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

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."

i agree the whole thing gives an accurate picture of gigs that were events that posed down the conventional rock shows of the time (eg bruce springsteen) in the "european [whatever] is here" fashion art sense -- an elaborate some-greatest-hits show that still presents bowie as continuing metamorphosis, the futuristic art fashion performance taste thing, which he did keep up for a few more years

long story short: picked this one up b/c of this thread. i like it well enough -- better than given credit for (as i thought it would be). i also liked the berlin-bowie-"rethinks"-ziggy-bowie thing going on here.

Eisbär, exactly how is Station to Station "in no small part gamble-huff as conceived by a coked-up space-alien"? I get the latter part, but hear me no real traces Gamble and Huff in there...

incidentally, i have demo bootlegs of three YA songs and all are better than what ended up on the real album, theyre less produced, more spontaneous, and dont have that higely annoying gaspipe sax in every single song, in every crevice of open space.

But the "Station to Station" was utterly incredible, with the protracted intro chugga-chugga section and Belew wailing all over it. I wasn't familiar with it at the time but certainly made note of the 'the side-effects of the cocaine' line for sure. It might have even been better than the Stage version, I'm not sure.

Stage has also resequenced the tracks in their original concert running order.

Disc 1:
1. Warszawa
2. Heroes
3. What In The World
4. Be My Wife - Previously Unreleased
5. Blackout
6. Sense Of Doubt
7. Speed Of Life
8. Breaking Glass
9. Beauty And The Beast
10. Fame

Disc 2:
1. Five Years
2. Soul Love
3. Star
4. Hang On To Yourself
5. Ziggy Stardust
6. Art Decade
7. Alabama Song
8. Station To Station
9. Stay - Previously Unreleased
10. TVC 15

I've been hunting a live bootleg of Bowie in '76 from which the Rykodisc reissue extracted live versions of "Stay" and "Word on a Wing" - both spectacular. How readily available?

Having just read Hugo Wilcken's excellent 33 1/3 book on Low, I am still digging this roundly maligned, nazi cocainey live album for mostly the same reasons I did six years ago.

Did the reissue really have better sound? I love the idea that he fucking OPENED his shows with "Warsawa" -- it makes complete sense, and the sense of drama going from that to "Heroes" must have been insane for members of the audience.

Reissue sounds fantastic. Plus the restored running order makes much more sense as in it feels like you're listening to a concert recording instead of a collection of live songs arranged according to era imo. Still love this album.

that david live cover no way deserves all the dissing!

"that david live cover no way deserves all the dissing!"

I still find it totally scary: I saw it for the first time when I was 13 or something and it was like someone punched me in the stomach. The Raw Power cover did more or less the same thing to me.

Please watch this performance of Warzawa with Carlos Alomar conducting, people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5BSgth7Hjk

Only now have I thought to listen to the 2005 reissue of this (on Spotify). The new running order is amazing. I mean, the first disc has Warszawa, Heroes, What in the World, Be My Wife, Blackout, Sense of Doubt, Speed of Life, Breaking Glass, Beauty and the Beast and Fame in that order. Beautiful.

I think this record's lowly reputation comes from the original tracklisting's focus on the rejigged Ziggy songs, which are interesting but inessential.

ummmmmmmmmmmm, 'roundly maligned'? i really had no idea. easily the best bowie era. david live is unlistenable. 'prefab philly soul' is right

my favorite part is how the beat for what in the world is slowed down and made way funkier

I never heard this but it seems classic and I plan to listen to it soon.

ummmmmmmmmmmm, 'roundly maligned'? i really had no idea

It didn't exactly get great reviews at the time of its release

I had small but fatal problems with Hugo Wilckin's book. "Truth according to 95% of all respondents" is routinely conflated with "as Angela Bowie told it", and it comes across as a mishmash of fact and fiction. To me, any way. I'm not calling Angela a liar, in fact, her autobiography is probably the best read on Bowie to date, but it is way OTT.

Anyway Stage rules. If there's a roundly maligned live album in David's catalogue that deserves re-appraisal it's the Ziggy Stardust OST

I used to have 'Stage' as a double LP and never listened to the Ziggy cuts. Always sounds like Bowie was in a hurry to get them over. I vacillate between 'David Live' and 'Santa Monica 72' as my fave Dave live album. OTM about ZS:TMP being under-rated, it's solid, put together as it is from the three (?) Hammersmith Odeon shows. The Brel and VU covers especially are great. Angela's autobio is a good read as well, especially since most Bowie related books are dry facts, at least until Keeping Ahead of The Dame's book gets published.

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.