Podrophenia - Art Pop

 

Dial up and dig in - the latest Podrophenia is up for DL.. Andy Downes and Stacie Smith join Ian Pile. Steven Hastings and m'self for chats and tunes. Creative scenes, music, gigs and sing-a-longs on sea, art puns- it's all contained herein

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Podrophenia X Mass

DL at SFOB Podbean: Podrophenia brings you, a seasonal cocktail of 'X' themed songs (band, artist or tune) and the occasional Christmas tune.. 

 There's a Pod Quiz - guess the film - from it's international release title. A messy Persuaders challenge, and Spotify Wrapped roundups.. 

 Dig in and DL here or stream below

Podrophenia - a Beard Special with The British Beard Club

It's a hair-bear affair for the latest Podrophenia. As our guests David Dade and Charlie Saville from The British Beard Club join us with: beard-husbandry tips for beginners, freestyle beard competitions *a cross between Miss World and Crufts* and beard heroes.. 

There's insider info on Peel Sessions from former BBC sound engineer David with a session CV featuring - The Banshees, The Bad Seeds, Joy Division and The Damned… Plus Piley's puns, beard quiz and a playlist featuring new tunes from T Bitch Invaders and Vix20 Dig in and

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Podrophenia - the letter X

X marks the spot Pod Pals as we run out a playlist of x related bands/songs and X film related chat with a live session from Millsy of power-pop rockers Vix 20

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Richard Hamilton's forgotten creation - Roxy Music

If there was one person (aside from Bryan Ferry) instrumental in tooling the shape and scope of early era Roxy Music it was Richard Hamilton, Bryan Ferry's tutor and mentor at the University of Newcastle. The artist behind collages, constructs and installations with titles that won't be unfamiliar to Roxy/Ferry fans..

The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass),
This Is Tomorrow

And 'Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?' - the 'deluxe and delightful' 'smart town apartment' source material for In Every Dream Home a Heartache.



As Ian Dury, Adam Ant and the Velvets absorbed their visuals from Peter Blake, Allan Jones and Andy Warhol - Bryan ferry's assembly of art graduates and academics in retro-futrist finery - sculpting, styling and framing them into something as much pop art as much as pop group - is entirely Richard Hamilton's influence refined and re-rendered for the rock format

I was lucky enough to nip along (twice) to the Whitechapel Gallery earlier this year to catch the This is Tomorrow retrospective - showing the blueprints and background to the 1956 Brit-pop Art expo,  breaking down Just What is it.... to it's component parts: muscle mags, moon-shoots, modernist living and comic book romance tales celebrating and selling shiny new futures and glossy modern exotica. All off which, really, are a base-build materials for the early Roxy Music albums

A is for...

Allsorts: The Adverts, Adam Ant and Amos Milburn - just a few of the A themed tracks and acts playlisted in the first installment of our Podrophonic Alphabet, getting a run out on S6 Radio tonight..(9 - 10:30) As well a handful of songs to bring you,  there's guest appearances, as Gaye Advert and TV Smith stop by to say hello - and former Ant man, now Wolfman - Chris Constantinou gives us an exclusive interview on why Adam Ant is Live Aid's forgotten rocker.. You can spot Chris on Bass below And cherry-popping here..

And - we want your DIY idents. But more on that tonight

London's Grooviest Boutique - Mrs Jones Emporium.

Rock Chic is the vibe at Fee Doran's newly re-housed glam-grotto. Originally occupying a fifth floor space Clerkenwell way - Mrs Jones new lodgings, currently parked up along Hackney Road, are Mr Benn goes Bowie at Kensington Market. Housed in a glittering club-house where handmade one-offs are racked and stacked alongside a set-dressing of black sprayed mirror balls, the coolest cult collectables and an assortment of sparkles, spangles and funkily feather-cut numbers. All of which make a visiting the emporium feel like a rummage around Eno's Warm Jets era wardrobe..

Stylistically Fee Doran's designs trace a line from the Wonder Workshop and Biba's widescreen scene via Mr Freedom and Alkasura to Roxy Music meets Worlds End. Dig about the Mrs J website and you'll find a client list that reads like a Burke's Peerage of the glossily trendy gentry - Kylie, Goldfrapp, Scissor Sisters, Madonna. Dig about the multi-coloured pop shop's stock, and bespoke bits or unique 'pop star droppings' are yours for the bagging.

Mrs Jones Emporium can be found 49 Hackney Road, E2....Mrs Jones can be found on the web and Twitter..

