Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / David Bowie's Journey From Pop Stardom to Artistic Reinvention: 1983-2016 [Episode 260]

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David Bowie's Journey From Pop Stardom to Artistic Reinvention: 1983-2016 [Episode 260] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and roll.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'll leave you you're reading.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Little hands says it's time to rock and roll. Roll wee,
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  Speaker 1: I totally booked. Welcome back to book Don Rock, the
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  Speaker 1: podcast for those about to read and rock. Awmeric Senich.
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  Speaker 1: Find the podcast online at booked on rock dot com.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: You can watch every episode on YouTube at book Don
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Rock and listen wherever you get your favorite podcasts like Apple, Spotify, Spreaker,
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  Speaker 1: YouTube Music, and more. If you like the podcast, make
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  Speaker 1: sure you subscribe and give it a five star review.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Wherever you listen, Don Clease is in the guest seat
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  Speaker 1: this episode. He's got a new book out, part of
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  Speaker 1: Sonic Bond Publishing's on Track series titled David Bowie nineteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty three to twenty sixteen. Every album, every song in
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  Speaker 1: a career full of twists and turns, None was as
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  Speaker 1: sharp as the one David Bowie experienced after his nineteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty three album Let's Dance. The record gave Bowie to
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  Speaker 1: hit that he wanted, but completely altered his artistic standing
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  Speaker 1: in the process. Instead of an innovator who putsed rock
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  Speaker 1: music forward, the singer found himself a global superstar. With
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  Speaker 1: a mass audience whose tastes he didn't understand and who
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  Speaker 1: reciprocated this feeling as the nineteen eighties unfolded. After immersing
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  Speaker 1: himself in the band Project ten Machine, Bowie spent the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen nineties embracing reinvention and experimentation, with mixed but often
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  Speaker 1: fascinating results, leading to a full fledged renaissance early in
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  Speaker 1: the twenty first century. From there, his story only got stranger.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty thirteen's The Next Day was a triumphant comeback after
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  Speaker 1: years of self and posed silence, while twenty sixteen's Black
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  Speaker 1: Star stood among his most challenging albums and became the
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  Speaker 1: final release of his lifetime. Find a playlist of David
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  Speaker 1: Bowie nineteen eighty three to twenty sixteen in this episode's
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  Speaker 1: show notes, Hi, Don, Welcome to the podcast. Great to
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: meet you.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Good to meet you as well,
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  Speaker 2: and thank you for having me. I've been working on
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  Speaker 2: this book for two years, pretty for the better part
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  Speaker 2: of two years, and it feels real now, and it's
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  Speaker 2: it's actually nice to talk about someone to someone other
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  Speaker 2: than my family who are sick of hearing it about that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, quite a daunting task for you nineteen eighty
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  Speaker 1: three to twenty sixteen. It's a long period. What led
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  Speaker 1: you to writing the book?
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  Speaker 2: There's this great Bob Dylan lyric that goes something like
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  Speaker 2: if I thought about it, I never would have done
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  Speaker 2: it because it was such It really was a very
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  Speaker 2: daunting task to take on. I think I started out
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  Speaker 2: with much smaller ambitions. I'd written a couple books for
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  Speaker 2: Sonic Bond before part of their Decades series, wrote one
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  Speaker 2: about Bob Dylan in the eighties as well as one
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  Speaker 2: about Fleetwood Mac and their members in the eighties, and
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  Speaker 2: I thought, you know, maybe one about Bowie focusing on
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  Speaker 2: his nineteen nineties work, because that's kind of like sort
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  Speaker 2: of the real kind of weird under the radar period
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  Speaker 2: where it didn't have the big kind of successful albums
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  Speaker 2: that the eighties did, and it was between between them
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  Speaker 2: and that kind of renaissance that he had in the
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  Speaker 2: early two thousands with albums like Heathen. So to me,
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  Speaker 2: like that was like, hey, that's a period that really
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  Speaker 2: should be explored. But the Stephen, the published art Sonic Bond,
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  Speaker 2: who's been incredibly supportive in all three books that I've
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  Speaker 2: done for them, now, he wanted something to go for
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  Speaker 2: their own track series, because they already had a book
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  Speaker 2: that was going to focus on those sort of part
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  Speaker 2: of the cliche golden years of Bowie's career, that kind
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  Speaker 2: of a you know, nineteen seventies period that really kind
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  Speaker 2: of made his reputation. And so you know, my book
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  Speaker 2: was going to be the sequel to that, focusing on
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  Speaker 2: the period that was both some of his most popular
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  Speaker 2: work as well as some of his should we say
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  Speaker 2: less respected work. And and I think that was stuff
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  Speaker 2: because it coincided with when I became a fan of Bowie,
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  Speaker 2: because I sort of lived in real time, if you
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  Speaker 2: know what I mean. I felt like that was something
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  Speaker 2: I could really approach with with a sense of purpose,
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  Speaker 2: you know, about really finding kind of the recognizing where
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  Speaker 2: there are shortcomings and things that didn't really land, but
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  Speaker 2: also I think coming at it with a perspective of, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: there's maybe a lot more here than people give credit to.
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  Speaker 1: Interesting comment in the introduction I want to ask you
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  Speaker 1: about and it's about the music that Bowie put out
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  Speaker 1: during this time, and you state that the music he
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  Speaker 1: put out during this time served as artful reminders of
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  Speaker 1: the distinction between works of genius and the work of
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  Speaker 1: a genius. Can you explain what you meant by that?
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  Speaker 2: I think when we talk about someone as a genius,
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  Speaker 2: and I think everyone but the harshest detractors would probably
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  Speaker 2: agree the word genius is a fair assessment of Bowie
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  Speaker 2: as an artist. But I think sometimes we get so
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  Speaker 2: hung up on this idea that if something is a genius,
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  Speaker 2: it works, genius, it's perfect, it's absolutely brilliant, it's unimpeachable.
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  Speaker 2: And the truth is, with Bowie that's often not the case,
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  Speaker 2: because I think he had this this willingness to get
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  Speaker 2: it wrong. I think a lot of times he went
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  Speaker 2: into projects not exactly knowing where he was going to
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  Speaker 2: end up, and I think there's just something really amazing
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  Speaker 2: about that. I mean, look, you know, I look, I
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  Speaker 2: love Paul McCarty, for example, but you know, it's probably
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  Speaker 2: uncool to say this. Paul's my favorite beetle. He's the
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  Speaker 2: master craftsman of those four people, and I absolutely respect
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  Speaker 2: that craft because I and you know, that's been much
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  Speaker 2: of the soundtrack of my life where I love someone
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  Speaker 2: like Bowie or you know, or Dylan for that matter,
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  Speaker 2: is that they had this willingness to again get it
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  Speaker 2: wrong sometimes to see where the work, where the idea
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  Speaker 2: took them, and yeah, it didn't always land. And I
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  Speaker 2: think that's where, you know, and that's I think some
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  Speaker 2: of the really the fun of some of Bowie's later work,
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  Speaker 2: seeing that there was still this incredible, driven artist at
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  Speaker 2: work here and one who who realized that, you know,
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  Speaker 2: success and failure were you know, kind of relative terms,
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  Speaker 2: and you know that you could actually that sometimes you
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  Speaker 2: should get hung up on you know, is this perfect
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  Speaker 2: or anything like that. You should just make the best
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  Speaker 2: what sounds best to you and let the audience decide,
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  Speaker 2: because they're going to do that anyway. You know, we
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  Speaker 2: as fans, there's no heartsher critic than a fan. You know,
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  Speaker 2: no one will love the work more, no one will
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  Speaker 2: find more shortcomings than a fan.
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  Speaker 1: Would you say he was fearless when it came to
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  Speaker 1: taking risks, like he wasn't afraid to be criticized.
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  Speaker 2: I think the only times that he maybe truly misstepped
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  Speaker 2: was when he second guessed himself as to that kind
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  Speaker 2: of fearlessness. You know, where I think where he maybe
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  Speaker 2: not settled is maybe the wrong word, but where he
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  Speaker 2: but I think sometimes where he said, well, you know what,
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  Speaker 2: I'll go down this path that I think will be successful.
