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Beat Instrumental OCTOBER 1975 - by Peter Makowski

PHIL MANZANERA - QUIET SON OF ROXY

Some musicians are just content to lay back within the security of a band's structure, others venture forth and let loose their musical aspirations in the form of solo recordings but Roxy man Phil Manzanera is a person who likes to take things one step further by involving himself in three separate projects.

First and foremost he is Roxy Music's axe wielder. Secondly comes his newly acquired role of solo artist with the release of his own offering on the Island label entitled Diamond Head, an album which reveals our Phil to be a man of many facets. And now we have the dawning of Quiet Sun, Manzanera's only professional musical stint before joining Roxy.

He has now been able to achieve one of his dreams by reforming the group and recording an album which is totally instrumental and reveals a more complex and aggressive side of his playing. Manzanera proceeded to explain why he decided to record a solo album.

"There are a variety of reasons, most of the material had been written quite a while ago andI wanted to get it recorded so I could get on with some new stuff. It's almost impossible to write new things when you've got a backlog of material."

SPANISH

One track of particular interest is Frontera featuring Spanish lyrics sung by no less a person than Robert Wyatt. "That was written four or five years ago and I always thought it would be perfect for Robert. I knew he had already recorded a song in Spanish, so I asked him to write some lyrics with something vaguely Spanish or Latin American about them and he came back with the whole thing in Spanish.

"I was trying to bring over my Latin American upbringing I was bought up in Venezuela, Cuba and you tend to get influenced by that type of music. The real ethnic Latin American music was very much like rock music - it's all to do with dancing, excitement, having a good time.I obviously wanted to get this influence onto my album. On the five vocal tracks I did originally want to have mentions of Latin America or have an emphasis on the rhythm section."

INTEREST

In fact it was in South America that Manzanera first developed his interest in guitars. "It was out in Venezuela just before The Beatles started happening", he recalled, "There were a few groups consisting of guys who used to go to school in America and spend their vacation in South America getting bands together and playing at the local parties.

"My friend bought a guitar out there. It was an Italian electric guitar which was really incredible, all green and glittery with four pick ups and thousands of knobs and of course after seeing this I wanted one... this was when I was about eleven. There was this English guy who had a cello shaped guitar with Hofner pick-ups which I bought off him, and he showed me some chords and things sort of started from there."

Manzanera admits regretfully that he didn't really start playing seriously until he came to England a few years later. "The masters didn't like guitars or anything associated with rock music so you had to be very careful when practising so they wouldn't catch you.

"I remember sending off for a postal course at that time and what came back was the theory of music, I was really brought down I thought there would be some nice pictures that I could learn things off. All I could do was study this thing for about three months which was really good in the long run because I learnt the theory of music.

"I did go to some lessons as well, in fact one and a half lessons when I was about six- teen. It was so bad I just couldn't stand it. The teacher was really old and he wanted me to learn from music, which I didn't want to do.I just wanted the freedom to let go. I had obviously developed some dreadful techniques and he kept on correcting me."

I asked Phil if there were any aspects of the guitar that frustrated him like f'rinstance bar chords which have driven many a tutor to hand in his tuning forks.

"I never thought I'd get to play lead guitar actually", he revealed, "I got to the stage where I could play some chords and at that time all the groups had rhythm guitarists. It took me years to get into playing lead and it wasn't until I was about seventeen that I discovered things like tremelo and bending strings... it seems incredible that I didn't discover that until then."

Those of you who have seen the inside sleeve of the L.P. will have witnessed the line-up of Roxy clutching onto a selection of interesting looking guitars all of which belong to Manzanera's ever growing collection.

"I started off with a Dallas guitar", he recalled with almost an air of nostalgia, "it was a cello model called the 'Laura Li'. And then, when I was about eleven, I don't know how I did it, but I managed to sign an H.P. agreement andI bought a Hofner Galaxy guitar. My father didn't know what it was, he thought you plugged it into the wall. It was a great guitar, Brian's had it for the last three years, it's got the best tremelo in the world. That lasted me until just before Quiet Sun, when I got a Gibson 335.

"I kept that until I joined Roxy and I also bought a white Stratocaster and then I gradually started going through lots of guitars. I bought another Strat off Eno's milkman and another Strat I had belonged to Hendrix. It was amazing that it was Hendrix's Strat but it was a useless guitar. Then I got a Firebird, that's a really beautiful guitar. It's got a great tremelo arm, 'cause I'm always breaking Fender arms.

"The last thing I got was a Rickenbacker twelve string, which is something I've always wanted, I used to draw pictures of it at school on my books."

Effects play an integral part of Manzanera's playing and it is hardly surprising that he has been dabbling with electronic gadgetry since his early days with Quiet Sun.

"Then I used to get my effects with a Copi-cat going through a Revox and turning that off and on to obtain various sounds. When I first got into RoxyI used to get Eno to treat the guitar through a XCS3 which sounded really good. When he left I wanted to carry on doing that myself so I got Jerry Rodgers at RSE to build me this thing which is just a very superior filter and envelope shaper with a patchboard and you could link them up or use them separately.

"I had them linked up to some pedals.I also had a Revox for ADT (automatic double track), normal echo and varispeed and I had all this linked up to a pedal so that by lifting it up I could start the Revox going and by putting it down I could stop it and in between you get this weird, eerie sound.

"The trouble was that it wasn't very reliable for stage - it kept on packing in at crucial moments - and eventually last year, it all blew up in Paris at a soundcheck. I had to go on just using a fuzz face and an MXR, which was so much better that now I just use that. So I've simplified my whole set up now. I'm also going to use a Revox, but with a much more reliable system."

Manzanera still feels that there's a lot for him to learn - "If you can play everything it must get a bit boring. You know exactly where you are, you know what your limitations are. I like to take things slowly, so I can enjoy playing guitar for X number of years more.

"'Cause I really enjoy playing guitar", he concluded, "that's the whole point. If it wasn't fun there wouldn't be any point doing it."