June, 1975

ENTERTAINMENT

Bryan Ferry: An Artist's Artist

In the history of American contemporary music, 1975 will be recorded as the year of the disco. Without doubt, the fastest selling and most desired music today is rhythm and blues. Yet, there is more happening on the current scene than initially meets the eye, and Cleveland has a great deal to do with it. Our fair city is nationally recognized as a major market for breaking new talent. Artists of the likes of Bowie, Lou Reed, Steve Harley, and David Werner have a following here that is unmatched in other areas of the U.S. Phonograph magazine has characterized the tastes of Clevelanders as being "lyrically sophisticated with an insatiable interest in the English... always on the lookout for something new." Indeed, most record executives agree, if you have a new act to showcase, this is the place to do it. Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music have held a claim to popularity in Cleveland for over two years. The rest of the U.S. is just now catching on.

Striking new dimensions in the diversified fields of rock, Ferry and his entourage are now bearers of the innovative banner that Bowie relinquished a year or two back. Hinting at a fatalistic, romantic world-weariness that presently reflects much of the Western World's pessimism, Ferry's lyrics emerge as prophetic poetry. His music ranges from hymn-like odes to out and out rockers that contain peculiar melodic twists. Ferry and Roxy also have that elusive quality called image. Clad in either a chic tuxedo or a Canadian military uniform, Ferry glides across the stage with the grace of a deer. The moves are subtle, but sexually enticing.

HIGH GEAR

To their list of credits, Roxy Music includes four albums all produced and recorded in England Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, Stranded, and the most recent, Country Life. The first two albums displayed the incredible synthezizer skills of Eno rock's answer to Marlene Dietrich. But it is Stranded, and especially Country Life that place Roxy Music firmly in the annals of rock history's avantgarde. Well worth noting as well are Bryan Ferry's solo efforts, These Foolish Things and Another Time, Another Place. Including hits from the past like "The Tracks of My Tears,' "The In Crowd," and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," Ferry effectively uses his offbeat voice and slinky arrangements to transform the songs into seventies disco tunes.

The dar-

Ferry, himself, is a captivating personality. ling of the young, trendy Londoners, he openly admits that "Most of my friends are gay. I much prefer the company of tasteful queens to rock stars." Ferry, a former art student, expresses a well-ingrained self-confidence; "I know that Roxy Music is different good, fresh, novel, and intriguing. Ninety per cent of all popular music, of any art form, is rubbish. It is a fact of life and it makes the good things that much more valuable." Indeed, Ferry is not the only one who thinks so. Countless critics have raved about him as the first of a whole new breed of rock star. In fact, the inimitable David Bowie, himself, said of Ferry and Roxy Music: "They are the only act going down in England now worth listening to." From all accounts, it appears that the time has finally come for Bryan Ferry's rise to Fame.

"Oh here it comes

That old ennui

I hope it won't stay long.

Well, it's every-man to his own thing And every singer to his song.

Ferry

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1975

ARE YOU GAY?

DO YOU HAVE A DRINKING PROBLEM?

DO YOU WANT HELP?

THERE IS A SOLUTION!

Call Alcoholics Together

631-5330.

Proud

Leon Stevens

Page 7

Ever since I jettisoned my closet, I have never regretted being gay. For me there is nothing like intimacy with peop whose life experience is similar to my own, and whose ogy and mystique are familiar to me. My sexual orient on has brought me closer to individuals with divergent interests, talents and tastes than that "other preference" could have. I am far less naive than my heterosexual counterpart who is generally petrified in the missionary position. I am free to abide by my own ethics rather than an ancient morality derived from Hammurabi's Code. It is great to be able to size-up another man without fear of turning into a pillar of salt. Refusal to accept one's own homosexuality is its own punishment. Every closet learns that it is insanely painful to try to deceive Mother Nature. I am free to love anyone anyway my partners agree upon. Because Even alienation from my society has its advantages. of straight hostility, my life is filled with adventure and thrills without scaling Kilimanjaro. It is fun to be myself, no longer weighed down by macho battle array. My new cosmology has made me more responsive and trusting toward other men and more empathetic and respectful of the other sex. Through my gay experience I have become more realistic but not at the expense of my idealism. Homosexuality has released me from the mediocrity of the nuclear family, neoVictorianism and other cultural "straight" jackets. My gay friends are legion, close and not likely to melt away like Thanks to my submy het counterpart's "frat brothers." culture, more of my friends are elite without being elitist or simple without being simplistic. I treasure my sexual preference and refuse any other. My "strokes" are better and my "folks" are far finer. If my buttons pop, it is because I am proud, not because I wear tight clothes.

Fashion

With the popular emergence of men's jewelry, has appeared a narrow, formalized adaptation of the slave bracelet. The design of this bracelet is familiar. It is simple and usually capped at the extremities by two small knobs in varying configurations. Customarily it consists of steel, silver or a platinum-colored metal. While many "chic" men are wearing this bracelet on a regular basis, it is sported by a disproportionate number of gay guys. of course, bracelets such as this, when worn by men, may always have been construed as clues of gayness, but they are rapidly becomming standard messages. Anthropologists would agree that the fixed stylization of this bracelet is necessary to preserve its symbolic value. Although wide wristbands, wristlets, Indian jewelry, beaded, jeweled and colored bracelets may prove quite attractive, they do not convey the signal which is implicit in the revised "slave bracelet." Several men I know have entire wardrobes of this bracelet, each differing only subtly. (My collection includes a silver bracelet from Trinidad, a chromeplate from Woolworth's and one made out of electrical wire by an art student.) Very possibly this phenomenon may be only faddish or modish, but hopefully it might become an established medium of communication. Hidden among faded denims and a worn work shirt, it can easily go unnoticed except to the eye which is scanning for it. If this handy band can cut down on guesswork in public, it is well worth our popularizing it among ourselves.

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