For your pleasure...

Well, for my pleasure really.

Back in the seventies something happened. In a world where music was a seriously serious affair with bands like Yes, Genesis, ELP, and Sabbath taking themselves very seriously indeed, singing songs about strange worlds and orcs, along came Roxy Music. They were a odd mix of pop, prog, electronics, and film score, performing songs with clever lyrics and clever titles. Ferry warbled, Thompson thumped on drums, Eno mangled sound from tape decks, Manzenera made his guitar scream, and Mackay played ethereal oboe. All in all it was arty and experimental and exciting and they looked weird and cool.

To an arty schoolboy in his mid-teens Roxy were a revelation. They brought together all the things I loved - old movies, science fiction, the avant garde, surrealism, poetry, strangeness. They had it all and shaped the way I acted and dressed for a couple of years. I guess that Roxy was my Punk and like punk they weren't accepted immediately by the muso's. I remember Bob Harris saying on Whistle Test, after Roxy played a couple of songs, 'If that's the future of rock and roll, I don't want any part of it'. Well I did.

I loved them for the first two albums and then Eno left and it all fell apart. Roxy, the real Roxy, were no more and sadly drifted on towards the blandness of Avalon.

For a while though they set my world on fire.