Archive for January, 2005
The Life Aquatic
I have just stumbled on the dangdest thing I think I might have ever heard in my life. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou soundtrack features 7 of 20 songs that are Bowie Ziggy era stuff. If that’s not good enough, most are Cajun! Now, anyone out there that’s not familiar with Cajun music, I’ll just say this much, NOTHING could be as far removed from Bowie’s style, especially Ziggy era stuff, than Cajun. Nothing! Seu Jorge’s interpretations of Five Years, Life On Mars?, Starman, Rock and Roll Suicide, and even Rebel Rebel are AWESOME! I personally will be looking for some other stuff from Seu Jorge just from what little I’ve heard from the clips from the soundtrack.
It’s been so long since I’ve heard a voice like this actually singing with some soul. How someone thought to combine that with the otherwise souless images of Ziggy Stardust is beyond me. But man, does it sound good!
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Lou Reed
Lou Reed had been dancing on the edge of fame. Everyone seemed to know who he was from his days with Velvet Underground to his solo stuff. But, as a young kid at the time, no one I knew seemed to have a clue why. Although being spoonfed The Jackson Five and The Osmonds, I kept hearing this song that was kinda creepy, and sang about people I didn’t think I’d like to meet. I finally started exploring the alternative scene of that time via The Midnight Special and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. A local FM station played a lot of alternative stuff as well. Eventually I would learn the song was “Walk on the Wild Side”, and the singer was a guy named Lou Reed. I loved Walk on the Wild Side, but, nothing by Reed ever blew me away more than the live version of Sweet Jane. The intro to Sweet Jane has one of the all time greatest guitar licks ever performed. At about that time I became a huge Bowie fan. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Bowie and Ronson actually produced Transformer. White Light, White Heat was a constant Bowie performance for years and often was the best song he would do in shows as he tended to over-manipulate his songs, but never altered Reed’s songs. The coolness and mellowness of Reed with the over-the-top nervousness and paranoia of Bowie’s early writings were a hell of a mix that should have been pursued much, much more than it was.
Today, Lou Reed is just Lou Reed. Like Andy Warhol, his mentor, he has one of those personalities that just screams individuality. All you have to do is look at Lou and you know who it is. You may not remember why, but you’ll know it’s Lou.
That’s very cool.
I’ve redone Walk On the Wild Side for my own karaokeing pleasure. Hope you enjoy it. It’s about the same as the original.
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Nile Rodgers
In 1977 Nile Rodgers exploded on the scene with Chic’s “Le Freak“. Now, disco bands were cranking out monster hits with regularity and vanishing. Rodgers stood out. After leaving Chic, he produced:
Sister Sledge, We Are Family, Cotillion, 1979.
Diana Ross, Diana, Motown, 1980.
Debbie Harry, Koo Koo, 1981.
Madonna, Like a Virgin, Sire, 1984.
Jeff Beck, Flash, CBS, 1985.
The Power Station, The Power Station, Capitol, 1985.
Thompson Twins, Here’s to Future Days, 1985.
Duran Duran, Notorious, Capitol, 1986.
Grace Jones, Inside Story, 1986.
The B-52’s, Cosmic Thing, Reprise, 1989.
Vaughan Brothers, Family Style, CBS, 1990.
In regards to this board, he teamed up with Bowie and Stevie Ray Vaughan for Bowie’s monster Let’s Dance. Now, Bowie had been thinking he was black during the Young Americans genre, but Rodgers made him black, just for one day. What made this work is Bowie let Rodgers, Vaughan, and the myriad of performers on this collection do the talking, he just sang. Bowie didn’t even try to act like the star on this one. And it worked. It gave Rodgers and Vaughan especially the spotlight they earned. And, it gave Bowie the comeback album he needed to prove he was still a viable force in creating music. It was a big deal in the career of Bowie.
So, what is Nile doing now?
Nile has been attacked by Dr. Charles Dobson for making a gay-leaning Spongbob Squarepants video featuring “We Are Family”. I kid you not.
Nile is apparently doing just fine 20 years after Let’s Dance. Which, given the fate of most of Bowie’s famous recording partners, is a very, very, good thing.
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