David Bowie is (part 18): 'Sometimes I feel the need to move on'

In December 1977, David Bowie narrated Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. It was released in May 1978. Bowie has since said that he did the project as a Christmas present for his then 7 year old son, Duncan Jones. The narration was then used for a Disney cartoon (see it here).

At the end of January 1978, David Bowie began filming Just A Gigolo, Bowie's second major film role. The film was set in Berlin and Bowie was excited to filming in many of his old haunts and, in particular, to meet Marlene Dietrich, in her first film appearance for 18 years. Unfortunately for him, all her parts were filmed separately in a studio set in Paris and Bowie had to act to a chair. The two parts were cut together later. The hostile reception the film received led Bowie to joke that it was "my 32 Elvis Presley movies rolled into one" (see a clip here).

The Isolar II 1978 World Tour, more commonly known as The Low / Heroes World Tour or The Stage Tour, was a worldwide concert tour by David Bowie. The tour opened on 29 March 1978 at the San Diego Sports Arena continuing through North America, Europe and Australia before reaching a conclusion at the Nippon Budokan in Japan on 12 December 1978. The tour comprised the usual central group of Alomar, Davis and Murray fortified with guitarist Adrian Belew from Frank Zappa's band, violinist Simon House, pianist Sean Mayes and keyboardist Roger Powell. The show would last an hour and a half beginning with 'Warzawa', combining tracks from Low and "Heroes" as well as Ziggy-era stuff and a Station to Station set. On 8 September Bowie released a live album from the Philadelphia shows called Stage. At that time Bowie was taking advantage of a short break in the tour to begin recording another album. Here is the Stage album. This show is from the later Japanese leg.

The third and final instalment of the Berlin trilogy or 'Triptych' as Bowie was now calling it was Lodger. Although not having the same epic grandeur of the previous two albums Lodger retained the same spirit of experimentation; it was quirky and highly original and inventive. Bowie also abandoned the idea of an instrumental side two. This change in style is partly because of the location. Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland had much more comfortable and conventional surroundings than Hansa in Berlin.

Guitarist Carlos Alomar and violinist Simon House felt as though Brian Eno's creativity was beginning to dry up although some of the techniques employed by Eno, Bowie and Visconti helped the musicians to find something great within themselves. Guitarist Adrian Belew was asked to play a solo over a track he had never heard before. They refused to even tell him what key it was in. He was told, "Just play!" He had three chances and then they would move on to another song and do the same thing again. His solo on 'Boys Keep Swinging' is incredible yet he has no memory of playing it. Sometimes seen as one of Bowie's more underrated albums there is much to pique ones interest. On 'Boys Keep Swinging' the musicians changed instruments to give the track a rough edge; 'Yassassin' has a Turkish feel; and 'Red Money' used the same music as the song 'Sister Midnight' that Bowie had given to Iggy Pop for The Idiot. 'Boys Keep Swinging' is also notable because (in the words of co-producer Tony Visconti) it features the "exact same chord changes and structure, even the same key" as 'Fantastic Voyage', another song on the album. Tracks like 'D. J.' and 'Look Back In Anger' are among Bowie's best from the period. After the Isolar II Tour was over in December and a long break the album was finished off in Record Plant Studios in New York in March 1979 and released in May. Despite weak reviews, the album reached number 4 in Britain and number 20 in the US.

 

Lodger

All lyrics written by David Bowie; all music composed by Bowie and Brian Eno, except where noted.

Side one

1. 'Fantastic Voyage' – 2:55
2. 'African Night Flight' – 2:54
3. 'Move On' (Bowie) – 3:16
4. 'Yassassin' (Bowie) – 4:10
5. 'Red Sails' – 3:43

Side two

1. 'D.J.' (Bowie, Eno, Carlos Alomar) – 3:59
2. 'Look Back in Anger' – 3:08
3. 'Boys Keep Swinging' – 3:17
4. 'Repetition' (Bowie) – 2:59
5. 'Red Money' (Bowie, Alomar) – 4:17

 
Next time: Fripp, Merrick and Baal

David Bowie is (part 17): 'Wir sind dann helden, für einen tag'

After the first tour with Iggy Pop, David Bowie declined to join a second because, in his own words, "the drug use was unbelievable, and I knew it was killing me". However on 16 April 1977 he began producing another album for Iggy Pop, Lust For Life. Once again Bowie had some songs written which Pop added lyrics to, most of which he took just as Bowie had written with one notable exception. The song 'Success' Pop described as a "damn crooning thing". He stripped down the melody and made it his own. One song Bowie didn't write but did have a hand in, in a roundabout way, was 'The Passenger'. Bowie heard guitarist Ricky Gardiner playing around with some chords and urged Pop to use it to write another song which, of course, he did. When the album was released in August it reached number 28 in Britain, still Iggy Pop's most successful album here (Click to hear 'Lust For Life', 'The Passenger', 'Tonight', 'Success' and 'Neighbourhood Threat').

