the bowie thread

M

martin

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Cool, thanks Baboon, will check those out. Agree about the film - oddly, always found one of the most harrowing moments the bit where she's literally trying to flog her beloved Bowie vinyl collection on the street for a couple of deutschmarks for a hit.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
np. You'll love those albums if you're already a big fan of the Christiane soundtrack.

Jeez, I'd totally forgotten about that bit in the film. Might have to watch it again this weekend, ratchet it up to maximum pathos.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I definitely, definitely need to get more into his stuff from the second half of the 70s, of which I'm woefully ignorant beyond Low. Did Eno play a big part on any his other albums?
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
You definitely do - I'd say that Low is comfortably better than "Heroes" and Lodger, but that doesn't prevent those two from being excellent albums in their own right. Eno was heavily involved in both I think, but I haven't read enough to know exactly his role, beyond the writing credits for Warzsawa, "Heroes" and a few other songs
 
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droid

droid

Well-known member
The 'Eno album' is definitely Lodger (which is also the weakest of the three IMO), though he was the driving force behind side B of Low bar Weeping Wall.

Heroes is an amazing LP, and well worth a re-listen. The A side is gloriously dense and dark, with some of his most histrionic vocal performances.

I am wary of full on hagiography (despite appearances). Yes, he seemed like a lovely guy, certainly post 70's, but the darkness is a huge part of what made him interesting. Nihilism, occultism, narcissism, paranoia, sexual exploitation and promiscuity, obsessions with image and power which fed his interest in the Nazis - all essential elements of his story.

Im surprised no-one's picked up on the black sun connection with blackstar. Neo-pagan occult symbol of the SS, the Thule society & the Vienna lodge, undoubtedly known to Bowie. He was playing with this stuff right to the end - one last flirtation from an eternal trickster to puzzle the fans? Or (as some of the wilder theories will no doubt have it) the last word in a lifelong dalliance with the occult?
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Is there a single accredited Rock And Roll Legend who hasn't been linked with the occult? It was after all "the devil's music" as far as respectable white America was concerned in the '50s, as was the blues before it, of course.
 
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R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
bowie as radio DJ in the 1970s -

features talking heads, staple singers, velvets, little richard, who deserves more credit when it comes to popular discussions of gender and rock n roll.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
Is there a single accredited Rock And Roll Legend who hasn't been linked with the occult? It was after all "the devil's music" as far as respectable white America was concerned in the '50s, as was the blues before it, of course.
Click to expand...

Nah - he was deep into it. Crowley, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Thule and Nazi occultism, Yeats & Golden Dawn, Gnosticism, alchemical transformation - Station to Station is essentially a Kaballistic incantation. There's no question he was an acolyte of Crowley's definition of magick as being an imposition of will on reality (see also Nietzsche's 'will to power').

You might dismiss the earlier references as a manifestation of youthful gladfly intellectualism, but by '76 there's no doubt that the occult had become an abiding influence something which cant be easily dismissed - simply because the references are so numerous & explicit.

EDIT: Some great stuff in this if you ignore the wildest claims: http://vigilantcitizen.com/musicbusiness/occult-universe-david-bowie-meaning-blackstar/
 
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Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Given his advice to Slash about knocking off the drugs when you start seeing things all the time, I'm guessing the occult seemed more and more plausible to him with every additional line.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I like to think they're trading stories of the shagging-and-snorting variety even as we speak.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
Lemmy-Bowie.jpg
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
The Nile Rodgers interviews about Bowie are interesting. I never realised quite how out of vogue Nile was by the time of Let's Dance.

Which sparks the question - has Bowie's 'core music' (the 70s stuff) ever been out of vogue/sounded dated? Or is he one of those rare artists whose music sounds fresh to each successive generation?

(Obviously the sidelining of Nile Rodgers was about a lot more than the sonics of his music, though)
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
baboon2004 said:
The Nile Rodgers interviews about Bowie are interesting. I never realised quite how out of vogue Nile was by the time of Let's Dance.

Which sparks the question - has Bowie's 'core music' (the 70s stuff) ever been out of vogue/sounded dated? Or is he one of those rare artists whose music sounds fresh to each successive generation?

(Obviously the sidelining of Nile Rodgers was about a lot more than the sonics of his music, though)
Click to expand...

TBF I think a lot of the glam stuff does sound dated, thought the moments where he reaches beyond the style still stand up. The more groove centered stuff anticipated the future in a lot of ways, and the abstract stuff is too weird to sound old.

I dont even know how youd place this if you heard it fresh today:


Gotta love the last 1/3. Bowie's finest backing vocal IMO
 
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