Elegantly Ageing Hipsters,

What a great review from our man on the front line !

W2 is delighted that that these rehersals are going so well.

By the time our hero gets to the town that is permanently helping the police with their enquiries, we should be in for the fandango of all time.

Roll on Brighton.

Salutations,
W2

Thank you for the background on the journalist, Pianoman. I found her questions also quite intrusive and respectless. On the other hand with her desire for gossip she gave BF the opportunity to clarify the rumours about his ex being also the ex of one of his sons.

Btw I was surprised he even talked to Die Welt. I thought they were still on his blacklist.

What is it like to lose a woman to another alpha male?

Ha! I laughed out loud when I read that question!!!

I guess it's an expectation/requirement for BF to give a few interviews when he embarks on some tour, but what is the point of these Q&A sessions? They generally re-hash the same old/same old with a few "new" details added to the mix (e.g. he admits to being a "heavy smoker" for many years, and 2105 wasn't such a great year...)

But what seems quite apparent is that in the wake of the Amanda Split he is living a rather sad and lonely life. Or if there is much joy in his life, I'm not sure what its source might be.

I'm not sure what to make of his pronouncement that he'll be starting on a new album once this latest tour is completed. Would this really be a new album, or would it be another Olympia or Avonmore and feature mostly old vocal tracks layered over new instrumentation? Hmm...

Nothing about any Deluxe Roxy album re-releases. But maybe that will happen before Christmas. Or maybe not.

Here a review of 'Münchner Merkur':

http://www.merkur.de/kultur/konzertkrit ... 30828.html

PS: 'Mistkerl' has nothing to do with English 'mist', let's translate it with 'bastard' ... The journalist explains it that way: It only takes 20 minutes to forgive Bryan Ferry things like the plastic pop songs at the end of Roxy's career, the Leni-Riefenstahl-like cover aesthetic of 'Flesh & Blood' and his H & M ads.

I'm still looking for reviews of the other Munich papers (SZ, AZ, tz). Watch this site .

Bonjour!
Vielen Dank, oianoman, et toutes les autres!

About the interview in die Welt, i can only praise this Dagmar for opening BF up a bit. It`s more of finding the right tone and facial expressions than what you actually say; the only time she went over the line, in my opinion, was this nonsense of "alpha male". Surely it was more ridiculous than anything else. And who cares? I would like to know more about BF;s sources of inspiration, how he composes, the creative process. As a dog lover myself, I was pleased that he mentioned his dog!
Salutations!

I didn't realise the interviewer was female so that makes sense, they tend to get a bit deeper than male journalists. It's just a pity she threw in the stuff about JH. (it was only 38 years ago after all!)

This interview was far more about the man than the music which is no bad thing. He almost lost his son at the start of the year, he had to cancel the remaining dates on what had been a triumphant tour due to illness, he has lost his Uncle Bryan who he was close to. I felt so sad for him after reading this interview. We all have difficult times to deal with in or lives but extra difficult when in the public eye.

Understanding the man and helps me to understand the music. Only my opinion of course.

Although short, the Merkur.de review was interesting because it was written by someone who actually knows something about BF and Roxy. Lo these many years the writer (based in Munich, home of National Socialism) well remembers the iconic imagery of Flesh and Blood and understands its allusion to Leni R's rendering of Olympia. (Hmmm. Where else have I encountered "Olympia" as a title?)

Gotta love Google Translate! How about this bit of prose:

"with a raging version of "Bête Noire" that he is not willing to settle for less than unlimited to give euphoria satisfied."

Or this amazing assemblage:

"The fans deliver dutifully: The women, because they have long been mesmerized - the men, because they do not want to stress with the uninhibited enthusiastic women at her side."

Wow. "The women, because they have long been mesmerized." That is great...

I suggest that BF tap into this use of Google Translate for his next set of lyrics. So here's a start. I took the lyrics of Driving me Wild, translated them into German, and then took the German text and translated it back to English. I've cut out some of the stanzas, but - at least to me -the result below seems considerably more intriguing than the original version:

my heart is racing
I was trembling with rage
I struggle with my demons
on each side

Can not read this label
I can not make it out
There is a world of confusion
I will speak

It tears me
How can I escape
the shape I'm in
No dream will be more so,
Everything about calling your name

I'm dealing with a sense
As no one knows an unkindness of ravens
A murder of crows

I keep blame on me
I am a know why I end up on the shelf
A man with a mission, a dog with a bone
I tap with your finger, to an unknown destination

I bought three Munich newspapers (SZ, AZ + tz) because the BF reviews aren't available online. Then I scanned them but the upload here wasn't possible (file too big or pdf not possible).

At least the following: All three articles are very positive. Headlines like 'Play It Again, Bryan!' or 'The Earthquake Of Bryan' (a German pun with 'The Life Of Bryan'). All reviewers talked about the good atmosphere in Circus Krone hall and about the good choice of songs. And they all praised Jorja Chalmers as well as Lucy Wilkins. Nice: 'Süddeutsche Zeitung' described 'Jealous Guy' as a piece of music that John Lennon never got back from BF because the song is feeling well there .

Wow, DCJ. What a great idea! You should become the lyrical re-make/re-model/re-translate/re-google engineer of Bryan. Maybe you can put the re-translated English words into Icelandic and then into Malayan, Greek and Estonian - at the end nobody can tell what the re-googled English lyrics are all about. Maybe a new program against writer's blocks .

pianoman:

You're right, if you take a lyric and say translate it to German and then translate that to Icelandic, and then that to Italian, and then back to English, and see what you've got. And then tweak the text anyway you want and do another iteration with other languages. The possibilities are literally endless. And the craft and imagination come in figuring out what to keep and what to jettison and how to arrange it all.

Likely this is something that Eno and one (or many) of his acolytes has been doing for years. But that doesn't obviate its power and possibility for all the rest of us!

I tap with your finger, to an unknown destination...