As with The Idiot so with Lust For Life, David Bowie used making an album with Iggy Pop as a way of developing ideas for his own next album. The heart of the 'Berlin Trilogy' the next album, "Heroes", was the only one entirely recorded in Berlin, during July and August. Co-producer Tony Visconti described Berlin at that time as both "a dream... and [a place] where everything said, "We shouldn't be making a record here"". The main Hansa studio was right by the Berlin Wall. Visconti says it was "really scary. We recorded 500 feet from barbed wire, and a tall tower where you could see gun turrets, with foreign soldiers looking at us with binoculars." This set the tone for the sessions.

They were joined by Alomar, Davis and Murray plus Brian Eno once more. The only song Bowie had worked out before reaching the studio was 'Sons of the Silent Age', an interesting track as Bowie employs a singing style from a much earlier time in his career, around 1967. 'V-2 Schneider' is a reference to German rockets from the time of the second world war and the founder of Bowie's favourite German electronic band Kraftwerk, namely Florian Schneider. Again Bowie employed the technique of writing the songs at almost the same time as recording them, in the case of the title track quite literally. Bowie had watched Pop improvising lyrics as he recorded them or finalising them at the last minute and he adopted the same technique on the song "Heroes". Visconti says, "He would scribble down a few notes on the top of the piano, then say, "OK, drop me in after 'Dolphins can swim'." And that way he wrote and sang "Heroes" simultaneously. At the end of half an hour we had a complete vocal." Of course the song also namechecks the Berlin Wall itself, the scene of a romantic moment. Bowie claimed to have seen two lovers share a kiss by the Wall. Later Tony Visconti claimed it was him and his girlfreind although she has since denied it. Strangely, the song that would become Bowie's best known and his fans' favourite only reached number 24 in Britain. The album, however, when it was released in October made number 3.

"Heroes"
All lyrics written by David Bowie; all music composed by Bowie, except where noted.

Side one

1. 'Beauty and the Beast' – 3:32
2. 'Joe the Lion' – 3:05
3. ''Heroes'' (Bowie, Brian Eno) – 6:07
4. 'Sons of the Silent Age' – 3:15
5. 'Blackout' – 3:50

Side two

1. 'V-2 Schneider' – 3:10
2. 'Sense of Doubt' – 3:57
3. 'Moss Garden' (Bowie, Eno) – 5:03
4. 'Neuköln' (Bowie, Eno) – 4:34
5. 'The Secret Life of Arabia' (Bowie, Eno, Carlos Alomar) – 3:46

 

On 9 September 1977 David Bowie began promoting his new album and single with a TV appearance on the new show of his old rival and friend Marc Bolan, called 'Marc'. Bolan's new band was essentially Bowie's old one, namely Tony Newman and Herbie Flowers. When Bolan explained he wanted Bowie to join them for a jam at the end of the show Bowie told him he hadn't brought a guitar. Bolan handed him a vintage Fender Stratocaster and insisted he keep it. Bolan was apparently upset when it became clear that Bowie wanted to play the guitar part himself on the backing track that would accompany him on his performance of "Heroes" (see it here), understandable given it was the first time it had been performed on TV. Bowie showed the song to Newman and Flowers and they picked it up immediately. At the end of the show Bolan announced 'a new song' and they went into the jam (see it here). As Bowie began to sing Bolan attempted to stand on a monitor, missed it and fell off the stage. The camera zooms in on Bowie grinning and the credits roll. The recording of the show was already running very late and the cast of 'Coronation Street' were waiting to begin filming. The unionised crew refused to go into overtime and the show had to go out like that. It wouldn't have been so tragic but for the fact that by the time the show went out Bolan was dead. His girlfriend crashed the purple Mini GT he was in into a tree on the south side of Barnes common around 5am on 15 September. Bowie was devastated by Bolan's death and attended his funeral.

After keeping a low profile during the previous year (the cover of the album 'Low' is a visual pun as in the word 'Low' and a shot of Bowie in profile) Bowie was now doing lots to promote his new material. After his appearance on Marc, Bowie recorded a Christmas special with Bing Crosby. The small talk may have been scripted and appear fake but the politeness and friendliness was apparently genuine. Bowie appeared relaxed, clean-cut and healthy which was a reasonably honest portrait of him at this time. On his up-coming tour he did have one notorious 24-hour coke bender, but that aside Bowie was now living a much cleaner lifestyle. Here is his duet with Bing and here is his specially pre-recorded video of "Heroes" for the 1977 Bing Crosby Christmas Special.
 