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  Speaker 2: You know where maybe he should have taken more risks.
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  Speaker 2: I think that's I think that's maybe where sometimes he
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  Speaker 2: he if he if he made missteps, it was in
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  Speaker 2: maybe not being bold enough in some cases.
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  Speaker 1: From reading this book this, I'm a novice Bowie fan.
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  Speaker 1: I am a fan, but not an expert fan like yourself.
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  Speaker 1: But it does seem like he was always looking for
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  Speaker 1: that youthful inspiration. He never seemed to get bored, only
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  Speaker 1: because he intentionally looked for things, avenues, places to go
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  Speaker 1: like Tin Machine that would inspire him and keep him
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  Speaker 1: youthful as an artist.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, he you know, he would champion, you know, bands
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  Speaker 2: like in the late eighties, he was out there champion
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  Speaker 2: bands like Sonic Youth, the Pixies, who many you know,
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  Speaker 2: those groups and many others like Nirvana after them had
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  Speaker 2: those big popular breakthroughs. But Bowie was, you know, maybe
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  Speaker 2: maybe unique among artists of his kind of stature of saying, hey,
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  Speaker 2: this is the music you should be listening to. These
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  Speaker 2: are the bands that are that are pushing the boundary.
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  Speaker 2: So so yeah, he was. He was definitely drawing inspiration
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  Speaker 2: and when you you read interviews with his collaborators over
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  Speaker 2: the years, and you know, and the picture you get,
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  Speaker 2: you know, there is someone who you know, they they
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  Speaker 2: never ceased being open to new and different sounds, who
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  Speaker 2: was always just interested in what in how music was developing,
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  Speaker 2: who was willing to serve as a sort of unpretentious
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  Speaker 2: mentor to younger artists and so on. And it's a
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  Speaker 2: you know, and I do think that's that is part
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  Speaker 2: of what's so special about him.
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  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock Podcasts will be back after this when
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: when we ampiches with the appechs, absence makes the heart
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  Speaker 1: grow fonder. Before we get into the albums and the songs,
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  Speaker 1: the book is broken down into sections comprised of specific
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  Speaker 1: time periods.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, can you.
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  Speaker 1: Talk about that and also why you decided to start
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  Speaker 1: with the year in nineteen eighty three instead of just
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  Speaker 1: starting with nineteen eighty maybe start with the eighties and
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  Speaker 1: go forward.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean some of it was a kind
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  Speaker 2: of a pragmatic aspect of you know that because Sonic
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  Speaker 2: Bond did have a book in that was going to
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  Speaker 2: cover up through that kind of nineteen eighty period with
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  Speaker 2: with scary monsters and hey, look Scary Monsters is one
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  Speaker 2: of my absolute favorite Bowie albums.
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  Speaker 1: That might be my favorite. I mean, it's.
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  Speaker 2: A fantastic album, and so it's one look I would
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  Speaker 2: have loved to have written about that, but but again,
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  Speaker 2: they you know, they had a book in mind. And
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  Speaker 2: I think that you know, Let's Dance says is sort
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  Speaker 2: of a natural, you know, turning point, demarcation point, because
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  Speaker 2: it was this immense popular breakthrough and and I think
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  Speaker 2: and I think because it is the album that really
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  Speaker 2: it did change everything about his career. You know, it's
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  Speaker 2: hard to imagine Bowie's work without Let's Dance There, As
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  Speaker 2: much as some fans may wish, oh my god, I
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: never whish he'd never you know, run into Nile Rogers
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  Speaker 2: in that New York club and you know, the early eighties,
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  Speaker 2: it's it's there, and it is that album that had
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  Speaker 2: this great impact. And not all of that impact is
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  Speaker 2: is great, but yeah, it was. It was the album
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  Speaker 2: that really just kind of set off this very different
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  Speaker 2: path for him. So it was a great place too.
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  Speaker 2: It was a great starting point. I mean, I cheat
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: a little bit because I do talk about some things
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  Speaker 2: like his collaboration with Queen on the song under pressure.
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  Speaker 2: They kind of led up to that. So but yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I think that period was just a it was a
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  Speaker 2: good and interesting place to start. And and you know what, honestly,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: on a very personal level, I mean, even though I
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: was certainly aware of David Bowie and knew kind of
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: you know again, knew him by reputation and everything, but
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: I mean that was sort of the first album because
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: it really kind of came out in my kind of
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: music buying years, you know, like that was that was
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: the first one where those songs were on the radio
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: and they were brand new and just kind of you
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: know where that that saxophone so and Modern Love just
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: kind of was like whoa, you know, So for me
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  Speaker 2: kind of personally, that that was the time I became
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: a fan. And like I said, I lived it in
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: real time a little bit. And and so I've kind
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  Speaker 2: of again, I processed all those albums, even as I
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: went back and came to understand the Berlin trilogy and
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: and you know, Ziggy starred Us, which is I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I like again, I can't even you know, begin to
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  Speaker 2: talk about how much that album just opened my ears
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  Speaker 2: in my mind. It's like, you know the number of
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  Speaker 2: things that have had the same impact on me. Is
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: is very small. It's like, you know, Ziggy starred us
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  Speaker 2: the original Star Wars and the Vim Vendors movie Wings
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  Speaker 2: of Desire, and I'm not sure what else had that
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  Speaker 2: same kind of you know, just absolutely changed my way
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: of thinking.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I became a fan through Let's Dance nineteen eighty three,
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  Speaker 1: huge album.
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  Speaker 2: You know, there's a tendency to want to apologize for
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  Speaker 2: it or something, but but why, it's the hell of
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: an album. You know, it's you know, am I saying
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: it's a good scary bonsters No, but it's it's still
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: you know, and the important thing about this is, you
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: know what, it's the album he wanted to make and
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  Speaker 2: that that's like I think, a recurring theme for me
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  Speaker 2: in this book. Bowie wanted to make these albums like
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: he you know or you know, Buss. You could argue
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  Speaker 2: whether he really wanted to make Tonight, but but he
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: went into a lot of these records all, you know,
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  Speaker 2: with very few exceptions, with an idea of what he
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: wanted to do, and by and large what what was
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: released was, you know, reflected what he wanted to do,
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  Speaker 2: you know, win or lose, succeed or fail.
