The post Brian Eno, pre valiumized Roxy Music captured in full live force, taking an okay sort of half-country experiment from their first album and pumping it full of all kinds of delirious drama. Stick with it through the violin solo, the conclusion is as big and rich and mercurial as love itself. From 1976’s Viva! which was in fact recorded on Roxy’s 1974 tour.
“In which then still young Neil Young draws the obvious connection as early as 1974 between the vampire’s bloodlust and western man’s need for oil. In other words, we’re junkies, willing to kill for a fix. And kill we mostly blatantly did in 1991. And then again in 2003. No Blood For Oil said all the anti-War posters and placards, but they were missing the point. The oil was blood. It still is. And we’re still killing for it.” (Philip Random)
Two songs that more or less fuse into one from that oft forgotten era when the band known as Genesis weren’t just considered cool and relevant, they had the keys to the underground. In fact, they had a whole concept album about the place called The Lamb Dies Down on Broadway wherein a Puerto Rican street punk named Rael gets caught up in a local apocalypse (like a fly on a windshield) and next thing he knows, he’s trapped in dense labyrinthine depths that will take him the better part of four sides of vinyl to reconcile. In other words, it’s the early Genesis at the absolute peak of their ambitions (if not their attainments) and Peter Gabriel’s final album with the band. Though both would go off to achieve mega levels of success on their own, neither would ever again come close to the sheer weird edge cutting heights (depths?) they achieved here.
“Two songs joined as one side long epic c/o Triumvirat, Germany’s answer to Emerson Lake + Palmer, the key point being that Triumvirat ended up being at least as good as ELP, probably even better to the degree that they could contain their various egos and actually deliver cohesive suites of music every now and then. Not that there still wasn’t some wanking, but we needed their kind of wanking back in the mid 70s. What else were you going to air-keyboard to after the girls had all split the party? And seriously, the whole Illusions on a Double Dimple album is worth your time. Passion and finesse, even groovy in places.” (Philip Random)
Paul McCartney (and Wings) still seemed to matter in 1974. No, he wasn’t cranking out Hey Judes anymore, but the stuff was still sounding better than most of the other pop dreck on the radio. Picasso’s Last Words, the last song from Band on the Run, is a loose stumble through various angles and forms which is probably supposed to reflect the great painter’s cubist form. “As with pretty much any post-Beatles McCartney or Lennon track, I can’t help thinking it would be better if the other guy was still involved, calling bullshit, throwing in ideas and whatever. But it’s still fun in a sad sort of way. Feel free to playlist it at my funeral.” (Philip Random)
In which the (comparatively) early Roxy Music remind us that among other cool and artful tricks, they could kick out rock solid power pop that was years ahead of its time. From 1974’s Country Life. Brian Eno is already gone but this remains one cool and strong and innovative band.
Randophonic 