A tune that seems to match the mood of Mrs J's is this Roxy rarity.
Rarity rating being: a Peel session (4th Jan 1972) from before the band signed to Island and featuring Davy O’List on guitar and Graham Simpson doing bass duties

Roxy Music - Re-Make Re-Model




Yes true believers all you see below - are Mrs J's creations...

The Acme Instant Eno Kit

Planet Mondo and the Acme Corporation are proud to bring you the Instant Brian Eno Kit (72-74 edition)*

This deluxe and delightful easy to assemble three-part package has been lovingly crafted in Woodbridge and comes ready prepared with everything you need to become a self styled rock boffin or for generating your own Enossification and Cybernetics. Contents include...

A VCS3 (Putney) Synthesizer. Downloadable here..

One Starway Guitar (snake guitar in Eno-speak)

A full set of Oblique Strategy Cards. Try before you buy here..

Simply post a blank Frank cheque to St John, le Baptiste, de la Salle, CPL5 93H allowing 28 days for delivery.. and you to can be squeaking, bleeping and remaking/remodelling glamouramic art project-pop like this 

Brian Eno - Blank Frank





*Ostrich feathers and leopard skin items not included

Brian Eno - Music For Winkies

Only Eno could could unplug from Roxy's sequins, sci-fi and avant glam, patch in with a desperately untrendy mob of spit and sawdust pub rockers - The Winkies, and still make music that sparkles.

Following his firing/resignation from Roxy Music, Eno hooked up with The Winkies for live appearances. But, after just five gigs he was hospitalised with a collapsed lung* (he'd been hit by a car, but whispers at the time suggested an over-enthusiastic bedroom session). Before the accident Eno, along with his new backing band, recorded a Peel session for the BBC, reworking (or is it rewinking) some early solo-era songs. Including Totalled a ramped up proto version of I'll come Running with almost Edward Lear style lyrics (it eventually ended up like this)

Eno - Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch



Eno - Totalled



Post Eno The Winkies went on to record an album produced by Guy Stevens (more on him later) with The Paw Paw Negro riff being recycled as, well, ermmm..

The Winkies - Trust In Dick





*It was during Eno's enforced convalescence that he invented ambient music. Eno's Sleeve notes from Discreet Music - his first' ambient' album

In January this year I had an accident. I was not seriously hurt, but I was confined to bed in a stiff and static position. My friend Judy Nylon visited me and brought me a record of 18th century harp music. After she had gone, and with some considerable difficulty, I put on the record. Having laid down, I realized that the amplifier was set at an extremely low level, and that one channel of the stereo had failed completely. Since I hadn't the energy to get up and improve matters, the record played on almost inaudibly. This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music - as part of the ambience of the environment just as the colour of the light and the sound of the rain were parts of that ambience.

It's well worth checking out the full set of Roxy 73 live shots here

Or perhaps trying one of Eno's Oblique Strategies

Roxy Musician

Why aye man! It's me Paul Thompson from Roxy Music, you may remember us from songs like Virginia Plain, Love Is The Drug, All I want Is You. In fact, did ya knur, It was me what wrote the the B-side to All I Want Is You? A Roxy rocker called Your Application's Failed It's no'roften us drummers get the chance to chip in with a tune like, but the lads even le'rus speak a line as it's me urn compo'.

Roxy Music - Your Application's Failed



Right, I'm off for a couple of Broons and a paradiddle - H'way the Roxy, and I'll see yez when the beat comes in!

Funky Friday - Island In The Sun

I don't know how Mrs M does it. I am a bugger-to-buy for. Birthdays, Christmas etc. Yet, every year she manages to fill some crack in the collection with a trump card. This year it's Keep On Running - The Islands Records Story. What a corker and a cracker of a read. Full page artwork, album cover galleries, but, more mind fryingly it threads together the back stories and tales of some of my most played or favourite styles and artists. Artists, I hadn't quite connected were on the same label together. It's suddenly like finding distant groups of friends gathered in the same school photo.

Blue beat, ska, reggae and the Trojan association, Guy Stevens and Sue Records (we'll save that for another post), Spencer Davies, Traffic, Wynder K Frog, Head Hands And Feet, Fairport Convention, John Martyn, Nick Drake, Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Roxy Music, Eno - and into the eighties and beyond. But for now, let's go from the beginning.

Written and performed by Jackie Edwards from 1958 ~ one of the Island's earliest releases, We're Gonna Love is a sonic eclipse of rock, roll 'n' reggae and blue beat meets big band. Jackie late wrote Keep On Running and Somebody Help Me

Jackie Edwards - We're Gonna Love



From Islands 'pink' period Quintessence look exactly as you'd imagine ~ a fuzzy-faced commune of flute-tooters and freak-beaters. Celebrating Notting Hill when it was sleazy stoner central (best rendered here)rather than the Boho village it's become.

