david bowie

Thank you, Ned. Yes, Elvis, the Life on Mars one is mindblowing...he also finds these great photographs to lead off each song entry, and links to streaming versions of the demos and live versions he is discussing...

wow that "life on mars" entry is amazing

Let's hear it for the author of the astonishing "Pushing Ahead of the Dame" who has just completed his epic song-by-song catalogue, with brilliantly incisive essaylets on every recording he could get his hands on, up until Pin-Ups...check it out! This is historic stuff

obviously he is just getting started...I cannot wait for the Diamond Dogs entries!

bowiesongs.wordpress.com

jeez...
http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/

Great blog.

Side two of "Heroes" sounded great walking to work in the sub-zero temperatures this morning.

http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/end-of-chapter-four-1973-1975/

He got a book deal!

Very well deserved, that.

Apparently finally a new album on its way too:
Really surprised "Supper's Ready" made the list, but what the hell I vote that

Been strangely silent from the once so profilic act lately, but this is maybe finally some news.

http://www.countdowncow.com/when/new-david-bowie-album-coming-out-first-half-2011
(Sorry wrong link above)

I was all "wtf David Bowie's doing "Supper's Ready" on his new album?" for a moment there...

"Hello i love david bowie is he coming on tour next year to holland? And how can i write him greatings tiziana"

I was all "wtf David Bowie's doing "Supper's Ready" on his new album?" for a moment there...

Well he does have a habit of doing shit cover versions

Here comes Geir to say "that would be great though, ;)" or some such...

i guess i'm way behind the curve, but i guess need to track down Toys then ?

http://www.planetrock.com/newscentre/rock-news/unreleased-bowie-album-leaked-online-1671

Toy, singular

65 today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB9RSG-56wU

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/06/david-bowie-s-vanishing-act-and-looming-return.html

Busy being Dad

I was just about to post that, curmudgeon...the bit that grabbed me was the drug/alcohol bit. was he really addicted to coke for ten years? i would've thought maybe 73-77 were the coke years...followed by a "massive bout of alcoholism". so he had an alcohol problem STARTING in let's say 1982 (if he did coke for the previous ten years). not sure why i care but it would be nice to know what he was addicted to and when.

Awesome! Bowie will be making a rousing return with a ... coffee table book!

I'm glad I saw him on that Moby tour and later at MSG. He was great.

according to Bowie in Berlin alcohol subbed for coke as early as '76. The other Bowie bios allude to a toot here and there (e.g. Kevin Armstrong, who played on "Absolute Beginners," bought a bag of coke for him for the sessions).

*a toot here and there after the seventies

yeah the story goes that he was often still 'bang at it' circa Let's Dance. just not as bad as in the 70s.

In the name of my never-abated fandom, I would gladly pass the hat around if it would persuade him to stay retired.

I'm still amused that the last new song he performed is that "funny little man" song for RGervais' "Extras"

I've still not actually heard it tho.

In the name of my never-abated fandom, I would gladly pass the hat around if it would persuade him to stay retired.

he's not going to make any new records. there is no longer any cultural cache in making records, and what he likes is being able to make a splash.

He's going to dive into a swimming pool nude with Lexi?

who will love a dad insane

i assume given those stories that he won't ever tour again, huh? i saw him once, serious moonlight '81, hartford. was pretty good, but i'd rather have seen a show from the ill-fated diamond dogs tour (i was 6 then).

Btw, thanks Alfred et all for the responses

It would be great if he suddenly appeared starring in a great play, as he did with Elephant Man (did anyone see him in that on B'way? if so, how was he?)

There are excerpts from it on Youtube... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEwJ3BEL72Q] it's pretty much what you'd expect.

Why does the line 'It's a crash course for the ravers' give me goosebumps?

I've been watching Tin Machine videos for the last couple of hours, then saw that Arcade Fire collab vid which was breath of foul air in comparison

http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Who-Sold-World/dp/0062024655/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343782122&sr=8-1&keywords=the+man+who+sold+the+world+david+bowie+and+the+1970s

Anyone read this yet? I feel bad for the "Pushing Ahead of the Dame" blog guy, this is a song-by-song book so I hope the former's excellent work isn't upstaged.

Sorry, not "former," the blog guy--don't know his name (anyone else been very tired this summer?)

