© Pavlos Andronikos.
All Rights Reserved.
PYX LUXAN APPRECIATION
by Pavlos Andronikos [1] |
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Pyx Lux was a major Greek rock band.[2] It was formed in 1989, released its first recording in 1990, and broke up in 2004. By any standard it was one of the truly great rock bands. Its three key members— Filippos Pliatsikas, Bambis Stokas, and Manos Xydous—were excellent songwriters and lyricists, and as a band they produced songs which were inventive, poetic, experimental, pioneering, and popular. They were much influenced by English and American rock, and seem to have thought of their music as being in that tradition to some extent. However they were not narrow in range and achieved a satisfyingly organic fusion of rock and Greek musical traditions. This is particularly true of their penultimate studio album The Climbing Frames on the Grass Are Waiting For the Children. In my view, it represents the peak of their achievement—their Sgt. Pepper's. It is a rich and wide-ranging two-CD album on which almost every song is a classic. Although I am not aware of any evidence to suggest that the band modelled itself on the Beatles, nevertheless the band’s development does bring the Beatles to mind. Pyx Lux’s first albums were pop rather than rock, with catchy melodies matched to sophisticated lyrics, and as they developed they engaged in pioneering experiments and developed a harder rock sound, much as the Beatles did. They also introduced English language songs on to their last two studio albums, but for reasons I am still puzzling over, their English songs are not as successful as their Greek songs, and do not convey their quality. Perhaps to fully appreciate them it is necessary to understand their Greek lyrics and appreciate their Greek context. Of the English-language songs, “Someone Wrote ‘Save Me’ On a Wall” (with Eric Burdon singing lead) and “All My Angels Falling” (with Marc Almond) are well worth a listen. Both are from their last studio album Joyous In the City of Fools. Much more successful are their songs which include some English lyrics: “You Get In Love”, a driving rock song with a great riff (from the album Are There Any Goldfish Here?, but I prefer the much heavier live version on End), and “Flip-side Europe”, a venomous reggae-inspired song (from Joyous In the City of Fools). Perhaps in this category one could also include their collaboration with Sting and the Corsican band I Muvrini on the excellent three-language version of “Terre D’ Oru”. * * * * * In their time, Pyx Lux were one of the most popular bands in Greece. They were also very influential. As one critic, Sotiria Malfa, put it: “The stamp of Pyx Lux on Greek music of the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 00s is something more than profound.” [3] Another critic, Pavlos Zervas, wrote that the demise of Pyx Lux …leaves the Greek music scene significantly poorer, since it is losing a band which granted us unique, unbelievable moments, and which retained for all these years a character all its own—a character which was tending to become a “school” followed by many artists and groups. It is not chance that after the appearance of Pyx Lux, phrases like “Clone Pyx Lux” were used to characterise other groups and their music.[4] A third commentator describes them as a phenomenon: No matter how hard you try to describe the phenomenon Pyx Lux, the truth is very difficult to put into words. We are talking about one of the greatest bands the Greek music scene has known, a fact which is evident not so much from the number of records sold, which is phenomenonal for a Greek group, or their longevity, but from the unique feeling which was created between Pyx Lux and their beloved public. [5] This special relationship with the public is noted by other commentators, including Pavlos Zervas in his review of the band’s final album End: The End for a band which for 15 years now has had a unique relationship with the public. The End for Pyx Lux who are still today the greatest group, in terms of their reach and influence, that the Greek music scene has known.