Ten US dates but sadly only three in the UK in October to celebrate 50th anniversary of their debut album.
Roxy Music 50th anniversary dates
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Well that is 3 more than we are gonna get.
“Each of their eight studio albums will be released throughout 2022 as special anniversary editions with new half-speed cuts.”
There was a box set of the 8 studio albums in 2015, all as half-speed cuts, by Miles Showell at Abbey Road. For about £100.
The 2022 editions, are all half-speed cuts, by Miles Showell at Abbey Road. 8 albums for about £30 each. High-gloss varnish sleeves, though…
Don’t see the point of half speed albums. Used to do that when there was a 16rpm option on the gramophone, sounded stupid unless you were on drugs.
I wonder what Daphne and Celeste would sound like at 16rpm? At 78 it’s a buzz!
Why might anyone want 12×12″ high-gloss RM sleeves, though?
Much as the idea appeals, I fear the reality might appal. Ferry, Manzanera and Mackay, with the usual crack team of session men. Enormodomes and megabucks.
The Great Paul Thompson will also be in situ. Having never seen the whole group, and likely never to get the chance again, I’ll be in, pre-sale willing.
I was disappointed by that expectation when I went to see Lindisfarne last summer, but the had already left…….
Whither Gary Tibbs?
He’s in the naughty north or possibly the sexy south.
Surprise appearance from Eno?
Probably not …
I do love some of the Roxy catalogue, but Ferry apparently insists on the lion’s share of the fee, the rest being divided up between any other band members present. For this reason alone, it just leaves a bad taste, so it’s not for me.
Do you think the Steve Wilson remix will get a wider release than just the RSD clear vinyl?
Oh “Steve” is it? Very informal! Friend of the stars, heyyyyy?
I doubt it, sadly. The mastering was great (cut by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road) but it was pressed on noisy vinyl at GZ. A missed opportunity.
“Steve” hates mastering anyway. He wouldn’t be happy.
Toronto is in Canada! @bargpole
Bargpole? I remember Nick Lowe doing a record a calling it Bowi because Bowie released Low.
@Bargepole
Would be interested in the Toronto show but it appears to be on a Wednesday. Weekend would be much easier for me.
… and The Rumour called their album “Max” because Fleetwood Mac released an album called “Rumours.”
Alice Cooper signed his name Alice Coper for a while after paying for a new O for the HOLLYWOOD sign.
I was expecting more than this.
In every dream seat a heartache.
I blew up your booking fee, but you blew my mind etc
Organise a mingle, perhaps…
…or just rely on a chance meeting?
Jamaiiiiiiiiiiiiis!
Oh Moose…how bitter-sweet!
Have we got time for me to say I saw them live in ’72? Full-on regalia, Eno poncing about. They were horrible.
Poxy Music?
😂😂
Virginia Disdain
Banalarama
Do the Bland
Why?
Why were they awful? They sounded unmusical, untogether, and he couldn’t sing. It was ’72, fercrissakes, and we’d never heard anything like it. We suspected a scam – the costumes, the image – that went against the sneakers n’ denim country-rock “authenticity” of the time. They made no sense in the context of the albums we were listening to at the time. So a lot of it was our fault, if you like, but they really hadn’t learned to be a band then, and he hadn’t learned to sing. I’ve been through phases of liking the first two albums, but the rest has always left me cold.
Fair enough, did you seem them subsequently when they had their chops down?
I can’t honestly remember.
I also saw them poncing about in 1972. I thought they were great!
The 2011 tour was surprisingly good.
It would be good to see Eno make a guest appearance. He doesn’t need the money. His net worth is surprisingly enormous. The show he played in Athens last year with his brother was wonderful, but not a rock show. It was filmed, video available on Dimeadozen. I recommend.
We might have been at the same gig, Artery? Lanchester Poly.
