ANCIANT Album Focus: Lodger

 

“Sometimes I feel, The need to move on”

 

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

 

Two and a half weeks till the September 29th release of the David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town (1977–1982) box set (ANCIANT), and the subject of our album focus this week is Lodger.

 

Have a listen to the third and final album in the so called ‘Berlin Trilogy’ on the official ANCIANT playlist.

 

Pre-order ANCIANT here.

 

 

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieLodger

Lust For Life is forty today

 

“Here comes my face, Out of the crowd”

 

We posted a piece back in March celebrating the 40th anniversary of Iggy Pop’s debut solo album, The Idiot. 

 

Well, today is the 40th anniversary of Lust For Life, the follow up to The Idiot. Yes, it’s an Iggy Pop album, but it’s also an important part of David Bowie’s recorded history.

 

Bowie co-wrote seven of the nine tracks on the record and suggested the title Lust For Life, after having composed the riff on a ukulele with the Armed Forces Network staccato TV station ident for inspiration, as the pair watched TV one evening.

 

Bowie, Pop and engineer Colin Thurston produced Lust for Life under the pseudonym “Bewlay Bros.”

 

Here’s the album’s personnel:

 

Iggy Pop – vocals

David Bowie – keyboards, piano, organ, backing vocals

Carlos Alomar – rhythm guitar (lead on “Lust for Life” & “Turn Blue”), backing vocals

Ricky Gardiner – lead guitar, backing vocals, (drums on “Fall in Love with Me”)

Warren Peace – keyboards and backing vocals on “Turn Blue”

Tony Sales – bass, backing vocals, (guitar on “Fall in Love with Me”)

Hunt Sales – drums, backing vocals, (bass on “Fall in Love with Me”)

 

Along with Bowie, the Sales brothers later made up three quarters of Tin Machine.

 

The album reached #28 on the official UK album chart and it might have performed far better if people could have actually bought the thing. RCA had shifted their pressing facilities to the production of Elvis Presley’s back catalogue following his death the previous month.

 

Nevertheless, it remained Iggy’s highest album chart position until the release of last year’s Post Pop Depression.

 

This is the tracklising for Lust For Life…

 

Side 1

Lust for Life

Sixteen

Some Weird Sin

The Passenger

Tonight

 

Side 2

Success

Turn Blue

Neighbourhood Threat

Fall in Love with Me

 

Bowie later recorded his own versions of Tonight and Neighbourhood Threat. He also performed the title track live occasionally during his 1996 summer festival shows.

 

Success was released as the single from Lust For Life, but ironically, it was a complete flop.

 

1977 was a great year for Bowie and Iggy with the releases of Low, The Idiot, “Heroes” and Lust For Life, four classic albums which just grow in stature as time passes.

 

In the unlikely event that you’re not already familiar with this masterpiece, listen here.

 

 

#BowieIggy  #LFL40  #LustForLife40

Win a set of 5 Bowie vinyl test pressings

 

“All you have to do is win…”

 

How do you fancy a set of impossibly rare, white label, vinyl test pressings from the upcoming David Bowie ‘A New Career In A New Town’ box set?

 

The set includes the following five albums: Low, “Heroes”, Lodger (Original mix), Lodger (TV 2017 mix) and Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), all courtesy of Parlophone.

 

For your chance to win, follow the official ANCIANT playlist here.

 

 

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieVinyl  

ANCIANT Album Focus: Stage

 

“The boy in the bright blue jacket, jumped up on the stage” *

 

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

 

Today we continue our album focus on Stage, the recorded document of the ISOLAR 2 tour, or, as it was known at the time: The 1978 World Tour.

 

Here’s the introduction of Matt Damsker’s review of one of the Spectrum Arena shows in Philadelphia, where much of Stage was recorded.

 

 

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Flamboyant David Bowie Returns — in Triumph. By MATT DAMSKER of The Bulletin Staff

 

Even without the benefit of a current hit record, David Bowie continues to assert his eminence among ‘70s rock heroes with one of the year’s most impressive tours and last night at the Spectrum the flamboyant British star returned in triumph to a near-capacity houseful of more than 18,000. As in past appearances here, Bowie alternately transfixed and roused the audience with his coolly cultivated performing style and daringly original music.

 

Announcing at the onset of last night’s show that it was being taped for yet another album of in-concert material – his first, “David Live”, was recorded in 1974 at Upper Darby’s Tower Theatre – Bowie made clear that Philadelphia remains the most inspiring market for his stage efforts.

