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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 1:46 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 12, 2009 3:20 pm
Posts: 263
The Pale Moon wrote:
Couldn’t agree more re IYM comments. Of all the BF albums this is the one for me that gets the most plays . No track skipping, a perfect collection.

It’s obvious on here that most of us love IYM but the man himself seems not to. Ignored live since 1977 except for the occasional outing for Tokyo Joe and Love Me Madly. Someone earlier says that the tour has basically been Roxy/Ferry greatest hits. Well with the exception of LST his biggest solo hits have been This is Tomorrow,The Price of Love and Hard Rain and they are ignored mainly in set lists which IMHO is a great shame.


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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 2:30 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 06, 2009 8:15 pm
Posts: 1025
Location: Inverness, Scotland
I am going to stick my neck out here and say that no matter how hard I try and how often I play In Your Mind I just can't get to past feeling it is no more than an ordinary album.

I like This Is Tomorrow (probably as he doesn't do it live and I wish he would) and Love Me Madly Again the rest I don't care too much for.

I feel Bryan's voice is strained in some places and maybe the backing track was well developed in before he laid down the vocal and it was too late to change key. The production is very dry and two dimensional with no real depth.

What I have always assumed the appeal of Bryan Ferry to his fans was his originality, his voice, his delivery, his arrangements, the way he blends musicians. In Your Mind has the voice but I feel the rest of the album could be anyone's album. I have realised over the years that the Ferry/Roxy work that appeals to me most are the albums that when you take Bryan's voice off the record you still know it's his record. He has a unique way of blending musicians, taking them out of their comfort zone and squeezing something else out of them.

I hear a lot of criticism about the multi layered albums and I agree some things can be over polished but he has created some really interesting recordings with this method and sounding very BRYAN FERRY with it. Multi layered as a concept and principal is not a 'bad at all times' principle, it' what you do with that that counts for me.

Many of Ferry's 80's onwards output has a unique distinguishable sound that belongs to Ferry. I am not a fan of every note and some weaker tracks come from this period but I would say the same for the early period too. Probably most of my favourite tracks are form the 70's but there are some great original individual sounding stuff in all periods.

Ferry may take someone like David Gilmour (Mark Knopfler etc) and use him as one of 5 guitarists on a song and blend and mix him in with the others to the point you can't pick him out.......so what. Ferry is making a Ferry album and that is part of the overall sound he is looking for on his albums. David Gilmour albums are full of in your face Gilmouresque guitar playing (which I am a big fan of) so I find it interesting to hear him and the others in a different way.....the Ferry way.

My 5 least favourite Ferry/Roxy albums in order are (or not played so often are:

Avonmore
Siren (yip, I don't like most of Siren)
Dylanesque
In Your Mind
Another Time Another Place (Defiantly my least favourite)

I have read some criticism here of Jorja Renn (nee Chalmers) on sax. I think some of it is unfair and would like to do a separate thread on that.

J.O'B.


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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 3:14 pm 
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Joined: Sun May 29, 2011 7:23 pm
Posts: 1568
wrighta wrote:
It might just be that she's doing as she is told to by our beloved singer as the arrangements of the songs are very much uniform now and don't move away from the improvisations of the earlier tours. Ferry's not be himself on this as Jeff Lynne's ELO for example copy the recorded sound almost note for note as well as the more well known songs in the back catalogue. One thing Miss Chalmers does do more frequently than Andy Mackay did is to move to centre stage when soloing. I think her and over the last few tours Ollie Thompson and Quist have done is dominate the sound more to the eclipse of Neil Hubbard and Chris Spedding.


Hopeful Hepcats,

Wrighta may have it right !

W2 thinks that our hero won't want to let himself or a fan down and his instruction therefore, to his ever changing smorgasbord of 'Musical Directors' is "make sure the band can play the VO's to perfection".

Windswept thinks this is quite different to the Ferry/Good years when a true creative alliance resulted in different arrangements that gave the songs new life.

There are numerous examples from that golden period ranging from the phenomenal reworkings they did of the 'Roxy' songs for the ATGB
tour, through to the epic intro that was written for 'A Song For Europe' for the re-union tour, right up to the great arrangements they did for the AEWBF shows.

Bryan obviously not only admired Colin's musical creativity, he also trusted him to be able to rehearse often quite big bands to perfection and have them play some very intricate arrangements. Listening to the same songs back to back from the different periods and comparing them to the VOs is really interesting.

This is probably why, when our hero has something special to do like 'Fondation Beyer' he get's him back.

Of course, there will be beer swilling, feather boa wearing neanderthals out there who will never get past the VOs, but that's fine. This is why Roxology is a broad church.

Salutations a tous.

Windswept.


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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 3:19 pm 
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Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2011 4:32 pm
Posts: 305
Chers amis!

Instead of being cynical, critical and negativ I stick to and repeat daily the great W2;s mantra, "All Ferry is good Ferry" (Except, in my case, Goodnight Irene.)
And poor Jorja... Talented, charming and, yes, an eye candy - something wrong with that?
Enjoy life. Paris à bientôt!


