The Saturday List #371 - Ten years on, ten reasons to celebrate the life of David Bowie

 Ten years ago, we awoke to the sad news that David Bowie had passed away. There are many aspects of Bowie's career that were a huge influence on myself and many other musicians. So it is only fitting to celebrate Bowie's anniversary with a list. 

1. Rebel Rebel. If you have never been in a pub with someone you fancy the pants off, put Rebel Rebel on the jukebox and kissed them after the line in the chorus "Hot tramp, I love you so" then you have really never lived. There are many Bowie songs that to me are important, but this line perhaps gave me the happiest five seconds of my life. Pubs, kissing pretty girls and juke boxes are three of the best things in the world and when they all come together for a split second, it is the absolute best. 

2. Space Oddity. This song absolutely fascinated me. The video of Bowie in a rather bad space suit was perhaps my favourite video. The concept of Major Tom floating in his tin can absolutely fascinated me for years. "Planet Earth is blue and there is nothing I can do". People do not make such songs anymore, more's the pity. The strangest thing is that for several years, I felt like Major Tom, floating in his tin can. Before the arrival of punk rock, I felt alone and isolated. It chimed with me. It also gave me hope for the future. I felt Bowie wrote the song specially for me, even though he clearly didn't

 3. The Man who fell to Earth. I used to love science fiction. Most science fiction films are crass excuses to have lots of explosions and special effects. There was none of this. It was a very dark, powerful and disturbing film. It is probably one of the very few science fiction films that has a plot that is credible, if you accept the premise that there is alien life. Bowie was excellent and I doubt anyone else could have pulled the role off as well. It showed that Bowie was far more than a singer.

4. Lou Reed Transformer. Bowie was the producer of this album. Lou Reed was clearly a genius, but he was not someone given to making great, accessible pop records. Bowie took all of the dark energy around Lou Reed and somehow managed to package it in such a way that the rest of us mere mortals could somehow enjoy it. I happen to think that Perfect Day is the perfect pop song. Bowies production of it is incredible. If I have any regrets at all regarding Bowie, one is that he did not do more production of other aartists.

5. Mott The Hoople - All the young dudes. The generosity of Bowie as an artist is not really something that is widely recognised in the way it should be. All the young dudes is an absolute banger of a tune. Many artists would have greedily kept such a song. Bowie gave it to his mate Ian Hunter. A couple of years ago, my good mate Lee Thompson of Madness sung it with The Silencerz at The East Barnet Festival. Lee was brilliant and it just brought home what an amazing pop song it is. 

6. The V&A Bowie Exhibition. One of my old schoool mates was a curator at the V&A, in about 2005, we met at a school reunion. We were chatting and he was explaining that the V&A were looking at ways to reach out and engage a wider audience. I casually remarked that they should do an exhibition on the costumes and art of David Bowie. In 2013, the V&A did the original Bowie exhibition. I have no idea whether it was a pure coincidence. I don't really care, I was just glad that we got the chance to see it. Other exhibitions of musicians have since taken place, but none has been anywhere near as interesting as Bowie's. I believe that Bowie actually transformed the V&A from a place I had no interest in as a philistine, to my favourite London museum.

7. Low. Side one of Low is probably my favourite Bowie record. I could just talk about the great music, but the thing that always fascinated me was that it was recorded in West Berlin, at the height of the cold war. There was an oppresive feel to the album and a certain desperation and intesity in the vocal performance that I don't think Bowie acheived before or after. It is by far the best of the 'Berlin Trilogy' of Bowie's work. It really stirred my fascination and in some ways was an inspiration for my own relocation to Stockholm in 1981. I read an interview with Bowie where he said he needed to "be somewhere else and be a different person" after the cocaine fuelled excess of Station to Station. That stuck with me and I felt the need to do the same thing in 1981, although I have never been a coke head. It was the best thing I did. It gave me a differernt perspective on life. Bowie's Berlin sojourn was an inspiration. I am not quite sure whether "what in the world" or "be my wife" are my favourite tracks on the album, probaby whichever one I am listening to at the time.

8. Tin Machine. This much derided period of Bowie's career is something I believe should be re-assessed. I saw Bowie twice. Once at Wembley on the Glass Spider tour, which was a huge disappointment. The other was with Tin Machine at Brixton, which was absolutely brilliant. Bowie was a great rock and roll singer and I think he just fell victim to musical snobbery during this period. I always thought it was great that he just wanted to be the singer in a band.

