David Bowie R.I.P

Actually my Ziggy Stardust CD has bonus tracks as well, and is also on EMI. Both from 1990.

The Sound and Vision box was really huge, but I think it's worth remembering the massive tour he put together with it.
The tour was promoted as a way for Bowie to 'retire' his hits. I saw the Pensacola date which was pretty life-changing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound%2BVision_Tour

HA: The NME, in response to the telephone poll, ran a spoof campaign, Just Say Gnome, in an effort to have "The Laughing Gnome" included in the set-lists.[2][13] Bowie had considered playing "The Laughing Gnome" "in the style of The Velvets or something" until he found out the voting had been perpetrated by the music magazine.

I've unfairly thought of the back half of Low as a little perfunctory in the past, but listening to 'Warszawa' just now and I realize both that I know every note of it as well as I know his more obvious hits and that it sounds absolutely magical.

I always wonder how Ryko ended up with the contract. Like, they must have had some genius who was able to sweet-talk both Bowie and the Jimi Hendrix Estate into giving them master tapes. Ryko was a cool label imo but it's hard for me to imagine they'd've had the kind of big advance I'd imagine Bowie would have wanted for those records

Ryko was pretty baller then: locking down Bowie, Zappa, and Costello in the space of a year or so.

In hindsight, it's ridiculous that I'd gloss over the Low instrumentals, as I glove Eno's instrumental stuff and I more generally love a ton of non-Bowie music that sounds like this. I guess it just wasn't what I was looking for or expecting from Bowie back in the day.

I unconditionally love the second side of Low, whatever that is that sounds like a marimba in Weeping Wall ( I think?) sounds so cool.

Ryko got Costello a few years later, in 1993. But he signed on specifically because of how Ryko had handled Bowie's catalog.

xxp

2nd side of low still sounds pretty shocking to me

i haven't listened to a lot of bowie much in recent years but last summer i did spend a lot of time with young americans. "win" is such a beautiful masterpiece"

xp the thudding pub band of "be my wife" exits stage and cluster takes over for the next twenty minutes

Those Ryko Bowie and Costello reissues were like the peak of listening to music for me. It just didn't get any better.

xpost Yeah, precisely. My first exposure to Low was pre-Cluster et al but this fits my ears like a glove now.

Ryko gave a damn about remastering and packaging after the initial CD hysteria had worn off.

A commenter on one of yesterday's Slate stories grumbled that Eno did the lion's share of the work on Low, which is bullshit: look at the instrumental and songwriting credits. It's only on "Heroes" where he rolls up his sleeves.

I liked the first Tin Machine a lot, iirc. Sales Brothers rule. Like, this is pretty good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XaJXkqP7gc

And I like the Lennon cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqvr_YR9GxA

Don't like Reeves' playing, though, I think he's what brings Tin Machine down. And also doesn't help "The Next Day."

xpost I think it's telling that Eno gets a co-write credit on the song "Heroes." Also "Once in a Lifetime," fwiw.

I kind of love Tin Machine.

Though whoever decided Hunt should sing TWO songs on the second record...oof

Always thought 'Heroes' had some sonic similarities to 'Here Come The Warm Jets'.

"Goodbye Mr. Ed" is OK.

"Heaven's in Here" was OK for a couple of minutes until Gabrels stinks up the room.

I'd go as far as saying that Eno was most active on Lodger out of the three "Berlin" albums...

Yet it's the one he likes least. Go figure.

His manager at the time, Ken Pitt, had a tape of the Velvets' before the first album before had even been released. Which didn't stop Bowie mistaking Doug Yule for Lou Reed when they met.

― Narayan Superman (Tom D.), Tuesday, 12 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL

x-post:

Strange, some days it's the "Berlin" record that I love the most! I've always felt that Lodger was one of the most underrated albums of Bowie's classic period. I think there's some great ideas on it, and I love every song on there, even the 'Sister Midnight' re-write ('Red Money') ... the only bad thing I can really say about it is that sonically it feels a little flat compared to the previous two. I know that Visconti blames himself/his drug consumption at that time for what he perceives to be flat mixes.

wonder when it'll be possible to find bowie cds again -- i wanted to surprise my mom with copies of all of his 70s albums, but amazon's out of stock on almost everything.

was desperately hoping to avoid running into any "bowie is problematic" thinkpieces but already starting to see one or two pop up in my feed. should probably just avoid twitter for a few days.

interesting to see all the recent canonization of Low (which I like, but don't adore).
not sure when it happened exactly, but I guess that's the interesting thing about culture, and an important asterisk as we go through another season of the years-best.

