Brilliant Live Adventures

I didn't buy the box to house the records, but I did make sure I was online the minute some of these went on sale. #mug 

Ziggy At 50

Bookended by 5 Years and Rock'n'Roll Suicide, two tracks guaranteed to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck whenever I hear them, Ziggy Stardust is 50 years old today and is ageing much better than I am.

On a good day and when I'm in a "song" mood, this 9/10 album might scrape it into my Bowie top 3. It's certainly hitting the spot today.

Vinyl geeks - this is my early 80s bright-and-punchy black label pressing.

Ziggy Pop / Iggy Stardust

The tour when Iggy had ¾ of Tin Machine as his backing band.

March 21 1977 at the Agora Ballroom, Cleveland OH.

Iggy Pop - Vocals & Guitar
David Bowie - Keyboards
Hunt Sales - Drums
Tony Sales - Bass
Ricky Gardiner - Guitars

This is a fairly decent audience recorded live bootleg.

Bowie's 1. Outside

An album that can still divide opinion, 1. Outside received mixed reviews on its release in 1995. Many were excited by the reunion with Brian Eno, the embracing of a more experimental industrial sound and signs of a master returning to reclaim his place as a true innovator, whilst others were left baffled by the Non-Linear Gothic Drama Hyper-Cycle concept, a man in his late forties trying to be as with-it as possible by latching onto to youngsters' underground sounds. There were even accusations of pretentiousness, something that you can imagine he took as a compliment - as Gary Numan once said "what's wrong with being pretentious?".

What you do have is a supremely confident and ambitious album, still pushing boundaries and containing some of his most challenging, but rewarding, music that can hold it's own against many albums from his imperial phase.

It was also a very long album and one that, given it's concept and sprawling 19 tracks, (including 5 spoken word segues) presented itself as there perfect candidate to be released as a double album. Only it wasn't.

What you ended up with was a full length CD version clocking in at 75 minutes - heavy going for one sitting and one that would benefit from being allowed a brief moment to take stock as you turned the record over or changed disc. There was also a 51 minute single vinyl version entitled "Excerpts from Outside" that dropped six of album's tracks. The problem was that this version didn't do Outside justice as a standalone album, with some of the stronger and poppier tracks dropped in favour of...well, I'm not quite sure how the songs were chosen. The first eight tracks are all present, but it's then as if someone lost interest and dropped tracks from the second half of the album almost at random. Maybe these tracks were chosen as they held together the album's concept best. But surely that would be irrelevant with a non-linear story. I was hugely disappointed and finally opted for the CD version instead.

I did sometimes programme the CD player to compile my own version of "Excerpts from...", which worked as a fantastic art-rock album - one that arguably would've won over those critics who at the time were put off by the sheer volume of music on the full album. Although the odd track would change from time to time, my 45 minute excerpts went something like this:
Side 1.

- Leon Takes Us Outside
- Outside
- The Hearts Filthy Lesson
- Segue - Baby Grace
- Hallo Spaceboy
- I Have Not Been To Oxford Town

Side 2.

- No Control
- The Voyeur Of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)
- We Prick You
- Segue - Nathan Adler
- Thru' These Architects Eyes
- Strangers When We Meet

Great, But it still doesn't quite do it justice does it? If it came out liked that then you'd probably still need to release an extended EP for some of the tracks missed off.

Thank heavens then for the 20th anniversary version where, for the first time, the album was released as a double album, at last giving it the respect it deserves. It sounds incredible.

Now, what ever did happen to 2. Contamination ?

Bowie 8/1/47 - 10/1/16 RIP

Oh I’ll be free
Just like that bluebird
Oh I’ll be free
Ain’t that just like me

Bowie's Blackstar Birthday

Black on black. The first Bowie album not to feature him on the front cover and, to my knowledge, the first of his to feature a parental advisory sticker. I like the idea of an album that will appeal predominantly to adults containing a parental advisory sticker. 

The vinyl edition is housed in a stunning sleeve and 12" booklet that the photos don't do justice to.

Oh, and the music is pretty incredible too. Dark and spellbinding, unlike anything he's ever done before and yet uniquely Bowie.

 

A Review of the Artwork for The Next Day

Me, Dave and "Heroes"

Because it's his birthday...

Widely acknowledged as Bowie's finest moment, "Heroes" makes a pretty strong case for being my favourite song of all time; romantic, modern, ironic, iconic - it's such a remarkable piece of music. But it wasn't the studio version that I first liked, it was the pretty awesome Live Aid version from 1985.

I liked Bowie when I was younger, you know, in the way that young kids "love" bands - I liked the stuff I heard on the radio but it never went any further than that. But then his Live Aid performance changed everything, no doubt helped by Thomas Dolby on keyboards trying his best to emulate Billy Currie's synth sounds. This was "charming" Dave Bowie - not the androgynous alien of the 70s - turning one of his minor hits into a stadium anthem.

So, a few months later, and unlike the rest of the world after Live Aid who seemed intent on re-buying Queen's Greatest Hits, I decided that I had to get the Bowie album that had "Heroes" on it, which was helpfully also called "Heroes". I told one of my brothers of this exciting news, but he advised me to get Ziggy Stardust instead, as that was “a classic” album. Ignoring his advice I bought "Heroes", not being quite prepared for what the album had in store for me....

Where were all the uplifting pop songs? What about the sing-a-long choruses? Most songs on side one seemed to be immersed in an atonal wall of noise, whilst side two was mostly electronic instrumentals – like a darker take on side 2 of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn...BUT, my what songs! And what a noise! I didn't have a clue what was going on, but I liked it. Twenty six years later I'm still trying to get my head round this album - each listen feels as though I'm hearing the album for the first time, with new sounds, melodies and words jumping out. It is arguably his finest and most influential achievement...well, one of them anyway.

And who was this Eno person that kept cropping up on in my record collection? First with Ultravox! Then on a couple of Talking Heads records and U2's The Unforgettable fire and now this? I really must find out more.

People often talk about "life changing" music, by which they usually mean "a record that I really really like", but then I wonder what my life would be like now if I hadn't heard this song in 1985, or what would have happened if I'd followed my brother's advice. I'd certainly have a very different record collection.