Bowie's Outside: C or D?

I had to buy buddha as an import when it was released; yeah it got no airplay or attention in the US outside of bowie fans.

Wrote this on the RIP thread because it felt more appropriate there but selfishly I want to talk about this record.

A lot of has been written about Bowie’s legacy since his passing, but for me, the thing I keep coming back to is the fact, or perception anyway, that Bowie was /the/ guy who spotted trends before they were trends and brought them into the mainstream. /Outside/ very clearly—and very self-consciously—was designed to explore that side of Bowie's persona. Yes, it was a celebration of “outsider” art and the sordid characters that produce it, but even more than that, a tribute to Bowie's own mythology for championing, popularizing, consuming, and, ultimately, discarding those artists and movements before moving on to something else.

Candidly, I think Bowie understood the significance of that role—as Lester Bangs wrote about /Young Americans,/ Bowie's best work often seemed to be when he failed at something so wildly that it became something else entirely—but don’t think he was ever entirely satisfied playing it. Deep down, Bowie really did wish he could be a pop hermit like Scott Walker or a performance artist like Chris Burden physically harming himself for his art. But as his copious interviews on the talk show circuit reveal, he also wanted to be loved, admired and appreciated.

I realize now that this is one of the reasons I have always found /Outside/ so fascinating, because it not only self-consciously exploits that tension — but the project itself was consumed by it, transforming from the ambitious, careening, improvised opera about “outsider" art it was initially conceived as into a messy, overstuffed “gothic non-linear hyper-cycle” into an art rock concept album, the subject of which is "David Bowie."

That’s why, even tho PAotD judges /Outside/ to be something of a failure … I’m not sure it actually is. The songs are great. The bootlegged /Leon/ sessions that started it off are completely unique. The story is intentionally batshit and incomprehensible. Not everything works and some of it is baffling, but it’s never boring. As a result, the project as a whole feels like…pretty much everything Bowie ever did. And on those terms, I feel like it has to be judged as one of his most important releases.

I love A Small Plot of Land most. It could easily fit on Blackstar - very similar to Tis A Pity She Was a Whore.
― Eyeball Kicks, Tuesday, February 2, 2016 10:51 PM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Donny McCaslin covers it (and "Warszawa") on his upcoming album.
http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/29/donny-mccaslin-small-plot-land-cover

This is on Spotify. It's a nice thread from the Blackstar era to its roots in Bowie's catalogue. I like the instrumental sax solo section, perhaps unsurprisingly. Makes me think that some enterprising person could make an interesting cover of the whole record.

Tho it was recorded later in NYC, 'Small Plot' always struck me as a bit of a head nod to the Leon sessions (PAotD agrees). Joey Baron and Mike Garson are amazing on it. There's another mix of it that Eno supposedly did on the Basquiat OST that mixes them both out – but I prefer the original.

Listening to this again after a long while, I'd say this is up there with Blackstar as one of his very best post-Let's Dance LP's.

Or "classic", in other words.

no doubt, IMO anyway. I can kind of see how people find it overly indulgent and maybe, story-wise, even silly, but I really like basically all of it.

The "indulgent" nature of it is a huge part of why it rules so much, IMO.

Combined with Leon Sessions, maybe some other working pieces and anything that survived from the aborted followups, this would make a *great* boxed set. I wonder if Eno, who has fashioned himself in the press as something of a a keeper of Bowie's legacy since his passing, would consider curating such a thing.

Dud, but I appreciate the effort.

Classic as far as I'm concerned. Outside is my second favourite Bowie album (Diamond Dogs is no. 1).

It might come off as somewhat indulgent but it's so energetic and diverse that it also sounds to me like Bowie, and everyone else involved, were having a real blast with it.

POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR

dunce

Nice piece about this era of Bowie’s career:

David Bowie: No Control in RECORD COLLECTOR PRESENTS BOWIE December 2016 #BrianEno #Outside #PetShopBoys https://t.co/eJ7W9S0M1b pic.twitter.com/bw1xbSvGvh

— Brian Eno (@dark_shark) January 7, 2018

Tennant's talked about that remix often, but I like the thought of him being nervous about Bowie's approval, like a schoolboy who's disappointed his favourite schoolteacher.

Anyone read the Swollen Appendix book?

Other thought about Outside: (for me, anyway) it's the only bowie record that *needs* gabrels, whereas everywhere else i kinda just tolerate him or wish he wouldn't ruin the song by doing that

Anyone read the Swollen Appendix book?