[6] * * * * * Initially the members of the band were Filippos Pliatsikas, Bambis Stokas, Sakis Stamoulis, and Panayiotis Spyropoulos. Their professional recording career began with a demo cassette which they delivered to EMI in Athens: It was the beginning of the summer of 1989. We were gathered in the office of the producer Secundus Buchayer and his then secretary Maria Parousi, when the group that later became Pyx Lux appeared.... The three who came were Bambis, Sakis “Kounoupis” (Stamoulis is his real surname) and Panayiotis Spyropoulos. Filippos was absent. I accepted the [demo] cassette, and having greeted us politely, they left. Morning coffee was an opportunity for us to listen to it, before it went to Manos and Secundus... I was working in Foreign Repertoire, Maria didn’t listen to Greek music, so superior criticism and nitpicking were a given... But it didn’t happen like that. We liked it; and I always remember from that first cassette an early performance of “Why” [“Γιατί”], which much later appeared on their third album. Naturally Manos liked the cassette even more![7] Manos Xydous, then Marketing Director at EMI, liked it so much he later joined the band. Another member of staff, Dimitris Fergadis, the head of Sales, proposed their name Πυξ Λαξ.[8] Of the four members of the band mentioned by Vasilis Konstantoulakis in his account of the submission of the demo tape, two left the band in its early days: Panayiotis for reasons not known to Konstantoulakis, and Sakis “probably because he was bored” (“μάλλον βαριόταν”).[9] These departures would have been after the first album, which states on the back cover that: Pyx Lux is:
Informally Manos Xydous was a member of the band from early in its recording career—he contributed songs to all of their albums, including the first, and is pictured on the cover of the second album along with Bambis Stokas and Filippos Pliatsikas. At some point he gave up his job at EMI Greece and formally become a member of Pyx Lux. It can be deduced from what Konstantoulakis says that this must have happened sometime after the recording of “Let Her Talk” for the third album (“We all knew that informally he [Manos Xydous] was now a member.”), and before the band went to Oxford to record “My Loneliness Everything”.[10] Their first promotional performance was at Laleousa on Ethniki Odos, a club known not for rock but for laika (a popular song style based on traditional forms). This was followed by an appearance for the media at the Rodon in November. Vasilis Konstantoulakis remembers it was a beautiful night (“όμορφη βραδιά”), and remembers that Filippos Pliatsikas said they would return and play there again. They did after three years, with three sold out concerts.[11] It was their third album, 1993’s The Winter Sun Makes Me Melancholy which firmly established their reputation in Greece. It included their first hit, “Let Her Talk”, a song by Manos Xydous, which was sung on the album by a guest singer, the popular singer Vasilis Karras. Their next album, For the Princes of the West Bank earned them a gold record, [12] and their first platinum album followed: The Bogeyman Sings Alone At Night. For the Princes of the West Bank was dedicated to “all those who were always satisfied with less, and whose dignity prevented them from ‘begging’ for more. For the real princes of the ‘West Bank’.”[13] Filippos Pliatsikas elaborated on this dedication in interviews. In response to one interviewer’s observation that “there is another categorisation which concerns you: the west bank”, Pliatsikas responded: We are from the west of Athens and have lived with these ordinary people (such were our parents and our neighbours) who would get up at 6 in the morning and yet have the heart, returning from work, to get together, drink their coffees, and chat. We dedicated the disc to all of these people we marvel at, wherever they are. Since then the idea that we are supporters of western Athens stuck, but other than through our songs, we do not have the means to support anything.[14] In another interview he said: In 1994 we released the record For the Princes of the West Bank dedicated to the people of western Athens, where we lived—people who laboured and were wage earners, and whom we saw as princes because they returned to their homes [from work] and had the heart to smile. They kept up their friendships and were civil to one another. That’s how we got stuck with the title “princes of the west bank”.[15] The album features a number of guest artists. The recording of “Senseless Loves” was a collaboration with the song’s creators Haris and Panos Katsimihas, who share the lead vocals on that track with Bambis Stokas. On “It’s drizzling in Belgrade”, a recitation in Serbian with a musical backdrop, Pyx Lux collaborated with the Serbian band Bayaka. The music was composed by another Serb, Saša Dragić, who also wrote the music for “What is it keeps us apart”. Finally, the lead vocals on “A life on the edge” are by the guest singer Sotiria Leonardou, and Giorgos Stathos plays clarinet on “They Say About Me”.
To be continued... Pavlos Andronikos
2009-2010 Last revision: 23 March 2010
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© Pavlos Andronikos.
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