If There Is Something More Than This - Roxy Music

Roxy Music

Seeing Bryan Ferry perform at the Palace Theater in Columbus last night got me reminiscing about my history with Roxy Music.

Becoming an alternative music fan in the early 90s I always heard that I was supposed to like Roxy Music. And I guess I did a little. Every now and then the local alt-rock station would give me "Avalon" or "More Than This" and I thought "Gosh, that's nice sounding music." I even remember being in a college friends' dorm room when she said "Just put on one of my records" and I grabbed her copy of "Avalon."  "Ooh, stylish," she said.  And yeah, that was my impression of Roxy Music. Stylish. Smooth. Nice.  But nothing exciting. I mean, if there's nothing more than this, I'm not going to find myself lining up to see this singer perform 24 years later. But then again, if there IS something....

There is. There is something that I might find. Turns out maybe I had too much cheesecake too soon. A few years after my college days my friend Rich told me I was crazy to not love Roxy Music. We all had (or should have had) a friend like Rich in those days. He was about 25 years older than me, and had been through those years with the same rock sensibilities I was developing. (Rich was also the one who got me hooked on Julian Cope, by the way.) So as happened in those days, Rich gave me a cassette. And the first song on that cassette was "If There Is Something." Oh I know this song. It's all right, I've heard the Tin Machine version.

Well, turns out this is one rare occasion where David Bowie doesn't make a song better.(in case anyone doesn't know, Tin Machine was Bowie's hard rock side project in the early 90s. Good stuff, but not so much on this one cover.) I mean Damn!!! This isn't the same song at all! And this is definitely not the Roxy Music that I know. Well I eventually learned that I had just started with the wrong Roxy Music. And since I was running 40-50 miles a week and pretty much only knew how to cook frozen pizzas and fried potatoes I was blown away that a rock song would contain the line "growing potatoes by the score."

Of course in the ensuing 21 years I've had the pleasure of discovering the rest of the Roxy Music catalogue.  It's not just beautiful models on album covers. If you want the pretty, stylish, soft and sexy sound check out Bryan Ferry's solo career. You want some incredible, never-duplicated glam/prog rock with weird Brian Eno noises thrown in all over the place...here you go!

I'm including  versions of the three songs I most hoped I would see played last night. (I got two of them)

Editions of You from John Peel Session

If There Is Something from John Peel Session

Casanova

Buy Roxy Music On Amazon
(and if you want my advice, stick to "Roxy Music" "For Your Pleasure" "Country Life" and "Stranded"