― Chuck_Tatum,

Essential reading -- lots of offhand sundry insights, reflections on his urine, valentines to his wife and daughter, revelatory bits about recording James, Bowie, U2..

For those who have HBO, there is a new Bowie documentary on tomorrow, focusing on the end of his life, The Last 5 Years.

xpost

Turns out it's out of print and sixty quid on eBay. Used to see that thing all the time in used bookstores. Oh well.

I read A Year With Swollen Appendices!

I am a secret enormous James fan and mostly absorbed the parts about that band. I'd been frustrated with all of Saul's violin contributions to that band and was delighted to read passages of Eno slagging him off as a musician, heh

I don't remember much about what he said about Bowie tho, oddly enough-- probably because it was just uniformly positive?

This album, to me, is his actual "best since Scary Monsters" ... Blackstar is even better, though.

That Bowie doc is okay, I watched it on a long flight a few months back. The best thing about it is just him being in a good mood and goofing around at truck stops and stuff.

There's a quote on the back of the Eno book I think about Bowie calling him one day to express admiration for the new Scott Walker album, which at the time was Tilt, and Eno being relieved that it was totally different from what they were up to.

Also, re Gabrels, I hate this dude's guitar playing, even the sound of his guitar. I much prefer the boring ambient stuff David Torn provided Bowie.

Bowie might have been the world's only Reeves Gabrels fan.

Robert Smith seemed to like him for a minute. Or is he still in the Cure?

I've always kinda of loved this ridiculous record. The "Leon Suites" boot is fantastic, just got hipped to it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06wXwgGpO9c

xpost -- He's still in the Cure.

And I have to say when I saw them last year that Gabrels's tendency towards 'let me art-deconstruct this 'solo' you speak of' has shifted more towards actually good, creative solos that fit well within the arrangements.

so people do learn then

Anyway how dare you mock someone who found love

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/fashion/weddings/maybe-in-another-life-becomes-now.html

(Seriously, this is a story about Gabrels from the other day.)

I just saw that on my twitter feed the other day. Good for him. I guess.

Remember when this came out some review describing "another unlovely Gabrels solo" and the phrase has stayed with me to this day.

Baby Grace is the victim

Reeves Gabrels is my favourite of Bowie's guitarists tbh!

Also for a relatively hideous middle-aged man he makes a dapper older gentleman

This is his actual "best since Scary Monsters", IMO.

Between the players (Joey Baron!) and Eno on board as a full collaborator, during his '90s imperial phase (Achtung Baby!, Laid, Wah Wah, Bright Red, Zooropa, Passengers) this came as and remains to me a huge disappointment. Lots of great ideas, little I want to return to with any regularity.

This was shared by bowiesongs earlier this week, on the origin of "Outside" (the song)

a new interview with Kevin Armstrong, DB/Tin Machine guitarist, which has a fascinating tidbit: https://t.co/QxP577Rsel

— Bowiesongs (@bowiesongs) March 12, 2019

as you may know, "Outside" came out of a DB/Armstrong composition called "Now," which Tin Machine played in '89. but its origins on the Armstrong side date earlier, to a piece called "Love is Essential" written ca 1980: https://t.co/3DQdvg561R

— Bowiesongs (@bowiesongs) March 12, 2019

That was interesting because it was the first time I met Brian Eno. Five minutes after being introduced to him I found myself standing next to him at the console with a guitar round my neck and being asked to play along to ‘Architects’ without ever having heard it before with Bowie looking on.

Eno manipulated the sound of my guitar with a multi-harmonizer as I was playing and my first impressions were what ended up on the record, so it was a collaborative effort between Brian Eno and me, really. I was a bit confused as to what was going on at first but I guess that Bowie and Eno’s method of working fitted in with the whole experimental ethos of that record. They wanted to capture the moment of discovery and mess with it at the same time. That was the last session I did with Bowie but I have since become friends with Brian and we still meet up.

Huh. This is just what Bowie and Eno did with Belew on "Lodger," right? And Fripp on "Scary Monsters?"

Come to think of it, Outside came at the peak of Eno coaxing bands into looser improvisation. Wah Wah, Zooropa ... both were famously recorded in two studios, iirc, the second one manned by Eno. The band would bash stuff out with one engineer and move on, then Eno worked and tweaked the stuff in his parallel studio. I assume much of Passengers was recorded much the same way.

