Wormhole

I fell down a wormhole this week. Not quite literally, but pretty close. Let me explain. My Larson daily tear-off cartoon strip came up with one of his greatest hits on Wednesday. It was the one with a bird and a worm in its mouth showing a cutaway beneath the ground of an upended drum kit; the inference being that's how birds hear worms (the whole vibration thing). 

The aforementioned wormhole led me astray with all sorts of forums and conversations including who came first - Larson or Dr. Worm by They Might Be Giants? Well that's not opinion, that's just counting1 - Larson 1993, TMBG 1998. Also, why would worms advertise precisely where under the ground2 they actually were (seriously!)? And then that took me down a David Bowie related path: some gadgie said if you listen to Dr. Worm and the melody in the couplet 'They call me Doctor Worm/Good morning, how are you? it's the same as Bowie's 'Because my love for you/Would break my heart in two' in Let's Dance. I didn't even have to play Bowie's 1983 smash hit single to check; you, like me, just know it to be true. It's embedded in our brains. 

They Might Be Giants - Dr. Worm (1998)

1 ©James O'Brien.

2 In actual fact, the birds tap the ground to recreate the sound of rain, the worms then rise to the surface.

Weren't Born a Man

Some of my earliest memories of David Bowie songs are versions by other people. He would often give them away to friends like Mott the Hoople ('All the Young Dudes') and Peter Noone ('Oh! You Pretty Thing'); I've always preferred Simon Turner's interpretation of 'The Prettist Star' over the original. Still not sure about Lulu tho'.

Bowie was a huge fan of Andy Warhol but had never met the daddy of Pop Art when he penned his three minute homage to him. When he finally did play it to him he hated it. I love it. I also love his former girlfriend's versh too. And she got Mick Ronson to play guitar on it. Born Richenda Antoinette de Winterstein Gillespie she'd known the artist formerly known as David Jones since they were teenagers. Probably explains why she handles the song with such care. 

 Dana Gillespie - Andy Warhol (1973)

Just the two of us

If David Bowie was still this side of the grass the chances are he would, at some point, have been persuaded to take his Hunky Dory album out on the road and play it live - back to back (and probably chuck in a greatest hits set at the end). Tho' for that to have even been a possibility would not just have meant bring one rock god back from the grave, but two: Mick Ronson not only defined the sound of Bowie's seminal 1971 album, but was also responsible for helping create the whole Ziggy zeitgeist during that crucial '71 -'73 period. The Man Who Sold the World couldn't have done it on his own; he needed reliable backup. And in Ronson he found not just his perfect foil but someone to keep him grounded. The fact they both packed their bags and buggered off to Mars the following year is neither here nor there...

Here they are, just the two of them - Bowie on vocals and piano, Ronson on guitar...

David Bowie - Eight Line Poem (BBC session 1971)

Mick Ronson (1946-1993); David Bowie (1947-2016)

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Brevity; the idea that less is more. It's a notion I swear by. If you can say it in an eight line poem, then do so. With apologies to Tolstoy, but I'm sure War and Peace could have been condensed into two sides of A4.

Like Bowie, Robert Frost's command of the language was such that he could write a poem as powerful as Nothing Gold Can Stay with room to spare. Autumn - and life - encapsulated in a mere 40 words. It's one of my favourite pieces of prose.

Nature's first green is gold, 

Her hardest hue to hold. 

Her early leaf's a flower; 

But only so an hour. 

Then leaf subsides to leaf. 

So Eden sank to grief, 

So dawn goes down to day. 

Nothing gold can stay.

27 October 2020

There is a beautiful beech tree outside my front door. It must be 200 years old if it's a day. Although I've only lived in this house a little over three years, I feel as if I've known this tree all my life.

I took a photograph of it at the end of October with a fish eye lens. I then tweeted it and said that if I was to take another photograph of it 24 hours later it would look different again. It did. And it has done every day since. These two photos are separated by just over a week - the collage below is a daily record. (I know what I'm like - I can see me continuing to photograph this tree every day.)

