David Bowie's roundly maligned, nazi cocainey live album, STAGE: Classic or Dud?

pretty good IIRC. I'm suprised this is considered a dud. Maybe one of those you-like-the-versions-you-hear-first moments but I was kinda dissapointed when I finally got to hear the studio version of 'Station To Station' (and 'TVC15' too btw.)

YES!

More of this.... http://www.miromi.org/img/draw/journal_drawings/2001/07/bowie-eberlin.jpg .... less of this.... http://davidbowielp.chez.tiscali.fr/video/15.jpg

Stage [RCA Victor, 1978]
If James Brown is the only rock and roller who deserves more than one concert album, then the Bowie to ban is David Live. Stage kicks off with some well-chosen Bowie oldies before moving into refreshingly one-dimensional versions of his best songs since 1975, including the key Eno collaborations, which were often oversubtle to begin with. For fans only, of course. I'm one. B+

Anyway, as noted above, the version of "Station to Station" is just MONSTROUS -- hands down one of Bowie's best numbers ever. It, "Warszawa" and the spectacular version of "Breaking Glass" were the three tracks from Stage that appeared on the original teaser Sound and Vision box from 1989 which heralded the reissues -- my eighteen year old self was blown away and eagerly looked forward to the full reissue, only to be a little disappointed with the rest of it. Still, it's been a while, might have to give a go again.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000635M.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

and i seriously doubt that stage is worse than david live.

Alex, I seriously think you got your David "Coke" Bowie live records mixed up. David Live suffers from mediocrity and coked up urgency that undermines the performances.. whereas Stage soars.. in my opinion. Also, did Bowie clean up right around Station To Station/Young Americans anyway?

first, stevie ray vaughan; and then, charlie sexton. 80s bowie sure had a weird thing w/ rootsy texas guitarists, no?

The thing that really bugs me about Hendrix is the way that he's always asking me questions. "Are you experienced?" No. "Have you ever been to Electric Ladyland?" No - I didn't even know that studio was still around! "Can I stand next to your fire?" No! I paid a lot of money for this fire, and I'd rather not have you vomiting all over it. (A TRUE conspiracy theory = A. Jimi Hendrix was afraid of his manager, who had been linked to the mafia and the CIA. B. The amount of alcohol in Jimi Hendrix's stomach was more than a human being could drink in the time period it would have taken to cause his vomiting death; in other words, the wine was FORCED down his throat. C. Jimi Hendrix's manager made more money from releasing postmortem Hendrix releases than he ever made while Jimi was alive. IT'S TRUE! I heard it from a source of questionable reliability!). So whenever I'm in the mood for some good old black person funky rock music with SOUL, I turn to David Live.

I bet you're thinking to yourself, "Gee, I've never heard anybody make that argument about this album before." Well, that's because IT'S NOT FUCKING TRUE!!!! WHY THE FUCK HAS "THE GREAT WHITE MORON" DECIDED THAT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO TAKE GREAT OLD GLAM CLASSICS LIKE "REBEL REBEL," "SUFFRAGETTE CITY," "ALADDIN SANE" AND "ROCK AND ROLL SUICIDE" -- AND COMPLETELY REMOVE EVERY SEMBLANCE OF "MELODY" THAT THE SONGS EVER HAD?!?!?!?!!? DOES HE HONESTLY THINK THIS IS "SOUL" MUSIC BECAUSE HE'S GOT THE "MEDIOCRE WHITE DUKE" DAVID SANBORN PLAYING A SAXOPHONE? OR BECAUSE HE TOLD THE GUITAR PLAYER, "DON'T PLAY THE ACTUAL MELODIES. JUST PLAY REALLY REALLY LONG SOLOS THAT DON'T GO ANYWHERE"? OR BECAUSE HE'S WEARING A STUPID WHITE "MATURE" SUIT AND REDUCES THE VOCAL MELODIES TO HIS MISGUIDED APPROXIMATION OF "SEXY" HALFASSED SPEAK-SING? THIS ALBUM IS A PIECE OF SHIT ALL DRESSED UP LIKE A FANCYPANTS! LOOK AT THAT DUMBASS PHOTO OF HIM ON THE COVER!!!!

NOW FOR THAT PHOTO TO HAVE APPEARED ON THE COVER MEANS THAT MR. BOWIE MUST HAVE LOOKED AT IT LONG AND HARD AND THOUGHT TO HIMSELF, "MAN, I LOOK REALLY GOOD WITH MY TIMELESS WHITE SUIT AND "SHORT IN FRONT, LONG ON THE SIDES" HAIRCUT. AND THAT LOOK ON MY FACE? I LOOK LIKE A FULL WEEK OF NONSTOP ASSFUCKING HAS CREATED A BACKUP OF HARDENED FECAL MATTER IN MY LOWER INTESTINES! AWESOME! LET'S GO WITH IT!"

Having said that, David Live (to my ears much more cokey than Stage) is my favorite regular Bowie live album, though that may very well change once I’ve seen the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars DVD I bought today...

(x-post: Eisbär; hilarious review! I do love that album though...)

Oh don't get me wrong, man. I know there was still a Himalayan-sized mound of coke involved with David Live, but by then he'd renounced his love for Kraftwerk and Teutonic Totalitarianism in favour of polyester leisure suits and bullshit Philadelphia Soul (sorry,but I fuckin' hate that shit!)

Beyond that, I quite enjoy the longer "Breaking Glass", prefer the "TVC-15" to the original and love the hyper-fast version of "Hang On To Yourself."