 

 

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STAGE FACT FILE:

 

Originally released in the UK as RCA PL 02913 on 8th September, 1978.

Peak UK chart position: #5

Peak US chart position: #44

 

Produced by DAVID BOWIE and TONY VISCONTI.

Mixed by TONY VISCONTI.

Live sound mixed by BUFORD JONES.

Recorded by TONY VISCONTI with the RCA MOBILE UNIT

 

MUSICIANS

DAVID BOWIE – vocals, chamberlain

CARLOS ALOMAR – rhythm guitar

ADRIAN BELEW – lead guitar

DENNIS DAVIS – drums, percussion

SIMON HOUSE – electric violin

SEAN MAYES – piano, string ensemble

GEORGE MURRAY – bass guitar

ROGER POWELL – keyboards, synthesizer

CARLOS ALOMAR, ADRIAN BELEW, SEAN MAYES,

GEORGE MURRAY and ROGER POWELL – background vocals

 

Stage was recorded live at the Spectrum Arena, Philadelphia, 28th and 29th April, 1978, Civic Center, Providence, 5th May, 1978 and New Boston Garden Arena, Boston, 6th May, 1978.

On 14th November, 2005, an expanded and recompiled version of Stage was released on EMI on CD 836 4362 and also in 5.1 on the DVD-Audio EMI 863 4369.

The 2017 version has been further augmented by the inclusion of ‘The Jean Genie’ from the Boston show and ‘Suffragette City’ from the Philadelphia show.

 

Stage 2017 Tracklisting:

 

SIDE 1

1. WARSZAWA

2. “HEROES”

3. WHAT IN THE WORLD

 

SIDE 2

1. BE MY WIFE

2. THE JEAN GENIE

3. BLACKOUT

4. SENSE OF DOUBT

 

SIDE 3

1. SPEED OF LIFE

2. BREAKING GLASS

3. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

4. FAME

 

SIDE 4

1. FIVE YEARS

2. SOUL LOVE

3. STAR

4. HANG ON TO YOURSELF

5. ZIGGY STARDUST

6. SUFFRAGETTE CITY

 

SIDE 5

1. ART DECADE

2. ALABAMA SONG

3. STATION TO STATION

 

SIDE 6

1. STAY

2. TVC 15

 

 

Associated UK release:

3-track Breaking Glass EP released November 1978 – (Peak UK chart position: #54)

Tracks: Breaking Glass/Art Decade/Ziggy Stardust

 

Associated US release:

3-track promotional only white vinyl 12″.

Tracks: Star/What In The World/Breaking Glass

 

Associated Japanese release:

Soul Love/Blackout

 

Stage’s release was delayed somewhat from the original scheduled date. Apparently this was in no small part due to Bowie having seen a report in the French magazine Best, regarding the US leg of the tour. The review included an unauthorised shot by Gilles Riberolles, which so enamoured DB that he delayed the release of the album to have the cover changed to the one we now know.

 

Don’t forget you can listen to the official David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town playlist here. Pre-order ANCIANT here.

 

* No, we’re not colour-blind. The green jacket in our illustration was originally a sort of blue, blue…electric blue.

 

 

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieStage

14-pages and 10 out of 10 ANCIANT review in LLV

 

“…want to know the past, want to know the real deal”

 

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town – LLV = Long Live Vinyl magazine)

 

Available now is the October issue of LLV. This relatively new publication (this is issue 7), has already featured Bowie regularly within its pages, including a superb DB album discography and collectors’ special by Andrew Price in Issue 1.

 

The October issue has a 10-page feature focusing on ANCIANT as outlined in this blurb:

 

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The October issue of Long Live Vinyl celebrates the release of David Bowie’s incredible 13-disc boxset A New Career In A New Town. Gareth Murphy tells the inside story behind the creation of Bowie’s iconic Berlin Trilogy before running the rule over the boxset and speaking to remastering engineer Ray Staff about Tony Visconti’s breathtaking 2017 mix of Lodger. For Bowie fans, it’s essential reading.

 

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Aside from the 10-page feature, there is a 10 out of 10, 2-page review for ANCIANT, also by Gareth Murphy, in which he suggests that ANCIANT is: “real-deal luxury you will treasure for life”, the inspiration for today’s lyric quotation.