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  Speaker 1: As a fan. That's what's most important, is it's if
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  Speaker 1: it's what the artist wanted to do, whether it's commercial
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  Speaker 1: or something really off the beaten path, as long as
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  Speaker 1: it's something they wanted to do, that's cool. And that's
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  Speaker 1: what what it was. Let's dance. It's not a hit
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: album by accident. Yeah, And in fact, Bowie told now Rogers,
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  Speaker 1: the producer, he said, quote, I want you to make
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: a hit And Nile was surprised by this. He was
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: thinking maybe avant garde jazz, that's maybe what Bowie was
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: going to come doing with. But talk about the picture
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: that Bowie showed now Rogers of Little Richard and why
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: he showed him that particular photo.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was a really interesting because I
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  Speaker 2: think that the story goes according to Nile Rogers, who
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: he said that to kind of convey the out the
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: sort of record that Bowie wanted to make, because you know,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: like lo now Rogers for you know, just for those
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: who don't know, I mean, he was one of the
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: most successful artist producers of the kind of late seventies
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: and early eighties, you know, with Sheik as well as
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  Speaker 2: his work with other artists. Diana Ross and and a
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: ton of others. But because he because she was associated
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: with disco, and disco was sort of, you know, considered
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: the enemy of good music by a lot of people.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: He he kind of got a bad rap. And and
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I think he and he saw Bowie working with Bowie
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: as a way to maybe be taken more seriously. And
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I think he was again, he was taken aback when
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Bowie said, no, I really want to kind of channel
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: your your sensibilities, work with you, get your sensibilities to
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: come up with this. Really, I think the keyword is
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: timeless sort of record, you know. He so he showed
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: him this picture of Little Richard by a Cadillac, and
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: he said, I want you to make an album for
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: me that sounds like this picture looks you know, paraphrasing there,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: and and you know, the way Rogers talked about it,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: he said, you know, he realized that, you know, he
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: talked about the picture, you know, could have been from
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: the future, but he knew it was something from the past.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: And and in that moment he realized that what he wanted,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: that what Boie wanted to make with him was an
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: album that if it came out, someone listening to it
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: you know, years from then would think this just sounds
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: absolutely kind of timeless, you know, like it's it's contemporary,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: just you know, not some kind of period piece or anything,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: but just a great kind of pop album. And you
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: know they did it, you know.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he really he knocked it out of the park.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Not that he had Modern Love number fourteen, China Grow
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: on ten, title track number one, three, huge hit singles,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and absolutely MTV videos, and he brought in a relatively
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan to play guitar. I mean it's
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Stevie Ray was known maybe in small circles among the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: music community, but this this was his big break. But
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: it's interesting that he was to be on that tour,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: but Stevie's management and Bowie's management couldn't agree. I'm a
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: deal to have him on that tour.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: This is one of those things that you know that
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: I think there are probably more versions of the story
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: of like certain things in Bowie's life and his work
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: just have I think there's a lot of have just
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: a lot of kind of conflicting narratives and speculation about,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: you know, what really happened. I mean, there are some
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: people who say it was a salary dispute. You know,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: some people felt there were you know, kind of personal
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: issues maybe maybe things involving substances. It's you know, it's
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: hard to say, you know, I'm always you know, writing
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: a book like this, you know, you don't want to
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: get to gossipy kind of step back from that a
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: little bit, but I you know, I mean, at the
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: end of the day, you know that the tour didn't
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: have you know, happened with Steve Stevie Rayvaughan, which is
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: which is unfortunate because his playing on on the album
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: is fantastic, and it would have been the guitarist who
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: went on the tour in place of Stevie ray Vaughn
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: is this guy named Earl Slick who did he would
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: toured and played on Bowie albums before, who then you know,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: would actually then you know, come back kind of into
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: the fold with Bowie many years later. So he was
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: someone who very much kind of bows familiar with, who
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: knew a lot of different aspects of Bowie's song you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: and and and and did a great job. It would
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: have been really fascinating to hear what what a more
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: blues focused player like Stevie ray Vaughn would have brought
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: to you know, some of those the other songs from
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: from Bowie's past that he played on on the Serious
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Moonlight Tour.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, right, yeah, yeah, how that would have sounded.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Imagining a song like Heroes or you know, some of
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: the really kind of you know more I'm not even
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: sure how you describe a song like station to station,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: but but some of these these really just kind of
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: very kind of heavy pieces, and and and I think
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Vaughn's playing would have would have brought an interesting, uh
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: thing to you know something. I don't go into this
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: a lot in the book because it really is about
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: the more about the albums and the the recorded work.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: But I think Bowie is one of those artists. And
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: you know, since his passing, a lot more live recordings
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: have come out, and and it is fascinating to hear
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: how his live recordings differ from the studio versions and
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: so on, and and again, I think with Vaughn it
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: would have been a very you would have gotten some
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: really I think amazing and distinctive versions of of some
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: some of those classic songs.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I always thought it was cool just how Stevie Ray
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: plays these songs knowing knowing later when he's recording and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: live just unleashing his skills, you know, just on fire.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: But in these songs, he's playing within the structure of
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the song, so he had that ability to pull back,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: which I thought that's really impressive about STEVIEE. Ray that
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: he was able to do.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, because I think when you talk about virtuoso's,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: you know, there's sometimes it's they become known rightly or wrong,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: these people who can't stop themselves, who try to take
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: and when you realize the control and the you know,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: just the you know, restraint that he demonstrated to compliment
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: those songs is I think, you know, is I mean
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: that really is I think one of those marks of
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: a great musician. I mean, he could, you know, and
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: when you've heard him let loose, you know, it's like
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: it's it's not that he couldn't do it, it was
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: you know, I think he and you know, and look
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: obviously you know David Billy and Nile Rogers, but you know,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: each of them is going to have really strong feeling.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: It's about how the song sound. So I'm sure he
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: was getting a lot of direction about, you know, about
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: how to play and what to do. But you know,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: but you but it never feels forced. It feels like.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Right, because if he didn't pull it off, it would
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: have probably said, sorry, man, we it's ain't happening.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Multi track recording can be very unforgiving for you know,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: the for Sidemen booked on rock podcasts.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: We'll be back after this.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: call me surely.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: The entry on Let's Dance is interesting, talk about how
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the song started and was completed with now Rogers input.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: A couple of things that stood out to me. Started
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: out as a folky piece, and then there's a connection
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: to the TV series Peter Gunn in the song.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So there's a great documentary for Bowie fans
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: that I highly regu and seeking out if you can.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: It was done by the BBC about twenty thirteen, you know,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: and I think it's sometimes has been on PBS in
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: other places. It's called five Years and you know, looked
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: at sort of key some key points in Bowie's career
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: and one of those one of the years they look
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: at is nineteen eighty three when he was making Let's Dance,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: or really kind of nineteen eighty two into nineteen eighty three,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: and you know, now Rogers, they had now Rogers on camera,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: so that by this point, you know, Bowie wasn't really
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: giving interviews. He'd become a much more private person by
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: the time this documentary was being done in twenty thirteen.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: But Rogers talks about how when you know, he's working
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: with Bowie at his kind of like home studio thing
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: in like Switzerland or you know wherever, like near his
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: ski chalet and all that, because you know, he was
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: a very wealthy man. You know, even for Let's Dance,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: he was still you know, he was living a comfortable life.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: You know, forget Austin Powers, He's the real international man
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: of mystery. So Rogers, you know, talked to this in
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: this documentary about you know, Bowie presented this song to
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: him and again this very folky piece, the same lyrics,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: the lyrics you all you know from that song, but
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: again presented in a very folky manner, just strumming it
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: on the guitar. A very striking thing, Rogers mentions is
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: it was a twelve string guitar, but for some reason
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: he only had six strings in it, you know, for
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: whatever reason, And at first and when Rogers, you know,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: when when Bowie tells Rogers that he thinks this song
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: could be a hit. Rogers who is probably a little
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: bit feeling a little bit uncertain because again he thought
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: he was maybe going to be doing something a little
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: bit more adventurous or what he would have perceived as
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: adventuress and he's being told no, I want to make
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: a hit. Then Bowe comes to him with this sort
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: of folky piece and he's thinking, wait, is he testing me?
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: And and so he's not sure what to do. He
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: calls some people who who he knows are also friends
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: with Bowie. They kind of reasure him. Look, if he
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: tells you that it's going to it could be a hit,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: he really believes it. So so Rogers thinks, all right,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: how do I approach this? And so he he kind
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: of goes back, looks at the the the chords to
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: go with the song that Bowie wrote, plays around with
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: them to kind of keep the essence of the melody,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: but but maybe give them a little little more oomph.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: And he decides he brings in some musicians to the
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: studio in Switzerland, has them record a demo of the
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: song because he kind of wants to see does this
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: approach work, you know, can it really work? So he
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: brings in these people, but the kicker is for Bowie, says, no,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: David sing the lyrics the way you did when you
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: played that on that guitar for me, because he's because
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Rogers rationale kind of breaks down, as look, he thought
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: they were going to be a hit that way. Let's
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: let's kind of keep that and see where it's going.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And Rogers, like he he recounts in the liner notes
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: to a collection of song of albums and other records
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: from that time. They kind of when he when he
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: heard that demo and he heard the people playing, he
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: realized this will work. This approach is what will work
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: for the album, and so he you know, and then
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: you know, so they kind of record to the rest
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: of the album in that style when they of course,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: when they do the full on recording at that point,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: they're no longer in Switzerland, they're back in New York,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: but they you know, they added the horns. The horn part.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Rogers kind of admits they sort of nicked some aspects
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: of that from the theme to the TV show Peter
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Gunn you know, and it was one of those things
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: where you know, and like Rogers and Bowie were both
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: kind of you know, had that kind of background, love
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: those tea those you know, classic TV show themes, a
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: lot of them without more jazz aspect to them. There's
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: a great interview out there with Rogers where he talks
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: about how he was a little bit nervous about kind
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: of appropriating something like that so openly, but he said
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Bowie told him it was okay. It was postmodernistic and reinterpretation,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: so you know, so, but again it was this, you know,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: but that song, you know, let's d ans. It really
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: is this amazing fusion of a lot of different aspects.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Of course, you've got those those real dance danceable sensibilities
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: that Rogers brought to it from his work with Chic.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: You know, you had this, you know, lyrical sensibility from
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Bowie's part, you know, the blues influence Seberry Ron's giving,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: you know, this whole other approach to like the horn
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: parts and everything, and and it was, you know, this,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: it was in its way. You know, it's not my
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: favorite song on the album, but but it is. It's
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: a damn near perfect pop song.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite?
