From: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org (avalon-digest) To: avalon-digest@smoe.org Subject: avalon-digest V8 #268 Reply-To: avalon@smoe.org Sender: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk avalon-digest Tuesday, September 23 2003 Volume 08 : Number 268 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [AVALON] Foxy-Music Peterborough review [LeeSullivanart@aol.com] [AVALON] Ian MacDonald RIP [Daniel Atterbom ] [AVALON] Ian MacDonald obit by Richard Williams ["Theresa Fagan" www.bryanferrytribute.com for details Lee Sullivan (blowing his own horn again, so to speak). Foxy Music review by Richard Adams + on: Sep 20th, 2003, 8:36am ; If you get the chance to see Foxy Music then you should definitely go. Last night's debut gig in Peterborough was a success, no doubt about it. Sure there were a few brown moments, more on those later, but on the whole the band played some of the best Roxy Music / Bryan Ferry tunes with a verve and quality of musicianship that frankly surprised me. Ok let's start with the best bits - Ladytron - quite superb, from Lee Sullivan's haunting intro to the full on noisefest on the end section, this rendition of Ladytron could actually have been Roxy. In fact on most of the big numbers - Ladytron, ITIS, Both Ends Burning, IEDHAH, the band absolutely shone. Musically it was hard to fault these guys. Both guitarists were excellent, capturing those tricky Manzanera lines, and the bassist kept everything solid in the middle. The drummer was a big hitter in the Paul Thompson style and the keyboard player switched from swirling synths to cool piano with aplomb, and then there was Lee Sullivan. When I first met Lee a few years ago he told me that Andy Mackay had inspired him to play the sax. I had no idea that this inspiration would manifest itself in such an astonishing way. I'm not trying to take anything away from the rest of the band, but the man of the night was clearly Lee - he played the sax like a man possessed with the spirit of Andy Mackay. Close your eyes and it could have been Andy. I'm quite serious. He was that good. And I'm trying to be as objective as possible in this review. Lee blew for all he was worth, brilliantly recreating that awesome Mackay sound, and fully deserved the applause he received. Then there was frontman Bryan Avalon - he's a good singer, but will never be the real Bryan and he knows it, sensibly preferring to deliver the songs more in the style of BF. He's got a lot of the mannerisms and moves down, and looks passably like Ferry. I suspect that this works rather better than trying to be a direct copy. In fact when he did try to be very Ferry (Love Is The Drug springs to mind) he was oddly less convincing. Mostly though he was excellent - - IEDHAH worked very well and Avalon was carried off beautifully. Bryan was supported by two backing singers, one of whom hit the Yannick Etienne notes on Avalon and earned some well deserved applause. Other good points - - - the encore contained a funny surprise which I won't reveal here in case anyone is going to another of their gigs. - - the surprisingly good version of Funny How Time Slips Away (wouldn't have been my first choice for a Roxy / Ferry gig, but it was actually very good!). - - the fact that all the band seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves, despite some occasionally obvious first night nerves. - - the occasional choice of obscure songs - To Turn You On was great and Pyjamarama superb. This post is going on - the board won't let me post the whole thing in one go! So see the next one for the rest. Cheers Richard Re: Foxy Music review continued + Reply #1 on: Sep 20th, 2003, 8:39am ; Review of Peterborough show - continued. On the down side - some of the slower and / or quieter numbers seemed a little untogether. The drummer wasn't always the bedrock of the band, or maybe he was and the band weren't always with him! Bryan Avalon's nerves got the better of him on a few occasions as he forgot words, especially towards the end, but mostly the band coped admirably and caught up without, I suspect, 99% of the audience even noticing. The storming Tokyo Joe and the otherwise brilliant Both Ends Burning suffered most obviously from word slippage, (as did ITIS) but by then everyone was having too much fun to care. But Do The Strand really confused both Bryan and the band - so much so that Bryan bravely stopped the song, there was just no way of recovering. But the showman in him carried it all off, self depreciatingly keeping the audience on his side, the band took it from the top and hammered out a top notch Strand, Chinese quotes from Lee on top of everything. Other minor down points - - - the intro to Pyjamarama didn't work very well - the drums were just not connecting with the other instruments, but once the song got going it was stunning. - - the end of Crazy Love seemed to confuse the band. - - some of the slower songs seemed a bit rushed. - - apart from the girls, Bryan and Lee, none of the band really dressed up. I would have thought that a Roxy band could have tried a bit harder sartorially! - - the slight jarring that occurred when Bryan clearly wasn't 'in character' between songs. For some reason I didn't think his cheerful and easy manner with the audience fitted with the 'cool' one usually expects from Ferry - one the other hand maybe the real Ferry ought to be a bit more hands on like this guy! But frankly a lot of these small criticisms can, I hope, be put down to understandable first night nerves and the relatively short rehearsal time. A two hour set is lot to learn, and the vast majority of the set was delivered extremely