Welcome to my Bowie blog. Hope you like it and visit more often!

In 2003 Bowie did his “Live by Satellite” tour. It was a novel concept in that he performed live at one location, and simulcast it to several others. To pull this off, state of the art technology was utilized that Arthur C. Clarke hardly dreamt of. The set list featured many songs from his newly released Reality album. Two songs he performed were not his own, Song 2 by Blur, released a few years before, and “Rumble” by Link Wray, released 44 years before:

Now, there is a reason Bowie chose that 44 year old song that most people have forgotten. As much of a pioneer as Bowie has been, so was Link Wray. You see, this is the guy that created the power chord. That’s right all you heavy metal, grunge, hard rock, punk, and guitar loving music freaks, it all started with Link Wray. As much as the grunge and heavy metal crowd likes to think they are shocking everyone today, how many have had this reaction:

The menacing sound of “Rumble” (and its title) led to a ban on several radio stations, a rare feat for a song with no lyrics on the grounds that it glorified ‘juvenile delinquency’.

Most of the guitar legends of the 60’s and 70’s cite Rumble as one of their inspirations, including Bowie. Link Wray passed away on November 5, 2005.

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David Bowie has landed a new movie role, playing the inventor and electrical genius Nikola Tesla.

Bowie, 58, will star alongside Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine in forthcoming film The Prestige, according to movie industry magazine Variety.

I can so see Bowie in this role. Bowie always has a way of gravitating towards odd characters in his roles, as he does with his music, Tesla is no exception:

He was quite impractical in financial matters and an eccentric, driven by compulsions and a progressive germ phobia. But he had a way of intuitively sensing hidden scientific secrets and employing his inventive talent to prove his hypotheses. Tesla was a godsend to reporters who sought sensational copy but a problem to editors who were uncertain how seriously his futuristic prophecies should be regarded. Caustic criticism greeted his speculations concerning communication with other planets, his assertions that he could split the Earth like an apple, and his claim of having invented a death ray capable of destroying 10,000 airplanes at a distance of 250 miles (400 kilometres)

Sounds like a role Bowie can slip into quite naturally.

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When I was a kid, I used to watch Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert a lot. I also was glued to The Midnight Special. One particular evening this oddball guy with bright red hair and wearing bizarre clothes came on and sang a couple of songs on Don Kirshner’s show. I loved both songs and decided I had to have them. Now, you gotta understand, living in a small rural town pre-MTV and pre-internet made that no small task. I searched K-Mart and the local stores and just couldn’t figure out what the songs were. So, I did what most people did at that time, I went to the local head shop. The hippie running the place immediately identified the first song, Space Oddity, but he couldn’t put his finger on the second song. So, I did what every kid did at that time with money to spare and no bills to pay, I ordered Bowie’s first five LP’s. When they arrived, I started in chronological order with Space Oddity. My second fave song at that point was there, but not the one I had to have. The first album was a folksy sounding album with ultra-strange lyrics. But, it didn’t really catch me at that time. The second album, Hunky Dory, was more of the same. Folksy sounding, but a little brasher, with ultra-strange lyrics. However, I had a hard time getting past the third album. I couldn’t stop playing it. The Man Who Sold The World was completely different than the previous two. It was loud, it was in-your-face, it had LONG guitar solos, but it still had the strange tales. It was everything I wanted in a rock album right there. Several songs stood out, all in their own way. The album started off with a major bang with The Width of a Circle. This was the type of song usually reserved as the last song of a major effort. The Width of a Circle would become the highlight of the Ziggy Stardust tour. However, the second song was the one that stuck with me the most. All The Madmen flowed smoother, the lyrics seemed to mean something, but I couldn’t say what. And, it had one of those catchy refrains at the end, “Zane, Zane, Zane. Ouvre le chien”. Now, living in rural Kentucky, I did what any logical teen would do, I asked my French teacher what it meant. She just looked blankly at me and said “Open the dog”. Needless to say, for a fourteen year old, that was DEEP. I later learned she was wrong. I also later learned that the cover I got was not the original, this was:

Getting past All The Madmen, the album took a breather with a couple of songs, then came hammering back with Running Gun Blues. Now, this song would make Slipknot and Korn nervous with lyrics like:

I count the corpses on my left, I find I’m not so tidy
So I better get away, better make it today
I’ve cut twenty-three down since Friday
But I can’t control it, my face is drawn
My instinct still emotes it

But I’ll slip out again tonight
Cause they haven’t taken back my rifle
For I promote oblivion
And I’ll plug a few civilians

And, the chorus went something like:

I’ll slash them cold, I’ll kill them dead
I’ll break them gooks, I’ll crack their heads
I’ll slice them till they’re running red
But now I’ve got the running gun blues

That was kinda unnerving to me. I hadn’t heard quite a harsh tune like that before. Saviour Machine didn’t let up too much either with lyrics like:

