Trinity Summer Series Preview: Bryan Ferry

The Prospect Of Suave Symphonies And Art School Oddities From An Always Impeccably Turned Out Mr Bryan Ferry Has Pat Carty Looking For A Clean Tie.

If you missed an impossibly cool reunited Roxy Music show in Vicar Street in 2006, or their Electric Picnic appearance, or even Ferry’s sold-out Olympia Theatre stop just this past April, then fret no more, for the magnificently suave bastard is back, threading the local boards once again. Could there be a more Ferry appropriate location than the cricket pitch in Trinity? I doubt it.

There’s never really been another band like Roxy Music, materialising from some alternate dimension with 1972's self-titled debut, transforming Bryan Ferry from a failed ceramics teacher to an instant style icon. The music, exemplified by stand-alone single ‘Virginia Plain’, combined 50’s riffs and honking saxes with the futuristic treatments of self-styled "non-musician" Brian Eno. Ferry’s lyrics were pretty unique too; hear him sing the words “potatoes” and “rhododendron” on ‘If There Is Something’ and ‘Do The Strand’ respectively. Who else could transform such ordinary language into such high art?

The two Brians would only manage one more album together, 73’s equally great For Your Pleasure, before personality clashes won out. Roxy continued on under Ferry’s leadership, producing an ever-more sophisticated strand of Euro Art Rock on brilliant records like Stranded, Country Life, and Siren up to their final album, 1982’s Avalon. That honeyed production – all layered synths, treated guitar and saxophone - is still used by hi-fi buffs to show off their gear. Throughout their ten years, Roxy were rarely far from the singles charts either. I need only mention hits like ‘Love Is The Drug’, ‘More Than This’, the gorgeous ‘Oh Yeah’, and their John Lennon tribute ‘Jealous Guy’ for them to start playing in your head.

Ferry kept a solo career going through the Roxy years too, releasing three albums of mostly covers before 1977’s underrated In Your Mind. The curious are also directed to readings of The Velvet Underground and ‘Carrickfergus’ on 78’s The Bride Stripped Bare, an album apparently cut to get over Jerry Hall’s defection to Mick Jagger.

Following Roxy’s demise, the solo career continued with varying levels of success, from 85’s Boys And Girls up to 2014’s Avonmore. There’s the odd clanger, but some, like 2002’s Frantic, where he reunites with Eno, are very good indeed.

Ferry has always been noted for his unapologetically stylish fashion choices. While others sported double denim, our man rarely left the house without his tux, or, at the very least, a nice dinner jacket. The NME nicknamed him “Byron Ferrari” but it was water off a peacock's back.

A consistently good bet live, the man has no problem mixing the big hits with the deep cuts, so you’re likely to hear something as commercial as ‘Slave To Love’ - check out Willy DeVille's beautiful cover version - followed by a down right oddity like ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’, a love song to an inflatable doll.

I’m off to get my monkey suit dry cleaned.

__________
Postscript: We'll hardly get any of this stuff, but you never know...

https://open.spotify.com/user/patcarty/playlist/2RJ7LSwzD86zqOfjAEMmy0