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: I would have to say, my favorite is Modern Love.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: That's the one. That's the one that just caught my
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: just caught my ear. And again that saxophone solo, just
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: like I'm a soccer for a great saxophone solo.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's undeniable. Book on Rock podcast. We'll be back
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: after this, I mean.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Out, come out wherever you are. Now.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: What's interesting is how he responds to that success. The
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: following albums are nineteen eighty fourth Tonight, which has the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: hit single Blue Gene, which was his fifth and final
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: top ten single. Then he does soundtrack and charity projects
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five. In nineteen eighty six the cover
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of Dancing in the Street with McJagger and eighty five
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: number seven single. Also did the music for the film
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Labyrinth in eighty six, followed by nineteen eighty seven's Never
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Let Me Down. What was Bowie's response to the overwhelming
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: commercial success of Let's Stance? You point out that he
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: experienced a disconnect from his newly expanded audience. So what changes,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: if any, did he make as a result.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, like again, you know Bowie had been
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I think we would consider it, we would have considered
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: him a star, you know, kind of by any kind
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: of reasonable measure. You know, in the early eighties, pre
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Let's Dance, you know, he was someone you know, he
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: if he toured, he could play, you know, you could
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: play maybe not the biggest of big venues, not maybe
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: not sell out stadiums, but you know, but you know,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: he could sell out multiple nights at the Spectrum in Philadelphia.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: You know, he you know, he had you know, a
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: strong fan base kind of with him, thick or thin
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: he you know, again, he just he was that and
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: again the really kind of known person, respected artist, and
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Let's Dance really did change that. It made him, you know,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: kind of that kind of globally known superstar. He was
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: all over MTV, which you know, and this was kind
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: of when MTV was at the height of its sort
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: of cultural significance. But I think Bowie was maybe not
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: comfortable with that because I think he I think because
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: he had, you know, he had sort of followed his
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: instincts artistically into some you know, pretty esoteric areas. You know,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: when you listen to some of those albums that he
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: collaborated on songwriting with with Brian Eno, you know, like
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Low and Heroes for instance, or you know, Scary Monsters,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: which is a great album, but it's an incredibly dark
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: one too, So I think he was you know that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: But the famous quote from Bowie, there's a famous quot
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: from Bowie that about how he would look out into
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the audience of the shows, you know, during the series
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Moonlight Tour and wonder how many of these people had
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: any velvet underground albums in their collection? Like he he
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: recognized that, you know that, that whereas maybe the audience
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: that he that had been with him for the previous
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: years had now been kind of augmented by an audience
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: that that maybe didn't have those same sensibilities and kind
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: of same interest in you know, and maybe again more
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: you know, adventurous music. You know, I'm not trying to
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: knock anyone's taste here, because I'm a firm believer that
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: people should like what they want to like, you know,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be establisher or anything. But because
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: led Sands was so successful, the you know, his record company,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: they they were pushing him for a follow up immediately,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: and so he probably went back in the studio to
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: do the album Tonight much too quickly. Because he's always
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: said in interviews that he could never really write well
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: on tour, so he didn't have much in the way
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: of new songs. So most of the album, much of
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: the album at least, is either other people's songs or
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: in some cases, like some songs he had that he
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: had previously written and recorded with Iggy Pop, you know,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: years earlier, when they were working together in the seventies.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: So you have this album Tonight, which ended up selling
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: really well. It had a really big hit in the
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: form of Blue Gene. It also had you know, some
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: stuff that is you know, not so good. His his
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: cover of the Beach Boys song God Only Knows Is
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: is not great, you know, I mean to be to
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: be honest, I don't want to you know, dwell on
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: that one, because that's I always feel like that's that's
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: that particular track has become a little bit of a
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: punching bag when people are trying to kind of knock
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Bowie's eighties albums. But it was again, it was a
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: very the album was really very much of a hodgepodge,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: you know, you know, like it's one of those things
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: where like if he had just said, maybe either way
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: to do an album till I've got enough good news
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: songs or do like a covers album, kind of like
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: his seventies record pin Ups or something. You know, maybe
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: there maybe it would have been a different situation. You know,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: as it was, you had this thing that didn't didn't
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: quite feel like a real kind of considered album. But
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: despite having some really great stuff on it, he later
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: was very like he himself was very down on the album.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: He referred to Tonight as a quote desperate mistake, which,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: of course, speaking to someone who can recognize all kinds
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: of shortcomings in that album, I will say, I think
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: there are a great many artists who wish they're desperate
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: mistakes had that much good stuff on it, you know,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: like the song Loving the Alien, which is still one
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: of I think one of his most incredible, just striking songs,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: you know, like that's you know again. A lot of
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: people say Tonight is his worst album, but it's got
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: one of his absolute best best songs ever.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And from a commercial standpoint, at least the record label
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: was happy that Blue Jean was on there. That could
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: have easily have wound up on Let's Dance. But you say,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: what made it The focal point to the album was
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: not just its success as a single, but also the
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: short film Jazz and for Blue Jean Yep. Talk about
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that film project.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, I mean, Bowie had been acting,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: you know, he started taking on roles in movies kind
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: of going back into the seventies, and he was, you know,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: he was really very much a pioneer in music videos.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: You know, you go back and you look at some
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: of the things like the video for Ashes to Ashes,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: which is technically primitive perhaps but one of the most
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: haunting things you'll ever see in the in the music
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: video form. He seemed to want to really push the
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: bounds of what that the music video form could do
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: now that MTV was out there. So, you know, he
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: kind of he devised this this short film, you know,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: about twenty minutes longer. So he did it with the
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: director Julian Temple, who you know later went on to
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: do various feature films, and you know, and he it's
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: basically it's it's a very simple story about a guy
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: who you knows guy trying to get a date with
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: a girl. He kind of sneaks his way in by
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: claiming to know this big rock star. Uh, you know,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Bowie's character does. The twist, of course, is that both
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: the rock stars screaming Lord Byron and the you know,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: the sort of hapless you know guy, both played by Bowie.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: You know, so he's he's got the dual role in there,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: and it's, you know, it's it's a really fun, kind
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: of charming piece, the very easy going piece that was
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: all over MTV and kind of the fall of nineteen
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: eighty four. I mean I would certainly stop, you know,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: stop what I was doing and watch it when it
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: when it came on, and it really kind of was
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: the nexus of Bowie's ambitions as an actor and also
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: his ambitions is you know, to really kind of push
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: music video forward. And it's you know, it's a lot
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: of fun. You know, is it high art now? But
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: it's but again, it's a lot of fun. And you really,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of understand that. Look again, even if
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: he wasn't totally comfortable with this, you know, pop star
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: kind of role, you know, I don't think you know,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: that whole period, that whole kind of mid eighties period
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: where a lot of people are very down on on
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: the work he put out. You know, man, there's one
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: thing you cannot fault him for, you know, which is
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: work ethic because he he worked his ass off during
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: that mid eighties period. I mean, you know, between Tonight
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four and Never Let Me Down in
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, you know, he did a bunch of
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: stuff for soundtracks and other stuff, and he and that
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: was like a whole other album worth of stuff that
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: he did in that timeframe. He was, you know, he
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: was very you know again, just kind of tireless in
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: just you know, want in doing his work and and
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: and pushing himself in you know, in his own way.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, I mean, and I think it's
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: kind of funny because in some cases, you know, sometimes
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: the songs, the sort of one off things done for
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: soundtracks or whatever. Yeah, in some cases, and more than
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: a few cases ended up being maybe better than some
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: of what he ended up, you know, releasing on the
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: full length albums. Certainly, he himself seemed to have maybe
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: more affection for things like the song the title song
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: from Absolute Beginners when you Get kind of later, kind
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: of later in his career.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: If it wasn't for Queen's performance at Live Aid, Bowie's
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: performance may have been the highlight. Well you too, you too? Yeah,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Top three performances.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think always set was it was amazing.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't actually, you know, I was in a car
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: while that was going on, so I didn't get to
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: see it until after the fact, but just on the
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: hearing it on the radio, especially you know, when you
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: got to Heroes amazing. I still think that's that's the
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: best performance of Heroes out there. And you know, I
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: mean Bowie was you know, it's very interesting. You know.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: I read Bob Geldoff's autobiography, you know, many years ago,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: and he you know, talked a lot about you know,
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Bowie's involvement, and a lot of people give Bowie credit
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: for kind of coming on board to perform it live,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: agree to perform it live aid as early because I
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: think a lot of people, a lot of other acts
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: were maybe worried, oh is just being put together too quickly?
