Bryan Ferry
Life before Roxy - New Faces
Ten months younger than Bryan, Andy Mackay has spent the late sixties in the same struggle to make music and ends meet. A talented oboist and a self-taught sax player he has recently returned from a year-long sojourn in Florence. In his luggage comes a synthesiser.
Andy has played in bands before. During his time studying English at Reading University he was a member of the 'Nova Express', a Home Counties version of Bryan's 'Gas Board'. They too were a Soul and R&B band made up of like-minded student spirits. But turning this experience into a professional musical career has proved beyond Andy... so far.
But then serendipity takes a hand. A common friend leads to a chance meeting. For Ferry and Simpson, Mackay's arrival on the scene is manna from heaven. The man plays sax, and Soul, Stax and sax are synonymous. The man plays the oboe... OK, we'll think about that one. The man owns a synth - the cutting edge of the new musical technology!
So, now we are three. An odd three, though. Vocals and piano, sax, oboe and synth, bass guitar. Nearly a nucleus, not yet a band. But the makings of one.
What they clearly need is a drummer to complete the rhythm section. A guitarist might be useful. Or instead, what about a technology-fixated, systems-intrigued, experimentally-orientated, Arts School-educated, Suffolk-born, virtually unemployed piece of weirdness with a name almost as long as this description?
Perfect!
There will be special sections about Andy Mackay and Brian Eno as this site develops.
You can find out more about their past and current activities, however, by visiting these websites:
For Andy Mackay: Andy Mackay and Roxy Music
For Brian Eno: EnoWeb - a comprehensive Brian Eno site
Would you believe it? Andy and Eno, as he is rather more conveniently called, are old acquaintances. A product of Ipswich and then Winchester School of Art (where he has 'entertained' his fellow students with performances by his very own avant garde and recherche 'Merchant Taylor's Simultaneous Cabinet' plus the slightly more mainstream 'Maxwell Demon'), Eno brings new musical thinking to the current mix. Fortunately, perhaps, he doesn't bring the 32 tape recorders he once owned.
For Eno has heard the Velvet Underground. He knows the joy of the relentless thunder of Mo Tucker's 'drums', loves the feedback screech of Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison's guitars, revels in the Celtic wail of John Cale's violin scrapings. He maybe even knows who Delmore Schwarz is!*
His role is now to relieve Andy of the synthesiser chores, a task he takes to with enthusiasm, a role he will stretch to the limits. The borders to the band's musical horizons are now expanding exponentially.
Is there a future?
You know there is.
Things take shape
