oh tin machine we always loved you

First album: opening track is monster, "Under the God" has meaty punk- Zep riff, "Amazing" best song on the album, I think.

Second album: Not quite as good, but has some decent moments. Now defending the Hunt Sales tunes--THAT'S where the tricky part comes into play. But still I like both of 'em--even the trite one where he says he sings that he's so sorry over and over again.

Live album: Don't really play it (actually, I think I might have gotten rid of it), but I was at the Boston show. I remember Reeves Gabrels putting on a headband flashlight for "I Can't Read"...

It is still probably the funniest thing I have ever seen.

I could not stop larfing throughout the entire song and he was not pleased. So I don't know if that makes them classic or dud.

In 1991, I saw a promo concert by them at LAX filmed for ABC (long story). It was actually a pretty good show!

There's a local band here in my neck of the woods that SOUNDS quite a bit like Tin Machine. The guitarist worships Gabrels, and though I don't remember any actual TM songs in their set, Reeves-ian versions of The Pretty Things Have Gone To Hell and Scary Monsters have been known to pop up.

http://www.inner-kube.com/v2.0/main.htm

They are certainly only the first of the Tin Machine-influenced bands that will spring up, Velvets-like, in the Sales brothers' mighty wake.

They were great backing Iggy on Lust For Life.

Die liebe ist nicht genug.

I was listening to their live version of "If There Is Something" from Oy Vey Baby today, and forgot just how much it burns.

Seriously, it is badass.

Defending the indefensible rarely was so difficult.

I had both of these records, got rid of them...but remember liking them. Particularly liked the lead cuts: "Heaven's In Here" and "Baby Universal."

"Heaven's in Here" (the studio version on the original album) is incredible. That jam at the end after Bowie screams "Heaven!", with Gabrels and Hunt Sales, smokes... I could listen to a million times.

I always imagine that song as the perfect trailer music if somebody would ever make a real Mission: Impossible-type movie with the quality of Casino Royale (a realistic one with a team full of ruthless bastards, rather than just a Tom Cruise-shining teeth showboat with stupid effects).

or I should say, a 'more realistic' one (relatively speaking)

Their version of Working Class Hero wasn't too bad, either, especially in light of recent events.

Ugh, Reeves Gabriels.

Only thing I could ever stand him on was "Outside" where, according to legend, Eno passed out cards to all of the musicians involved, assigning them a role ("Spaced-out guitar player from a hip lounge on Mars") that they had to play during the sessions.

Consequently, Reeves Gabriels didn't play like Reeves Gabriels on that album, for the most part, and it was Bowie's best outing in years.

i have decided i love tin machine: help me prove the scoffing hipsters are mistaken
-- mark s, Tuesday, June 11, 2002 12:00 AM (5 years ago)

Strawman, thy name is hipster

the first album an dmost of the second one are perfectly fine, I don't get the hate. "goodbye mr ed" = easily one of bowie's best songs since the 70's

bump
"I Can't Read" is a jam

that "pushing ahead" blog is really interesting on these tracks/time period. but sorry, this bloweth.

Today's track though is terrific.

The first Tin Machine album is 25 years old. Damn.

If only it sounded as good as the outfits look.

Bowie's stubble ruined the pinstripes.

It was exciting stuff, for about a week.

funny--had a similar thought at lunch today when I heard "Nothing But Flowers" & realized it was 25 yrs old, and then realized that 25 yrs earlier from '88 was "Please Please Me" & then bought my sandwich.

ham sandwich of course

Their (live) version of "If There Is Something" is pretty great. Don't know much else about them (apart from an underwhelming few songs on The International Rock Awards); the few songs I heard were well-performed, terribly produced clumsy pseudo-sloganeering.

zp they were out of ham, as it turned out (I hate this deli)

bump
"I Can't Read" is a jam

― the best Laid jams (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, September 20, 2012 9:30 PM (3 years ago)

IT IS!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-EcEH31Y2o

i always skipped tin machine when going through bowie's discography. finally listened to both records this week and uh... both records are about half good and half undercooked. production reminds me of the empty, echoey sound of john zorn's naked city, a lot of instrumental chaos but everything kinda lands in the mix with a hollow thud. i love "i can't read" and "prisoner of love." amazing how gabrels' technique can either sell a song or totally sink it

also "shopping for girls"! what a song

under- and overcooked, I think, if you consider what Gabrels insists on doing to the material.

