David Bowie R.I.P

I wasn't aware of The Astronettes. Just checking out the first song now; Bowie rewrote "I Am Divine" as "Scream Like a Baby!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qz-X9f-IO4

Although admittedly Bowie handles it pretty well, compared to Jagger, anyway.

― dow, Friday, January 15, 2016

Bowie is horrible! Jagger's the only one who would've gotten the nuances in a better arrangement.

xpost Pretty sure one of the Roxy or Eno books I read noted Bowie handing around Roxy rehearsals or their rehearsal house, back in his neo-folkie mode. No doubt he was taking notes, and vice versa, but I don't hear much of a musical influence. Bowie and T.Rex get that glam boogie thing going, but Roxy is far more radical/chaotic/hermetic. I want to say Bowie helped inspire Roxy to get off their butt and start playing out. I know later Roxy opened several 1972 dates for Bowie, so he was more "established," but they were by and large on parallel tracks.

Parallel tracks yeah.
xpost Bowie's low-key, in good humor, just going along, Jagger's more AWWWWW YEAh, which works better w the Stones (even better w Masked Marauders). But take your pick, no biggie.

I feel like I should be live-blogging this first exposure to Tonight. It's increasingly horrifying. 'God Only Knows' is just as abysmal as y'all hinted above. What happened, David?!

ferry quote somewhere where he remembers playing some gigs with bowie in 73 and roxy felt like the new kids to bowie's more established thing and that bowie was very helpful/nice/encouraging.

they seem to be a catalyst or spur for him in that 72/3 moment

read this as some insane time signature for a split second

I'm fully aware that when Ferry chokes on a martini olive the extent of his American coverage will mention he wrote "More Than This" and that Bill Murray sang it.

I'm not convinced (though this could be bias pro my ignorance) that we'll get much more over here - certainly not the multiple days of features that Bowie's had.

There won't be anything like Bowie got, Roxy Music was a band, not a solo project.

Oh, no. Not 'Neighborhood Threat', too. I'm starting to think that Tonight was the result of a perverse bet between Iggy and Bowie to see if the latter could leech every ounce of vitality out of the former's songs.

Xpost to old lunch

I legit like loving the alien, grandiose arrangement and all, and Blue Jean, but I'm afraid to listen to the rest of that album anytime soon.

Unfortunately for me it was the first Bowie album to be a brand new Bowie album after I became a fan

Pretty sure it was partly an attempt by Bowie to make Iggy some money.

... that and the fact that his songwriting seemed to have dried up.

Speaking of Roxy, I've got a DVD of a BBC doc on Roxy (with good bonus concert etc), and Manzanera mentions that on a reunion tour, after s show in San Diego, I think, he just got on a plane, without saying goodbye, and never went back----what was the deal with that band? Just too much Ferry? And his solo career?

I don't think it was ever exactly a matey band.

I legit like loving the alien, grandiose arrangement and all, and Blue Jean, but I'm afraid to listen to the rest of that album anytime soon.

Yeah, you just named the only song I've liked thus far and the only song that I knew previously and already liked. If I'd heard this at the time, I might have the same perverse love for it that I have for Pool It!. But I didn't and so I don't.

Ferry, Mackay, and Manzanera didn't carouse together. M & M always felt hemmed in by Ferry.

Old lunch you're gonna include labyrinth OST in your traversal right? It's not on Spotify iirc but it's a must

One of my Wednesday rambles was looking at Bowie's last 18 months of work; here's a formal article on it with new info and interviews:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/15/david-bowies-last-days-an-18-month-burst-of-creativity?CMP=edit_2221

The ending is just a wrench.

When Bowie and Renck came to shoot the video for Blackstar in September and, in November, the next single Lazarus, the mood was exuberant.

They shot Bowie performing for one day for each video and just five hours on those days in a studio in Brooklyn. That was all his health would take, Renck said.

Bowie wanted it to feature an isolated village, then Renck came up with the idea of rituals that mixed the occult with a celebration of life. Bowie also wanted a scarecrow in the video, Renck said, and sent Renck his sketch for the macabre character Button Eyes that he plays in both videos. The sketch showed a bandaged head, buttons for eyes and just a small strip of a Mohawk for hair.