5 November 2020

M*A*S*H

Apparently the definition of a novelty song is a comical or nonsensical song, performed principally for its comical effect. OK, it's a point of view. I must 'fess up to owning several exponents of the genre and whist freely admitting they don't exactly pass for high art, the very word novelty is pejorative and as such you'll find no further mention of it here; he said hoity-toitedly. (Although as a kid I remember being a fan of Ed Stewpot Stewart's Radio 1 show and didn't bat an eyelid when Sparky or the Banana Boat Song was played. Every. Sodding. Week).

I've mentioned, I'm sure, Monster Mash before on here. Probably when I was working in the lab; late one night. I won't, therefore, play it again today. Well, not that version version anyway. Here's the thing: if Bobby Pickett's 1962* graveyard smash is a novelty niche record, what the hell is this blistering version of said recording sung in Spanish?

Los Straitjackets - Que Monstruos Son (2013)

You wait 10 years for a novelty record...

Those with a highly tuned ear will have worked out by now that Monster Mash was basically 'Alley Oop' re-badged. Gary Paxton had produced the one-off hit (it certainly caught on in a flash) for the the Hollywood Argyles a couple of years earlier, and saw no reason not to tart it up and give it a monster workout. 

The Hollywood Argyles - Alley Oop (1960)

Bowie completists may or may not know that the Life on Mars line 'Look at Those Cavemen Go' was lifted from Alley Oop. You're welcome.

* Or 1973, depending on your vintage.

Dotage

My love of David Bowie is based, essentially, on a handful of albums and singles from, in the main, the period 1970-1975. Yes, I know this is shortsighted of me and, yes, I know he was so much more than that. But, like opera, Shakespeare, and beetroot, I think I've been saving latter period Bowie for my dotage: in effect, Bowies's dotage if he did but know it. 

This may or may not turn into a feature that I'll return to on rainy days and Mondays. Or even Fridays. As a holding statement I'll just put this out for today. It's taken from Heathen - his 22nd studio album. Released seventeen years ago and produced by Tony Visconti, I'm still to be convinced that Everyone Says Hi was not co-written by Ian Broudie. Have a jolly Friday everyone.

David Bowie - Everyone Sys Hi (2002)

Square Route

A midweek smash and grab raid on that London yesterday. Quality time spent in the company of Brother Mondo and Brother Steve. We zoned in on some of the West One Squares with Beatles and Bowie connections. And nearby pubs too. Obvs. First, the EMI Building in Manchester Square and, just around the corner, is where David Jones was snapped reading all about it. We volunteered a German passer by, showed her Bowie's pic and asked her to recreate same; despite a bit of camera shake, I think we just about get away with it.

Staying in the same zip code you then come across Montagu Square - it's actually a rectangle - and situated at No. 34 is where John Lennon holed up for most of '68. It's not Strawberry Fields, but it's got a blue plaque outside, nonetheless. 

A huge thank you to the boys for another great trip to the capital. Let's do it again in the Summer.

Oh! You Pretty Things

An early sighting of the Swedey McSwedeface*

Yesterday was a good day. A very good day, in fact. Our inaugural Sunday Vinyl Session at the Running Horse went really well: listening to Bowie's Hunky Dory - in its entirety - thru the house PA was absolutely spellbinding. (A big thank you to everyone who came out, and thank you, again, to Rich, my partner in crime.)
We're already building up a head of steam and have loads of ideas for upcoming albums and associated events/gigs on the back of it.
Watch this space, as they say.

In keeping with these crazy times we even had a meaningful vote - to whittle down our very longlist of potential albums for next month to a more manageable shortlist which we'll decide over the next day or two on social media.
I'm really hoping I won't have to go to Brussels to ratify the final choice.

But what made yesterday an especially good day was the visit of a blogging buddy of mine who has been reading and commenting on my blog (and me his) for nigh on a decade. But we'd never met. As I was setting the levels on the mixing desk a fella walked in the pub with a vinyl album shielding the lower half of his face* and extended his hand: the Swede. He'd travelled over 100 miles to listen to this album. That's how good Hunky Dory is. I'm afraid it meant even more chinwagging, more beer consumption and staying out all night (it's a dirty job, but someone had to do it). Roll on Session #2 - Sunday 12 May.

