Avalon (and some goodies). Roxy Music

In 1972 Roxy Music released its first album. In a box set all Roxy Music's studio albums are re-released with some extra goodies. Today Erwin Zijleman talks us through the last studio album the band released, which turned out to be commercially one of its most successful albums, Avalon.

You can listen to 'Avalon' here.

De band deed dit in 1982 met het destijds uitstekend ontvangen Avalon. Avalon wordt inmiddels geschaard onder de beste platen van Roxy Music en daar is wel iets voor te zeggen. In muzikaal opzicht staat Avalon veel dichter bij Manifesto en Flesh & Blood dan bij de eerste vijf platen van de band, maar de plaat is wel een stuk interessanter dan zijn voorgangers. Het toegankelijkere geluid dat Roxy Music aan het eind van de jaren 70 ontwikkelde, is op Avalon getransformeerd in een stemmig en avontuurlijker geluid, waarin er weer meer ruimte is voor de andere leden van de band (het gitaarwerk van Phil Manzanera is schitterend en ook de sax-bijdragen van Andy Mackay mogen er zijn). De singles More Than This, Avalon en Take A Chance With Me zijn de songs die ten tijde van de release de meeste aandacht trokken en zijn ook de tracks die achteraf bezien het meest memorabel zijn, maar het zijn de andere tracks van Avalon die in creatief opzicht het meest interessant zijn. Avalon is met zijn volle en wat galmende geluid een typische jaren 80 plaat, maar het is een jaren 80 plaat die nog maar heel weinig van zijn glans heeft verloren, wat dertig jaar na dato een prestatie van formaat is. Wat tenslotte opvalt is de bijzonder fraaie productie van Rhett Davies; een inspiratiebron voor vele platen die zouden volgen.

Avalon bleek uiteindelijk de zwanenzang van Roxy Music. De band kwam nog vele malen bij elkaar en maakte veel indruk op het podium (het beste optreden dat ik van de band heb gezien stamt uit haar nadagen), maar dit leverde slechts live-platen op. Avalon is gelukkig niet het slotakkoord van The Complete Studio Recordings. In een gouden hoesje vinden we nog twee bonus discs met singles (waaronder een aantal die niet op de reguliere platen stonden), b-kantjes en alternatieve mixen. Het is niet allemaal even interessant, maar alleen de single versies van Virginia Plain, Pyjamarama en Jealous Guy (John Lennon cover) maken de twee extra schijfjes al de moeite waard. Een ieder die de moeite neemt voor de B-kantjes hoort dat Roxy Music hierin nog een stuk avontuurlijker klinkt en dat met name Phil Manzanera en Andy Mackay op deze B-kantjes meer ruimte krijgen. Op de twee bonus-discs blijft het wat zoeken naar de echte parels, maar alles bij elkaar genomen is het de kers op een bijzonder smakelijke taart, die goed laat proeven hoe belangrijk Roxy Music de afgelopen decennia is geweest. 

Erwin Zijleman

You can order Avalon here


or here

 

.NoWordsNeeded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhU6YMslOiw&feature=youtu.be

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Interview with Sunday Sun's Yoshi Breen

 by Wout de Natris

© WoNo Magazine 2012

You can listen to 'Highly respected rebel' here.

Listening to Giel Beelen's morning show a few months back I heard a new band sing and I truly liked what I heard. And then they announced that their EP was downloadable for free on their website. Followed by two more EPs within weeks from each other. Sunday Sun found a new fan. This music is so much fun, in search of the perfect pop song and harmonies. Time to find out more. Wo. reached out and found singer/gitarist/keyboard player Yoshi Breen on the other end of the e-mail. Here's the interview. (And here, here and here the EPs' reviews.)

Sunday Sun uses modern media actively to make itself better know. In how far does modern media play a role in your marketing?

It plays a big part indeed. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are all very useful. We see it as a great way to reach an audience. The great thing we’ve noticed is that we reach a broad international group of people. From the USA to the UK to Japan. It’s great! The world seems a lot smaller and easier to reach. We want our music to be accessible to as many people as possible.

Do you see modern media as an ability to have a more hands on, do it yourself approach towards the band?

Yeah sure! We’ve been doing more or less everything ourselves. We definitely believe in the DIY approach and modern media is an important tool in all of that. We hope to create some sort of positive energy with our music. Every EP was free to download for 2 weeks. Our main goal is that people can enjoy our songs.

Most bands release a single and then a full album. You chose to release three EPs relatively close to each other. What is the idea behind this concept?

First of all we just had way too many songs for one album. We recorded around 30 songs, so it was difficult to trim the selection down to 12 songs for one album. But visually and artistically we thought it was an interesting concept to release 3 EP’s. SUN … DAY … SUN. And to put them all in one CD BOX set. Which is out now and for sale on our website. The other nice thing about releasing 3 EP’s is that you have three moments to celebrate a release. It’s great because it’s not just one event – it’s three – so you seem to spread out the media attention. It just seemed like a nice new way of putting our band out there.   

Is there an idea to make it one album at a later date?

Sure. There’s definitely going to be an album. We might actually release a selection of the three EP’s as one album for an international release. But we’re busy working on new songs too, so there’s definitely coming an album with brand new songs in near future.

Sunday Sun is a new band. How did you meet and set the steps to become a band?