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Is this going to be a fiasco. But once Bowie said,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, I'm doing it, it seemed, you know, he it.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I used to give a lot of other artists a
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: comfort level that the this was a credible event, you know.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: And one of the things I talk about, you know,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: is that as you know, I think it's a you know,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: reason that that I think I've something I've always kind
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: of respected Bowie for, you know, every or pretty much
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: all the artists, like all the primary artists got seventeen
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: minutes to do their performances at Live you know, like
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: you know, not a minute more, not a minute less.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: And you know, so Bowie had time to do five songs.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: You know, he only did four. The reason he only
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: did four is because there was a video that just
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: done by the Canadian the CBC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: was kind of spotlighting the famine in Ethiopia, which of
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: course was what kind of drove Live Aid in the
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: first place. But the show was so tightly scheduled there
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: there was no time to show it unless somebody gave
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: up a song. Bow Is like, I'll give up one
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: of my songs because he wanted you this piece to
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: be done, because he felt it was important to have.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Which song was it, by the way, which song was he.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Gonna Supposedly it was gonna be the song five years
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: from Zeey Stardust. You know, that's not definitive, but like
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: I've seen from at least you know, it seemed to
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: what I would say are probably credible sources that was
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: probably the song he was thinking of doing. You know,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: it's very funny, you know Bowie in you know, in
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: his speech before Heroes, he talks about you know, he
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: thanks is the band, which was this great one off band.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, like, how impressive is it when your one
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: off band features Thomas Dolby as your keyboard player, you know, yeah,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: you know, and he he thanks him for getting together
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: to do the show with him, and it was I
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: think a case of you know, they really had very
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: little time to rehearse because you know that at the time,
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: you know, Bowie was in London. You know, he was
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: doing I can't remember it was Absolute Beginners or La
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: or Labyrinth that he was doing at the time, but
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: he was again a very busy guy at that point.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Book on Rock Podcasts will be back after this.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Don't go away, gentlemen, we may need all.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Of you the story on Dancing in the Street. Initially
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: that was going to be a live transit Atlantic duet
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: with Mick, but they couldn't do it, so that's why
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: we get the recorded version.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Not necessarily that song. I think they were there, they'd
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: had this idea and I guess you kind of see
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: some aspects of this in the whole, in things like
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: you know Phil Collins, you know, taking the concord over
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: to perform at London and then Philadelphia. Like they wanted
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: to do something to kind of unite the London and
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: the Philadelphia portions, and you know, they they thought maybe
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: there was something they could have, you know, Bowie in London,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Mick Jagger in Philadelphia. But you know, I guess with
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: the satellites there was like a delay and they could
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: they just couldn't figure out a way to make the
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: technology work. And you know where either of them could
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: like hear each other or have any idea if they
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: were even remotely in sync with each other. You know.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: So they've decided to record the cover version of the
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Motown song Dancing in the Streets, which is you know
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: in retrospect, you know, coming up on forty years later.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Is it a little cheesy? Yes? Is it either Bowie
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: or Mick Jagger's finest hour?
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: No?
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: But you know what, it raised a lot of money
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: to help people, and so there's a lot worse things
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: in this world than that song. You know.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on his film work in the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: mid eighties, Was he it seemed like he was serious
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: about pursuing it long term.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right, and I think what's it's
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: very striking because you have some do have some you know,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: extreme I guess I could really say extremes because on
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: the one hand, he was happy to take on a
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: role like Jerret the Goblin King and Labyrinth, which you know,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: when you consider both that aspect of a starring role
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: and doing all the songs, like, I feel like that
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: was kind of like if he was ever going to
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: become that sort of all around multi media entertainer type
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: of which I guess Frank Sinatra's maybe the only kind
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: of other analog I can come up with right now.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: It would have been with you know, with that like
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: if had lev Labyrinth had been a huge hit. You know, again,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: who knows what direction he might have gone in. You know,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: it was probably more on brand that it was more
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: of a cult classic, you know when you get down
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: to it. But you know, then on the flip side,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: he was also very comfortable taking on a small part
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: in a should say difficult movie like Last Tentation of
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Christ where he plays ponchous pilot again. And it's very
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: funny because I'm probably one of the ten people who
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: saw a last tentation of Christ in the movie theaters
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: and that moment where you hear that voice laid in
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: the movie and it's like, it's like, whoa that is.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: It's like David Bowie and Willem Dafoe Pancho's Pilot and
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Jesus in the same movie. It's like, that's probably one
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: of the most crazy but also super compelling things.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: It's sure worth the price of admission.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: It was Yeah, I mean it was yeah. Look and
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: you know, and obviously you know, he kept you know,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: he kept acting, maybe not as consistently as maybe he
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: wanted to, but yeah, I think, look, he you know,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: when he he did some he did some genuinely good
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: stuff in that role. I don't think he was. I
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: think the fact that he ended up ultimately doing relatively
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: few movies is not a sign that he was in
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: any way diletanting there. I think it was just, you know,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: I think he took the opportunities for things that interested him,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: and if it didn't interest him, he would just say pass.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Interesting time period he had Mick doing some movies McJagger
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and then Sting in Dune. It was like the thing
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: at the time.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: The Yeah, absolutely yeah. I think that's also a side
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: effect of the music video aspect. I think in that
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: period it did really blur the lines a bit, especially
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: when the when some of the videos were very narrative
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: in their you know, in their presentation. I think it
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: gave I think it made maybe made someone like Sting realized, yeah,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: I think this is something I can do. And to
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: his Sting also you know, in Dune in the Bride
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: and you know and other things. Yeah, Grimstone Intrigue Goal
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: for that matter.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Never let Me Down. It did feature the single day
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: in Day Out, which hit number seventeen in the UK
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: top forty several other countries. Peter Frampton on guitar and
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: you didn't hear this album talk about much of at all.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: When talking about David Bowie's body of work, you say
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: it marked the de facto end of his pop star face.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: A good end in your opinion, or is there a
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: good reason as to why it's kind of.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: I would mildly disagree about the aspet of not being
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: talked about it. It's like to say that when it
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: is talked about, it's generally talked about in disparaging terms, Yeah,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: you know again, that was one of the Again, look,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: I bought that album in real time, and I am
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: not ashamed to say it is an album I have
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: great fondness for. You know. Again, it was still at
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: that point where he was perceived as in the sort
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: of MTV star. I think it's sold. It sold well
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: as a result, got you know again, a couple good,
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: solid top forty hits as a result, songs that were
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: you know that were definitely very present on MTV for example.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: You know. But it's funny though, because under underneath it all,
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: you know, when you read interviews with Bowie from that time,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: he didn't necessarily see it as sort of a pop
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: type album for him. I mean, he was very he
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: you know, he talked about wanting an album that that
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: would sound where the songs would sound really good in
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: a live environment, and he was He would also talk
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: about how how he tried to you know, maybe not
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: in the same kind of direct way you would get
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: from like the more sort of punk bands like The Clash,
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: but to you know, address maybe you know, some social
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: considerations and so on. So it was it wasn't it
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily a pop focused album. Again, it's it's an
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: album that probably sold well in spite of that, probably
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: had quite a few people who bought it thinking what
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: the hell, you know, like, I'm sure there was you know,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: some buyer's remorse. You know, probably quite a few you know,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: copies found their way into the used bins of the
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: burgeoning CD store market in the late eighties. But it was,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: you know, it's funny Bowie himself kind of like with Tonight,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: it's an album that sort of retrospectively, he kind of
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: tried to disown a bit, you know, he would sort
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: of it was maybe a little more kind of measured
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: than the way he would talk about Tonight. You know,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: he would you know, he would sort of concede, well,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: I had good songs on it, but I didn't do