‘Please don’t believe in me, please disagree with me
Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now
or maybe a war, or I may kill you all

Don’t let me stay, don’t let me stay
My logic says burn so send me away
Your minds are too green, I despise all I’ve seen
You can’t stake your lives on a Saviour Machine

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more violent, along comes She Shook Me Cold:

We met upon a hill, the night was cool and still
She sucked my dormant will
Mother, she blew my brain, I will go back again
My God, she shook my cold

I had no time to spare, I grabbed her golden hair
And threw her to the ground
Father, she caved my head, Oh Lord, the things she said
My God, she should be told

I wasn’t really sure what to make of that. He was either getting a blow job or committing violent rape. I went with the blow job. He then returned to his older style with The Man Who Sold The World and the spacey The Supermen.

It took me a while to move on through the other albums. The song I was looking for was Time from Aladdin Sane. Once I got back to Aladdin Sane, I grew to like that album almost as much as The Man Who Sold The World. To this day, this is probably my third favorite Bowie album.

Here’s my versions:

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Over the weekend, a friend of mine asked me if I had watched Rock Star: INXS. Although a one-time fan of INXS, I hadn’t watched it. He informed me that some girl did a beautiful Bowie song, but he didn’t know what song it was. A little later that evening, someone else asked me the same question. I was curious. Neither of those friends are much of a Bowie fan, so for them to remember it enough to mention it to me meant to me it had to be that good. Yesterday, Terri filled me in. A girl named Jordis sang it. She even filled me in that it’s on a CD already:

The link to the CD has sound clips. So I listened. Quite honestly, I was less impressed than I thought I would be. It’s not bad at all, but, it doesn’t hold a candle to the best version ever:

No one ever did this song better than Curt Cobain. I’m not even a Cobain fan. TMWSTW is not an emotional song, it’s a song devoid of emotion. It’s supposed to sound like a world-weary traveler. Cobain sounded tired. Jordis sounds like she’s singing it for all it’s worth. Good for talent shows, not good for strict interpretation. To make this circle complete, Mig Ayesa performs Smells Like Teen Spirit.

However, what surprised me even more was that a fellow named Wil Seabrook performed ‘Heroes’. I was much closer to liking what I heard of ‘Heroes’ than TMWSTW.

What I am most curious about is how INXS knew to taunt me with two of my all time favorite Bowie songs. There were no rap songs or thrash trash. It was a song list ( for the most part ) that I would sing myself in the van or even the shower. There’s The Talking Heads ( wrong song tho ), Kiss, Janice Joplin, Kinks, Bob Dylan, The Who, The Pretenders, and Blondie. INXS sounds like a bunch of guys I need to party with. Or at least cruise in the van with. It’s a fun CD. And, for a Bowie fan, it’s a fun tribute that people are still singing the classics for all it’s worth. And some of them are pretty good.

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Well, maybe not exactly 30 years, but it’s close.

Uncut Magazine ( click on the image to visit their site. ) sent me an email pointing at that at this tine in 1975, Space Oddity peaked at #1 In Britain following it’s re-release on the heels of the success of Fame from Young Americans. Oddly enough, Fame never made it to #1 in Britain although it did in the US. Young Americans would eventually peak at #2 in Britain, #9 in the US. However, November 1975 must have been a very fun time for Bowie fans. It was the success of Fame and Young Americans that peaked my curiousity enough to watch him perform on tv ( The Midnight Special and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert ). I was hooked from that point on.

Thanks for the reminder, Uncut.

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Alberto posted a comment to another post that merits it’s own post entirely. His blurb was brief in the comment, but his post on the topic is excellent. To wit, Bowie appeared in a short film in 1967 with Michael Byrne called “The Image”. This short is described as “a study of the illusionary reality world within the schizophrenic mind of the artist at his point of creativity.” Alberto then describes the movie as such:

This kind of grand statement is, not surprisingly, not fulfilled in the movie, which lurches about confusedly searching for depth, but instead ends up locked in a self-conscious trance. One thing that is good about it is Bowie’s performance as a man come to life out of a painting who haunts the artist who created him. The artist repeatedly attacks Bowie, who, zombie like, revives inexplicably. Bowie’s stage presence and moody posturing inject life into this film without dialogue. In 1983, Bowie described “The Image” as

“an underground black and white avant-garde thing done by some guy. He wanted to make a film about a painter doing a portrait of a guy in his teens, and the portrait comes to life, and in fact, turns out to be the corpse of some bloke. I can’t really remember all the plot, but it was a fourteen-minute short and it was awful.”

Alberto also has a clip from the movie, which at 75 meg, is a bit slow to download, but well worth the wait. It’s a hoot! And Bowie’s right, it’s AWFUL!

Thanks for the link Alberto, most excellent!

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UPDATE: March 1, 2007: Rather than blasting Alberto’s bandwidth, thanks to all the video servers out there these days, let’s just watch it here!

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