“Bowie didn’t know if he would have hair left by the time of the shoot,” said Renck.

In fact he did, a splendid shock of silvery grey hair – though he had to be careful, or it came out in tufts because of his cancer treatment.

Unlike the sweeping anthem Blackstar, Renck described Lazarus as a little gem. Bowie reappears as Button Eyes, tormented on a hospital bed.

“I just thought of it as the Biblical tale of Lazarus rising from the bed. In hindsight, he obviously saw it as the tale of a person in his last nights,” said Renck.

While working, Bowie talked of his family but kept himself quite private, while being very easygoing and friendly with the small crew that worked on the intimate shoot.

He would arrive so suave in suit and fedora and sip cups of tea, Renck said – despite the warning he didn’t realise the star was so gravely ill, he seemed so spritely while shooting. He would get tired and take breaks, Renck said, but he seemed so happy.

xpost For sure. I'm very familiar with that one. Certainly not among his best work but it's head and shoulders above the aural violation I'm currently suffering through.

It occurred to me -- the reason why I thought the videos were done earlier was because Visconti's said there was a period of remission in summer, while Renck had made the original arrangements to film the videos in July. I'd imagined they were done at that time. It made me feel a bit better about that manic energy Bowie shows at points in both, especially in "Lazarus" with the writing segments -- a last frenzied representation of getting the thoughts and words out. Now knowing it was November.... And thinking of Bowie talking with Visconti last week, saying he had more songs to work on -- he wanted to live up to that to the end. That really was his farewell, on several levels.

Maybe the ILX influence, but I'm thinking that DB's current chartbusting comes from some listeners just now checking out the primo stuff---past vague childhood memories, at least---results: Bowiemania! As well as those of us trying to get past increasingly vague adult memories/neglect, etc. Quite a list:
http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/latest-news/david-bowie-has-19-albums-and-13-singles-in-the-uk-top-100

Roxy maybe also an influence re how not to do it---not getting yourself too involved/identified with a band-brand.

Exciting to think of kids hearing Bowie this week, maybe for the first time.

decent compilation that UK chart

great alomar interview too, this bit's awesome:

I was listening to the electronic stuff, I think it was "Warszawa," and quite honestly, it was the only stuff that touched my heart. It's the only stuff that is ambient enough to let me also be in the music. It allowed my thoughts to be in the music, it didn't stop me from thinking. I wasn't hearing David's voice, I wasn't hearing some great lead guitar coming at me, I wasn't thinking about "who was that?" And if I'm going to do a tribute, I just want fans to be alone in their own thoughts. That's a tribute to the personal relationship that fans have with an artist. Fans don't need all the crap that corporate America wants to feed them for $12, they just need to be together.

roxy music/ferry is probably only act related to Bowie that I don't get at all, know I should be all abt them but does nothing too me, think it's the production on all the 70s stuff of theirs that I've heard that I just can't enjoy (but I like Avalon and Ferry's Dylan covers album, would like to see him in concert) sounds so cheap to my ears, either you go expensive dry or tacky reverb, not tacky dry, ew

https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/12508936_10153245572347617_4131102321332316253_n.jpg?oh=652e7fe1d1bf0acb532890bf1ef60225&oe=5701B2B3

David Bowie albums make up 25% of top 40

Albums

01 - Blackstar - RCA
05 - Nothing Has Changed - The Very Best Of David Bowie - Parlophone
11 - The Best Of 1969/1974 - Parlophone
14 - Hunky Dory - Parlophone
17 - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust - Parlophone
18 - Best Of Bowie - Parlophone
23 - Aladdin Sane - Parlophone
25 - The Next Day - RCA
31 - Low - Parlophone
37 - Diamond Dogs - Parlophone
42 - Let's Dance - Parlophone
45 - "Heroes" - Parlophone
55 - Station To Station - Parlophone
59 - The Best Of - 1980/1987 Parlophone
60 - Young Americans - Parlophone
61 - Scary Monsters - Parlophone
89 - The Man Who Sold The World - Parlophone
95 - Space Oddity - Parlophone
97 - Five Years - 1969-1973 - Parlophone

