Guest listener - Richard Osman
Who’s
Richard Osman when he’s at home?
That guy from that thing.
Richard’s Top 3 albums ever?
The Lemonheads – It’s A Shame About Ray
Snoop Doggy Dogg – Doggy Style
Stone Roses – Stone Roses
(The more I’ve thought about this the more I realise I have really bad taste in music. At one point ‘my Manics playlist on Spotify’ was in my top 3)
What great album has he never heard before?
For Your Pleasure by Roxy Music
Released in 1973
Before we get to Richard, here’s what Martin thinks of For Your Pleasure
All right, everyone.
Ever since Thursday’s result, Richard and I have been inundated with requests for an edition to cheer people up. So, it’s with some relief that we’re not doing Berlin by Lou Reed but an album where a Geordie falls in love with a blow up doll.
Let’s go.
1) Actual Best Dad Ever
Regular readers will know that I barely mention the parents of the artists we feature. Typically they’re either abusive or controlling dads who I have no interest in or they’re so inoffensive, invisible to the story, that they barely warrant a mention.
Then along came Bryan Ferry’s dad, straight out of a Thomas Hardy novel.
Ferry Snr worked in the mines of Newcastle, looking after pit ponies, and hardly had a penny to his name. Despite this, he courted the love of his life in the most amazing manner - by riding to her on a carthorse, wearing a bowler hat, spats, and a sprig of Lavender in his buttonhole.
And he did this for 10 years!
Eventually he saved up enough money to get married and the couple decided to mark their union by giving birth to Bryan Ferry.
A fitting end to the courtship I’m sure you’ll agree.
Ferry adored his dad so much that when he became a star he asked him to move in to his Surrey Estate. Rather than winding down in splendour, or trying to control his son’s career, Ferry Snr opted for a much more sensible option - he mostly rode around the grounds on a lawnmower wearing a mad hat.
What a lovely image.
Oh, and I’ve saved the best bit till last.
His name was Fred. Fred Ferry.
Cheered up? I know I am
2) The Childhood Bit
Contrary to the St Moritz playboy image we now have of Ferry, he started life in his own version of Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen Sketch. The family had no phone, no car, no TV and, in the backyard, a tin bath hung on the wall.
“We were so poor I couldn’t even afford air for my blow up doll”
Still, the early signs of a desire for decadence were there and Ferry has since spoken of feeling “out of place” as a child. On Saturdays, he worked at a local tailors and poured through magazines showing impeccably dressed men stepping out of sports cars. He dreamt of being an actor, a mountaineer, and even a cyclist winning the Tour de France.
Yet the defining moment came in 1968. The young Ferry hitchhiked to London and saw the Stax Revue - Otis Redding and Sam and Dave taking the stage in some of the best suits he’d ever seen.
“It was just what I wanted to see and hear”, he said.
3) The First Attempts at Stardom bit.
Fresh from his experience in London, Ferry returned to Newcastle and formed a band with a terrible name - The Gas Board. Mike Figgis, future director of Leaving Las Vegas, was also a member and claimed that Ferry couldn’t really sing. Others also questioned his commitment, saying he never rehearsed and just had a habit of turning up at gigs with a couple of girls on each arm.
Not really sure what sort of lead singer The Gas Board were after to be honest.
Anyway, Ferry was subsequently sacked and moved to London to further his career, initially making do in a series of day jobs including van driver, antiques restorer, and, best of all, ceramics teacher at an all -girls school in Hammersmith. His approach to education was as follows -
“If they wanted to talk about their boyfriends, I’d talk about their boyfriends. If they brought records in, I’d play them.”
Obviously they sacked him.
With The Gas Board and The School Board now in the past, he then attempted to infiltrate an even more frightening organisation - King Crimson.
Fortunately, he failed at that too and couldn’t get past the audition. So, tired of everything, and everyone, he acquired a piano, started to write his own songs, and went looking for the rest of Roxy Music.
4) Sliding Doors
First up, Ferry places an ad in The Melody Maker and recruits a fella called Andy Mackay - a trained saxophonist and oboe player.
Good start Bryan, every band needs one of them.
A short while later, Mackay was on the tube on the Northern Line and, unbeknown to him, a friend was waiting on the platform at the next stop. As the doors opened, the friend had the choice of the two carriages - an empty one and the one that Mackay was in. He opted for the latter, saw his friend, and was quickly recruited into the band.
His name was, wait for it, Brian Peter George St John Le Baptiste De La Salle Eno.
Whereas Mackay played terrible instruments, Eno couldn’t play any at all. Instead, he owned 32 tape recorders, a little black book of “ideas”, and performed experiments like recording a pen hitting a tin lampshade and then slowing it down to see what it sounded like.
It sounded like someone slowly hitting a tin lampshade with a pen.
Remarkably, though, these were the credentials that led him to become the band’s “sound doctor” and, subsequently, hero to many - a non-musician who was small on technique but big on ideas. In fact, many other people doing do this intro would probably dedicate the whole thing to his “genius” and his “influence”. I get that, but I still think that Ferry sums him up the best -
“With Eno, there were always wires everywhere.”