 

On top of that is the cover and a full-page advert for ANCIANT bringing the content up to 14-pages, that’s not including the introduction by Editor Gary Walker and a brief piece placing the Japanese Lady Stardust picture disc in the £150 bracket.

 

More information and ordering links here.

 

 

David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town (1977–1982) box set is released on September 29th.

 

 

 

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieVinyl  #LLV

 

ANCIANT Album Focus: Stage

 

“One man in his time plays many parts” *             

 

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

 

Just over three weeks till the September 29th release of the David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town (1977–1982) box set (ANCIANT). 

 

This week our album focus is on the second of Bowie’s official live album releases, 1978’s Stage. Check out a cool little animation here.

 

Pop over to the official David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town playlist and have a listen to the 2005 version ahead of the 2012 release, which contains two extra tracks.

 

 

*Some of you may be wondering why we have quoted Shakespeare today, instead of using a Bowie lyric quotation. The line from The Bard’s As You Like It was used in the award winning advertising campaign for Stage and we think you’ll agree it’s wholly appropriate for Bowie.

 

 

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieStage

ANCIANT Album Focus: "Heroes"

 

“You can’t say no to the Beauty and the Beast”

 

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

 

Ahead of the release of ANCIANT later this month, here’s the next part of our album focus on “Heroes”.

 

As mentioned previously, there were just two singles taken from the “Heroes” album in the UK.

 

“Heroes”/V-2 Schneider released September 1977 – (Peak UK chart position: #24)

Beauty And The Beast/Sense of Doubt released January 1978 – (Peak UK chart position: #39)

 

Pretty well everyone with a full set of working ears is familiar with the title track, but those not acquainted with the Bowie back catalogue might not know Beauty And The Beast. As with many Bowie single releases, the track sounded like nothing else on the radio at the time.

 

As with its predecessor, perhaps the public en masse just wasn’t ready for the latest Bowie sound, with Fripp’s guitar again taking centre stage and that ahead of the curve Bowie/Visconti production…“TOMORROW BELONGS TO THOSE WHO CAN HEAR IT COMING”.

 

However, the song was certainly strong enough to be the “Heroes” album opener, and though it may have been considered an unusual choice for a single, it was just as viable as any of the other tracks on the album.

 

Tony Visconti confirms that the line: “Someone fetch a priest”, was originally recorded with a different F-word to fetch. A wise decision to change it perhaps, or it may not have received quite the airplay that it did.

 

Though there had only been four previous Bowie picture sleeve singles released commercially in the UK (Starman 1972, Life On Mars? 1973, Space Oddity 1975, Suffragette City 1976), Beauty And The Beast was issued in one (basically the album cover), but the single still only just scraped into the Top 40 on the official UK singles chart. Nevertheless, Bowie picture sleeves would become de rigueur from Beauty And The Beast onwards.

 

An extended version was released as a promo only 12” single in the US and commercially as a 12” single in Spain. Listen to it now on Spotify.

 

The track can also be found on the official David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town playlist.

 

 

FOOTNOTE: Check out our video featuring David Bowie’s handwritten lyrics for Beauty And The Beast, here.

 

 

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieHeroes

Charles Shaar Murray on THAT Low review

 

“It’s about to be writ again”

 

As we mentioned in our focus on Low last week, it seems everybody was caught on the hop by the release of the album, not least of all RCA. All of the advertising and reviews appeared AFTER Low had been released. There wasn’t even a lead single preceding its release, which was practically unheard of. (Hunky Dory was the only other RCA Bowie album that didn’t have one.)

 

Going by the lateness of the published reviews for Low, it almost seems that preview copies weren’t sent out. In fact, for many (in the UK at least), the first time they would have heard the recording was when John Peel played it in its entirety upon release, on his Radio 1 show.

 

Once reviews started appearing, it was clear that this was an album that was going to spilt people.

 

Among the great reviews there were some equally negative ones, not least of all, Charles Shaar Murray’s (CSM) in the NME. The magazine considered the release important enough to reserve a page and a half for two reviews, the other being by Ian MacDonald.

 

CSM was well known to Bowie fans for always getting the scoop and authoring several fascinating and beautifully written Bowie features within the pages of NME. That’s Charles pictured with DB in happier times in Paris in 1973.

 

It was possibly because Murray’s writing always seemed to be in praise of Bowie, that this particular review for Low was singled out. Indeed, he’s never been allowed to forget it, getting a national nose-rubbing for Francis Whately’s Five Years screening on the BBC, when he was asked to read out an excerpt.