I can't stand Bowie's vocal choices on "I Can't Read."

Gabrels is so amazing, I always always rate him highest

This thread title and 'Oh, Monseur [sic] le Fopp, you are really spoiling us…' are the most irritating on ILM.

I actually have never listened to Tin Machine 1, because Tin Machine 2 was more readily available, and so I got it first. I was APPALLED.

"Baby Universal" was clearly, clearly such a Black Francis parody and had two of my least favourite Bowie lyrics ("No, baby, no, baby, no baby no!" and "...I'm the baby now"-- like........ if I were to describe what he's doing here as a lyricist it'd vaguely be "he has put together two words, "baby" and "universe", and is now strip-mining all lyrical possibilities and scenarios that these words could possibly be used for")

And then there's the ".. you're my roommate from Hell" moment on "A Big Hurt" which theoretically made me throw my Discman at the wall

And finally when he actually lets one (or both?) of the Sales brothers sing something and it's "Stateside" and "I'm Sorry" and I am SHAKEN with these decisions and would still write a letter to Coco asking her how and why these decisions were made

And I actually hate-watched a live video of Tin Machine playing "Stateside" just to look at Bowie's face when whichever Sales bro wrote that song takes his turn at the mic to try and understand why these decisions were made

Anyway I can't hate the Sales bros too much they played so good on Lust For Life I guess, but it's amazing to me that somebody like Bowie who always seemed so in control would let These Songs grace product that was His except perhaps in a deliberately self-sabotaging way

But yeah wow Bowie really really really liked The Pixies

And I really really really like Reeves Gabrels guitar playing and as I mentioned already I will always rate him higher than Alomar as Bowie's best guitarist

"baby universal" is so good idk. every other song you identified is bad though

i find "you can't talk" a charming difference-splitting between lodger and never let me down. "amlapura" is gorgeous

I remember hating "Baby Universal" but then when the album ended thinking it was the best song on there :(

It's weird... it's like what's wrong with Tin Machine is not any one component but the larger sour taste that is created by seeing Bowie resign his creative authority so utterly. It was never weird when Gail sang "O Superman". Why is it weird with this band? I don't fully get it. But I generally don't think Bowie wrote many worthwhile lyrics after "Let's Dance"... I can feel too acutely the people he's stealing from

It's weird... it's like what's wrong with Tin Machine is not any one component but the larger sour taste that is created by seeing Bowie resign his creative authority so utterly. It was never weird when Gail sang "O Superman". Why is it weird with this band? I don't fully get it.

The laddishness of his collaborators.

Yeah that's probably it... there is something SO jarring about that dude singing "I'm going stateside"-- I think at that moment I really realized how non-masc Bowie had always been. With Tin Machine he's out buying three different kinds of hot sauce, wearing striped pants, watching football and saying "poon" non-ironically or something

gabrels' overdubs on "you belong in rock n' roll" are gorgeous

And finally when he actually lets one (or both?) of the Sales brothers sing something and it's "Stateside" and "I'm Sorry" and I am SHAKEN with these decisions and would still write a letter to Coco asking her how and why these decisions were made

That was Hunt. Yeah that the fact that two bad-bar blooooze songs are on this album are...not good. I saw them do "Stateside" as part of the promo show I talk about here, and it was the lowlight:

https://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/not-just-the-ticket-a-ticketless-show-of-note-tin-machine-late-august-1991/

Here's the footage from said show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Kf4fOC4J4

despite the two regrettable hunt sales songs i think i prefer tm 2 to tm 1. the songs actually benefit from being overarranged by gabrels; there's more textural variation over the course of it than tm 1, which, despite containing songs i enjoy, is in many ways an undifferentiated slog. also "goodbye mr. ed" is quickly becoming, like, one of my favorite bowie songs of all time

hunt's sudden transition to half time in the first minute of "mr. ed" just kills me