The BBC Five Years doc has a lot of great contributions from Alomar and Davis.

yes, it's great : I have just watched it yesterday !
many things I had never seen and indeed Alomar and Davis are very cool in it (that said the parts from the "Stage" tour are great but I prefer NOT seeing how badly dressed they all were !).
I also really liked the footage of DB with Luther Vandross and band circa YA. There's a moment when DB sings with them (very badly) and I can't help imagining they must have been thinking "who the hell is this guy who's supposed to be a star but who can't sing !?".

Just hearing this for the first time. Quite good, although some of the performances are a little too close to the album versions to stand out.

The live version of 'Art Decade' sounds like it was cut from High Llamas' Hawaii!

Kind of a bummer that he chose to include 'Alabama Song', which might be his only bad song from the '70s.

Is not bad!

Kind of a weird choice, given its strong association with another rock act. But I never listened to, so...

I never even knew that at the time, I just thought he'd covered an obscure Bertold Brecht tune, etc.

In a way, it makes more sense that Bowie covered it than the Doors.
that said, I have never really liked that song and haven't listened to the version on "stage" yet.

Totally forgot about the Doors version. It's kind of a not good song regardless of who's performing it. Sorry, Brecht.

Works much better in the show and/or when sung by Lotte Lenya.

Art decade could almost be a track from the pet sounds sessions !

It's the sleigh bells.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyFXSOh-HGI

I thought that said 'Schittenfahrt' at first.

*momentary derail* The Young Gods version of Alabama Song is great

Kind of a bummer that he chose to include 'Alabama Song', which might be his only bad song from the '70s.

Just watched the BBC doc as well – it's very good and makes a compelling case for something that Bowie isn't always regarded for: his musicianship. For instance, I thought the same thing about Bowie's singing in the Young Americans sessions scene but the musicians were clearly blown away by Bowie's vision for all the different vocal parts to "Right" like he was Brian Wilson or something. The contributions to that end from Fripp and Eno are excellent as well and largely unique to this documentary.

just came across this Stage-era promo radio interview - http://ia600405.us.archive.org/7/items/DavidBowieSuperstarRadioNetworkInterview/DavidBowieSuperstarRadioNetworkInterview.mp3?cnt=0

It's more than the sleighbells. All the instruments and arrangements are very wilson/pet sounds!

I finally listened to the Ziggy part. it's ok. "Soul Love" is quite fun although a bit silly.
Overall, a surprisingly good live album with a brilliant berlin era part (and one dud : "Alabama Song").
like many other tracks, "Beauty and the Beast" has a little something more than the studio version. more punch and fun.
It was never a favourite on the album but I really like that version.

“Anyone who’s playing ‘Beauty And The Beast’... You know they get erections.”
- R. Fripp

Yeah, the studio"Beauty and the Beast" may we'll have been the track that started it all for me. The introduction of Fripp's Sky Saw guitar is just so unbelievably alien, followed by the pounding piano and rhythm section building to a crescendo before the verse comes crashing in is an all-time moment for me.

In other words, what Fripp said.

"Are you listening to "Beauty and the Beast" or are you just glad to see me?"

"Oh! Oh!"

having had the ryko cd for so long, all those 'rock' tracks on heroes have always sounded kind of messy and tinny and weird to me.

This was my 1st Bowie album.

xp really think the 2000s reissue/remix/rework is an improvement over all earlier versions

Is this album called STAGE because of the Elvis album ON STAGE?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b0/On_Stage_February,_1970.jpg/220px-On_Stage_February,_1970.jpg

that's half a heroes pose!

eheh. indeed not far from the heroes cover !

and on Bowie RIP thread was suggested a rumour that Elvis had reached out (?) for Bowie to produce an album for him

there's this part during an interview with Conan where he was talking about Elvis (starting at 1:10) ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4d8QrRJvsE

musically, I could imagine something circa young Americans/Station to Station.

lots of fun clips in that one

(xpost) I imagine more like Bowie's version of "God Only Knows," i.e. not good.

and on Bowie RIP thread was suggested a rumour that Elvis had reached out (?) for Bowie to produce an album for him

― niels, Friday, January 22, 2016 5:25 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I imagine this sounding like Scott Walker's Nite Flights tracks. Elvis was still in peak voice in '77, and likely eager to get off the treadmill -- sobriety in Berlin with Bowie would've done him a world of good. But the Colonel wouldn't have entertained such an idea for more than half a second.

come on, "golden years" IS an Elvis track !

hey yeah that actually makes sense

ahah, this is so lame !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPdGVbxqtCE

Not clicking, think I already listened to something like that.

Love this video of Bowie skulking about the Hansa studio playing/recording "Sense of Doubt":

http://youtu.be/IocSP9Mp-Dk

Think it's safe to suggest that had Bowie released The Gouster instead of YA it would have been more of a novelty/cult classic than YA... it's... kinda boring?

yeah, I was curious about that, having no idea what it was all about, but it's just some kind of alternate YA (no better nor worse, afaic).
there's something else that grabbed me on the new compilation.
it's the StS 2010 Harry Maslin remix : what's that ?
It's really different from the original mix.

yeah sry should have posted in the RIP thread, the Maslin mix is mentioned there - apparently it's more in accord with Bowie's original vision or smth?

And it's TVC15, not StS, isn't it? I don't have the reissue to check

it's the whole album ! (yeah, I guess it's not the proper thread to discuss that)

Oh yeah it is the whole album! (It's on spotify)

http://www.network54.com/Forum/8980/thread/1474856664/last-1475166652/Station+To+Station+%28Harry+Maslin+mix%29

I found this discussion about it.
I haven't listened to the whole remixed album yet but I did notice that the drums were further in the mix and sound very different.
and many new things appear (like the "TVC15" intro, etc).

Hadn't heard of this Maslin mix, listening to TVC now. Piano is pushed so far forward it sounded like a Professor Longhair record at the start. (A reference point I never picked up on before.) Will have to spend time with the rest.