 

But rather than dwell upon that, forty years later (while not expecting a U-turn), we thought we’d give CSM the chance to at least explain what his mind-set was back then. Over to you Charles…

 

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Homage To Catatonia – Charles Shaar Murray

 

Last night I dreamed about Bowie. He had his late-‘70s look (as per “Heroes”), and we were in a bar with a bunch of other people. During a gap in his conversation with someone else, I asked him a question. He laughed and teased me for a while, and then he answered it.

 

Unfortunately, when I awoke I couldn’t remember his answer. Or even my question.

 

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Every working critic makes mistakes, which is one of the reasons I called my ‘collected works’ anthology Shots From The Hip: you have to make your mind up fast, and then articulate your perception crisply, clearly and hopefully logically. Two of my three worst ‘70s mistakes were to be inappropriately harsh assessments of both Blondie and The Clash at very early gigs, and not realising how rapidly they’d go from faltering to wonderful and how fast their baby steps would become giant strides.

 

The third was my reaction to Low. That review became mildly notorious: in fact, I was asked to read extracts from it aloud when appearing on the recent Bowiedoc Five Years. Worse! My proposed headline – Homage To Catatonia –  was ‘corrected’ by an over-enthusiastic proofreader to Homage To Catalonia (the title of George Orwell’s scarifying memoir of the Spanish Civil War), and therefore made no fucking sense whatsoever.

 

So: there were two major ingredients to my misreading of Low, one cultural, once personal. In order, then: we had become accustomed to the notion of Bowie as singer/songwriter/performer: someone whose voice, words and sensibility (not to mention visual persona) were always centre-stage. Now here was an album where Bowie – as we understood him – had virtually disappeared into the musical backdrop. Those tracks which were not instrumentals offered telegrammatic lyrics bereft of the artful allusions and decodable references which had adorned even his most challenging previous album, Station To Station.

 

Low was therefore as much of a shock to many Bowie geeks as Nashville Skyline had been a few years earlier to Dylanoids (the term ‘Bobcats’ had not yet been invented), even those who had previously had no trouble negotiating the transition from denim-clad protesty folk troubadour to sharp-suited, slickly beshaded deafeningly-amplified rock and roll mystic. The notion that Dylan might wish to express himself through lyrically simple country songs was a little too much for many fans and critics to wrap their heads around. I was one of them.

 

Similarly – if you’ll pardon another seriously Olde Skoole rock reference – John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band solo album was another, similar mind-fuck. No hallucinatory sound-collages, no allusive Lewis Carrollesque lyrics, no Walrus or Day In The Life: just crunchy punk-blues guitar over bedrock rhythms and barely-processed howls of pain. POB was Lennon’s blues album and, in its way, Low was Bowie’s.

 

Of course, a Bowie blues album was unlike anyone else’s, just as Lennon’s was. Certainly, it didn’t sound like John Lee Hooker or BB King. And, thanks to the team-up between Bowie, Brian Eno and Tony Visconti, it didn’t sound quite like anything anybody else had ever done: the gap between ‘real’ instruments (guitar, bass, drums, horns, piano) and ‘imaginary’ ones (various synths) was artfully blurred by Visconti and Eno’s use of sound-processing gadgets (Eventide Harmoniser, EMS and Chamberlain synths et al) into a new kind of soundscape against which Bowie stated in the simplest and most direct language what was going on with him. And ain’t that the blues?

 

Low was hugely influential. The drum sound Visconti created with the Harmoniser from Dennis Davis’s original performance became well-nigh ubiquitous throughout the 1980s; without Low, Gary Numan would never have had a career. The album – and the rest of the ‘Berlin Trilogy’ (“Heroes” and Lodger) – has been adapted into other forms by some serious peeps: check Philip Glass’s Low and “Heroes” Symphonies and Dylan Howe’s jazz odyssey Subterrananean: New Designs On Bowie’s Berlin.

 

Low is unquestionably one of Bowie’s most influential albums in terms of changing the world around it. It’s also the one of Bowie’s major masterpieces (by contrast with minor masterpieces like The Buddha Of Suburbia, Outside and the first Tin Machine album) which I like the least.