9. Lulu. Bowies collaboration with Lulu was something that I really didn't get at the time. Lulu was Britains favourite bubblegum pop girl. No one really recognised that she has a great voice. Bowie wrote and produced "The man who sold the world" for her. It was her first top ten hit of the 1970's and the highest chart position she reached until "Relight my fire". Bowie saw something that everyone else missed. 

10. The Lazarus video. Bowie's parting gift. Can you imaging you know you are dying, you are presumably in pain and turmoil, yet you do that. I think it is actually a very positive and hopeful song, in a rather odd way. It is the perfect full stop.

Moonage Daydream - Review of the new David Bowie documentary

 Last week, I went to see Moonage Daydream at the Barnet Everyman. I rarely review films. In fact in the history of the blog, I can only recall reviewing a couple films and those were more out of boredom as I had nothing much inspiring on my list that day. This is different. The new Bowie documentary is something that I have been thinking about reviewing since I watched it.

The film is not a normal documentary. There are no talking heads, just the voice of Bowie and those interviewing him, mostly over a selection of clips of Bowie. If you are not a Bowie nut, then I suspect that the film may be the worst few hours of your life. I don't think it will convert anyone who is a Bowie agnostic. However I am a huge fan of Bowie, or to be precise Bowie between 1969 and 1977. 

I became a fan as a six year old, of this strange creature, floating in a tin can singing about Space. The track and the video was a bit of  a cash in on the excitement around the Apollo lunar landings, which I was obsessed with. The video fascinated me at the time. No other pop stars were doing anything that involved dressing up as spacemen, so Bowie became my favourite pop star. Watching the video now, it seems horrily dated an low budget, but at the time it was wondeful.

The love affair ended after Heroes. To me, this was his last great album. The follow up album Lodger, was the first of a string of albums that were sort of OK. I'd discovered punk rock so they held little appeal. The period between these two records was the period I changed from a child to a teenager. The film charts this period in a rather non linear fashion, as well as the later period. 

I had a chat with Robert Elms on his BBC Radio London show last Friday about the film. Click here and listen from 1.45.28. Chatting to Robert about the film was like two chocaholics locked in a sweet shop. We both love Bowie and we both love talking. He'd seen it the night before so was still mulling it over.

So what did I think? The negatives? It was far too long, with many superfluous meaningless graphics. A decent editor could have knocked 30 mins off the running time and made a far better film. But...

For those of us who are nostaligic for the days when Bowie putting his arm around Mick Ronson on TOTP seemd like the most incredible act of subversion and daring it was just a pleasure to see Bowie in his pomp. I actually liked the lack of talking heads opining about how wonderful Bowie was (generally people who didn't know him). I'd seen many of the clips before, but sampling them all in one go in a cinema was wonderful. Usually a documentary has a mission to inform. For me, the man that was David Bowie was just as opaque as he was at the start. When I first got into Bowie, I thought he was a genius. Later I thought he was a Charlatan. I now realise he's both, gloriously, at the same time. Much of what he said in the film was highly pretentious drivel. However it was Bowie saying it and in the context of the time it was far more. It is really hard to judge anything about Bowie without the context. 

Bowie clearly had his demons. Like many things in Bowie's life, his response was contradictory. He faced them up and ran away from them at the same time. For me, his best work was done when he was at his most personally chaotic, but as Robert Elms noted, his hair always looked amazing. It almost seemed that the more chaotic and unhappy he was, the better his hair and his music appeared. 

As I had driven to the cinema, I didn't have a drink, just a tea and a burger. When I got home, I had a couple of deeply disturbing and nostaligic dreams. When the False Dots first formed, myself and my co-conspiritor Pete Conway would listen to all manner of albums by our heroes together and try and write a song in that style. I recall we listened to Low on my 8 Track and we decided that we'd try and write a song in the style of "Be My Wife".  We loved the desolation and despair. We loved the stark music. Just about every other artist who we'd tried to plaigerise, we had managed to and put together a passable tune. After half an hour, we gave up in despair. We concluded that Bowie was special and that he had some mystical power that was beyond the comprehension of mere mortals such as us. 

Having watched the film, I realised that this was true. As disciples of his in his pomp, we'd gazed with wonder on his genius, but in truth we could not even start to comprehend the nature of what he did. A musician friend commented a while back just how few decent Bowie cover versions there are. A few people have done OK almost exact copies, but I suspect that Bowie is one of the least covered major prolific artists. I wonder how many people have approached his songs as we did and given up, realising that all we did was a pale reflection?

