Bryan Ferry Fanfic Thread

[sus]

It's March Madness boys. The world is our oyster.

 

[sus]

I think it's only right to acknowledge that it was @blissblogger & Mark's writing that made me fall in love with Ferry. Shock & Awe changed my life fam.

Seventies glam played the Nietzsche of Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morals (the Nietzsche who celebrated aristocracy, nobility and mastery) against the young Dionysian Nietzsche… Glam’s tendency (through its shifting of emphasis toward the visual rather than sonic, spectacle rather than the swarm-logic of noise and crowds) toward the Classical as opposed to Romantic. Glam as anti-Dionysian. The Dionysian being essentially democratic, vulgar, levelling, abolishing rank; about creating crowds, turbulence, a rude commotion, a rowdy communion. Glam being about monumentalism, turning yourself into a statue, a stone idol… But [Bryan] Ferry’s sensibility is definitely Masochistic. (As opposed to that of the Sixties, which, as Nuttall, for one, suggests, was Sadean. Compare the Sixties-sired Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”—the Sadist apologizes—to Ferry’s reading of the song—the masochist sumptuously enjoying his own pain—for a snapshot of a contrast between the two sensibilities.) The Masochist’s perversity consists in the refusal of an exclusive or even primary focus on genitality or sexuality even in its Sadean polymorphous sense, which is perverse only in a very degraded sense. The Sadean imagination quickly reaches its limits when confronted with the limited number of orifices the organism has available for penetration. But the Masochist—and Newton is in this respect, as in so many others, a Masochist through and through, as is Ballard—distributes libido across the whole scene. The erotic is to be located in all the components of the machine, whether liveware—the soft pressure of flesh—or dead animal pelt—the fur coat—or technical

 

[sus]

Look at this nice old man. Think what he's seen!!

 

[sus]

Time for a cast of supporting actors before we dive into the good stuff! His muse, Jerry Hall:

A friend of Warhol, she was married to Mick Jagger and Rupert Murdoch

 

[sus]

Andy Mackay killin it on oboe:


And that Ferry vibrato!! Wow 😍

Starting as an instrumentalist for Roxy, Mackay went on to play for Cale albums, McCartney records, Mellencamp records, Eno records, Duran Duran records. He's got some solid solo cuts as well, this one has a nice Blondie riff tucked into it:



From the Wiki, on how his look and vibe built out the Roxy feel:

Mackay played oboe and saxophone in Roxy Music, becoming known for his Chuck Berry-inspired duckwalk during saxophone solos, notably on the raucous track "Editions of You". With his pronounced quiff, Star Trek sideburns and outlandish Motown-inspired stage costumes, Mackay made a vital contribution to the unique Roxy Music "look"—much of which functioned as a retro-futurist throwback to 1950s rock and roll performers.[5]

 

[sus]

Phil Manzera

 

[sus]

Alright enough of the supporting cast, no need to rehash Eno.

I think I first discovered Ferry at 19 or 20 when a friend at the local college radio played the Todd Terje collab. I was/am a huge sucker for slow songs with reverb. This could probably fit in that late-nite AM radio city vibe in the other thread

 

[sus]

The real reason I appreciate Ferry so much tho is his second life post-Roxy. He's up there with de Tocqueville as an honorary American, as far as I'm concerned. Helped solidify the great American songbook in a couple banger solo efforts. His "You Are My Sunshine" is second to none—beats out Ray's Modern Sounds version as far as I'm concerned.

 

[IdleRich]

Dated Jagger and Murdoch? She married them both didn't she?

 

[sus]

The arrangements are bombastic, excessive, ornate

 

[sus]

Dated Jagger and Murdoch? She married them both didn't she?

Yes good correction fixed. I always forget people actually marry each other, crazy shit!

 

[sus]

Probably also the best version of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," which is saying something! Some serious competition.

 

[sus]

Science fiction images came up a lot when Roxy Music arrived on the scene. But so did images of bygone glamour. Roxy, it was observed in reviews, smashed together past and future, old and new, in a way that itself felt new... 'Late Fifties rockers who'd got mixed up with Star Trek' is how one journalist described [their] image... Their early logo... featured an old-fashioned airplane skywriting the word 'Roxy' against a stylised Manhattan skyline: the whole image evoked art deco, a style that in its own era was modernist, an early-twentieth-century celebration of streamlined technology and chrome sheen.

It wasn't just future and past that Roxy played havoc with. They were also a crush-collision of progressive "head" music and danceable pop, experimentalism and showbiz, abstraction and cliche, Europe and America, anti-commercial and commercial, irony and passion, effeminacy and misogyny, virtuosity and non-musician-ship.

(from Shock & Awe)

 

[sus]

Ferry attended the Fine Art department of Newcastle University (this was a deliberate choice to avoid the unserious slackness of art colleges, a more common destination for working-class aesthetes. Dedicating himself to elegance and taste, Ferry distanced himself from his humble background, erasing almost all traces of his Geordie accent, which would resurface only in rare moments of rage.

Raised in the rural quiet of Essex, on England's eastern coast, postman's son Brian Eno had gone to the kind of free-form art school that Ferry sniffed at

 

[sus]

the unattainable... the impossible perfection of a Moment or an Image—it could be a lover, or the tableau of the in-crowd scene—that is the ever-receding quarry of the glamour chase

 

[sus]

Peter York described Ferry as "the best possible example of the ultimate art-direct existence... the most important pasticheur in Britain... Ferry was an art object."

As a fashion icon, he inspired the Dries Van Note Fall 2006 Menswear collection: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2006-menswear/dries-van-noten

 

[IdleRich]

Always enjoyed this one which was written by Ferry though it sounds like the other Brian.

 

[Leo]

if I were forced to name an all-time favorite band, it would probably be Roxy. you've done an impressive job of mapping things out here, Gus, kudos.

 

[Leo]

ferry solo career pretty spectacular and cherished as well, but a different animal.

 

[IdleRich]

if I were forced to name an all-time favorite band, it would probably be Roxy. you've done an impressive job of mapping things out here, Gus, kudos.

They are great. I think girlfriend has every album on vinyl here. Somewhere.....