 

Which is where the ‘personal’ element comes in. Around the time the album arrived, I had just about managed to haul myself and my then-wife out of the pit of severe amphetamine addiction. We did indeed have ‘pale blinds drawn all day; she was the ‘little girl with grey eyes [who would] never leave her room’ … the album seemed to glamourise everything we’d just fought against, and remember: at that time Bowie’s intergalactic charisma was capable of glamourizing everything short of hemorrhoids and hairy shoulders, let alone a state of post-speed (or post-coke) psychotic withdrawal. At a time when speed abuse was reaching epidemic proportions on what was about to become the punk scene, I felt that this album was seriously not helping. And, despite – or perhaps BECAUSE of – its brilliance, I hated it.

 

Later on, I loved “Heroes” because it seemed to be z triumph over the mindset in which Low was wallowing. And, checking in with DB via a “Heroes”-era interview, I realized that I’d (sort-of) got it right: except that DB had gone through much of the same stuff that I had, only in more luxurious surroundings and with far better drugs.

 

Now? Low is an album I can admire, for any number of reasons, and freely and happily acknowledge for its innovation and influence. Unfortunately, it’s one which I can never enjoy.

 

© Charles Shaar Murray, 2017

 

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Thanks Charles, much appreciated. If you’ve not checked out Charles’ collected works, Shots From the Hip: Notes from the counterculture, you really should. It’s a joy to read.

 

We’ll leave you with evidence of some of those more appreciative reviews of Low…

 

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Remarkably, alluringly beautiful…one of the finest discs of his career.

 

John Rockwell – The New York Times (US), January 1977

 

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So. This album is not…

Ordinary.

Immediate.

Commercial.

Or compromising.

(A lot of Bowie fans are going to hate ‘Low’)

So. This album is…

Remarkable.

Unique.

Odd.

Arguably triumphant.

And inarguably innovatory.

So. This album might be…

Bowie’s best ever.

Eno’s best ever.

A mechanical classic.

So. Whatever. Prepare for shock treatment.

 

Tim Lott – Sounds (UK), January 1977

 

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It is by far his most bizarre and adventurous LP and although at times synthesised to death, it is firmly Bowie’s album, with side one being a direct musical extension of “Young Americans” and “Station To Station”.

 

But apart from some African awareness, side two is a new area of exploration. Have a lot of fun checking it out.

 

David Hancock – National RockStar (UK), January 1977

 

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It’s good to see Bowie aimed at the future and not recycling past glories. Low is a gamble which succeeds. Dunno what his fans will think but, whatever, Bowie has once again shaken up the scene in his own inimitable way – and more power to him.

 

Kris Needs – ZigZag (UK), February 1977

 

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Low seems to be the inner document of someone either on the edge of psychosis or obsessed right down to the bone. Nothing fits or holds firm, nothing makes rational sense, nothing follows the formal or practical rules of the game. But for Bowie, who never follows the rules, none of this disorientation is negative; on the contrary, Low is the most intimate and free recording this extraordinary artist has yet made. This haunting, oddly beautiful music, strewn with recesses to be delved into gradually and a few at a time, is affecting in a strikingly subtle and powerful way.

 

Bowie’s instincts are uncanny: he seems to stay on course by continually veering off-course and he has a knack for making music that (as a friend says) “feels exactly the way I feel right now.” There’s something about Low’s textures, moods, and energies that gets under the skin and keeps working deeper, but I couldn’t begin to explain how or why it works. I don’t want to try – there are times when it’s better to acknowledge than attempt to analyze, and this music is governed by a mystery that exists not to be penetrated but to be accepted as mystery.

 

Bud Scoppa – Phonograph Record (US), February 1977

 

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Bowie is a superior creative force. Here he takes his eclectic disco music to the brink of the avant-garde. His particular magic is that his audience will follow him to a place they would never get to without him. Ingenious.

 

Walrus Special Mention Album

 

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You can read the majority of these reviews in their entirety over at Rock’s Back Pages.

 

 

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieLow

German Rolling Stone exclusive Bowie vinyl

 

“Und wir sind dann Helden, Für einen Tag…”

 

As we’re focusing on “Heroes” this week, we thought it pertinent to mention that the October 2017 issue of Rolling Stone magazine in Germany, has an exclusive Bowie feature and cover-mounted 7″ vinyl single of “Helden”/”Heroes”.

 

The magazine/vinyl package is available to pre-order now, but it’s only available to addresses in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

 

Here’s the tracklisting of this future 33 1/3rd collectable.

 

Side 1: “Helden” (’89 remix version)

Side 2: “Heroes” (live version from Stage)

 

Stay tuned for more information regarding this issue, shortly.