Singles

12 - "Heroes" - David Bowie - Parlophone
16 - "Life On Mars" - David Bowie - Parlophone
18 - "Starman" - David Bowie - Parlophone
23 - "Let's Dance" - David Bowie - Parlophone
24 - "Space Oddity" - David Bowie - Parlophone
43 - "Under Pressure" - Queen & David Bowie - Virgin
45 - "Lazarus" - David Bowie - RCA
49 - "Changes" - David Bowie - Parlophone
61 - "Blackstar" - David Bowie - RCA
62 - "Ashes To Ashes" - David Bowie - Parlophone
65 - "Rebel Rebel" - David Bowie - Parlophone
76 - "Ziggy Stardust" - David Bowie - Parlophone
97 - "China Girl" - David Bowie - Parlophone

Hunky Dory probably got a huge bump post-Life Aquatic which explains that

kind of amazing that "Low" charted higher than "Diamond Dogs" and "Let's Dance"

roxy music/ferry is probably only act related to Bowie that I don't get at all, know I should be all abt them but does nothing too me, think it's the production on all the 70s stuff of theirs that I've heard that I just can't enjoy (but I like Avalon and Ferry's Dylan covers album, would like to see him in concert) sounds so cheap to my ears, either you go expensive dry or tacky reverb, not tacky dry, ew

― niels, Friday, January 15, 2016 1:22 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Funny, I love the production on everything from For Your Pleasure through Siren; it keeps them from sounding dated (and Stranded has reverb all over the place).

I made a mix tape years ago that had a Stranded song followed by a Who song from Quadrophenia. Both recorded around the same time (and both released on the same day), but the production on Quadrophenia sounds downright anemic and amateurish compared to Stranded.

Is there a recording of 'Chilly Down' with Bowie on vocals? Now that I'm hearing it within the context of his other work from that era, I'm realizing it's easily among his top five songs from that half decade (and probably from that whole decade, but I haven't gotten that far yet).

For me, Stranded and Country Life are their peaks, but I like-to-love most of the rest too---Avalon awes late night music, for inst.

bowie fever already alive and well the last few years in used record land. totally impossible to keep up with demand for old bowie on vinyl in the u.s. up there with zep and floyd for real. and Low and Ziggy definitely the top two that people want.

i mean people always want his old records but it has been truly remarkable the last 2 or 3 years.

which is why if people went looking for them after he died they were probably already gone or if not gone they cost more than people thought they would.

slowly acquiring all of Bowie's 70s records for <$10 apiece during the 90s is something I've never regretted

OTM

same goes for Neil Young and Zep. makes me lol @ how much some of these things go for nowadays

makes perfect sense to me. go to 10 used record stores and ask them if they have a copy of Low. you'd be lucky if one of them does. zep and neil still more plentiful.

bitter LOL at the starting prices for these (note how much more the currently for-sale copies are than the median values):

US 1977 orig:
http://www.discogs.com/David-Bowie-Low/release/59734
$76.17

US 1980 repress:
http://www.discogs.com/David-Bowie-Low/release/1139484
$59.99

But the median price is still over $20 for both!

The Ryko reissue w/bonus tracks:

Have: 16
Want: 44
Avg Rating: 5.0 / 5
Ratings: 2
Last Sold: Never

There's a few Rykos on Amazon for cheap-ish.

the vinyl press has been kind of expensive for a while actually I think, I know because I've been wanting one for a year and haven't felt like I could find an affordable one in good enough conditiion.

average on ebay right now seems to be about 40/50 but that will go back down again. 30 is kinda high for a u.s. copy but i can see 30 being the new median. you could find 20 dollar copies pretty regularly online pre-death. but not so much in real life anymore.

How are those bonus tracks---?

really really good, updated "Sound & Vision" excepted

I do have the ryko au20 cd of Low (only version I've ever owned actually). it's still to harsh sounding but I won't part with it.

i'm not a ryko fan. in general.

me either but the bonus tracks on the bowie's are all essential across the board I think. it would be nice if there was a decent collection of just those now.