I recently picked up Unknown Pleasures: A Cultural Biography of Roxy Music by Paul Stump, a book about one of my favorite bands. I tend toward fanaticism about them, but I was not ready for the advanced level of Rock’n Roll geekery I would find in this dense and detailed volume. It is nice to have so much information on Roxy’s history, influences, make-up (personnel, not cosmetic) but it is a case of information overload.
I appreciate Roxy Music on many levels, but if forced to reduce it to basics I would say Ferry’s poetic lyrics (filled with references to art, philosophy, and cultivated despair) and Paul Thompson’s masterful drumming (along with the crazy musicality of the band in general) are what I enjoy most. I remember their song Love is the Drug on top-40 radio in the mid-seventies, but it was not until I borrowed the album Siren from a girlfriend (I may have never returned it!) that I began to really listen to every song. Later, I encountered Country Life, which I listened to even more carefully. I remember it was the lyrics that got me most of all. Part of the reason I love poetry can be blamed on Roxy Music, as well as on the infamous Euro-brit original album cover of Country Life , which at that time was banned in the U.S.
The author of the book has very fixed opinions about the band. He praises their first album and everything Eno-esque. He tends to dismiss, in an annoyingly glib way, most of what came after the first two albums, and this bothers me. It is never fun to hear someone dismiss, or indifferently ignore music and art that has profoundly moved one’s soul. But I do appreciate his taking his love of Roxy Music to the heights of Rock’n Roll geekery.
CONNECT/HOOK 
That is how I feel about my favorite singer, El Coyote, but I don’t think there are any books on him. Thankfully, I think?
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No conozco El coyote.
No es el rey de Sinaloa ? (ji ji ji)
There is a true Roxy fan at this blog which you might enjoy:
https://madelynlang469.com/category/home-2/
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Pues, El Coyote es el rey de Sinaloa en mi corazon…su nombre actual es José Angel Ledezma Quintero. I will check out the link. I’m not that familiar with this band.
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Narco-corridos 🤪
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He sings a handful of those, though not that many. Not like some musicians. Mostly, he’s just a fat singer with a beautiful voice and eyes like a poet. Lol, sorry.
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Hahaha…i like rock book geekery! I have a book about kate bush…the author delved into kate’s ancestry and discovered that her great great grandfather had been the village drunk in the late 1800s and that he died by drowning in a ditch by the side of the road in some northern english town. The police report gave the latitude/longitude and some other descriptors of the ditch. The author/geek used the 1800s police report to locate the precise place where kate’s great great grandpa fell to his death. The author, then, in an act of supreme rock geekery decided to fall into the same ditch to experience what kate bush’s ancestor might have felt as he perished 100 years earlier…
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That is metageekery right there…
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