Chapter II: How To Consult The Book

A. Being a record buff myself, this discography is written with other collectors in mind who want to have everything by the group and the individuals that has been released on record. I have tried to list all the records that have been released by Roxy Music, all the solo recordings and all the records with any involvement of Roxy Music members (I count Eddie Jobson as a member for this purpose), be it as musicians, producers, writers or anything else they did on (or to) the recording in question. I am sure that this collection is still by no means complete. There may be many more records that could not be traced or are very hard to find. The main problem stemmed from the fact that Eno, Mackay and Manzanera recorded so much with so many different groups that it was nearly impossible to keep trace of what everybody was doing on whose records in what year. I hope I have at least got all the main involvements, missing out some B-sides, different mixes here and there.

Another source of trouble was the invention and acceptance of the CD after the first edition of the book had been compiled in 1985. A lot of vinyl records were re-released on CD, sometimes in different combinations, sometimes with different mixes, more songs, longer cuts of songs than on the LP, etc. I tried to include anything that I could get hold of, which may not be very much at all in some cases.

Nevertheless, for all its shortcomings, I hope this collection will still be a great help for any collector.

B. Included in the book are all Roxy Music activities, all solo activities and collaborations and all the session work by the individuals. Each soloist has his own chapter, as have 801 and the Explorers. Record company politics forced me to include a chapter on Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music as well, as the recordings with the combined releases fit neither under the individual nor the group chapter.

The difference between a solo activity and a collaboration is that on solo recordings the artist is the person under whose name or under whose group name the record has been released, on collaborations it has been released under more than one artists' name (e. g. Fripp & Eno; Byrne & Eno). Session work mentions the artist only on the back of the cover as a musician, producer or composer etc. "Session" does not only mean playing, but also producing, mixing, writing songs for someone or appearing in any other form - maybe just in the thank yous - on a record. This chapter is more or less a chapter, where all other activities outside Roxy Music and the solo recordings have been listed. The entries are listed in alphabetical order of the artists who have released the record. Added is a chapter on oddities, this means recordings which might include someone from Roxy Music but not saying so and recordings that might not have been released after all. To complete the discography, a chapter on sample records is also added, samplers being recordings with a compilation of tracks that have been released elsewhere.

Each chapter has five different sections:

Sections A.-D. list the recordings in the different formats. In Section E., all the promotional stuff, demos, acetates, proof- prints of recordings, etc. that I found are listed. CD's have been included as far as possible, but with no distinction between 5-Inch CD's in LP format or 12-Inch format and 3-Inch CD's. The latter has proved to be very unpopular after all. I have tried to list at least each CD with different track listing and/or tracks. Another bunch of CD's with different track lengths is included as well. I did not, however, have access to every CD released, as I did not have the money to buy them all, but I have tried to go as far as I could. A lot of them don't differ that much from the original vinyl release after all, so there should not be too much loss of information, if not all CD's available are included. I appreciate every information I can get on CD's that are missing here.

Group releases, solo work and collaborations give every detail of the recorded work, session work entries only mention the participation of Roxy Music members on the record, leaving out any other musicians involved.

Each record that differs in at least one aspect (track listing, time, musicians) from other records has a separate entry. This applies mainly to CD's, singles and promotional recordings, as songs on them change from country to country, but even the first Roxy Music LP was released in different formats.

C. The information usually given with each entry is

This information is taken from the record cover and label on most entries. A couple of entries were not in my hands before being entered into the book. In the case of catalogue numbers, countries of release and record companies I have also tried to include as many as I could get hold of. Sources of additional information are:

As there may be a certain number of misprints in these sources, some of the catalogue numbers may not be correct, although I tried to cross-check any information.

For the countries of release, the following abbreviations have been used:

D. The above-mentioned general format of entries, however, is customized for certain parts of the book. There is no need to give the artist for Roxy Music or solo recordings for each recording again, as that chapter is about that person only, so this information is left out in these entries. With 7-Inch and 12-Inch recordings musicians and instruments are only mentioned if the track does not appear on an LP and a certain musician is known to be playing at all or a certain instrument on the track. In the session work section, only the members of Roxy Music get an entry in the musicians' section, other musicians are left out. Titles of the 7-Inch and 12-Inch releases are only given if these recordings have a title different than the first or A-side track. In the "Miscellaneous" sections, you will additionally find the format of the record right after the title of the record or the first track, as there was no sense in dividing that section into the different formats as well.

E. LPs are generally listed in the following way:

Numbers after the producer's or musicians' name or instruments mean that this person appears only on the above-mentioned track with the matching number. If there are no numbers in brackets, the record either doesn't give the information or this person plays the same instrument on every track of that record or produced the whole record

F. 7-Inch and 12-Inch recordings are listed in the following way:

G. With Collaborations and Session work, on the first line the information on the artist is included:

This is followed by the title of the record:

Heroes

The entry then continues in the usual way as mentioned above.

H. As I have said before, this is all still incomplete. So if you have any information not included here (different records, especially 7-Inch, 12-Inch and CD releases, catalogue numbers, lists of people playing on records), please list this information and send it to me. You will receive a list with additions that have been made up to the time of your writing. I would also like any information on the errors I have made in this book, and maybe somebody is able to complete the incomplete items (there are some records here, that don't have complete info with them)! You can also send me any suggestions you have on improving the book.

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