I'm listening to it now for the first time since I was maybe 20

90s Bowie's voice is my favourite Bowie voice

But wow he is the worst lyricist sometimes, even the title "Goodbye Mr Ed"? in 1992? "Fare Thee Well, Herbie The Love Bug!" "See You Anon, Sammie Tong!"

i like the lyric about andy warhol's skull

http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/mysticpost/files/2016/05/mr.-ed.jpg

can't help it

are "tim machine" the best thing david bowie ?

if this had been called a David Bowie album instead of Tin Machine it would have been perceived as a return to form like New York by Lou Reed

Like New York, it has one good song: "Prisoner of Love". Like all of Bowie's records from 1983 to 2002, it was an important step to take to get back some of the artistic power he had lost.

I've always maintained part of the press's dim view of Tin Machine was that they were forced to talk to Hunt Sales, which is a fair point

Tin Machine II is the only Bowie record I haven't heard yet. I saw him in his green suit destroy Roxy's "If There Is Something" on TV and said, no way. If it were in print now, I'd listen.

I like II, "Sorry" Hunt's ballad is maybe the worst song ever recorded, other than that it's fine

Tin Machine should get their own box set in the ongoing series. The albums could probably do with a remix/remastering job, and they seem to have recorded a ton of live stuff.

TMII = a VERY Bowie record.
way more than TMI
there was a limited TM Live album released i seem to recall.

I liked the first one at the time, as mach as if not more than most Bowie albums of the era, tbh. "Prisoner of Love" is a great song, but I seem to recall other good ones on there, too. Granted, I haven't listened to it in eons, but I'd reach for it before, say, "Hours."

I do remember Tin Machine performing on the weird-ass rock awards, alongside the Replacements, Living Colour (doing "Johnny B. Goode") and ... Keith Richards solo?

Yep, The International Rock Awards. The Replacements were on it, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebzeb56SEaU

...which you mentioned.

xp

I also think I saw TM on SNL, where Hunt had iirc almost comically oversized cymbals and/or drums. Just huge.

I remember that SNL appearance, too. I think had a massive bass drum? Definitely not standard sizes. I loved their performance of “If There Is Something,” which took me by surprise (I didn’t know they’d recorded it; when I later heard the studio version, it was pretty much ruined by the awful production and sloggy tempo).

I was really happy when I realized Bowie's Twin Peaks character was probably turned into a machine in The Return because he told Lynch he was about to go on tour with Tin Machine during filming of Fire Walk with Me. From this interview:

Why did Phillip Jeffries take the form of a tea kettle?

I sculpted that part of the machine that has that tea kettle spout thing, but I wish I’d just made it straight, because everybody thinks it’s a tea kettle. It’s just a machine.

ive listened to these 2 albums for the first time ever just now and there's maybe 3 decent tracks out of 20 odd.

At the time of the first record there was a Scottish middle-distance runner called Tom McKean doing pretty well in European athletics championships, myself and my stupid mates would sing in our best crap Bowie voice 'Tom Mckean, Tom Mckean, take me anywhere...'

haha

if this had been called a David Bowie album instead of Tin Machine it would have been perceived as a return to form like New York by Lou Reed

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

uh it was in certain magazines!

My friend used to sing "Bank Machine, Bank Machine" while looking for an ATM.

A friend and I wrote a fake Tin Machine song called "Gun to Our Heads."

Which you're going to share a link to

I still have and love the entirety of the first album.

Never got around to listen to the second one, but I loved the promo video to "You Belong in Rock'n'Roll" when it came out, and the song belongs in my favourite Bowie tunes. I would certainly have made space on that 3-cd anthology for it and "I Can't Read" at least (another absolute Bowie peak irregardless of the performer name credit - so much so it rightfully featured on Outside-era live setlists).

I found Bowie's choice of delivery in "I Can't Read" unbearable.

Which you're going to share a link to

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, June 24, 2021

....written about 25 years ago after we discovered the first album on tape in the Nice Price bin. We found it ghastly but actually took pen to paper to write a song in that style. I have that paper somewhere.