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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 5:11 pm 
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Joined: Sun May 29, 2011 7:23 pm
Posts: 1568
VivaRoxyMusic.com wrote:

What I have always assumed the appeal of Bryan Ferry to his fans was his originality, his voice, his delivery, his arrangements, the way he blends musicians. In Your Mind has the voice but I feel the rest of the album could be anyone's album. I have realised over the years that the Ferry/Roxy work that appeals to me most are the albums that when you take Bryan's voice off the record you still know it's his record. He has a unique way of blending musicians, taking them out of their comfort zone and squeezing something else out of them.

I hear a lot of criticism about the multi layered albums and I agree some things can be over polished but he has created some really interesting recordings with this method and sounding very BRYAN FERRY with it. Multi layered as a concept and principal is not a 'bad at all times' principle, it' what you do with that that counts for me.



J.O'B.


Fanatical Fandangoists,

What a great post from our editor in chief !

W2 violently agrees with some of it ("the appeal of Bryan Ferry to his fans is his originality, his voice, his delivery, his arrangements, the way he blends his musicians in") (W2 would also add his artistry and sartorial cool).

W2 violently disagrees with some points. He actually quite likes IYM and ATAP (the title track alone is worth the ticket - not to mention the cover).

That said, Windswept has been puzzling over the noir triptych of 'Boys and Girls', 'Bete Noire' and 'Mamouna' . Although they are brilliant and he plays them often and, in many ways, they defined and the post Roxy 'Ferry Style', W2 thinks they are ageing less well than albums before or since. He does attribute this to the very '80s multi-layered production style.

IWM (In Windswept's Mind) this represents a HUGE opportunity because these albums host some beautiful songs that would benefit enormously from different, more stripped arrangements.

A great and perhaps defining project for our hero could be to take the best songs from these three killer LP's, re-make, re-model them into a new album 'The Noir Triptych Redux'. It would be marvelous as the recent tour's rendition of Mamouna showed.

Bring it on and let's have Colin Good back at the helm as MD.

Salutations,

Windswept


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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 5:47 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:12 pm
Posts: 837
-Yeah, there sure is darkness here; Valentine, Stone Woman, Boys and Girls, Zamba, Seven Deadly Sins, Beté Noir, The Only Face, The 39 Steps, Wildcat Days... It was a time while there still was a lot of fans around that bought his albums, call it "momentum".


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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 6:57 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jun 20, 2010 9:36 am
Posts: 81
Do you like IYM or Eighties stuff???
I think it has something to do with the moment you stepped into Roxy/Ferry.

When you were an early adopter (like me), you admired Roxy for its creativity, adventure, avant garde, style, maturity and certainly the wild and exuberant rocksound. Ferry's solo stuff was different, but interesting. After his first albums, IYM was at that time quite sensational: it was his first written soloalbum. Man, I can remember the thrill of it all…

Aside from the over produced and to polished sound of Ferry's eighties and nineties albums, the biggest disappointment was the constant repeat of sound, style and atmosphere. Avalon, B&G, BN, Mamouna: the innovation had totally disappeared. It became so predictable. Nevertheless, I kept following the man...

Talking about his less played albums (in fact, I think they are monsters): Bête Noir, Taxi, As Time Goes By, Dylanesque, Olympia


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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 9:22 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 12, 2009 10:49 pm
Posts: 50
Sentimental Fool wrote:
When you were an early adopter (like me), you admired Roxy for its creativity, adventure, avant garde, style, maturity and certainly the wild and exuberant rocksound.



Sorry, but I never gave any of that a second thought, I just liked the music! :o


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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 10:01 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:12 pm
Posts: 837
Some people are raising their guard when I post and refrain from responding. I was actually planning a thread called "It was always in spring (früjahr)" in the RM department. That caracterizes the time of Bryan`s best efforts. His voice was in it`s zenith. He was getting into a relationship with a woman that would give him four sons. The first album was Flesh and Blood. It came in May. Two years later we got Avalon. I think it was late May. In between we got Jealous Guy, released in March 1981, I take it (see; spring that too, n'es pas?). Now it`s that lovely time of the year again. It always reminds me of the best of Roxy. If it only had continued...


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 Post subject: Re: 2018 Tour Reviews
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2018 10:35 am 
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Joined: Sun May 29, 2011 7:23 pm
Posts: 1568
Oberon wrote:
Chers amis!

Jorja... Talented, charming and, yes, an eye candy - something wrong with that?
Enjoy life. Paris à bientôt!


Cher Oberon,
Encore un fois, tu a raison. Il n'y a rien de mal a cela !
"If music be the food of love play on"
Have a great time in Paris.
W2 saw Ferry in Paris for the Dylanesque show in '07 and was lucky enough to get an invite to the after party. He raised a glass or three with our hero. Halcyon days.
Salutations and who knows, there may be a revised set list.
In any event you will have a blast. All Ferry definitely is good Ferry (sauf IYLSE et put-etre GI)
Windswept


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