No. 4: David Fudger, Disc
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Disc, 23.8.75
PHIL MANZANERA had some explaining to do. I mean, he's going to give Roxy Music fans a big surprise with his latest extra-curricula Venture. The man who plays the death-ray guitar has re-formed Quiet Sun, a band from his pre-Roxy public schooldays and with them he has produced an intensely complex, instrumental album. The other members of Quiet Sun are bassist Bill MacCormick, keyboard man Dave Jarrett and drummer Charles Hayward. Between them they can lay claim to a devious musical history embracing such names as Matching Mole, Soft Machine, Mal Dean's Amazing Band, Gong, High Tide and Radar Favourites. Yep, a bunch of esoteric, musical bizzarroids who deal in time signatures that turn toe-tapping pop fans into epileptics.
Manzanera's contribution to "Mainstream" - the album's title - is still as devastating as a nose diving Jumbo jet but his guitar playing set against the intricate jazz/rock structure of the music, reveals a dexterity and control unexpressed on Roxy albums. Is Phil tired of the limitations of the Roxy framework? Is this the end of a beautiful relationship? Can Chelsea make a comeback this season? Over to the man himself who is currently in the recording studio with his Roxy team mates working on the next R. Music release. What's the deal Phil? What's with this Quiet Sun mob. ''Why ja do it?"
"Basically it's an album of music by a group that existed four or five years ago," was the cool Manzanera reply, "before it was commercially possible for a group like that to exist. It was the year before Roxy Music and as far as the record companies were concerned there was no commercial potential at all for a group playing quite complicated instrumentals. The advent of people like King Crimson and the Mahavishnu Orchestra has changed that. I was listening to some tapes of Quiet Sun last year and I thought that it would be a worthwhile project to record the songs. It's part of my personal musical background. It's music I enjoy listening to and playing as well as the rock group stuff."
Manzanera is personally pleased with the fruits of this musical reunion. Is it going to produce more? "We certainly wrote a lot of material around that time. There's enough material to do two or three albums, but we'll see how this one goes, whether there are enough people interested." What about performing? "Obviously the commitments which I have make it pretty impossible to do any performing with Quiet Sun, but if there was a demand for it we might be able to fit some in. At the moment I've got the Roxy album and then the tours that we're going to be doing in-the autumn."
Phil feels that "Mainstream" has given him a chance to develop his playing away from the confines of rock. "It's much more abstract type of playing for me. A style which I haven't had an opportunity to exhibit on many of the records I've done, except for possibly stuff outside Roxy. It's more like some of the stuff I played on John Cale's records like Gun on his "Fear" album. That is the nearest I've come to 'Main stream' in a rock context. It's really one extreme of my playing I suppose which is much more abstract than the melodic, possibly more conventional 'rock' style that I had to do to fit in with Roxy Music. Apart from that," he added, "the actual songs, I mean the pieces of music really, are quite complicated. I think people will like it if they give it a chance. If they make an effort."
The initial response to "Mainstream" has been good, and for Phil that's very good. "I'm always underestimating people's tastes - things have obviously changed so much since we first started playing that kind of music. It was so different at the time, people found it very difficult. Maybe by now people have been conditioned . er . . . prepared by all the other groups. They might not find it so inaccessible."
What about the other members of Roxy Music? How accessible did they find Quiet Sun. Phil was unsure. "Well, I don't think any of them have heard it yet," Manzanera chuckled, I suspect that they probably wouldn't like it, though I obviously can't say until they have heard it. If they don't say anything to me, I'll assume that they don't like it. Obviously I don't discount the fact that they might like it." Phil is obviously very sensitive to the views of the others.
On the subject of Roxy Music Manzanera was a little cagey when asked about the band's plans for the immediate future. "I think," Manzanera began, "it's quite possible to say that there will be quite," then hesitantly, "a change - obviously I can't give any details - not in personnel, but in stage act. "I think it's about time for us to come up with something new and I think we have got . . er . . . the music's certainly changed and the whole stage show will be quite different. I'm really looking forward to this tour - I'm very excited about it. Everybody, I think, is really looking forward to this tour. Now we're integrating all the members of the band more fully, so that it's really becoming a 'group'. Johnny Gustafson will be playing bass with the band which will be great as he hasn't actually played on an English tour before. He did the Australian/New Zealand leg of our touring last year and it was very successful. As far as I know he's going to be doing it with us and he plays bass on the album." So things look very rosy for Roxy Music and even rosier for Phil Manzanera, with two irons in the fire It must be very comforting to have another little combo to fall back on should the glitz-rock kings take a tumble.
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