Bowie's Outside: C or D?

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."

I love "Outside", but I feel sorry for Bowie: here he wanted to offer a vast vision, a whole universe around the album, yet he was forced to record "Outside" at a time when concept albums were totally pasee in the industry and there was just no room to promote something like that.

yeah no

Outside would not have sold diddly in 1985 either. He was a victim of releasing it as his First Serious Album when he had no American cachet to speak of. By 1997 the turnaround was remarkable. I was there. Suddenly Bowie went from laughing stock to a touchstone (Liv Tyler did the we're-not-worthy on Letterman when he and his band performed "Dead Man Walking"). If he'd released it in 1999 instead of hours it might have gotten a better reception.

At the same time...who cares? I loved Outside in 1995. So did lots of people. We still love it. Its cult remains intact.

Alfred otm... between Nirvana's cover and NIN agreeing to open for Bowie at the height of their fame the 90s were a period of immense rehabilitation for him. "Heart's Filthy Lesson" got radio play iirc, as did "Little Wonder" and (especially) "I'm Afraid Of Americans". There was the Sound+Vision boxset followed by the big Ryko reissue, Bowie going public (and making a fortune? I seem to recall?), the Omikron thing, the marriage to Iman, and the 50th birthday celebration... the 90s was a remarkable turnaround!

The Ryko box plus Belew tour was the big event (when he famously allowed fans to vote on the setlist and then struck certain songs from setlist circulation). The Bowie Bonds thing was intriguing (my friend worked on that!). But iirc the NIN tour was coheadling, and in fact I recall lots of talk at the time at Bowie's lack of ego for playing sort of second banana to Reznor.

It's difficult for people to remember how delicate Bowie's reputation was in the rock canon before the Ryko reissues in 1990-1991. Because Station to Station and the Berlin Trilogy were out of print for years, his reputation rested on memories of Ziggy Stardust -- the only album of his to be a part of Rolling Stone's '87 best-of list. It took a while for young'uns like us, who were buying the reissues in mall record stores, to argue for him as a world-historic artist. By 1997, thanks to the Pumpkins, Nirvana, and NIN, it was happening.

he really was the "Let's Dance" guy for too many years because nothing else was available.

That's insane. Were used OOP Bowie records rare treasures?

Yes. Not everyone was shopping in used record stores. I don't remember seeing , say, Low on used vinyl during my younger, more formative years.

RCA cds were— and still are, apparently— costly too

RCA cds were— and still are, apparently— costly too

Bowie and Elvis Costello Ryko reissues were a) essential and b) did much to rehabilitate both of these acts. '90s were the, erm, golden years of reissues.

(Technically Sound + Vision was 1989, but still. The tour was 1990.)

Man, just got so wistful for they heyday of Ryko and Rhino. I used to have a Rhino promo code. I would look at the website, check out all the awesome boxed sets, type in the code, and the giant impeccably compiled box set would just show up.

I don't really recognise any of this, maybe it was different in the UK, OK Tin Machine was derided but Bowie was cool in the early 90s as far as I knew. Lots of people I knew had the Changes compilations and the Ryko reissues, Black Tie White Noise was a "return to form" (although I didn't like it much), bands like Suede were aping him, etc etc.

America, yes. I remember the warmth with which the press greeted BTWN in England.

I remember buying my then girlfriend the Sound & Vision box for Christmas '89 and the thing was like this luxury item.

I don't recall 70's albums being scarce at all in the 80's or early 90's.

Also, the 'best album since Scary Monsters' talk started with Never Let Me Down from what I remember. And was then repeated for every album he released after that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB7Tg3-r88w

it's difficult, you see!

Said to me: “you only like Outside because it’s Bowie pretending to be Scott Walker”

Me: “yes but he made it before Scott Walker. He made Tilt before Tilt and nobody got it”

I recall a mention of this in Eno's diary, about the time Tilt was released and they were both on the phone discussing how relieved they were that it tread slightly different ground from Outside.

The respective artists’ masterpieces.

My memory wasn't that they were relieved but heartbroken. But maybe it was relief once they listened more closely.

I'll confess to finding Outside a bit of a slog. I much prefer Earthling.

It’s Bowie trying to be Scott Walker (as forensically reconstructed from his apparent trajectory circa Nite Flights/Climate of Hunter) with all the gaps in that facade filled in by other cool stuff happening in music at the time/musicians Bowie wanted to be friends with like Reznor and Tricky. That happened to be a pretty potent blend but I’d hardly simplify it to pure Scott imitation. Even the Leon demos - which maybe inch a little closer to that designation - are hardly one-for-one in their influences.

& of course Earthling picks up on a lot of these threads, particularly “hip musicians Bowie wanted to be friends with”

I hear Bowie trying to be Scott Walker exactly once ("The Motel") and bits of "A Small Plot of Land." And the bowiesongs blog traced the genealogy exhaustively