Showing posts with label Andy Mackay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andy Mackay. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets (1974)

“Here Come The Warm Jets” (album) by Brian Eno (1974)

Release Date: January 1974
Produced by Brian Eno
Chart Positions: #151 (US), #26 (UK)
Certifications: N/A
Singles: N/A
Label: Island

Here Come the Warm Jets is the debut solo album by Brian Eno, credited only as "Eno". Produced by him, it was released on Island Records in January 1974. The musical style of Here Come the Warm Jets is a hybrid of glam rock and art rock, similar to Eno's previous album work with Roxy Music, although in a stronger experimental fashion. In developing the album's words and music, Eno used unusual methods such as dancing for his band members and having them play accordingly, and singing nonsense words to himself that would form the basis of subsequent lyrics. The album features various guest musicians, including members of Roxy Music (Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay), Hawkwind, Matching Mole and Pink Fairies, as well as Chris Spedding, and Robert Fripp of King Crimson, who collaborated with Eno a year before with the album "No Pussyfooting."


"Here Come the Warm Jets" peaked at number 26 on the United Kingdom album charts and number 151 on the US Billboard charts, receiving mostly positive reviews.

Eno recorded “Here Come The Warm Jets” in just twelve days in September 1973. The album’s most popular track, "Baby's on Fire" is a bizarre fantasy about a photography session involving a burning infant and unthinking, laughing onlookers. Art-guitar guru Robert Fripp provides a jagged solo on “Baby’s On Fire” The sentimental "Some of Them Are Old" is constructed around harmonies highly reminiscent of the Four Freshmen giving it a melancholy feel. It is worthy of note that the “frippertronics” guitars of “The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch” were later used on another Eno production, U2′s “Where the Streets Have No Name.” “Dead Finks Don’t Talk” is the closest thing to a Bowie song musically, predating “Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)” by some six years. All the lyrics to "On Some Faraway Beach" came to Eno in a dream. He would wake up often throughout the night to write down his dreams and from those scribblings would be lyrics to songs.

Eno has said about the song "Baby's On Fire," "Vocal techniques. That's something I've never even thought about. Why, I propose the question to myself do people sing certain ways at certain times in history? Why should I want to sing through my nose? What I like is when you get a combination of something that's very turned-down and dark and sinister, but not dramatic – very underhand and almost inaudible, as opposed to the kind of aggression that people like The Floyd use, which is very obvious assault. Iggy Pop does it as well."

Eno's compositions are quirky, whimsical, and catchy, his lyrics bizarre and often free-associative, with a decidedly dark bent in their humor ("Baby's on Fire," "Dead Finks Don't Talk").

"Baby's On Fire" (1974)


Brian Eno (1974)



BRIAN ENO


#brianeno #eno

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Roxy Music - Siren (1975)

“Siren” by Roxy Music (1975)

Release Date: October 24, 1975
Produced by Chris Thomas
Chart Positions: #50 (US), #4 (UK), #8 (Sweden), #9 (Netherlands), #15 (Norway), #3 (New Zealand)
Certifications: Gold (UK)
Singles: “Love Is The Drug” (#30 US, #2 UK, #3 Canada, #9 Netherlands, #15 Belgium, #18 Australia, #24 New Zealand, #39 Germany
“Both Ends Burning” (#25 UK)


“Siren” is the fifth studio album by English art-rock band “Roxy Music. This is the album that put Roxy Music on radio stations across the US due to their hit “Love Is The Drug.”


“Siren” was well received by critics upon it’s release with many of them putting it amongst the best of the year. In the 1975 Pazz and Jop critics poll it was voted the 13th best album of 1975. Cream Magazine music critic, Dave Marsh, rated the album as the 4th best album of 1975 in his Book of Rock Lists. The album was ranked number 371 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The cover features band member Bryan Ferry's then-girlfriend, model Jerry Hall, on rocks near South Stack, Anglesey. Graham Hughes, working during August 1975, took the cover photo directly below the central span of the bridge on a south-side slope. He worked from sketches produced by Antony Price; with photography featuring Hall striking various poses. The idea for the location was Bryan Ferry's, after he saw a TV documentary about lava flows and rock formations in Anglesey, in which South Stack was heavily featured. Hall' recalled in her autobiography, Tall Tales that the blue body paint she wore to look like a mythical siren would not wash off. According to the model, Ferry took her back to his house to help her remove the paint. Jerry Hall left Ferry in 1978 to date Mick Jagger.

Producer Chris Thomas has worked with the most popular British musicians including The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend and a host of others. Thomas produced a total of five albums for Roxy Music including “For Your Pleasure,” “Stranded,” “Country Life,” “Siren” and the live album “Viva.” Thomas met Bryan Ferry during recording sessions for Procol Harum.

The first single “Love Is The Drug” originated as an Andy Mackay instrumental which later Bryan Ferry added lyrics. The song was an instant hit in the UK where it zoomed up the charts to #2. It was kept off the top of the UK charts by a re-release of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” “Love Is The Drug” was their first song to bring attention to Roxy Music in the US where it received a good amount of airplay on progressive rock radio stations and eventually jumping over to Top 40 radio. The song peaked at #30 on the US Billboard chart.

"Love Is The Drug"

The second single “Both Ends Burning” was not nearly as successful but did manage to squeak out a #25 peak position on the UK singles chart. Singer Bryan Ferry recalled to The Mail on Sunday June 28, 2009: "We were on a punishing world tour schedule in 1975 and there were a lot of late nights to get the Siren album finished on time. I guess this was the inspiration behind this song.

Other album highlights include the Bryan Ferry/Phil Manzanera written “Whirlwind” and the Bryan Ferry/Eddie Jobson written “She Sells,” the latter a quirky song that is reminiscent of earlier classic such as “Do The Strand” and “Editions of You.”

Roxy Music (1975)


Roxy Music Siren (Alternate Album Cover 1975)



ROXY MUSIC