Hunky Dory. And a b**tleg

And from this fine album, here's what some people on Twitter are calling the best song. Ever. I'm not arguing with that.

David Bowie - Oh! You Pretty Things (1972)

* Swedey McSwedeface

Black Sky

"Can we make the sky black? Like Justin did."

God bless Twitter; yes, like any branch of social media, it's got its fair share of nut jobs and knuckle draggers. But no more than you'll find on your average high street or indeed Clapham omnibus. And although to the untrained eye it may appear to be full of nothing but Brexit, and kitten videos (and, to be fair, it's hard to remember a time when it wasn't), you'll come across nuggets like this:

Blimey. Now there's a thing. https://t.co/3xtGHOMmlY

— The Swede (@_The_Swede) March 22, 2019

Hands up if you knew that Justin Hayward's promo video for his 1978 single Forever Autumn was the prototype for Bowie's Ashes to Ashes. My hand would have remained firmly down at the back of the class. Whilst we're on the subject of Hayward, Pete Paphides played an extract from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds on his Soho Radio show this week. It was a particularly gloomy passage - that's H. G. Wells for you - and afterwards Paphides came out with a simple solution for making this particular concept album a little less miserable: instead of Richard Burton doing the narration, they should've given the gig to Ronnie Corbett. How wonderful would that have been?

David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes (1980)

Hunky Dory

Of all the projects I've set up, and being associated with, in recent years, I think the one currently in the pipeline is the one I'm most excited about. Our new Sunday Vinyl Session we've got kicking off next month - listening to albums in full - is going to be a zinger. And we're starting with an absolute nailed on classic from 1971: David Bowie's Hunky Dory.

We're meeting at the Running Horse, one of the city's most celebrated music boozers. The format, such that it is, runs on rails - a bit of chit-chat at the beginning introducing the platter de jour and putting it in context, and then straight into Side 1. A comfort break, refills at the bar, a bit more chatter about the artist and then Side 2. Closely followed by more beer, and maybe a few associated singles/ B sides, and everyone chipping in with stories and or ideas for next time. And with it being a Sunday afternoon, it'll still be light by the time we're all wrapped up. What's not to like?

The fun begins on Sunday 14th. April. See you there...

With thanks to:

Rich - his idea, I'm just riding shotgun.

James and Janneke - for the beautiful artwork.

Simon - for help and support: he started all this malarkey in Glossop five years ago.

Matt - for the RTs - check out his club Off the Record in Birmingham.

And last, but not least, Rob. Landlord at The Runner. And fellow music nut.

Lowe

Despite Arthur Lowe's exhaustive theatrical, film and TV career spanning five decades, it's rather inevitable that, in the final reckoning, he's probably remembered by many for one role and one role only.
Lowe's alter ego, the pompous* Captain Mainwaring - the part he played for almost 10 years - must ultimately have weighed him down. 
He will have had as many, if not more, Dad's Army fans come up to him in the street and shout 'Stupid Boy' than Alan Partridge acolytes have yelled 'AHA!' at Steve Coogan whenever he's nipped out for a pint of milk.

*Who remembers him voicing over the Mr. Men animated series back in the late seventies? Towards the end of Lowe's career he was a functioning alcoholic and could, allegedly, be every bit as pompous as Mainwaring himself. I'm not sure if Roger Hargreaves ever wrote a Mr. Pompous book, but here's Mainwaring Lowe reading Mr. Uppity. Fall in at the back.

Dying to Die

Black Mirror

When your time's up, your time's up; most of us, luckily, don't have the slightest clue when that is. But some of us, apparently, know when last orders have been called. David Bowie knew. He'd been preparing for it. Just listen to his final album - Blackstar; the album he released on his last birthday as an earthling. And, only two days later, achieving almost perfect mortality salience, he floated off in his tin can for the rest of eternity. (He didn't have Five Years left to die in.)