Ferry finds the rest of the band but, unfortunately, the recruitment process is relatively boring so I won’t go into it here. The only thing of note, and remember I’m trying to cheer people up, is that they had a bass player who used to be in a band called Mouseproof.
5) 1971
The band needed a name and exclusively narrowed it down to a list of old cinemas, places of classical grandeur and ornate interiors where the public would go to forget about everything outside - Odeon, Gaumont, Essoldo.
They settled for Roxy, a name both mundane and evocative, and then expanded it to Roxy Music after finding out an American band, undoubtedly awful, had got there first.
With a cool sounding name and a collection of mostly amateur musicians, Roxy Music spent most of 1971 as a “behind closed doors” project that eschewed the traditional route of gigging their way into form. There were too many disparate parts that no one quite knew what direction they were taking - a revolving door of bass players and guitarists, that fella on the oboe, a Geordie that people thought couldn’t sing, and Eno being Eno.
The assumption, probably correct, was that no one wanted to see that supporting Badfinger in 1971.
So instead, Ferry tried something else.
He put together a tape of the band’s songs, added loads of stickers of little aeroplanes flying over tall buildings skywriting the name “Roxy”, and sent it to a journalist at the Melody Maker. The journalist loved it and phoned up the number written on the back on the box.
In the subsequent interview, Ferry was quoted as saying -
“We’ve got a lot of confidence in what we’re doing and we’re determined to make it in as civilised way as possible. The average age of the band is about 27, and we’re not interested in scuffling. If someone will invest some time and money in us, we’ll be very good indeed”
What a Gent.
6) 1972
There are a couple of quotes about Roxy Music in 1972 from two of my heroes that have always intrigued me.
Michael Stipe of R.E.M once affectionately referred to the band as “the car wreck that was Roxy Music in 1972”
Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian wrote the following line in their song Me and the Major -
“He remembers all the punks and the hippies too
And he remembers Roxy Music in ‘72″
1972 is the key year then. So what happened?
Well, firstly they released their debut album which contains a brilliant song with a car number plate for a chorus.
Secondly, they finally left the house and started playing these chaotic gigs where Ferry would be acting weird at one end of the stage and Eno would be doing his best to match him at the other. Already a palpable tension between them, they divided the fan’s affections and created a "Bryan camp” pitted against a “Brian camp” - one half of the audience migrating to Ferry and the other half to Eno. By all accounts, the gigs were haphazard and raw but, refreshingly different. Whilst Bowie and Bolan were glam versions of a musical heritage, Roxy Music, for better or worse, were making it up as they went along.
Thirdly, they released Virginia Plain and appeared on Top of The Pops looking like a band that had been shipped in from another planet to play in front of an audience of tank tops and Keith Chegwin haircuts.
But more than all this, their attitude and image was different - a combination of excess and refinement that set them apart from their glitter contemporaries, the status quo, and Status Quo.
Ferry said in an interview at the time that “whilst other bands wanted to wreck hotel rooms, Roxy Music wanted to redecorate them.”
As usual, he’s put it far better than I ever could.
7) For Your Pleasure
The crowning moment of all of THIS - a genuinely brilliant album that often gets overlooked and ignored by a modern audience that has convinced itself Roxy Music were never THIS good.
But they were.
In Every New Home a Heartache is simultaneously unnerving, funny, gothic, post-modern, and spectacular. Not just because of how it must have sounded then but because of how it sounds now.
Nothing quite prepares you for the introduction of the doll.
Beauty Queen proved that Ferry WAS a singer and Editions of You is obviously the best punk song ever written.
For an album that was released over 40 years ago it somehow feels preserved, rather than dated. It creates its own images and doesn’t let early ‘70s nostalgia get in the way. Morrissey said it was the only truly great British album he could think of.
In response to Morrissey’s kind words, Ferry said -
“I believe that sort of sad chap, Morrissey, is a progeny of mine. Though I don’t think he is nearly as virile”
I know. He’s done it again.
8) A final word on Ferry.
The future has been a little unkind to our hero.
Whilst Eno’s brilliance has drained a lot of the critical acclaim away from Roxy Music, and on to him, you can’t help but feel Ferry has been slightly overlooked. It now seems forgotten that they were HIS band and HIS songs. Instead, he’s been thrown under the bus and lumped in with a load of 80s groups like Johnny Hates Jazz - a soundtrack to some terrible wine bar that has since closed down.
And when you’re down on your luck, making comments about how cool the Nazis looked and having a son that campaigns for fox hunting probably doesn’t help the situation. It adds to an overall suspicion of Ferry, a sense that he’s anything but a working class hero and he’s betrayed his roots. You can get away with being earnest and dressing down, apparently, but being aloof in a great suit is a hard act to pull off.
But that’s the problem with it not being 1972 anymore. You look at him now through the prism of everything that’s happened since and you scratch your head a bit.