Did you live in Coventry back then, HP? If you went to the Lanch fairly often as I suspect you did, we almost certainly rubbed shoulders at a fair number of gigs there. LP, Warwick Uni and the Teachers Training College being pretty much the only places in Cov where you could see live music. The annual Lanch Arts Fest was always a godsend
The Arts Festivals were excellent. If I close my eyes I can still see the Mandala Light Show. Let’s try it – eofxhc cah a ahf errc c.
Yup.
No. Before I came to Coventry. I saw them at the Greyhound in Croydon.
I also missed them in 1971. I went to see Barclay James Harvest at The Hobbit’s Garden (sic) in Wimbledon. Stayed in the pub for the unknown support act Roxy Music. People were raving about the support act. Oh well.
I thought they were great, too (Liverpool Stadium, June 1972).
The extras on the 45th anniversary edition suggest they had chops almost from the start.
I was in attendance with my then girlbuddy at the Stadium gig.
I cannot remember the slightest thing about it.
I was much too young for girlbuddies.
I was sweet sixteen as was my girlbuddy.
Roxy Music remain one of many “I must get around to them” bands. I loved all the Avalon singles and as always know all the hits. Coincidentally I’m doing a review of the new Billy MacKenzie Cherry Red release (thanks Bargepole) and via the miracle of social media I ended up speaking to Billy’s collaborator over this period Steve Aungle. He admitted that he deliberately copied the first Roxy album as he and Billy listened to it so often. So maybe Roxy Music could be another project for me. Do they have a run of 12 albums that would give me enough variety?
This was the song he referenced as a Roxy copy….
Pretty perfectly formed catalogue of 8, so a May-December project. Three eras:
The Eno duo
Eurosophisticats
Return and farewell.
Are live albums excluded – or should we be including Viva! with the eight studio albums?
Also The High Road from the 82 tour.
Add in Bryan’s first five solo albums, all excellent, count the first two as one (both consisting of covers ) – bingo, a perfect 10 year, 12(ish) album decade.
No, no, no…surely we would need Diamond Head, Eddie Riff (or maybe Rock Follies) and …Warm Jets (arguable, I think) – along with ONE of Byron’s?
‘She Walks in Beauty’?
I’m a big fan of the Rock Follies albums. Both were in my Afterword top 100 – one of the few acts to warrant a double entry. The drama itself has dated very badly indeed (it’s on YouTube) and the versions of the songs in it aren’t well recorded, but the albums still sound fresh, the songs are ALL fab and Julie Covington is a really good singer. Hard to pick a favourite track, but I’ll go with this one:
“Video unavailable” – what was it?
Ah, it was ‘The Road’. I posted the tv versh by mistake, so then I edithed unto the album versh proper – that probably caused a glitch in the cosmos.
In the telly prog it’s about the ups and downs of their first UK pubs and clubs tour. I can’t find the lyrics online and can’t hear it right now, so I’ll try from memory… I recall:
You share a room in some damp rot digs
And the bass guitar steals all your cigs
And the water’s cold so you stink like pigs
Ha!
Whatever happened to Julie. She looked set to br huge after Don’t Cry and only Women and she’s barely been heard of/from since.
I heard Julie Covington’s Don’t Cry the other day, for the first time in decades. My dear old mum, now long gone, bought the single on release. She loved all the show tunes. It sounded magnificent and I had a bit of a moment.
Her 1978 album is a fine thing, including covers of I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Only Women Bleed and The Kick Inside.
Me recommendy …
Will investigate. Thanks.
I remember watching the series and the only song I remember goes “I’m riding on a fast train and I can’t get off”.
I think it bulit up in tempo – I guess like an out of control fast train. Apart from that, none of the songs really stuck with me.
”Interestingly”, Rula Lenska is a US celebrity due to appearing in a long running shampoo ad on TV.
She’s in a dressing room, in front of one of those mirrors with lightbulbs around it. “Hi – I’m Rula Lenska!” she says.
The entirety of the United States of America watched the ad and thought “who?!”. Which in turn made her a star.
Why not have the 801, nay, the central shaft (hurrr)
That was an interesting little experiment. Put a band together to play just 3 gigs (West Runton Pavilion, Reading Festival and Queen Elizabeth Hall), record the final one for a live album and then go their separate ways.