January is a pretty miserable month at the best of times. If it's not the teetotal puritans blockading pubs or right wing loonies telling us how great it's gonna be when Europe cut us loose, we are reminded that David Bowie left us three years ago this week. He was just 69. I'm not sure what that is in human years, but I do know he left behind more than a handful of songs that will never be forgotten. This being my personal favourite:

David Bowie - Conversation Piece (1969, released in '70)

Bowie must have liked it too; enough to put it on a B side, anyway. Conversation Piece is Bowie at his most fragile. Quite how it never made the cut for his Space Oddity long-player is beyond me. But he did rectify matters early the following century when he re-recorded it, made it sadder(?) and put it out on his Heathen album. I love them both.

David Bowie - Conversation Piece (2002)

David Bowie (b. 8 January 1947, d. 10 January 2016)

Piece of cake

Amsterdam - Meet the New* Flag (1975)

Amsterdam. Everyone's got an Amsterdam story; I'm no exception. However, this is, in all honesty, probably neither the time or the place to share it. Suffice it to say I lost two days of my life the last time I was in the Dutch capital. It was Scary Mary! In my defence, I was just a boy. Giving it all away.
But that was then. This is, well, now. And I'm currently booking a return visit. 'Is that sensible?' I hear you cry. "Can you be trusted?" Good questions both. To which I'd come back at you with "Of course it is" and "Hell, yeah." Well I would say that, wouldn't I? Let's hope my travelling companion thinks so too. More details to follow, I'm sure.

David Bowie - Amsterdam (1973 B-Side)

* Same as the old flag? Not quite - this is what it looked like pre-1975

The Pre-Genie

Bowie's The Jean Genie is nearly 45 years old. Can you believe it? It was released as a single in November 1972, before appearing on Aladdin Sane the following year.

'Make Me Your Baby' by Giorgio Moroder, meanwhile, will be 50 next year. Moroder, the man who gave us Chicory Tip's 'Son of My Father' and a ton of disco smashes including Donna Summers' orgasmic 'Love to Love', released this prototype for the Jean Genie in April 1968.

Giorgio Moroder - Make Me Your Baby

Tigers on Vaseline

Ziggy

Ziggy and the Spiders. No one was really sure where Ziggy hailed from - Bromley in Kent, probably - but everyone knows where the Spiders came from. And no, it's not the red planet. The Spiders: Mick Ronson, Woody Woodmansey and Trevor Bolder were all residents of Kingston upon Hull. That would have been a bit of a mouthful back in 1972 when Ziggy Stardust was looking for a name for his backing band. So, Mars it was then.

Waggy

It's not documented whether or not Ken Wagstaff (the greatest striker ever to have pulled a Hull City shirt on) was a Bowie fan or not. But in '72, Waggy and the Tigers were plying their trade in the old Second Division. In that same year The Spiders from Mars tour was in full flow.

Meanwhile, back in Hull, City (unlike now) were consistently under achieving: it would be another thirty years or more before they reached the top flight. Bowie, on the other hand, was on fire. Ziggy Stardust catapulted both him and his East Yorkshire band members front and centre - their mammoth UK and North America1972 campaign pulled in some prestigious dates in the US including New York's Carnegie Hall and the Winterland Auditorium in San Fransisco, before rounding off the year at London's Rainbow Theatre. Hull's itinerary, meanwhile, included exotic locations such as Preston North End. And Middlesborough. Although Waggy missed part of the season due to injury, he was still finding the back of the net. However, they would still finish the season nearer the bottom of the league than the top. Tigers on vaseline, indeed.

🐅  🐅  🐅  🐅  🐅  🐅  🐅

Today's offering comes on the back of finishing my new song, 'Won't Fade Away'. It's a eulogy to Hull - the place where I was born. York Songwriters are putting on a gig in the summer in a little bar in the Fruit Market later in the summer - each of us playing a Hull themed ditty. Unfortunately I'll have moved by then, so will miss it. Here's the first verse:

I was born on the Beverley High Road

When Waggy and the Tigers played at Boothferry Park

And we'd go to the Land of Green Ginger

Have a few few beers...stumble home in the dark

🐅  🐅  🐅  🐅  🐅  🐅  🐅

Changes

It was my birthday today. And I've had a great day. James and Janneke made it special. Janneke showed me how to make a Gibson. And an Espresso Martini. And she's going to knit me a bespoke scarf. James on the other hand is taking his old man to the Royal Albert Hall next year to see Seu Jorge perform The Life Equatic live.