I believe it was.

Anyway, that’s a great story, I hadn’t heard it – Architects is the climax of the album and one of my favorites on the record. Just a soaring tune anchored by one of Bowie’s most thrilling vocals and some extraordinary Mike Garson piano.

And yeah, that’s more or less the same thing he did in the 70s (the clearest example is Manzanera’s solo on Cale’s “Gun”) but instead of running things thru an EMS Synthi A suitcase by the 90s he was using an Eventide H3000.

It's difficult you see

The story I'd heard is that Manzanera is a particularly chill and ego-less lead guitarist, and that he was relatively non-plussed by Eno's aggressive Putney-tronics! I'm surprised more bands don't do stuff like this live, or at least have someone tweak their pedals while they solo.

"Eno on board as a full collaborator, during his '90s imperial phase (Achtung Baby!, Laid, Wah Wah, Bright Red, Zooropa, Passengers) this came as and remains to me a huge disappointment" weird, I prefer outside by a fair margin to most of those.

Ooh, I dunno. I love Outside, but Achtung Baby and Zooropa are all-time for me. I'm not arsed anywhere near as much about the James albums.

Lol I love the James albums but I love James

I'm surprised more bands don't do stuff like this live, or at least have someone tweak their pedals while they solo.

Yer man Edge does. But he also has ghost guitarists offstage too.

Yeah, I was about to say this. Edge always has someone offstage/under the stage switching his pedals for him because he can't be arsed to!

He def. has pedals, but they're not being manipulated in real time (like they are on "Gun"). So Edge has effects, yes, but always the same effects in the same place.

Speaking of which, sort of, here's a great story I recently heard from my guitar teacher, whose cousin is a Nashville producer. Way back when that shitty '70s band Firefall, who had some connection to the Burrito Brothers and/or Byrds, had a hit with or on their first album. But when it came time to record album number two, at home in Colorado, they apparently blew the entire budget on cocaine in the first few days or something and the producer/engineer had to call in someone to help them get their shit together. So they find this quiet guy named Dallas who knew everything about guitars and amps, and he helped them push through this session from hell. At the end, the producer was so impressed he goes to Dallas and says, man, if you ever need work just give me a call.

Years go by and my friend's cousin is working a session in Nashville with this other aforementioned producer, and they get a call. "Hey, man, it's Dallas, got anything going on?" They immediately fly the guy out to work with them in the studio. Apparently it goes so well that within months he's working as a (the?) guitar tech with Andy Summers, then later Paul McCartney, and not long after that The Edge c. "Joshua Tree." And apparently he's been working with The Edge ever since. This was pretty good, or at the least it gave me a little more respect for the Edge's instincts and knowledge even if I don't think very much of him as a guitarist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDYfXvGuaL4

Ha, just looked it up and I think the main beats of the story are pretty legit! But again in defense of the Edge and his hidden people, it sounds like the deal is that Edge is in control of his effects and stuff when he is (obv.) at his pedalboard, but when he starts roaming or moves away then Dallas takes over. Which makes sense, I guess. Otherwise Edge ain't going nowhere.

The other funny Dallas story via my teacher and his cousin was that apparently he got a call from Dallas one night, and Dallas just whispers "you hear that ...?" then lets the background noise come into focus. "That's the Beatles, man!" It turns out he was there for the "Free as a Bird" session. Found that story backed up, too!

There was the time in 1995 when Steve Miller invited him to his home studio in Idaho to service his guitar collection. Miller then warned him: He had some people coming to use his studio and Schoo had to promise to not freak out. Schoo rolled his eyes; he had seen it all.

Two days later, a fleet of SUVs pulled up and out get Paul and Linda McCartney, Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach, George and Olivia Harrison, and Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick. They were there to mix "Free As A Bird," the final new Beatles music that was made using a John Lennon demo tape of an unrecorded song, and they asked Schoo to maintain their guitars.

Schoo freaked out.

At one point, McCartney leaned over to Schoo during a break and struck up a conversation.

"So you're with that U2?"

"Yes, yes, sir, I am."

"That's meant to be a big deal, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"But they didn't change the world did they?"

Schoo erupts in laughter. "Then he looked at Harrison and said, 'If it wasn't for us, you'd still be walking around in Buddy Holly glasses.' That story I've taken all over the world, man, and Paul and I have remained friends to this day."