Ha, if anything this book will be upstaged by Pushing Ahead! Dissecting only the seventies is a sign of safety; the whole point of the bowiesongs blog is to do EVERYTHING. Two to one says Bowie himself 1) reads that blog and 2) approves of the fact that he's going whole hog.

hear, hear!

cuz this other fellow doesn't dissect Tin Machine chord sequences like Pushing does

Dogget's book was originally going to be by Ian Mcdonald supposedly; it was gonna be his follow up to Revolution In The Head.
the Dogget book's had relatively little coverage/hype but it's meant to be pretty good but yeah Pushing Ahead.. is gonna be amazing.

Pushing Ahead is currently going through the backwaters of TMII. I don't think anyone else has bothered examining that period in any real detail.

I read a few entries from the Doggett book in Waterstone's and it didn't seem like much more than any other cheapo song-by-song hack job - i.e. anyone with an interest in Bowie could manage much the same off the top of their head. Meanwhile, Pushing Ahead of the Dame is often genuinely revelatory - this was true before he got to 1980, but even more so now. I hope when his book comes out he gets to include at least some of the images from the blog - they're always superbly chosen.

Oh great. I just got that Doggett book...opened it and read an entry and thought the exact same thing, Eyeball.

Wazzabout this other book, Starman, by Paul Trynka, the guy that wrote the Iggy Pop bio that was pretty good?

Bowie also obviously appears in the new memoir Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, by Ken Scott.

Wazzabout this other book, Starman, by Paul Trynka, the guy that wrote the Iggy Pop bio that was pretty good?

Some of the reporting.

Some of the reporting what?

Some of the reporting was pretty good.

I'm sorry – the sentence construction confused me.

I could not imagine in a million years any book coming close to that Pushing Ahead Of The Dame blog. And if there were a book like that in the future, you'd bet your fucking ass I'd snap it up immediately!

The ending, just ... Bowie records a masterpiece that touches on themes from throughout his career while suffering from advanced cancer that was killing him and really should have had him laid up in a hospital. Do you think the audience might be interested in that? No? Okay then.

I was skeptical but that is an excellent version of Bring Me...

So this...

https://deadline.com/2023/03/midnight-special-youtube-channel-david-bowie-tina-turner-elton-john-fleetwood-mac-1235280405

Means that this is now available via YT, namely actual formal clips from the 1984 Floor Show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2DTwK5xysg

new laughing gnome take out

joyful

haha I love this shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFdCI5i0EWo

Funny, his voice on the talking bits was pretty much his 'personable/friendly' voice he had in his later (ie "Lets Dance" onwards) years!

Like, "The Laughing Gnome" was closer to the real David Jones than anything else.

Did a doubletake when I saw the hype sticker and price on that little box set on record store day. £79.99, featuring 1 unreleased take of The Laughing Gnome. cost of living crisis going to new heights here.

There are record collectors. And there are David Bowie etc

This is so great. He did this the day the news broke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nKb2JC7Qn0

I've finally got round to listening to the Toy 10" box set that came out a while back. I had full absorbed the Toy album from the big album box and I didn't like it very much, so I wasn't expecting to get anything out of more versions of it. What can I say, I'll suffer through a lot of bad Bowie.

But there's an alternate version called Toy: Unplugged and Slightly Electric that is miles better than the proper album. There's more space in it, less gloppy, more focus on Bowie's singing which is actually pretty good. It's still not a great album because the songs just aren't there, but it's an enjoyable listen and the casual nature suits the songs much better. Every other version of "Baby Loves That Way" makes me wince and I can actually get through this.

How do you feel about the original '60s versions?

(Speaking as someone who loves the Rhino Early On comp.)

Early On is pretty fun. I like that stuff more than a lot of the Deram material. The most difficult pre Space Oddity stuff for me is the stuff like "Sell Me A Coat" and "London Bye Ta Ta."

For the most part, the original versions are almost always better than the Toy versions but I'd have to spend more time with the Unplugged set because some of those tracks are really lovely. The full band Toy versions are so leaden and glopped up. "I Dig Everything" isn't a great song, but the original is sort of cute baby photo of Bowie. The Toy version is *cringe*.

"Silly Boy Blue" might be my favorite early Bowie track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0geQMFdt-90

Beautiful but it needs more reverb

reading an interview with Donny McCaslin, he says they recorded 16 songs during the blackstar sessions

anyone know if they're... circulating?

I guess ten are accounted for by Blackstar and No Plan?