2017 will be a year of changes. And lots of them. Some bigger than others, but changes nonetheless.

Seu Jorge: Changes

Octobowie

I've just listened to the latest Word podcast and was enthralled by Paul Morley talking so eloquently about David Bowie: Morley's biography of The Dame, 'The Age Of Bowie', has just been published and it's Morley's very personal take on probably one of the most influential players in the history of popular music.

The Bowie section on my bookshelves is very minimalist. I bought George Tremlett's sketchy paperback, 'The David Bowie Story', whilst still at school and not long out of short trousers. Tremelett's tome was quite literally a snapshot in time, ending as it does with Ziggy's retirement bash at Hammersmith Odeon in '73.

Sitting alongside Tremlett is 'Any Day Now - The London Years: 1947-1974'. And it is just that. Kevin Cann has put together an exhaustive encyclopedia of Bowie documenting what he was doing - and who he was doing it with - every single day between being born in January1947 and the day he left Britain in March 1974.

Whilst Bowie's influences are as far reaching today as they ever were and his stock, since his demise earlier this year, has never been so high, it's the years 1971-1973 when, for me, Bowie was most exciting. Seeing him on Top of the Pops playing Starman with his blue acoustic guitar, hearing Hunky Dory for the first time and getting giddy when Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars took rock and roll into a new theatrical dimension, is a unique sequence of events I feel privileged to have witnessed first hand.

Picking out random October days from these special years you can see the speed at which he was gaining traction. Space Oddity would not become a novelty hit ball and chain he would forever drag around and he was still a million miles away from Berlin. So, with the Beatles now safely in their grave, the stage was set for Bowie's grand entrance.

1971

The Man Who Sold The World is finally released and his song Oh You Pretty Thing is released by Peter Noone. His son Zowie (Duncan Jones) is born and he meets Andy Warhol for the first time in New York. He also plays Glastonbury Fayre - just as the sun is coming up.

Tuesday 19 October. Preview copies of the new album, Hunky Dory, are pressed with a final track listing and mix.

1972

Hunky Dory charts in the US and Ziggy is unveiled for the first time. He gifts All the Young Dudes to Mott The Hoople and produces Lou Reed's Transformer.

Friday 6 October. The Jean Genie (or 'Dream Genie' as its called on the tape box) is recorded in RCA's Studio D.

1973

A year bookended by Aladdin Sane and Pin Ups with Drive in Saturday and the death of Ziggy somewhere in the middle. By now he's huge - both over here and, all importantly, over there. Over there being America and Japan and most of the English speaking world.


Thursday 18 October. Filming of the The 1980 Floor Show, a Bowie live extravaganza, begins at London's Marquee Club - to be broadcast the following month in the US on NBC's Midnight Special.

The Muppet Who Fell to Earth

Name: Beaker

Species: Muppet

Occupation: Assistant Scientist, test subject

Secret: Closet Bowie fan

Station to Station

British Rail breakfast c.1973

Second helpings

David Bowie's fear of flying was well documented. He was convinced if he ever got on a plane he would die. Bowie's lifelong patronage of liners and bullet trains meant that when he toured the world he actually saw the world. Albeit with a lot of sea thrown in for good measure. During his 1972 tour of North America he amassed a staggering 15,000 train miles in 83 days. Forget blue plaques and commemorative statues; they should name a locomotive after him.

David Bowie 1947-2016

Just Backdated

BBC 6 Music are cock-a-hoop about finding a 'lost' radio show that David Bowie knocked up forty years ago to plug his then current album Pin Ups - a perfectly sculptured and segued homage to 60s London. Talking about his version of I Can't Explain, Bowie has this to say about The Who:

'...but the biggest buzz was back at The Marquee. They dressed weeks out of date, but they did all the right stuff – Martha & The Vandellas and all that. A lot of action on a night. They were our band, The Who.'

That's right, The Who's fashion sense was so ancient they dressed weeks out of date; Pete Townshend must have been hanging his head in shame. I love the way Bowie put a sax on the song Townshend freely admits to nicking off The Kinks.

David Bowie - I Can't Explain (1973)