well. The sound in the auditorium was also excellent. It struck me that the audience really enjoyed themselves too - despite what I heard as a few problems in Dance Away, I overheard many people in the interval commenting that they thought Dance Away was one of the best numbers so far - so what do I know! Being an obsessive Roxy fan is making me too critical. This band is not for the rabid fan, no tribute bands are. It's aimed as the casual Roxy / Ferry cd buyer, at those who want an evening of great songs performed entertainingly and in this Foxy Music does the business extremely well. Plus there is more than enough going on here to satisfy the die hard Roxy fans too. I was delighted to see so many people congratulating the band afterwards - rather surreally they were signing autographs! I hope I didn't give the impression that there were lots of negative points - the positive far outweighed the negative, and I really think that the majority of the audience wouldn't have been anywhere near as nit picking as me. The whole show was hugely enjoyable and great fun. I had a big grin on my face most of the night! See if you can persuade Foxy Music down south next time! Cheers, Richard. ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 17:33:12 +0200 From: Daniel Atterbom Subject: [AVALON] Ian MacDonald RIP The latest Mojo reached me today and the news that Ian MacDonald has died made me weep. Ian MacDonald's exellent Beatles book "Revolution in the Head" came out in 1994. An "Anthology"-updated British version was published in 1997. It is one of the best books I've read, on music or otherwise. Phil Manzanera is thanked in the book. There are people on this list that knew Ian MacDonald well. I am sad for your loss and I am sad that we will not read any more books by him. I will re-read "Revolution in the Head". Daniel ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 12:18:38 -0400 From: "Theresa Fagan" Subject: [AVALON] Ian MacDonald obit by Richard Williams ... And I never knew he was Bill MacCormick's brother. http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1037293,00.html ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 17:24 +0100 (BST) From: bmaccormick@cix.co.uk (Bill MacCormick) Subject: Re: [AVALON] Ian MacDonald RIP Daniel, Thank you for your kind comments. For those of you who might be interested, Ian had another book published in July (The People's Music) and his last new work, The Beatles at Number One, is due out in November. I have been going through his papers and computer files over the past few weeks and have found a revised edition of Revolution in the Head which I will be showing to his agent this week. Though containing only minor amendments, mainly to do with who actually wrote the 'Lennon and McCartney' songs plus a new introduction, I hope that this edition will, at least, be published in the USA where the previous publishers did a pretty poor job. I also hope to see his biography of Shostakovich and, perhaps, a collection of his NME articles published some time soon. Regards Bill MacCormick In article , daniel.atterbom@odata.se (Daniel Atterbom) wrote: > The latest Mojo reached me today and the news that Ian MacDonald has > died > made me weep. > > Ian MacDonald's exellent Beatles book "Revolution in the Head" came out > in > 1994. An "Anthology"-updated British version was published in 1997. > > It is one of the best books I've read, on music or otherwise. Phil > Manzanera is thanked in the book. > > There are people on this list that knew Ian MacDonald well. I am sad for > your loss and I am sad that we will not read any more books by him. > > I will re-read "Revolution in the Head". ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 21:51:13 +0200 From: Daniel Atterbom Subject: Re: [AVALON] Ian MacDonald RIP Dear Bill. >Daniel, > >Thank you for your kind comments. For those of you who might be >interested, Ian had another book published in July (The People's Music) >and his last new work, The Beatles at Number One, is due out in November. > I have been going through his papers and computer files over the past few >weeks and have found a revised edition of Revolution in the Head which I >will be showing to his agent this week. Though containing only minor >amendments, mainly to do with who actually wrote the 'Lennon and >McCartney' songs plus a new introduction, I hope that this edition will, >at least, be published in the USA where the previous publishers did a >pretty poor job. I hope that you succeed. A loss of a brother must be terrible, mine is is still alive and is about the same ago as you are Bill. Even thought I have not met either of you, your music and Ian's writings have been part of my life since the mid-70's when I bought 801 Live and started reading NME. >I also hope to see his biography of Shostakovich and, perhaps, a >collection of his NME articles published some time soon. Keep us posted so I can buy them. Again I am sorry for your loss. Regards Daniel ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 22:03:19 +0200 From: Daniel Atterbom Subject: Re: [AVALON] Ian MacDonald obit by Richard Williams >... And I never knew he was Bill MacCormick's brother. > >http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1037293,00.html Reading the Ian MacDonald obit by Richard Williams I am reminded of how much I liked Listen Now back in 1977-78. Daniel ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ End of avalon-digest V8 #268 **************************** ======================================================================== For further info, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: info avalon-digest