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: them as well as I should. And you know, like
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: he would sort of talk like when you know, you'd
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: hear again mostly secondhand, because it would be you know,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: it would be someone some of his later collaborators, people
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: like Reeve's Cabrels, would say. He'd say, yeah, I had
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: good songs, but I wasn't like as involved in recording
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: them as I should have been. And I'm kind of like, yeah,
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: and I see stuff like that, and I think, yeah,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: it kind of seems like revisionist history to me, you know,
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: like because you know, because it seemed like you know,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, he still wrote all those songs like Let's
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Dance as you know a number of for example, has
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: a number of songs that were that were cover versions
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: or maybe you know, things that he had written with
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: other people. Same with tonight. On Never Let Me Down,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: the only song that wasn't like a newly written or
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: in some cases co written Bowie song was you know,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: one iggy pop cover. So ten out of eleven songs
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: and Never Let Me Down were new compositions. So he
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: was clearly somewhat engaged with this record. You know, I
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: think he was still not quite sure what he wanted
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: to do. I think that he and look, I'm always
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: very I'm loath to kind of, you know, do dime
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: star psychology on someone I've never met. But I do
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: think sometimes that maybe he was torn that he knew
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: he kind of wanted to go back into maybe some
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: edgier sounds, but he also was maybe not sure if
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: he wanted to go you know, when he was doing
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Never Let Me Down, whether he wanted to go sort
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: of all in the way he would do a couple
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: of years later with Tin Machine. You know. So, so
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: maybe what people respond to, or I should say, don't
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: respond to, is then maybe that that album felt a
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: little bit neither fish nor foul like that it you know,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: maybe it just didn't go far enough into that kind
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: of more aggressive rock oriented space book on.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Rock podcasts, we'll be back after this. During our brief indormation,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: let's take a flying crip from Milamda Fantasy to Everyday Life.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Don Cleaes is our guest. He's got a new book
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: out part of Sonic Bond Publishing's on Track series. It's
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: called David Bowie nineteen eighty three to twenty sixteen, Every Album,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Every Song. So Tin Machine era nineteen eighty eight to
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, two albums. By the way, I was
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: a little bum. The second album is not on Spotify.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: The first one is.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's there's there's some weirdness with I mean Tin
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Machine in general, and but that second album in particular,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: like they did a they did a vinyl reissue I
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: think a couple of years ago, but something with the
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: songs I've heard but never kind of fully got the
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: story of it that there's maybe some dispute with the
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Sales brothers hunting Tony Sales, who were the you know,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: drummer and bass player, and Tin Machine, like questions about
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: whether Tin Machine was properly speaking, a band in which
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: they had sort of an equal say versus them just
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: being sort of hired musicians. And maybe that's got something
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: to do with it. Again, like so many things with Bowie,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: it's like there's a lot of conflicting stories and you know,
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: I don't want to again, I never want to be
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: too gosspy about those things, but but yeah, there's there's
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: I feel like there's some some strange stuff with the
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: rights to that one in particular, Maybe less so with
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: the first album because that was that, you know, when
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Bowie did Let's Dance. That was the first of what
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: was to be a five album deal with EMI Records.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: The first Tim Machine album ended up being the fourth
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: and final one because em I was like, no, I
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: think we're done now. After you know, they they got
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: you know, some people felt sounded more reminiscent of Sonic
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: Youth than you know, anything else.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Right. Kevin Armstrong would play guitars and keys, on I
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: think both albums. He was on this show. He was
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: on this podcast over a year ago. He had a
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: great book out a community to.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Get that one. He he is kind of he's kind
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: of an undersung here. You know. He was part of
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: the Live Aid band as well.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: And yes he talks about it in the book.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah he was. You know, again, he probably should have
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: been like made an official member of the band. It's
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure exactly what the what kind of went
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: into into that. I don't know if bo is just
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: worried about maybe maybe he felt the environment was already
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: like ready to you know, kind of implode on itself
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: between you know, because because you know, he had started
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: you know, after you know, after the Glass Spider tour
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: and after you know, he was, you know, by most accounts,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: not hugely happy with it. I saw the tour by
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: the way I saw the Glass Spreader tour bytheray was
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: first of four times I got to see Bowie live.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. Yeah, it was kind of ridiculous, It
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: was kind of crazy.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Was it mostly the greatest hits kind of a tour?
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, he was, And that's that's the thing about it.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: It was he look, he did a lot of the
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: most popular stuff, don't get me wrong. I mean, you
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: know he did and including I will say, another great
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: version of Heroes for that matter, the staging of which
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: was one of the great The staging that was went
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: into it, with all the dancers and everything else. The
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: staging was kind of weird and very uneven in spots,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: but I will say that the staging did for Heroes,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: which I won't even attempt to describe here. But if
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: you can find the the concert video like online somewhere
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: hopefully legally, it's pretty it was, I have to say,
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: pretty cool. But you know, he really did bring in
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: like he did. He did a lot of current stuff
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: from Never Let Me Down, a lot of recent hits,
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of very well established songs in fashion, scary
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Monsters and so on, you know, rebel rebel, But you
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: know he also threw in some real curve balls in
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: the set, you know, stuff like the song All the
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: mad Men, which was a song from the Man who
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Sold the World a greatest hit. It is not it's
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: a fantastic song, but anything but the greatest hit. So
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: he was definitely, you know, willing to put in these
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: unconventional songs in the set. But again I think that
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: you know, the staging I think put off a lot
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: of people. It didn't help that it was a stadium
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: show in the summer, where like, you know, it's not
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: getting dark until well into the show, you don't quite
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: you're having trouble seeing what's going on. Like it was,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: it was, I think, and as some of the people
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: who performed on the tour said, probably the kind of
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: show that should have been done in a you know,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: kind of an arena setting rather than an outdoor stadium.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: One might have landed better. But but anyway, he was,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: you know, he was kind of you know, I think
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: he was not not sure what to do next. And
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: he had kind of a chance meeting with a guitarist
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: named Reeves Gabrell's, whose wife had been one of the
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: publicists for the tour and that Bowie had spent some
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: time with, although interestingly, Bowie did not find out until
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: like after the tour that Reeves Gabrell's was even a guitarist,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: you know, and so and I guess his wife had
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: kind of snuck her husband's demo to him, and after
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: he heard it, he said, you know, he was kind
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: of looking for someone. I think he was looking for
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: a spark, you know, in the simplest terms, and so
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: he invited Gabrell's to come, you know, try to record
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: with him, write songs with him. And that ultimately kind
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: of is what led to the Tin Machine project because
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: I think Gabrel's basically said Gabrell's sort of confronted Bowie.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: And this is in the guitarists telling of it. With
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: the fact that his deal with em I meant that
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: they had to basically put out whatever bo whatever album
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Bowie recorded for them, and so he said, make an
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: album that you feel good about, don't worry about if
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: it's going to sell, Make the album you want to make,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: and then you know, see what happens from there. Bowie
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I think you know, he just again Bowie seemed to
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: delight in Curveballs. He brought in the Sales brothers who
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: they had been part of the band when he recorded
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: stuff with a Pop in the seventies. You know, they
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: had performed with like Todd Rundgren I think, you know,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: in the early seventies, so they were, you know, the
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: hunting Tony Sales were established musicians. They were coming from
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: a show of his family. You know, their father Super Sales,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: very famous comedian.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know that super Sales.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and all by all accounts, hunting Tony Stills were
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: also kind of batshit crazy and so so this so basically,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: this whole situation, it became a band situation, is really
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: it went from. It went from a David Bowie album
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: that gabrell'sill be playing on on to this band situation.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: And you know, I think they at least tried to
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: kind of present some semblance of democracy there. Like, for instance,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: reputedly Bowie would refuse to do any solo interviews about
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: the band. You know, he would always insist, dope, we're
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: a band. You either interview us all or you don't
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: interview any of us. And you know, I think the