 

 

#BowieHelden  #BowieHeroes  #RSDEBowie  #ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieVinyl

ANCIANT Album Focus: "Heroes"

 

“They don’t walk, they just glide in and out of life”

 

(ANCIANT = A New Career In A New Town)

 

Here’s another instalment of our album focus on “Heroes”.

 

This is Tony Visconti’s introduction from another set of very informative notes (from the ANCIANT book), regarding the recording of “Heroes”…

 

 

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‘”Heroes”’ began in Hansa Studios, West Berlin, by the Berlin Wall. The intense and diverse reaction to the experimental album ‘Low’ proved that the best path for

David, at this point in his career, was to continue to break all the rules. This continued to be the course of action with more or less the same team. Alomar, Murray and Davis returned, Eno and Bowie shared keyboard duties. The tracking sessions were recorded without a lead guitarist. Robert Fripp would arrive two weeks later.

 

True to form, we all congregated in Berlin with nothing more than chord changes and rhythm ideas, not yet songs. Carlos, George and Dennis instinctively knew what to do from the start but played harder than the previous album. ‘Low’ was like learning a new alphabet. ‘”Heroes”’ was the subsequent pulp fiction novel! Like

‘Low’, it didn’t take very long to record the seven band tracks. They took less than a week. Carlos stayed behind to add more guitar but the parts were more supportive than fiery. We were expecting Robert Fripp to start the fire.

 

It’s hard to believe that ‘Beauty And The Beast’ to ‘The Secret Life Of Arabia’ were just backing tracks arranged on the spot with no knowledge of titles, vocal melodies or lyrics. Once a riff was established, as in ‘Beauty And The Beast’, a lick, an interjection, a countermelody, a quirky drum fill all fell into place naturally. Somehow it was mutually sensed where singing would and wouldn’t be. Emotional music textures, not songs, were being recorded.

 

 

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“HEROES” FACT FILE:

 

Released in the UK as RCA PL 12522 on 14th October, 1977.

Peak UK chart position: #3

Peak US chart position: #35

 

Original Tracklisting

 

SIDE 1

1. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

2. JOE THE LION

3. “HEROES”

4. SONS OF THE SILENT AGE

5. BLACKOUT

 

SIDE 2

1. V-2 SCHNEIDER

2. SENSE OF DOUBT

3. MOSS GARDEN

4. NEUKÖLN

5. THE SECRET LIFE OF ARABIA

 

Bonus tracks on 1991 RykoDisc reissue:

 

Abdulmajid Previously unreleased track recorded 1976-79

Joe The Lion Remixed version, 1991

 

Original UK Singles:

“Heroes”/V-2 Schneider released September 1977 – (Peak UK chart position: #24)

Beauty And The Beast/Sense of Doubt released January 1978 – (Peak UK chart position: #39)

 

“TOMORROW BELONGS TO THOSE WHO CAN HEAR IT COMING” was the rather ironic tagline for “Heroes”. Ironic in that the single only reached #24 in the UK upon release, but as time goes on the song has become more and more popular. This fact was highlighted when streams of Bowie’s music on Spotify reached one billion last week, with “Heroes” topping that list. Forty years later it seems tomorrow has finally arrived.

 

All songs written by DAVID BOWIE except ‘“HEROES”’ lyrics written by DAVID BOWIE, music written by DAVID BOWIE and BRIAN ENO, ‘MOSS GARDEN’ and ‘NEUKÖLN’ written by

DAVID BOWIE and BRIAN ENO and ‘THE SECRET LIFE OF ARABIA’ lyrics written by DAVID BOWIE, music written by DAVID BOWIE, CARLOS ALOMAR and BRIAN ENO.

 

Produced by DAVID BOWIE and TONY VISCONTI.

Recorded at HANSA BY THE WALL, BERLIN between 11th July and 8th August, 1977.

Engineers – TONY VISCONTI and COLIN THURSTON and MOUNTAIN STUDIOS, MONTREUX.

Assistant engineers – DAVID RICHARDS and EUGENE CHAPLIN.

Mixed at MOUNTAIN STUDIOS, MONTREUX.

HANSA BY THE WALL in-house engineer: EDUARD MEYER.

 

Don’t forget you can listen to the official David Bowie: A New Career In A New Town playlist here.

 

Pre-order ANCIANT here.

 

 

#ANCIANTbox  #ANewCareerInANewTownBox  #BowieHeroes