1972/2018
CD 3

THE PROLOGUE

Following what has become convention for these multi-disc box sets covering a classic album, Disc 3 is generally the odds-and-sods package, and that’s also true in this case. We get the entire album yet again (except for “Bitter’s End,” oddly enough) in the form of sessions recorded for UK DJ John Peel’s radio show, albeit out of album order, and across several sessions.

We also get a “BBC in Concert” recording with five songs from the album, and this time there is audience reaction noise, which is gratifying. There’s more to come on the live and semi-live front, but that will have to wait for the DVD that makes up the fourth disc in this package.

THE MUSIC

The first five songs hail from the band’s first meetup with Peel — on January 4th, 1972 — and the session is an interesting artifact from David O’List’s time as the guitarist for the band. The session starts with “If There is Something,” featuring a pretty similar vocal from Ferry and a few mistaken notes here and there but otherwise very impressive — this is a very well-rehearsed band that’s not afraid to play around the song a bit but is mostly very tight.

Eno’s synth work here occasionally reaches duck-warbling levels, but is mostly great. The song retreats to just drums and piano, with some fine backing vocals, for a bit before the band fully returns for the finish.

The second track is “The Bob (Medley)” which reinforces its war theme with air sirens and a menacing bass synth undertone ahead of Ferry and the band kicking in. The sax is made prominent in the instrumental break, which gives the middle section a nice lift. O’List proves himself a skilled guitarist, if prone to stick to conventional licks and hard-rock phrasing.

Next up is “Would You Believe?” which is the most direct throwback to the 1950s style and that is played up here. The band vocals, other than Ferry, are noticeably different than the album original, but the instrumention sticks to the script. This song is especially well-suited to MacKay’s sax and O’List’s guitar.

“Sea Breezes” starts off with an honest-to-god Tiny Tim vocal from Ferry, who sometimes skates too close to the thin-yet-warbly vocal line that separates them. We get a very drawn-out version of the song, running 8’15” and threatening to turn into a Grateful Dead jam in the middle.

Almost identical to the album version, “Re-Make/Re-Model” shows off again how tight the band has become under Ferry’s musical direction. Eno’s parts are more prominent here, but apart from that the performances are remarkably similar. This performance, live in the studio as it is, might be my favourite of the three versions we’ve heard so far.

The second Peel Session came in late May, and featured just three songs, but with new bassist Rik Kenton, who would be present for the remaining Peel Sessions. He was let go at the end of ’72 and went to a long career as a session musician.

By contrast to the album version, “2HB” is a little disappointing, in that the edit here cuts off the dreamlike opening that set the mood in the album version, and goes directly into the first verse. Beyond that, the song manages to recapture that feel in the instrumental break, where everyone except Bryan is playing together. There’s a weird channel shift near the end that kills most of the right side in the last 10 seconds or so, but that’s live radio for you.

Thankfully, we do get the dreamy mood-setting instrumental that starts off “Ladytron.” The jam section in the middle is always a treat, and the mix here is just different enough to keep things fresh while still being very similar to the album version.

After hearing these different versions of “Ladytron” in this box (with three more to go!), it’s clear that the key to this song is Kenton’s throbbing, insistent bassline. Unlike most of the songs, which are anchored by either Ferry’s piano or Paul Thompson’s incredibly good, solid drumming, in “Ladytron” it’s the bass that is the foundation everyone else builds on.

“Chance Meeting” is such a mannered song, sung in a clipped manner and based on an almost “Chopsticks”-like chord progression (but Ferry likes those chords, as we heard in “Virginia Plain”). The delivery is so stiff-upper-lip and the band so restrained, it makes for a nice mood break from the other tracks, but it’s still one of my least favourites on this album.

The final track for the Peel Sessions on this disc is of course their killer hit, “Virginia Plain.” Thompson’s bass drum teams up with Kenton’s bass, while MacKay’s oboe and Manzanera’s guitar take turns swooping around like daredevil stunt pilots, while Eno’s sonic decorations dance about wildly.

