couple of albums. And while For Your Pleasure will always be my favorite, apparently Eno said that Stranded was Roxy's best album. And that may well be the case.
Define "hits him rhythmically..." Do you mean manipulates the notes/chords as he's playing them? Or, you know, hits him...? LOL I had never heard The Numberer. So great!! You can always tell when Eno "takes the wheel" because the instruments start doing things they can't normally do. Him accomplishing this on the fly is quite fascinating. In a somewhat more primitive way, Martin Swope from Mission of Burma did this, only I believe he recorded moments on tape, garbled them up, and projected them back later in the song. Chaotic but effective. There are distinct eras for me with Roxy Music: the first two with Eno, which rival the best of the best in the glam movement in their own way; the next two, which are almost identical in approach, attempting to pull away from glam but still sounding like Roxy Music; Siren getting a little more heavy and a little more slick; the two "comeback" albums all glossy and refined; and Avalon, which is a masterpiece of atmosphere and pop. I also love the live album Viva, particularly In Every Dream Home... I sometimes think about how some of those post-Eno albums would sound if he had still be on board, and as much as I love his contributions to the first two, I think he'd have more gotten in the way with everything else, except for possibly Avalon.
Viva! is superb, with several "definitive" renditions of songs imo. Only waaay to short. Should have been a double album.
I was rereading the Roxy parts of the David Shephard Eno biography a few weeks ago, some really good quotes from Ferry about Eno, he seemed to regret booting Eno out ( I know you were looking for online quotes but thought it was worth chucking my two Penneth worth in )
Thanks. I remembered reading of him saying that - but couldn't find a source. Funny thing is: I bought the Kindle version of the David Sheppard biography yesterday, but haven't read that far yet. I would have found it eventually
Really nice work, though I'm a little sad because in my imagination Eno still looks like the photo in the inside of the 'For Your Pleasure' gatefold.
Great stuff! Yeah he’s pretty open about it all. It also refers to the links between Roxy and King Crimson, with Roxy being a sort of junior version of Crimson, which may have been more apparent at the time, maybe less so from the vantage point of today.
Bryan Ferry apparently auditioned for lead singer of King Crimson after Greg Lake left. The standard story of why Eno left the band was always because his look was so outlandish that he was drawing attention away from Bryan Ferry (and you can certainly see that in some of the TV footage from the time) and had to go, but I agree with William Gladstone that I don't think there was room for Eno in the band long term. Creatively, he had all sorts of ideas he wanted to explore that he couldn't in a band format, especially one in which he wasn't the songwriter, which is what accounts for the gloriously schizophrenic debut album, where he consciously avoided the idea of a 'band', and instead gathered together different groups of musicians for each track. I came to Roxy Music through Eno. I knew their big hits and found the band generally uninteresting, but in my first phase of rabid Eno collecting, I decided to venture into the dubious realms of his first band and picked up a second-hand cassette of For Your Pleasure. It. . . blew my mind. (Cue orgasmic psychedelic guitar freak out). (Cue orgasmic psychedelic guitar freak out coda that took me an embarrassing number of listens to discover and blew my mind again.) EDIT: Actually, I just remembered that the nudge that made me seek out For Your Pleasure was Barry Andrews (Shriekback, XTC) on a radio interview talking about how amazing those first two Roxy Music albums were, and particularly 'In Every Dream Home a Heartache', which is what made me go for that album as my first port of call over the debut.
I agree with you and was aware of the reasons for the split and the Crimson audition too. It’s not hard to imagine Eno being a bit annoying to be in a band with back then, especially if you’re Bryan Ferry. But as great as early Roxy were I much prefer Eno’s solo work, it’s much more up my street. My favourite Roxy track is Pyjamarama, that song could have easily accommodated Eno but as you say they went off on divergent paths after that, that’s a win win for both parties imo.
Roxy Music was always Ferry's band like Crimson was Fripp's band. I think Ferry really needed Phil, but not Eno. That is pretty clear from the albums without him. Great stuff all the way up to Avalon (sans Flesh + Blood). This is one of those cases where (Eno) + (Roxy without Eno) >> (Roxy with Eno), not even close. With all Eno's great stuff through the years, and I'm including things he produced and collaborated on, there is nothing quite like 801 Live. Possible the greatest live rock record ever. Listen to the original UK LP and tell me I'm wrong.
Eno's interview on the Hidden Record podcast with Rick Rubin is really great. There's an extended version out there now, without commercial breaks, to try and rope in subscribers. A definite recommended listen! Among other things, I enjoyed hearing about the random factor algorithm he uses in his MIDI programming, to randomly remove bits and pieces of a drum loop for example. Then the loop becomes imperfect, which is one of the themes he embraces.