My Verdict?

If you are a Bowie Nut 5/5 and watch in the best cinema you can if your not 0/5 and avoid like the plague,

The Saturday list #85 - The top ten Euro referendum songs

Just for fun, I thought I'd compile a list of anthems for the Euro Referendum. Feel free to add any I may have missed in the comments.

1. Bowie was a well known Europhile, recording some of his best work in Berlin and his greatest song "heroes" is about division in Europe. This would be a cracking song for the Remain campaign. Stay is surely a winner for them




2. And what Iconic track should front the #Brexit campaign. The first one that comes to mind is the fantastic Diana Ross with "I'm Coming Out"




3. I suppose that no Euro Referendum top ten in the weeks leading up to the Reffo could miss out The Final Countdown by Europe!




4. Of course many of us haven't made up our mind. I think there can only be one which sums this dilemma up. The Clash of course with "Should I Stay or Should I go". I guess we can summise that Mick Jones is swinging towards the #Brexit camp "If I go there will be trouble, An' if I stay it will be double" (only joking Mick).





5. The Animals had no such doubts. They know what they want, with "We gotta get out of this place"




6. Now you can't have a decent list without The Ramones. If the #Brexit brigade get their way, it will be a case of Here today, gone tomorrow!




7. Both sides will have you believe that this is the other mobs anthem! "Born to Lose" by the incomparable Heartbreakers



8.  Of course both sides will be hoping that they will be singing this Fleetwood Mac dittie on the morning after. It is of course Landslide




9.  The #Brexit Mob will have you believe that the EU has been doing this to the UK taxpayer for years!




10. Of course Neil Sedaka disagrees and thinks "Breaking up is Hard to Do"




Bonus Track!
I'm sure by the end of June, whatever the result we'll all agree with Captain Sensible that we're "Glad its all over"

The Sunday Roast - Glam Rock Special!

So today, we ask what was the greatest ever Glam Rock Track. The three contenders are

1. Sweet - Blockbuster


2. David Bowie The Jean Genie


3. T Rex - 20th Century Boy

In our humble opinion, Sweet, Bowie and Bolan were the top of the pops when it came to glam. With all of these bands, there were any number of tracks we could have chosen, but we really wanted iconic TOTP videos to accompany the tracks. Perhaps another interesting topic of debate is that Blockbuster and The Jean Genie both have the same riff. Reviewing the discography, I was surprised to note that the Sweet only achieved one UK No 1 single, with Blockbuster, although Co Co, Hellraiser, Ballroom blitz, Teenage Rampage and Fox on the Run were number 2's. Their final UK top ten hit was "Love is like Oxygen", although this was a big departure from the rampaging pop of the earlier materials.Whilst many musical snobs derided Sweet as lightweight, due to their connections with songwriters Chinn and Chapman, they were icons of many in the Punk movement, with The Damned covering several of their tracks. I am eternally grateful to Captain Sensible and the boys for giving us permission to fess up to liking Sweet!

T Rex acheived four number ones, with Hot Love, Get It On, Telegram Sam and Metal Guru. In 1971/2, when I was first developing my musical identity, Bolan was the man. At primary school, we used to sing Telegram Sam whilst waiting for the 240 bus home. Even Pete Conways dad telling us that Marc Bolan had fleas did not deter us! I chose 20th Century Boy, even though it only reached no 3, for two reasons. It was one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar and secondly because I think it has aged far better than most of the others. It sounds as if it could have been released yeserday, rather than 43 years ago. Whenever I watch this video clip, I am reminded just how good Bolan was. Sadly Bolan stopped getting top ten hits in 1973. For me this is a travesty as he was far more creative and original than all the dross that was getting chart success.

Then there is Bowie. How many number ones Did Bowie have in his glam period in the 1970's? The answer may surprise you. He didn't achieve a single number one hit. Space Oddity was a number one, but this was in 1969, and not really in the Glam rock era. The Jean Genie got to number 2 and Drive in Saturday, Sorrow and Life on Mars made number 3. My personal favourite single from that period was Rebel Rebel, which made number 5. Reviewing Bowies discography, just illustrates what a strange bunch we, the record buying generation of the 70's really were.

So in terms of Glam chart hits, Bolan was the King, Sweet were the runners up and Bowie got the Bronze. Of course there's far more to it than that. Bowie was always more of an album artist than Bolan or Sweet, but that wasn't really what Glam was about for many of us, was it?  We wanted to sing the hits, whilst running around the bus stop!