The remaining five tracks are from a “BBC In Concert” live event from August 3rd, 1972. It kicks off with “The Bob (Medley),” an odd choice for an opener in my view but around the same length as the album version, as compared to the drawn out jam we got on Disc 2’s outtakes.

Naturally, a live performance is going to have a different mix, but Eno really gets into his performance of war effects and sonic warbling early on here, with the band right behind him. After the first part, the band jams out in a now-familiar way that is close to what we’ve heard on previous versions. There’s the brief spoken-word moment, then things get heavy again before the finale, and we finally hear some audience appreciation.

“Sea Breezes” has a different but similar arrangment to the album version, and provides a sombre contrast to the more-bombastic previous opus. I think the problem I have with this song is that it meanders, and — as nice as the second half turns out to be — it never really pays off. That said, Eno goes wild at the three-quarters mark of this seven-minute opus, which makes it really quite different to the album version. Following the ever-shifting “The Bob (Medley),” I have to wonder if the audience thought this would be what every song is like.

Thankfully, the next song is a very good live version of “Virginia Plain.” It still sounds a little restrained from the other versions, but it still rocks along nicely and follows the album version pretty closely. Eno’s magnificent synth riff in the middle eight is nice and LOUD as it should be. The audience clearly liked this one a lot.

Then we come to the more formal “Chance Meeting.” Once again, Eno is more prominent here than he was on the album or Peel Sessions. The instrumental break is nicely mixed and sounds great here.

The last track is “Re-make/Re-Model,” and again the band is back in top form with a fantastic sonic attack, though the band’s vocals caught the sound man napping for a few seconds until he brought their mic levels up. MacKay’s sax is amazing in a live setting, and the whole band are really on fire here — it’s clearly something they love playing.

At the three-quarters mark, Eno really gets to shoot his shot, but all the band members get to show off their chops really nicely, which is one of the reasons I like the song — it’s obvious why this was the concert ender; they are throwing the (sonic) kitchen sink at the audience, and they are are loving it, breaking out into a chant for more at the end that regrettably just fades away.

THE VERDICT

If you’ve listened to the box set in disc order, you’ve heard the album, the demos and out-take versions of the songs on the album, and now the “live in studio” and “actually live” versions, and you’re not done yet (more on that later).

The highlight of this disc, for me, is comparing guitarists O’List and Manzanera (which is like comparing Monet to Jackson Pollack), and judging Rik Kenton’s bass playing to Graham Simpson’s (both quite good, so a more difficult compare — and neither stayed with the band past this album). It’s also been fun to hear the band rehearsed but live on radio and in an audience environment — and very gratifying to hear that Roxy Music found an enthusiastic audience very quickly, given how bold the album was.

That said, the reason this album found its audience relatively easily is because there was a hell of a lot of new sounds coming out around this time. King Crimson was around, Kevin Ayers was around, John Cale and Terry Riley had put out an experimental minimalist album, and there was more of that as the move away from folk-rock had begun.

Audiences were looking for something different from the late 60s sounds, and in Roxy Music they found it. On the very same day it was released, a bubbling-under folk-rocker named David Bowie took a hard turn with a rock concept album (thanks to Mick Ronson) with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and achieved superstar status.

Bowie won out in the UK album rankings, peaking at #6 while Roxy Music managed a very respectable #10 position. More importantly, it launched Roxy as a huge success right from the start, and has remained a strong influence for art-rock and New Wave bands across the decades.

Just as an example: earlier in 2024, acclaimed folk-rocker Linda Thompson released a successful album called Proxy Music, aping the cover of Roxy’s debut perfectly. Thompson has recently lost the ability to sing or speak due to spasmodic dysphonia, so she recruited others to sing the songs she wrote for the album.

Next time: the DVD (video portion)!