Next time: Gigolos, voyages and a stage

David Bowie is (part 16): 'I've lived all over the world'

By the end of May 1976 David Bowie was back in the studio in the French chateau where he had recorded 'Pin Ups'. This time, however, he wasn't recording his own album but an album with Iggy Pop, The Idiot. The starting point was the song 'Sister Midnight' a song Bowie had written with Carlos Alomar and performed on his recent tour. Bowie also offered Iggy 'China Girl' and 'Nightclubbing' which Pop eagerly accepted. The rest of the album was written between them. For Bowie, as producer, it was an opportunity to experiment with tape loops, electronic instruments and European music, something he would develop further on his next album.


Bowie and Iggy Pop decided to move to Berlin to get off cocaine. They were, in a sense, in rehab. Bowie gave away many of his possessions, drastically reduced his entourage to two or three people and bought his own bread and milk. In August 1976 Tony Visconti arrived in Berlin. Hansa Studios on the Kurfurstendamm was to be the location of David Bowie's so-called 'Berlin Trilogy'. Studio 1 had been booked for Bowie to work on some music he had originally recorded for the soundtrack to the film 'The Man Who Fell To Earth'. This had been abandoned when the deal fell apart. Instead the studio was used to do some post-production on Iggy Pop's The Idiot. In early September Visconti, Bowie and his by now consistent band of Alomar, Murray and Davis met up once again in the chateau and were joined by piano player Roy Young and guitarist Ricky Gardiner and later by ex-Roxy Music, art-rock experimenter and synthesiser wizard Brian Eno.

 

The sessions were very experimental. Bowie had come only with a few riffs and ideas which were worked up by the band. After a brief visit by Angie Bowie and her boyfriend Roy Martin which ended in a fight between the two men, Bowie wrote 'Breaking Glass' with the lyrics, "I've been breaking glass in your room again... Don't look at the carpet I drew something awful on it". This referred back to Bowie's interest in Kaballah. 'Always Crashing in the Same Car' was a reference to his Mercedes which he crashed twice. Bowie had an idea for a song based on his experiences in Poland. Whilst he was in Paris for legal meetings with his former manager Michael Lippman, Eno pieced his part together. One day he heard Visconti's son Morgan playing the haunting notes A, B, C on the reception room piano and so Eno incorporated it as the main melody of what became 'Warzawa'. Bowie then added his wordless vocals based on a recording of a Balkan choir.

 

After the sessions came to end there were overdubs to be done. These were done at Hansa in Berlin, at the newly opened Studio 2 which was right next to the Berlin Wall. There they completed 'Subterraneans' and 'Weeping Wall'. The result was an album that, when it was released in January 1977, elicited little critical response and what response it did get was mostly mired in confusion. Some critics did like it but it would take a long time before it would be considered a great work of art. The album reached number two in Britain and the single, 'Sound And Vision', got to number three despite Bowie doing almost nothing to promote the album and refusing to tour with it. The album is, of course, Low.

 

Low

All lyrics written by David Bowie; all music composed by David Bowie except where noted.

Side one

1. 'Speed of Life' – 2:46
2. 'Breaking Glass' (Bowie, Dennis Davis, George Murray) – 1:52
3. 'What in the World' – 2:23
4. 'Sound and Vision' – 3:05
5. 'Always Crashing in the Same Car' – 3:33
6. 'Be My Wife' – 2:58
7. 'A New Career in a New Town' – 2:53

Side two

1. 'Warszawa' (Bowie, Brian Eno) – 6:23
2. 'Art Decade' – 3:46
3. 'Weeping Wall' – 3:28
4. 'Subterraneans' – 5:39

A second single, 'Be My Wife', failed to reach the Top 40 in Britain.

In March 1977 David Bowie decided to tour not with his own new album, Low, but with Iggy Pop's The Idiot. The first gig was in Aylesbury, the town where Ziggy made his debut. At first no one noticed Bowie but a few songs in someone spotted him playing an electric piano. The audience split in two, half the audience moved to catch a glimpse of Bowie, the rest stayed where they were and watched Iggy Pop. Former New York Doll Johnny Thunders, the Sex Pistols' Glen Matlock and the Damned's Brian James had stayed watching Iggy. Nevertheless many punks didn't mind admitting they had been inspired by Ziggy Stardust. During the tour Pop and Bowie were interviewed on the Dinah Shore programme in America. This illuminating interview is most remarkable for how relatively 'ordinary' the pair seem (Click to watch Interview 1, Interview 2, and a performance of 'Funtime'). The band playing with them included brothers Hunt and Tony Sales, who would later be half of Bowie’s band Tin Machine.

Next time: lust, walls and dolphins.