David Bowie R.I.P

Of which the most mind-blowing thing I learned this week was about the Ziggy Stardust thunderbolt.

He was still in his Ziggy persona when he made Aladdin Sane, weren't he?

Yes, we see

all these years I thought the "R. Davies" who wrote "It Ain't Easy" was Ray and it was just some early Kinks song I didn't have on LP, but now I know that it is a Long John Baldry tune. always more to learn...

Another pre-Bowie version of "It Ain't Easy", done by Detroit (Mitch Ryder's band with Steve Hunter, who got hired for Lou Reed's band off of a cover of "Rock'n'Roll" on this same LP)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlWEAqZS1Sc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVdUg6Rt3MM

"Of which the most mind-blowing thing I learned this week was about the Ziggy Stardust thunderbolt."

what about it?

It was apparently a tribute to Elvis Presley's TCB In A Flash logo, although I haven't double-checked the timing yet.

Bettye LaVette's is my fave non-Bowie version of "It Ain't Easy" (recorded in '72, dunno if it was pre- or post-Ziggy, though)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUyNsb6721Y

https://yerdoingreat.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/elvis-n-bowie/

Please overlook dodgy spelling of the King's name at the beginning.

Also be sure to click on Bowie's X-mas greeting in an Elvis voice.

I can hear Elvis doing the "One of these days and it won't be long/I believe oh lord, I believe" rap

does anybody fuck with the sales brothers after tin machine? this thread's not-quite-rehabilitative words about Tin machine as well as the news that Iggy and Josh Homme will be revisiting Lust for Life and Idiot tunes live (I gotta see that show) makes me wonder about 'em. Plus they were more or less Todd's ostensibly most rockin' rhythm section. Apparently Hunt lives and works in Austin and Tony is in LA? anybody know more?

soupy is the only sales i fuck with.

hunt sales isn't even on the good Paris album, i don't think. so i can't even say i like him on that...

it's hard to make a bad little kid beat record but they managed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws4FmuvTtPY

and i think we can all agree with tony that summer time is the best time for making love when you are 10.

"heroes" track by track with visconti. the song. sorry if linked. missed it if it was.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03g18sx?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_arts&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=scotland

soupy came out to introduce iggy's band when i saw them at the palladium. he said "on the count of three i want everybody to exhale. one...two...three."

<everybody exhales>

soupy staggers backward. he returns to the mic in a mock stupor and says "...okay...i am now stoned!"

hahahaha!

Soupy was hip. He had a late-night show in Detroit called Soup's On that featured like Miles Davis (six appearances), Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown. Joe Messina (Motown Funk Brothers) was in the house band.

I think the Sales Bros. are my favorite part of "Lust For Life." Listen to the bass on the title track or "The Passenger," just killer.

I love the Visconti track by track so much. Watched the Music Moguls doc (presented by Nile R) on BBC4 last night with the kids and really wanted an hour of the Visconti bit and - hey presto - turns out there is a much longer cut of that section and there it is.

Finally explains the three gated-mics approach for the "Heroes" vocal - they only had one track left after all that Fripp x 3, Eno x N, George+flange, Carlos, Dennis kit multi-mic'd, Bowie on chamberlin, piano, tamb and ARP. BUT - how did they then squeeze Tony and David's backing vox in? A spare bit of space on another track (piano out by then?), submix? It's not on the main vocal track (you'd never do that anyway), as we hear it solo'd and TV+DB harmonies aren't there.

I demand a further BBC4 documentary purely for this issue.

xp
They are a big part of why this album just radiates vitality. Recreating this exact atmosphere seems to me like one of the main reasons for Bowie to later try Tin Machine.
Personal favourite Sales contribution on LFL still background vocal work on Turn Blue and Tonight, call & response part of Success is all-time.

here's a pretty thorough Sound On Sound article about the making of "heroes": http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct04/articles/classictracks.htm

(features words from visconti)

I need to read visconti's book real soon

Ooh, great - thanks!

Watching Hours-era interview on TFI Friday plus an interview on Jonathan Ross circa Reality and its worthwhile pointing out what a funny, warm, candid interviewee Bowie was, even if material at the time was mixed.

lol one of my first published reviews: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/david-bowie-back-in-magnificent-form/

You lost a small plot of land.

I woke up to this, shared by a friend, made my day already:

https://youtu.be/KeIDJLw5DB4

This is making mine – Bowie on Johnny Carson in 1980 doing Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, with Carlos Alomar and GE Smith on guitar:

http://youtu.be/NkefglL9c4c

omg collardio that's priceless

When you're being interviewed by a Professional Yorkshireman like Michael Parkinson it pays to have a Yorkshire story up your sleeve, smart work from 't lad, Bowie.

At some point needed the aid of the Portuguese subtitles to follow.

TCB lightning bolt jewelry started around 72, so guess there was time for Bowie to become aware of it and incorporate before Aladdin Sane.

I could listen to Bowie speaking Northern for HOURS.

So James Redd went to see one of the Blackstar band members perform last Tuesday and talked to him a little bit. He told me how much he enjoyed working with and talking to both Bowie and Tony Visconti, that Bowie had, as we know, read tons of books and that he always had really interesting things to say about the many topics he had learned about, not as a show-off but in a more humble way. He recommended the Tony Visconti book., so I asked did Tony give you a copy before you started working on the project and he said no, he had already read it beforehand.

I could listen to Bowie speaking Northern for HOURS.

― jedi slimane (suzy), Sunday, January 24, 2016 10:29 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

SAME

that Life On Mars band performance is TIGHT!

Yeah Bowie speaking Northern is magic

Then how come he didn't do an Eric Burdon imo on that tape? If not Alan Price.

A gay friend of mine who grew up in Wakefield (Northern town) had me in hysterics with stories about his French class at school, alongside hard-lad miner's sons who could be reduced to tears because they kept saying FAR ME DOBBLE when asked to say formidable.

What about the running gag on Alan Partridge about the Geordie accent?

XP I have just sent said friend the above link.

This may be the least of its problems, but Labyrinth is on UK television right now and WHO TOLD JENNIFER CONNELLY SHE COULD ACT?

Um...

Yeah, who cares if she can or not, eh boys ;)

http://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/194024/Screen-Shot-2014-10-22-at-12-28-52.jpg

Hahaha!

she's good in labyrinth!