I was really hoping it would cover the '47-'51 period - the teething troubles, the first word, the early songs (twinkle twinkle little star etc). It's really one of his most interesting periods but I guess this will have to do.
So the BBC/Whately call it a day after this trilogy. However much I welcome this new early episode, if you put the content in chronological order it is pretty unevenly balanced. The magical years 74-82 are overshadowed by too much Ziggy and the showdown decade. They could easily compile another trilogy, including the in-between years, Baal/Elephant Man, motion pictures, his own art, art obsession. And there are plenty of friends, colleagues to interview. Iggy Pop could easily narrate an entire episode. Well maybe it'll help the BBC lift its lazy bum from the archive lid, so loads of other available Bowie material can be released, like with other artists.
AHA! So demos do exist that nobody knew about. No one can now say that there is nothing in the vault. End of that argument right here. End of that argument too. Its a good day for me and my self righteousness.
I think he associated the 1960s with failure. He tried many styles and changed his image repeatedly in the 60s, as he did in the 70s, but none of it worked until Ziggy (S.O. was a fluke one-hit-wonder). He spent a very long time pre-success. Maybe once he got famous he wanted to drop his past persona. Maybe he was afraid of being seen as an old relic from the 60s. Perhaps he thought his psychedelic music hall period didn't fit with his glam/art-rock audience. Even when he revived Can't Help Thinking About Me in 1999 he usually made a sort of embarrassed apology for it in the introduction, despite it being a great track. Laugh along with David now.
I appreciate that's what you think - I just don't know why you think it. Was it an interview with Bowie that brought you to this conclusion? It stands to reason he'd hold his later stuff closer to his heart, he was essentially a kid in those very early days. But when you get to the point of saying he "associated the 1960s with failure" then you're telling us what Bowie himself thought - and for that you need evidence, imo.
Yes it stands to reason he'd prefer his newer material, but did he play The Laughing Gnome on the Sound and Vision Tour? Why did his retrospectivity always start at Hunky Dory with few exceptions (eg SO & TMWSTW) ? It's just my feeling after reading a load of biographies and the fact that he never really referred to the pre-TMWSTW music until 99. Compilations like Changes and The Best Of Bowie ignored it. The Best Of Bowie was described as a career-spanning compilation. It ignored 5 years of music. NHC was different. I can't give you quotes, read some books. Maybe the new doc will prove me wrong.
Still, I would prefer the 1967 S/T DeLuxe or the 1969 S/T DeLuxe over any studio album in the upcoming box set, including Dance and Re:CALL4.
Maybe the earlier stuff just didn't really fit into his tours, I can't imagine Warsawa being followed by Love You Till Tuesday. I think he had a sense of humour about The Laughing Gnome...
Good spot, but it's 1999 again! Toy era. Why did he suddenly feel able to 'come out' in 1999 and not before? I think that he could have performed Karma Man, or In The Heat Of The Morning live in the 70s. The Mike Garson Band did Memory Of A Free Festival, though not Bowie himself. The Let's Dance Tour could have used some Manish Boys R&B. Take My Tip would have really worked on that tour. Or even The Gospel According To Tony Day - THAT would have made that tour bluesy! The Diamond Dogs Tour could have used The London Boys in a medley with Rebel Rebel. How about in the 1980 Floor Show? There is nothing wrong with Over the Wall We Go. I like it. Little Toy Soldier is extreme VU influenced insanity. I can see why he didn't revisit that one. I seem to have diverted this thread somewhere else. Apologies to anyone interested.
Yeah, I don't think Bowie was petty, that way. He could separate the personal from the musical value. I've notice many people have a tough time doing that.
In an interview c. 2003, Bowie said he chose to cover "Try Some, Buy Some" because he was familiar with the Ronnie Spector version (her version, produced by Harrison and Phil Spector, was released as a single before George's came out a few years later), not because he thought of it as a George Harrison song, for what that's worth. You can read more here: Try Some, Buy Some
No problem, it's silence before the storm here. To be honest, I think it's a pity that the second Set an album never made it. There was enough new material mostly better than the first album.
Those here who wanted to read Bowie's actual directions for re-creating Never Let Me Down (or just wanted to see if they even exist): You might be in luck This is from the Mojo review of the box set.
I dunno. He was an ass to poor Gary Numan, who worshipped him - and whose music really didn't sound like any of Bowie's except in the broadest possible sense.
Yeah, musically Numan said in his early career he was more influenced by the minimalist, crisp, cleaner electronics of Cluster than by the oft-cited Low. Also the third Ultravox album with John Foxx, and Japan were bigger musical influences on Numan than Bowie. He said it, but we can hear it just from the records. It was more the cold, detached, androgynous thing that irked Bowie, whose words were "He's stolen my whole act!".. IIRC referring to the famous first Top of the Pops appearance by Numan/Tubeway Army, which in hindsight is a melancholoy watch, because Gary said he wasn't acting: he was suffering from undiagnosed Aspergers and other issues, and was terrified. It might have reminded Bowie of his Be My Wife video, maybe, causing the above quote? The older, wiser Bowie did praise him though, and highly: he's quoted on the cover of the Numan biography Electric Pioneer: "Nothing will change the fact Numan's written some of the best British music ever made". It's also worth remembering Bowie was cool with Bauhaus in 1982 when they filmed The Hunger movie together, and they had far more musical similarities to him than Numan. Like I say I think it was more about his perception of Numan's 1978-80 general persona etc that Bowie rightly or wrongly, objected too, the whole "package", rather than a musical ripoff. And as a sidenote, of course from the 1990s onwards Trent Reznor's "heroes" Bowie, Numan, Ian Curtis and Peter Murphy, were sort of unified when Trent worked with the living ones and became friends with them. I suspect they all appreciated each other by that time. Certainly as late as 5 or so years ago Bowie and Murphy were in contact about getting something together in New York, although it didn't ultimately happen. Not sure if older Numan and older Bowie ever talked of collaborating, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did.
Strange theory indeed ! I like it, but feel that Bowie did do some of his Space Oddity / Man Who Sold The World songs during the Ziggy era, i.e Wild Eyed Boy, Width of A Circle, right up until the Diamond Dogs era tour. He also returned to some of his pre-Space Oddity material in the late 1990s and also for the Toy album, which was never released. But, hey, if they can release Glastonbury, surely Toy might be next ?
I would have thought the chances of Numan and Bowie working together would have been somewhere between zero and fat. This interview from 2003 would certainly indicate that. Gary Numan: Numan remains
Like Bowie, Numan was very hands on with his stage design; but GN did much, much more with innovative light shows in his first years of touring than he usually gets credit for. All the banks of lights behind him were individually controlled in chase sequences, which he himself would program into the computerized control boards to be in time with every song, as the hardware got more sophisticated he kept pace with the state of the art. Whereas I think Bowie did a handwritten 'script' for the lighting designer to follow on Isolar tours (seem to recall seeing this one-pager in the David Bowie Is exhibit) and then left much of the actual execution to the 'little people', it seems
