All the ‘sonic’ dreams in my mind’s eye
The November issue of MIX magazine, “The world’s leading magazine for commercial and project studio recording”, has two interesting articles featuring db. Firstly, as part of the magazine’s annual look at vocal-recording techniques, they chose four stylistically different recent CD’s and talked to the respective engineers. Tony Visconti does the honours for ‘Heathen’.
The magazine says:- Bowie is an even better singer today than he was during the earlier decade-plus he worked with Visconti. And both remain committed to taking chances in the studio: Heathen is loaded with brilliant and unusual instrumental and vocal touches; it’s quite a tour de force all the way around. Tony talks at length about David’s often ‘off the cuff’ methods of working and says:- I guess only Bowie can work this way. His mind is mercurial, and his vocal chops are first-class!
Check out the whole thing, which is altogether a fascinating insight into the making of ‘Heathen’ with lots to please the techies among you, here. (Thanks EOS)
The second article is even more technical and describes the sound facility as observed on the last night of the Area 2 tour in Seattle. So if you want to know what kind of mics David and the band were using and whether or not the FOH engineer liked his mixing desk, then go here. (Thanks EOS)
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I got believers
EOS must have been on a roll last weekend, and his next offering is not available online so he’s very kindly transcribed it for you. This month’s Keyboard Magazine has an interview with Rick Wakeman (‘Hunky Dory’ and ‘Space Oddity’ musician and notable keyboardist) and he’s asked:-
“Was there on artist who had the biggest influence on the direction you took?”
His reply:- Studio-wise, David Bowie. I learned so much from David in the studio. He was always very well prepared when he went in. He used to be 80-percent ready when he went into the studio, and the studio would take you that last 20 percent. He still writes everything on a battered old 12-string guitar. He used to say, “Why don’t you go over to that old piano. Don’t bother with all those new sounds yet. If you sound good on a battered old piano or a battered old 12-string, then when we start adding good sounds, it can only get better.”
You know, when you listen to something and somebody goes, “What do you think of that track?” You usually say, “Wow, great sounds,” which often means, “crap songs.” But if you pull away the sounds, you see what you’ve got left. I learned a lot from David and his producers, Tony Visconti and Ken Scott.
In that particular era, the early ’70’s, David was a big influence on how I worked. And he always said you’ve got to do what you believe in. He said that if you really believe in something when you do it, then the people you’ve got to convince are the audience – not the heads of record companies. He always considered those to be complete and utter idiots. I think to a lot of extent sometimes he’s right. They don’t know a hatchet from a crotchet.
And the danger is, sometimes people in record companies, because they have no talent themselves, try to get the bands and musicians they’ve got to play what they would like. And that’s absolutely crazy, because they don’t have the imagination to do that. If you were an editor of a publishing company and had a great author, say Steven King, and you asked him to come in, and said, “I’m looking forward to your next book. Oh, by the way, it would be really good if you could have a couple car crashes, boats sinking, and a bit of racism. Apart from that you can do what you like.” Steven King would say, “Who’s writing this book, you or me?”
But that’s what happened to so much in the record industry; they tell their bands what they want, which is actually disgraceful. And I’ve always admired David, who’d put two fingers up and say, “I do what I do, and if you don’t like it, that’s tough.” There’s so much music, so many bands sounding the same these days.
(Thanks EOS)
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You should spend the morning lying to your father
There is also a brand new interview with David, online at lam-online.com – the web version of ‘Living Abroad Magazine’. ‘Vinyl’ first posted the link on our boards, but it’s well worth repeating here for those of you who may have missed it. Here are a couple of extracts:-
Most Spinal Tap moment
“Oh God! I thought [the 1986 movie] Labyrinth got pretty damn near it, but I was made to do that. What ones did I do of my own volition? That’s more telling, isn’t it? I’ve always hated the way I looked when I was with the King Bees [in 1965]. Yeah, it was that coalman’s jacket I used to wear, the leather kinda waistcoaty affair. It was very long and it had no sleeves. It was what coalmen used to wear to put their sacks over their backs but I thought it was an interesting fashion item! My hair was none too clever either,” he chuckles.
BowieNet
He brews his first cup at 5am, when he logs onto www.davidbowie.com to check what his beloved cyber “community” has said about him during the night. The level of his involvement is astonishing. He has personally programmed three streaming radio stations, he diarises regularly, updates recommended reading and web links and participates in promotions, discussions and feedback.Bowie’s tone is jovial, generous and, yes, fatherly. Far from the icy enigma of Ziggy Stardust, here’s a pop icon who seems to genuinely love hanging with his homies.
“Oh yeah, I do,” he says. “And I also get angry with them and wanna tick ’em off sometimes. I’m forever correcting ’em: ‘No I didn’t! That was Ozzy Osbourne, not me!’ Someone once told me, ‘David, don’t explain, don’t complain.’ But I’ve never taken that to heart. I always wanna say, ‘You got that wrong!'”
Most valuable contribution to rock’n’roll
“I would like to think I opened up a lot of avenues for people to explore,” he says with measured modesty. “More than anything else I like the idea that what I did was a liberalising experience in a way and took music away from a kind of claustrophobia and narrow-mindedness. It certainly opened it up a bit.”
There’s also a slightly suspect, although not altogether bad if you can get past the ‘Mrs Malaprop’ song and album titles, analysis of David’s output. Check out the whole thing, here.
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‘He’ planted seeds of rebirth
and finally – are you still awake at the back? – ‘feed your head’ with this from Grammy.com. In celebration of the 30th anniversary of ‘Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’, John Sutton-Smith gives an appraisal of that album and looks back over the whole of David’s career. The article is eminently quotable and bang-on in most cases, for this ‘homie’ anyway. He says:-
It’s hard for a rock star to remain cool for more than a few years. But David Bowie ? the constantly changing and elusive “chameleon, comedian, Corinthian and caricature” as he sang on Hunky Dory’s “The Bewlay Brothers” ? has managed it for more than 30 years.
So this year’s 30th anniversary of the release of The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars prompts an appreciation of the landmark album, both for its own sake as a work of remarkable originality and power, and for its astonishing influence on the birth of a number of seminal musical genres, crossing barriers of both style and gender.
and
It is no exaggeration to say that disco would not have had the same style and sophistication if not for the groundbreaking Young Americans album that presaged that era.
Likewise, his collaborations with producer Brian Eno (sic) on Low and Heroes helped popularize a techno-production style that was the foundation for the then future world of electronica.
and
As for Ziggy, a 1972 Cashbox review of the album, which Bowie’s label RCA used in their promotions, said in part, “If they are still putting phonograph records in time capsules, then we would like to recommend the new Bowie for inclusion. David’s latest full-scale invasion of the mind is the telling saga of a rock and roll star’s trek through a garden of unearthly delights … It’s an electric age nightmare*. It’s a cold hard beauty. It’s another example of the shining genius of David Bowie. An album to take with you into the 1980’s.”
And well beyond.
To steal from TBB, “you know what to do” for the whole thing. (Thanks to Bonster for the link)
*Grammy say ‘beauty’ here, which is probably a copy typing mistake, spotted by our eagle-eyed news editor.
:))