Quintessence - Notting Hill Gate



And how must have this lot bristled on the grizzled roots, rock and reggae artists when they signed to Island..Richard Williams ( head of A and R from 73 to 76) intro sets the scene

Lazy Sunday - Autumn Falls

Did you put your clocks back - and what are your plans for that extra hour? If you've nothing doing, lend an ear to one last blast of autumn colour by way of this homemade seasonal stew. A soft, smoky mellow blend harvested from autumnal acoustics, outtakes, alt.takes, oddities and obscurities. You could cosy up around a crackling fireside with a glass of something fruity to suit the tone of the tunes. Or perhaps stow it away red squirrel style for a splash of russet colur to brighten up the grey-day gloom of a bleak mid winter.

Autumn Falls



PS - the track list is in the comms to avoid being blog-whacked

PPS - In case you've missed them, the other seasonal Sunday sessions can be collected here : Winter, Spring and Summer

Eno's Best

Eno is a genuine genius we all knows that – but because of his colossal catalogue of influence and output, Eno’s fizzy inventiveness as a lyricist is often overlooked. Weighty, worthy and well crafted wordplay is all well and good (Andy Partridge and Ian Dury being two personal faves) but it takes a unique skill to join the dots in a rhyming dictionary with lyrical skits that scan, bubble and bounce like a Gilbert and Sullivan set piece.

'Seven Deadly Finns' is a single only release from 1974, with a guitar solo that that sounds like a prototype for Bowie's 'Boys Keep Swinging'
There's a great piece on 'Seven Deadly Finns' here

Seven Deadly Finns.mp3



'RAF' the flip side to 'King's Lead Hat', (an anagram of Talking Heads) was co written and stars Judy Nylon - one of the cover girls on the 'Seven Deadly Finns' picture sleeve.
Yikes it's like a Möbius strip!

King's Lead Hat.mp3



Selected lyrical highlights?

'Seven Deadly Finns'
The “work it out like Norbert Weiner” backing vocal

'Kings Lead Hat'
“The biology of purpose keeps my nose above the surface”

If you're in the mood for some shiny new electrickery - why not lend an ear to the brand new band and synth fiddlers Baltic Fleet , whose '3 Dollar Dress' is a robot rocker

Pyjamarama

Inspired by completing this today (where Ferry gets much more of a roasting than is strictly necessary) and tuning into this from Mick over at Raiding The Vinyl Archive - I'm on a right ol' Roxy buzz.

So how about the overlooked and underplayed great ' lost' single 'Pyjamarama' - apparantley the band never rated it and even Eno claimed ' Do The Strand' should have been released instead. Nonsense I say! 'Pyjamarama' is perfect pop - all fizz and glitter, like Motown gone glam, and conforms to Paul Morley's theory that all pop songs are truly great if...

"you can imagine them being sung by Elvis".

Roxy Music - Pyjamarama.mp3




And a Roxy refresher (like anyone who's read this far needs it!!)

How great they were...

Roxy Music - 'Ladytron'(1973)


And still are....

Roxy Music - 'Remake/Remodel'(2001)

B Side Babies Pt 2 - Roxy Music - Angel Eyes (original version)

1977 may have been the year the world turned dayglo - but 1978 was the year the world went Disco - Rod stewart, the Rolling Stones and Blondie all got caught with a dose of the Disco fever. Bowie, as always had been years ahead of his peers and got the funk out of his system with Young Americans.

Uncharacteristically when Roxy Music released Manifesto in 1979 they seem to have been caught on the back foot rather than the good foot with the let's go Disco phonomenon and gave the movement a complete swerve on their album of the moment. The version of Angel Eyes on the early pressings Of Manifesto is an almost textbook Roxy rocker that maintains a cool cocktail gloss while giving a nod to the New Wave movement. All Sax, drums and Rock n Roll it's a world apart from the commercially successful and commonly available Angel Eyes rework which is all high hats and handclaps, and seems to highlight that Disco had almost as much punch as Punk.


Roxy Music - Angel Eyes(original version)


As bonus I'm also including a rare remix of Virginia Plain - the Headman EDT remix made for a rewired and remixed Roxy project which never materialised and has never been commercially released

Roxy Music - Virgina Plain (Headman Remix)


If you're in the mood for even more Roxy why not have a peep at my review of the Roxy Music debut album here