Well, why did you suggest the first five Bryan Ferry albums then – eh? Eh? Why, Moose, why?
I agree with fitterstoke (Warm Jets, Eddie Riff and Diamond Head). In Your Mind is the first Ferry album without covers. Let’s Stick Together is another option because it includes covers of Roxy Music earlier songs.
Avalon is similar to Aja in my house – that artists biggest selling album but the one I like least.
My favourite Roxy Music music in order of preference:
1. Avalon
2. Flesh & Blood
3. Manifesto
Really, really big gap
4. Virginia Plain
5. Do The Strand
Anything else I may have heard clearly didn’t interest me enough to remember it or delve deeper. But Avalon is superb. Perfect even.
Interesting…my preferences are almost the exact opposite. I won’t waste your time with the list but FYP is at the top.
Flesh + Blood might as well not exist for all the plays it gets round here…
For a band’s worst album, Flesh + Blood is mighty fine. The singles are special, Oh Yeah, Same Old Scene and Over You, but the whole is gorgeously romantic. I’d have put the outtake Lover on it but hey-ho.
Flesh + Blood is Roxy’s worst.
Oh, I though that was Manifesto
Manifesto would be an even better worst album.
I thought it was the debut, so many sweeping statements here
The debut would be the best worst album ever! 😉
Just doesn’t do too much for me, very patchy and the best tracks at the time were left off it. For Your Pleasure is great though
Which tracks? Virginia Plain was written and recorded a month after the debut’s release.
Ok let me re-phrase that. Their first two singles were superior to anything on the first album.
FWIW, I think Manifesto is better than the received wisdom suggests – still only number 6 in my list of 8, mind…
Relentlessly sexist, no doubt…but how would you rate Roxy LPs by, er, sleeve art*?
*Hey, they made ’em, I just look.
To me, Siren is streets ahead of the other albums. It’s right on the cusp between the feral old Roxy and the slick new, and has nary a duff track. And they invented the Good Times bass lick on Love is the Drug.
Great though LITD undoubtedly is, I’d be quite happy never to hear it played live again. I agree with you about Siren…it’s pretty underrated amongst the Roxy fundamentalists.
I liked (and still like) the first 3 Roxy albums and then I started to lose interest.
There’s later stuff I quite like, but “quite like” isn’t really enough, is it?
Similar reaction to Brian Eno. A very good (and much, much longer) run of albums, but there’s nothing recent-ish that hits the spot, if I’m honest.
Thursday Afternoon probably the last essential Eno album.
After that, Another Day On Earth and The Ship are very good
If we’re including collaborations then the two albums he did with Karl Hyde from Underworld were excellent, Someday World in particular touched me in a way few albums have in recent years, and I think it’s the best thing he’s done since the Eno/Cale collaboration Wrong Way Up. More recently, Finding Shore, a Tom Rogerson collaboration, is lovely and melodic and very accessible.
The best Eno Collaboration was by Half Man Half Biscuit
I think Suede’s Eno’s Introducing the Band is the most radical remix job ever. I refuse to believe he’d even heard the original.
the Eno/Cale one from the late 80s, the reissue of which came out a year or two back, is rather good
Saw them in 73 at Leeds Queen’s Hall (lousy venue) by then Eno had left. I stood up for 10 seconds to say that I’d seen them then sat down again ( having ventured there I took a large cushion)
Funny how many of the great runs of albums happened in the period of the early to late seventies. Not so funny really considering the acts of that time had the opportunity to capitalise on the developments of the sixties after the ground work was done, pop music was just waiting for the right people to come along and let rip. I mean you could do anything.
Most of the Seventies acts were actively developing their musical ‘chops’ and ideas…they were part of the groundwork of the 60s, they didn’t just arrive fully-formed.
I mean of course that they were lucky to be the right people at the right age at the right time. Clearly acts usually have an apprentice type period where they can struggle before breaking through.