Koen, Wouter and myself where mates. We went to the same Academy and we decided to start writing songs together. We saw it as just having fun. It was mainly based around Koen’s kitchen table. Then it got a little more serious because the songs got better and we decided to give it a go. We found our bass player Jan through Wouter and it immediately clicked.

Is the band a side project with other musical activities or thé thing?

I see it as THE thing. We all have a lot of different musical activities. I for instance do a lot of co-writes abroad. Which I absolutely love to do, but it comes second to playing my own songs and doing gigs with Sunday Sun. I think we used to see it as a side project 2 years ago, but it has become our main priority now.

Singing harmonies is something you must work hard on. Can you describe the feeling when you find the perfect harmonies?

It’s wonderful. We all grew up with singing harmonies. Everyone in the bands sings and we see it as our trademark. When we write a song and we strip it down to just an acoustic guitar and four vocals that gives us an absolute kick. That’s mainly the reason we started this band, because we genuinely love to sing together.

In my reviews of the EPs I (as a figure of speech) didn’t have enough space to name influences on your music (and I realise I forgot to mention The Posies, so Big Star). So the floor is yours: who are they?

A lot. We have a lot of shared influences. The Beatles, The Kinks, Travelling Wilburys, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Crowded House, Wilco, Blur, Oasis, and the list goes on and on and on.

There are also several differences in style within the EPs. Almost as if you’ve given yourself the challenge to come up with a song in a specific style. Is this hunch correct?

I think it just happened like that. I guess we didn’t really give ourselves tasks in that sense. Koen and myself write most of the songs. We love to write together. But often there’s a initial idea we start out with. So there are already two different writers influencing the sound and style of the band. Jan and Wouter also have a part in the process, so I guess that’s the reason stylistically there’s a lot happening. We equally love British and North American influences. So it’s a mix of both worlds.

There’s  more than one song writer in the band. How do you divide song writing duties and the lead singing?

As I said we write most of the songs together. I write something and finish it off for Koen or the other way around. We don’t have any big discussions about who sings which part. It just sort of happens naturally. There are some bits I wrote, but Koen sings them. We also sing a lot of the songs as a double lead. Or I might sing the verses and Koen sings the chorus. Wouter sings the lead in the pre chorus of Light Up The Sky on EP III. That’s the great thing of being in this band. There are so many options. To me that feels liberating.

You already played in Giel Beelen’s morning show on 3FM. What is the effect of playing in a live radio show and is there an anecdote you can share with us?

It just generates a lot of attention. He has a lot of listeners. Which is great. Giel is a lovely guy. It was a lot of fun being at his show. He just got engaged so we bought him a nice bottle of Champagne. We hope to be back at his show soon.

What are the band's plans in the near future?

Well. We just released 3 EP’s, so we’ll try to promote them as much as possible. We just started our first Dutch tour. Check our website for dates! And come and see. :-) We just released out new single 'Now Is Now'. So we’re hoping to play that one live on a couple of Radio shows. If you like the song, please ask your favourite radio DJ to play it. And we hope to do another tour in Spring 2013 and play as many festivals as possible.

You can order the three EPs here.

The Greater Good. The Greater Good

You can listen to four songs of the album here.

After a show with some beautiful music and great singing I went home with the album, anxious to hear more of the collaboration of the three singer-songwriters. Dennis Kolen is from Rotterdam, NL, Eugene Ruffolo from NYC and Shane Alexander from LA. They met through Dennis Kolen and decided to record an album together in the spring of 2011 in Germany. Each brought three songs and they did one cover, 'Tell me why' by uncle Neil. Influence wise this man is so huge. Almost no americana show without a Neil Young cover. It wasn't till autumn 2012 that a Dutch audience got to hear the result. (Read the review here.)

The first thing one notices from the cover, that it is a good old-fashioned LP sleeve kind of photo shoot and lay out. Several people went home with the LP version of the record I noticed. I have to be honest here, I've tended to become to lazy to even stick a cd into a player these days. In my defense that in part has to do with the locations in which I listen to music mostly. That aside, what is The Greater Good like?

The Greater Good @Q-Bus, by Wo.

In one sentence: the show at the Q-Bus did the record right. The record is even more laid back that the show. Playing and singing are more delicate. The listener is treated to bare songs. Three acoustic guitars and as an exception an organ in the back ground. An electric guitar intro once. The voices, alone and together in harmony, add to the sound or better make up the sound of the album. This album is about singing, the pure joy of it. Three voices that blend, that twist around each other and weave in and out of the bigger picture.

Every influence from the U.S.'s more traditional music comes by. Crosby, Stills & Nash foremost in the way The Greater Good harmonises and the way the songs are not your every day sing-a-long kind, but are serious, sometimes even moody songs, like 'On an afternoon just like today' shows. This is a true beauty of a song sung and written by Ruffolo. In Shane Alexander's 'Nowhere fast' the rhythm nearly disappears, but is impressive and sang so well that to me it is an instant winner. 'Ghost from my past' is my Dennis Kolen favourite on this album. Ink dark, without harmonies, for most of the song. A broken heart and and broken mind. There's a lot to heal in this song.

I'm picking out these three songs, but the other seven do not exactly stand in the shadow of these two. All three singers give each other the room to shine and assist in making the song better in the way they play a specific guitar part and sing harmonies. After ten songs its all over and I want to put on the record again, proving that what I've written here is completely correct. The Greater Good just begs for more, indeed for the greater good. Which includes you dear reader!

Wo.

You can order The Greater Good here.

.NoWordsNeeded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYkYS-w7SOQ

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