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Westbeth Theatre, New York February 8, 2001 By C. Bottomley For Bryan Ferry, coal miner's son and an unsuccessful candidate for the position of King Crimson frontman, it was about slipping the sex into prog rock. For non-musician Brian Peter George St. Baptiste de la Salle Eno, it was about making a band channel a Martian radio station where Phil Spector was being held prisoner. It shouldn't have worked, but during a brief period in the early '70s, Roxy Music and David Bowie were the only two groups that mattered. Not in America, of course. By the time Roxy Music's "Love is the Drug" gave its sole spank to the lower end of the charts in 1976, Eno had left the band to become a solo weirdo while Ferry was re-working the template. By the end of the decade Roxy Music had manufactured a mellow AOR sound that spoke of rolled-up jacket sleeves, wine bar love and hours in front of the mirror. On the very eve that the well-upholstered Romeos announced they were reopening the shop (minus Eno - weirdness is a full time gig), their music was being polished up by a scad of subrosa singers in a monthly homage party deemed Loser's Lounge. The Lounge started in 1993, when singer Nick Danger and pianist Joe McGinty invited a bunch of pals to join in on nights dedicated to the likes of Lee Hazlewood and Jesus Christ Superstar. They've since got a band - the Kustard Kings - and moved from the tiny Fez to the roomier Westbeth Theatre. And last Thursday, they were Roxy. That involved the right clothes, the right moves and most importantly, the right air of sophisticated absurdity. So McGinty dressed up in Another Time, Another Place's white tux and drummer Clem Waldmann had the Barney Rubble-meets-Shaft look of 1973's For Your Pleasure down to the fur pelts on his shoulders. Silver trousers were de rigueur. But just as astonishing was how the band gave Roxy Music's off-the-wall arrangements their due. Think loungey tinkling careening into walls of noise and echoes of "Be My Baby" with a shriek of the keyboard thrown in. For a group whose image dismissed all existence as performance, the narcissistic reflection made the karaoke seem high concept. While opening numbers "Virginia Plain" and "Let's Stick Together" saw singers Owen McCarthy and Ed Rogers specializing in Ferry's aloof aura, the first sick twist came when Justin Bond did "To Turn You On" dressed as Ferry's old squeeze, Jerry Hall. Robin "Goldie" Goldwasser broke down the glossy "Dance Away" into an arrangement for band and "uke-chestra." The point of Ferry's lyrics was that they were mumbled dirty secrets, but like all Losers who cast an eye on the cheat sheet, Goldwasser crisply enunciated a typical Ferry tale: "You're dressed to kill/ And look who's dying." Many opted for straight-ahead interpretations of Roxy and its alumni's back catalogs - including Eno's ambient "Music for Airports." But the group showed its kinkier side when performers whipped off pinstripe suits to reveal bustiers ("No Strange Delight"), writhed around the stage like they were the main attraction at the Hellfire Club ("Slave to Love") or illustrated the lyrical gem "I blew up your body/ But you blew my mind," with a very real inflatable sex doll. This was a long way from Larks' Tongues in Aspic. The first half ended with unexpected intensity as Joe Hurley lurched through "Song for Europe" like it was a scene from Under the Volcano. But it was McGinty in his white tux who raised the real Roxy on "Mother of Pearl," also from 1973's Stranded. For the opening orgy of riffs, the jiving cast crowded the stage. But Roxy were never afraid of using several tunes where only one would do, and McGinty was deserted for the song's wee-small-hours coda, save for an unattainable go-go dancer who teased his weary desire while he moaned, "If you're looking for love in a looking-glass world / It's pretty hard to find." As the host warned us at the beginning, Roxy Music's very obscurity meant that there were few singalongs, although many nodded when Sean Altman described 1980's Avalon as the ultimate sex album. But never-weres like "Do the Strand" (lyrics like "See La Goulue / And Nijinsky / Do the Strandsky" couldn't stand a chance against "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree") delighted the in crowd. "Love is the Drug" was the inevitable finale. Lianne Smith, who in specs and miniskirt looked and moved like an English teacher with her star student's hotel key, belted it out like a time-honored anthem. Masks off, the Loser's Lounge stood slaves to love, every one. |
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