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: purpose of it, well, look, I think with Bowie there's
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: probably always multiple things going on. You know, there's I
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: think some of it was he wanted to I think
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: he wanted to do a loud, noisy rock album. You know,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: I think he was because you know, he'd been listening
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: to again to bands like the Pixies and Sonic Youth
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: and so on, and I think he wanted to kind
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: of channel that a bit. I think he also liked
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: the idea of sort of laying low a bit. So
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: they did this album and it's a it's it's a
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: good album. You know that. The two Ten Machine albums,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: I think both of them are kind of uneven. I
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: think there's one really fantastic album between them. Last songs.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: If you take Prisoner of Love and Under the God
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: from the first album and Shopping for Girls and Baby
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Universal from the second, and a bunch of other songs,
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: and you ditch stuff like Crack City and Stateside, you're
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: gonna end up with a really good album.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: It's Adrian Blue said that should he should have inserted
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: more of melodic content in there. Yeah, Bowie's former guitarist.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: I think that's an on point comment from from Adrian Blue, who's,
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: you know, a fantastic musician, who's you know, work obviously
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: a ton of people and all that, and worked with
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: Bowie a fair amount. But I think one of the
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: aspects in that too, though, is that I think Bowie
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: is often at his best where the music has sort
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: of a I guess what I would just call a
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: sense of drama to it, like not not that the
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: song is sort of inherently narrative or anything like that,
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: but just that you sort of feel again that that
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: sort of dramatic aspect to it. And I think the
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: best of the Tin Machine songs are you know, things
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: like Prisoner of Love or again Shopping for Girls, where
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: you just sort of feel that, you know, that aspect
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: to it, that conflict or whatever, and the one and
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: others are just, you know, maybe just the lackluster ones
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: maybe just don't have that sort of animating force to them.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Actually, the greatest Hits tour that I was referring to
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: was the Sound and Vision Tour that that well, that
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: was my my bad there. So that was the one
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: because that was in between the two albums, right, and
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: and that was essentially maybe David had an underlying plan
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: with that tour, like maybe he was saying goodbye to
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: that part of his career and letting his fans know
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: that's all behind me.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: That was his intention, or at least it was he
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: wanted to give himself that option. You know. What I've
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: read points to the Sound and Vision Tour having been
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: planned before he even recorded the first Ten Machine album,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: So I think the fact that it was it was
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: sort of a case of it was, you know, he
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: was committed to it, so he's going to do it anyway.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: He apparently asked Reeves Gabriel's if he wanted to do
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: join the tour. Gabrell said, no, I kind of feel
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: like I'm part of your now, not part of your history,
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: and so he kind of politely declined. And that's kind
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: of where that's where Adrian Blue came in, because you know,
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: he you know, because Blue had played on you know,
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: he played on the album Lodger, or he had toured
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: with Bowie in the late seventies, like after the release
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: of Heroes, and so I think there was a sense
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: of it was good to have an artist with Bowie
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: who maybe again or you know, had that kind of
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: connection with at least a good chunk of his musical background.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: But when you look at these these artists like Bowie,
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: who you're getting to like late eighties and nineties, I mean,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: some of these people they've been around from the sixties,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: you know, they've been they have these careers that are
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: well over twenty years by now, which of course I
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: don't think any anyone expected by then. And you're at
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: that point where it's like your original fans or maybe
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: bringing their kids to your shows and you're telling them
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: about all these great songs. Like I think, for instance,
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: you know, I saw the Sound and Vision tour, and
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: then like I think it was five days later, I
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: saw Paul McCartney, you know, at a you know, you know,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: his tour. After that McCartney show heavy on the Beatles,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of you know all, you know, kind of
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: very hit heavy. I think Bowie was maybe like ambivalent
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: about the idea of having to sort of play all
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: those hits because I think he realized, hey, if I
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: play all these hits, then that doesn't leave a lot
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: of room for new stuff. Again, you look at the
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: Rolling Stones, and this is not again not to knock
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: any of these people. I mean, like, you know, I'm
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: not saying that, but you know, like when if you
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: go to a Rolling Stones show, other than maybe some
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: songs from the latest album, can pretty much guarantee you
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: their set list ends with tattoo you. I don't think
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Bowie wanted that. I think he want I don't think
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: he wanted to be sort of circumscribed by the sort
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: of classic rock version of his work. I think he,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: you know, he wanted to have the freedom to do
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: kind of whatever he wanted. So I think this was
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: sort of his bargain with the audience, saying, look, I'll
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: play all the songs you love, you know, all the
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: big hits you love, and after this no promises, maybe
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: I'll play him again. Maybe I won't. But I think
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: he just I think it was his way of sort
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: of kind of being fair to his audience, saying, look,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be doing these songs forever, but
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: I also know you love to hear them, so let's
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: find a compromise.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Let's talk post Tim Machine.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: Tim Machine is one of those things too, where again
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: you can add, like I think, if you ask five
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: people kind of within Bowie's orbit what happened with Tim Machine,
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: he'll probably get six different answers. But I guess whatever
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: else happened, I think what's striking is, you know, Bowie
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: apparently said, look, I want to keep working with you,
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: and they did, you know, like again, Cabrel's was with
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: him basically through the nineteen nineties. The first album that
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Bowie did under his own name after Tim Machines called
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Black Tie, White Noise, and that was It's kind of
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: a strange album because It was an album where he
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: worked with Nile Rodgers in but much to Roger's frustration,
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Bowie was not necessarily what he was sort of just
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: absolutely going out of his way to sort of you know,
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: he didn't want to make Let's Dance Part two, no
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: matter how much Rogers begged him to kind of do otherwise.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: But you know, it's an album that was very you know,
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: was very just showed a lot of just the different
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: musical styles that Bowie had kind of indulged in, you know,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: over over the years.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: You know, it was also a tough period for all
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: those artists. Those grunge was the big thing. Yes, yeah,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: and he and he when it came.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Out, and Bowie, you know, he really did go kind
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: of the other way around. But you know, and you
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: can hear just a lot of different aspects. I mean,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: definitely Boie's sort of jazz inclinations are in there in
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: various places. I mean, it was the first album he
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: had done with multiple instrumentals, certainly in many years. And
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: again Gabrel's appeared on one of the songs song actually
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: I think they wrote together called You've Been Around. Then
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: you also have this very sort of almost very dark
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: sort of stopeying sounding song called Jump They Say, which
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: didn't really make much of an impression in the US,
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: was a big hit in the UK. He covered a
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: Morrissey song which apparently was a Morrissey song. It was
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: a Morrissey song that had been on an album of
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: Morsey that was produced by Bowe's former collaborator Mick Ronson,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: and so there was a lot of it was kind
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: of like, oh, I don't know, it was some reverse
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: DNA transcription here or something, you know, but yeah, it was.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: It was. I think it was an album where Bowie
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: I think was still kind of you know, finding himself,
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: exploring a lot of different things that he had, the
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: styles and approaches that he enjoyed doing again in the US. Unfortunately,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: the record company that released it went bankrupt, so it
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: kind of, you know, kind of stopped short in the US.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: Did fairly well in the UK though, Book.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: On Rock podcast We'll be back after this.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: I think you'd be glad later if you weren't here.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Now. There is another album he made the release that year,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: ninety three You Say, is the ultimate cult favorite David
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Bowie album. That's the Buddha of Suburbia.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, so The Buddha of Suburbia was written. That
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: was a book written by a guy named Haneve Karshi
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: who and whose name I hope I pronounced correctly. Should
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: have checked that, and I apologize if I got it
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: wrong to any friends family listening. But he was a
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: writer who he wrote screenplays to a number of well
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: regarded movies in the eighties, My Beautiful Launderette being maybe
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: the most famous of them. And he wrote his novel
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: The Buddha of Suburbia that was about this kind of
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: young man kind of you know, coming to grips with
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: his identity and you know, kind of that early seventies
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: time period, and it was adapted as a mini series