LOL

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, January 12, 2016 4:08 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol indeed:

http://www.davidbowie.com/news/david-and-lou-first-meeting-34496

Is it true that David Bowie came to one of the shows on your 1971 UK tour, and started talking to you under the assumption you were Lou Reed?

"That was actually in New York, at the Electric Circus, upstairs at the Dom. I remember the incident well. England was one of the prime sources of rock'n'roll back then, of course, and we were all Anglophiles to some degree. So I remember this English kid coming backstage, and I was holding forth as if I was somebody, feeling very self-important as the leader of this band. He came in, and obviously assumed I was Lou Reed, and so I had to explain that Lou wasn't there. It was only a few years ago that I heard the story back from someone else, and realised that the English kid was David Bowie. In 1971, I'd never heard of him!"

Here is David's original quote regarding the meeting:

"I'd come back from New York, having caught one of the last performances of The Velvet Underground, a band I had admired tremendously since around 66/67. One of that tiny bastion of Velvet Underground fans in London at the time, before they were generally known. And I'd gotten into the Electric Circus to see the gig. I watched the entire show, and there were not that many people in the audience because their star had begun to dim in New York. The whole band were there with Lou Reed singing the songs and I thought it was just tremendous.

"I was singing along with the band, stuck right there at the apron of the stage. 'Waiting For The Man', 'White Light/ White Heat', 'Heroin'...All that kind of stuff. And then after the show, I went back stage and I knocked on the door, and I said "Is Lou Reed in? I'd love to talk to him, I?m from England, cos I'm in music too, and he's a bit of a hero to me." This guy said "Wait here". And Lou comes out and we sat talking on the bench for about quarter of an hour about writing songs, and what it's like to be Lou Reed, and all that...and afterwards I was floating on a cloud, and went back to my hotel room.

"I said to this guy that I knew in New York: "I've just seen the Velvet Underground and I got to talk with Lou Reed for fifteen minutes", and he said, "Yeah? Lou Reed left the band last year, I think you've been done." I said, "It looked like Lou Reed" and he said "That's Doug Yule, he's the guy that took over from Lou Reed." I thought what an impostor, wow, that's incredible. It doesn't matter really, cos I still talked to Lou Reed as far as I was concerned. Coming back to England, one of the memories I brought back with me, was all that. So I wrote Queen Bitch as a sort of homage to Lou Reed."

gotta make way for the homo superior

was desperately hoping to avoid running into any "bowie is problematic" thinkpieces but already starting to see one or two pop up in my feed. should probably just avoid twitter for a few days.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, January 12, 2016 4:10 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too...the guy's barely two days dead...frankly i'm surprised i saw absolutely nothing but love yesterday

my musical coming of age, so to speak, was right in the middle of the tin machine period. i remember the SNL appearance (host: macaulay culkin!) to this day. i remember thinking it was kind of noisy:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xai74j_tin-machine-baby-universal_music

bowie was looking particularly beautiful then, wasn't he?

also was struck by their avant-garde-looking guitars

i remember discovering Low, it was the day after a robo trip crashing at a punk rock house, and it was a life changing experience. our friend had recently died and i had stayed in his room, and he had this album sitting out. we were all listening to a lot of Brian Eno's solo pop records at the time so i had heard about it, and it was indeed an amazing piece of work. that cover is so beautiful, it is almost like a classic sci fi pulp jacket. he truly is an alien.

Hunky Dory era i got into cos some Athens friend who i met at a Flaming Lips concert told me to check out "Width of a Circle" and some other stuff. also found "Man Who Sold the World" in the original comic jacket at a Tower Records dollar bin. the cover is trashed to hell but it is still one of my most treasured possessions. i made a tape of that album and listened to it alot. his version of "Man Who Sold the World" is still definitive even though Kurt does a wonderful job. i like the psych metal going on...

Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane/Diamond Dogs/erc mainly got into those albums and that era bc of dating an art school girl at the time and we listened to a lot of Nick Cave and David Bowie and Pulp. Pulp did some very Bowie-like things in the 90s, in that vein of classic British glam pop. anyways my bandmates were also listening to these albums all the times, and my friends bands, and one of my friends even named her cat "Twinkle Wonderkiss" in tribute to "Drive-In Saturday".

danced hella lot to Bowie's 80s hits at 80s night at the Masquerade and MJQ. those were some good times. "Under Pressure". "Modern Love". still some of my favorite part music.

Xpost That's the second Tin Machine appearance, isn't it?

Oh wait, I am thinking of the bands appearance at something weird called the rock awards? I remember living colour doing Johnny B Goode.

that cover is so beautiful, it is almost like a classic sci fi pulp jacket. he truly is an alien.

it is!

i was struck by the decline in bowie's album cover design. he had some of the most iconic covers of all time, culminating (IMO) in that very New Wave "heroes" cover. even the cover to "let's dance" has an appealing '80s pop energy to it.

cf.:

http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/album_review/e3d14217b90410613f8f86ebf90168c652f8ed6c.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7b/David_Bowie_-_Reality.jpg

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Even Christgau, who began as a fan, mellowed: http://noisey.vice.com/blog/robert-christgau-remembers-david-bowie

He gets some facts wrong in this article: Eno producing Low and Heroes, Bowie playing lead guitar on the Iggy '77 tour.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/Low_(album).jpg

dat orange sky.

The ...hours sleeve is second worst (only David Live is worse) of all. An old guy with bad hair, flip flops, and an ugly snake.

RE: Bowie w Iggy...on the Dinah Shore show 1977
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdciK2Axc4A

xp is David Live that bad?

my first experience with a lot of records i deeply love is usually one of initial alienation that's also seductive enough that i'm drawn back in, so that i can figure it out. this was my initial relationship with cupid & psyche, etc. it's hard for me to access what it was like hearing "station to station" for the first time but i really want to, it's an incredibly structured song, and i'm certain i felt that initial alienation toward its first half, just nothing resolving at all, all these intense asymmetrical drop-offs arranged at the edge of space; it communicated a kind of infinite possibility, but from an untraversable distance. but i'm also certain i responded to the second half immediately, that is just my kind of melody, this ecstatic, soulful vocal which in its own way refuses to resolve and could go on forever and is kind of powered by its own internal energy, idk i was listening to the live version from stage today and it felt like hearing it for the first time again, such a fucking thrilling song, how does it exist

I like the sleeve for ...hours, the one for Reality less so. My favourite sleeve is probably Station To Station, but the full colour picture on the CD reissue rather than the original vinyl.

xp Stage version also benefits from some killer guitar by Belew, I think ILX turned me on to that

i think Bowie's work with Iggy was probably the kind of thing he wished he could do all the time, just disappear into the work and write and produce. in that NPR article he even says he would rather not even sing it. "The Idiot" and "Lust For Life" are BRILLIANT examples of this, maybe the best of his career. plus you have the collaborative singles "Under Pressure" (Queen) and "Fame" (John Lennon) and both of those are really top-tier Bowie as well.

it is funny to see people put so much emphasis on his ego and his persona in a lot of these remembrances. to me like he seems far more conceptual.

Josh in Chicago
Posted: January 12, 2016 at 3:43:58 PM
Those Ryko Bowie and Costello reissues were like the peak of listening to music for me. It just didn't get any better.

Yeah, and the Rhino reissue campaign for Robyn Hitchcock a couple of years after that. I'd wait for each month's new one like a kid at the comics store

xp Stage is much better than David Live

David Live is ALL THE SAXOPHONE iirc.

I still love one idea from Tin Machine - a band playing really heavy music in really nice suits.

xp Stage is much better than David Live

― Brad C., Tuesday, January 12, 2016 4:37 PM (13 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree, but is the cover of David Live really the worst in Bowie's catalogue?