Whereas in 1972, it was a different story - a classic about a kid who took the best from his dad and went to the big city for an adventure.
Aren’t they the stories we all love?
Martin Fitzgerald (@RamAlbumClub)
The Critics on For Your Pleasure
In one of those Pitchfork retrospective reviews that I like so much they gave it 10/10
Q magazine ranked it the 33rd best British album ever.
So, over to you Richard. Why haven’t you listened to it? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?????
Roxy Music utterly passed me by, and if I thought about them at all I just had an image of a guy in a suit singing in a weird voice about things I wasn’t interested in, so I never felt the need to get involved. I think in my brain the words ‘Roxy Music’ were entirely represented by Kevin Eldon singing ‘Virginia Plain’ on ‘Big Train’.
I was interested to know if I was missing out on something, so I texted my brother ‘Mat out of Suede’ – who has utterly unimpeachable taste in music – to tell him I was doing the RAM Album Club.
“I’m listening to some iconic Roxy Music album. I chose it because I’ve always instinctively hated Roxy Music and I don’t know why. But I think you’re a fan?”
He replied instantly.
“Wait, you don’t like Roxy Music?”
I know my brother well enough to know how to wind him up next.
“I liked ‘Jealous Guy”
His measured reply.
“You’re dead to me”
And so, headphones on, let’s Roxy.
You’ve now listened to it, at least 3 times, what do you think?
On my first listen I have to say I was feeling vindicated. I liked some of the songs, but I just couldn’t get past Ferry’s mannered voice, with its quivers and quavers. I hope I speak for many of us when I say that often when I listen to music I like to pretend that it’s really me singing and all of my friends and exes are watching me on stage and saying “Wow, I didn’t know Richard was such an amazing singer! And apparently he wrote this amazing song himself too!” Even if I’m doing Gin & Juice by Snoop.
If I imagined them watching me singing ‘Do The Strand’ I knew they’d be saying “Why is Richard singing in that weird voice? I’m glad we split up”
Again I texted to enlist the sage advice of Mat out of Suede.
“Why does he sing like that?”
“Partly a pop-art affectation, spoofing 50s crooners. Partly adenoids”.
“Why don’t the rest of the band say ‘we’ve written some really great songs, why are you spoiling them by not singing properly?”
“Because he’s one of THE great British voices, and because they come from art-school backgrounds and an ultra-styled surface is important”
My brother is cleverer than me, as evidenced by my reply.
“I honestly get embarrassed listening to his voice. I’d rather listen to The Fratellis”
Mat doesn’t take the bait and instead sends me an essay about why Brian Eno is a genius.
Okay, round 2
On second listen I start to be reeled in, firstly by Beauty Queen, which I don’t think is supposed to be the best song on the album, but seems like a fabulous tune to me, and then by Editions Of You which Mat had told me was the prototype for most of British punk.
I had secretly hoped that I was going to end up loving this album, but then stumbled over the final three songs on the album, The Bogus Man, Grey Lagoons and For Your Pleasure. Each has the odd little bit that would be a good middle-eight in a Killers song, but these three songs go on for 20 minutes. The Bogus Man is 9 minutes long, which I felt inexcusable. I started noticing Bryan Ferry’s voice again.
Ok, stop getting angry about that Killers reference. Third listen.
Well wouldn’t you know, I love this stuff. Do The Strand which I’d sort of dismissed as a novelty song for some reason, is clearly a pop gem and Beauty Queen has now taken residence in my head. Strictly Confidential is a bit ‘Anthony & The Johnsons b-side’ for me, but Editions Of You and In Every Dream Home A Heartache get us back on track.
I’m not ever going to get on with the last three songs on this album, but it was the 1970s, I understand that. Perhaps I would have written a 9-minute long song if Viennetta hadn’t even been invented yet.
I texted my brother.
“I really like this album”
He took a while to reply, but I thought he’d be impressed by my new-found taste. He finally answered.
“What? Even ‘The Bogus Man’?”
This is a guy who knows his music.
Would you listen to it again?
I don’t think I would ever choose to listen to the whole album again, but I am very grateful to have been introduced to the 4 songs I particularly love, and I think I have been cured of my fear of Roxy Music. I am delighted to have found another great band, and ashamed it has taken me so long.
I still think I might prefer Roxy Music without Bryan Ferry though. Please supply your own ‘Brexit’ joke here.
A mark out of 10?
8
RAM Rating – 10
Guest Rating – 8
Overall – 9
So that was week 73 and that was Richard Osman. Turns out he’d never listened to For Your Pleasure before even though he has a brother who is Suede. At first I thought that was weird but then I remembered my brother works in Sainsburys and I haven’t got a nectar card. So we made him listen to it 3 times and, eventually, he grew to love most of it – with a little help from his brother.
Next week, Peter Hitchens listens to Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks for the first time. Until then, here’s Editions of You.
Have a great week
Ruth and Martin
xx