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: for the BBC. He had hoped that because Bowie had
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: been sort of a big influence on him, he had
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: hoped to get Bowie's permission to use some of his
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: songs in the mini series. And Bowie started did one
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: Battery said I will, I'll provide the soundtrack for it,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: like I'll write new stuff for it, and so he did.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Because you know, the BBC is a publicly funded broadcaster
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: in the UK, so their budgets were you know, not
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: maybe not the biggest, so bo is like, well, I
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: didn't get I didn't get paid a lot of money
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: to do this music, but I'm going to turn it
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: into a record of my own and you know, get
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: a little money back for it, you know. So he
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: did this. He worked with a musician in Erdol Cazilke,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: who had done a lot of work with him in
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: the eighties. He had performed on Never Let Me Down,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: as well as a number of the soundtrack recordings he
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: did in the eighties, and it was a super versatile musician,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: could basically play anything, trumpet, bass, guitar, you know, you know, whatever,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: you know, he could do it. So Bowie did this album,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: and I think because the story had this kind of
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: early seventies setting and kind of coinciding with Bowie himself,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: you know kind of but with his sort of rise
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: to start, I think it kind of put Bowie maybe
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: in this sort of more reflective mode. Again. I always
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: had I always feel ambivalent about any kind of you know,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: psychology here, especially with someone like David Bowie. But you know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: you definitely in throughout the album, like in the title song,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: you hear a lot of references both musical and lyrical
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: to other Bowie tracks, and you also hear across the
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: songs on the album which we're recorded in a very
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: kind of atypical kind of improvisational style. You also hear
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: a lot of the kind of experimentation that he would
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: do in some of his work with Brian Eno in
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: the in the kind of late seventies. So it was
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: it's I think it was an album where he really
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: kind of re engage with his past in both kind
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: of like thematically and musically and the record itself, you know,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: because it was sort of it wasn't quite a New
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: Bowie album, but it wasn't sort of a I think
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: with a soundtrack album the way we think of a
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: soundtrack album, you know, choc of block with hits and everything.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: It kind of initially sort of fell between the cracks
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: and like it wasn't even officially released in the US
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: until years later. So it was this album that I think,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: you know a lot of people just maybe didn't even
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: realize it happened. But when you hear it, it does
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: almost have that kind of, you know, you want to say,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: kind of missing link quality to it that you realize
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: that here was here he was, you know, again trying
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: all these really interesting and different approaches coming up with
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: some I think some really terrific songs. The title track,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: Buddha of Suburbia is I think, you know, it's certainly
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: one of the best things he did in the nineties,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: and you know, there's some other great songs on it,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: like Strangers when We Meet, it's you know again, it
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: just it never you know it. It didn't top the
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: charts by any stretch, but as it's just a really
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: fascinating piece of work, and you.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Got me interested. I want to hear the whole album now.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: We're seeking out. I mean it's I think I think
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: it's probably on Spotify. It's uh it is. Yeah, there's
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: a I mean there a couple of the a couple
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: of the tracks. The instrumental ones, if I'm being honest,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: don't develop their sort of central kind of musical theme
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: as much as they could. But again, some of the
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: tracks are are I think, really cool.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I got the title track as part of the
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: playlist for this episode, but I'll check out the rest
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: of it. I'm Afraid of Americans from nineteen ninety five's
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: Outside What Great. That's one of my all time favorite
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Poe songs. And quite a history to this. So there's
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: six different versions that were released.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, to be honest, even slightly more when
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: you down to it, because yeah, it's it's you know,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: it's funny, because you like the history. It's got one
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: of the kind of windier histories of just about any
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Bowie song that I can Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a long gestation period.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: Well like because it like he's wrote the book, Well
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: it goes back at least as far and I say
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: at least because you know, again there's only you know,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: I tried to be in this book. I tried to
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: kind of really be sort of I don't know, like
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: Sergeant Joe Friday, and dragged just the facts man as
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: as much as possible. But in the case of this song,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: I mean as roots go back to at least as
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: far back as as January of nineteen ninety five, because
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: at that point it was known under various alternate titles,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: one of which was Dummy, one of which Johnny Downloader,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: because at one point it was gonna it was envision
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: is maybe that it could have been the title song
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: to the Kenna Reeves movie Johnny Mnemonic, the kind of
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: cyberpunk movie that from like ninety five, I think it was,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: but that didn't come to pass. The aversion that was
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: basically you know, bo that Bowie worked on with Brian Eno.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: That was kind of during some of the sessions for
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: the album Outside Became. It was featured on the infamously
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: bad center of the infamously bad movie Showgirls. And then
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: when Bowie was doing the album Earthlang in you know,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: kind of after that, Bowie and his band at the time,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: Reeves Cabrel's Galan Doors and Our PLAUTI, they re recorded
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: it for the album Earthling. But then even after that,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: Bowie asked, you know, Trent Reznor from Nine inch Nails,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: you know, who he had toured with in ninety five.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: I think I'm also you know, in the same way
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: that I was one of ten people maybe to see
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Last Invitation of Price in the theaters, I think it
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: was also one of ten people who went to see
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: the tour that Bowie did with Nine inch Nails in
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, that was actually there wanting to see
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: both nine inch Nails and David Bowie.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right, two different generations there.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: I think I was like right in just the right
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: point to be interested in both. But Bowie. You know,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: Bowie asked Reznor to basically take, you know, take what
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: I've done here with this song, you know, all the
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: different you know that the tracks that existed and and
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: basically you know, have at it. So that led to again,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: we're already sort of multiple versions in here, including some
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: which have only been like kind of released after the fact.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: But that adds six more versions to it, some some
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: of which are not super different from each other for
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: being honest, but you know, like one of which features
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: ice Cube on it, you know, some which are like
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: really kind of going more into the atmospheric side of it.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: I think the one that's called V one as they
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: call it, which is the one you heard on the
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: radio that the music video was set to, I mean,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: that's the one that, you know, I think is probably
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: the sort of I guess, if you're going to call
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: any of them the quintessential version, that's.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: The one that's the one.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's it's uh, you know, and and and
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: for both parties. And it's a very you know, very
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: kind of atypically direct song from him, and I think
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: he's always you know, again, when you've seen interviews from it,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: he always says you know, like I'm not, you know,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: knocking Americans. Look, this is a guy who you know,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: lived very happily in New York for you know, the
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: last couple of decades of his life. He's always sort
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: of talked about that. It was really meant to be
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: a more sardonic exploration of that sort of you know,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: the cliche version of American culture, you know, over when
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: McDonald's Disney cultural higenomy approach to it. Not, I think
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: he again, I mean biolent occasions. He really loved being
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: living in New York and that environment. So I don't
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: think he you know, I don't I think he was
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: again trying He wasn't trying to I don't think he
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: was deliberately trying to piss anyone off.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: No, No, didn't get that filling either. You lead the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: chapter on the two thousand album Toy by writing quote
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: where David bowie'snineteen eighties work was characterized by diverging from
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: previous artistic collaborators, his records in the nineteen nineties found
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: him reconnecting with many of those individuals. The resulting albums
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: didn't necessarily match their predecessors, but they succeeded in re
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: establishing Bowie as a creatively restless figure. And then that
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: you did that was you wrote it. You sectioned off
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: three albums in the chapter titled A Better Future question
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: Mark two thousands, Toy two thousand and two, is Heathen
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: two thousand and three is Reality. Explain that title A
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Better Future and your thoughts on Bowie's start to the
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: new decade.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, to kind of clarify, you know, it's like,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: you know, you always worries when you write these things like,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: oh my god, am I being a little too pretentious here?
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I think, like you know, in the eighties,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: you know, Bowie like again when he doing the album
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: with doing Let's Stance, Noil Rogers, like that was almost
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: all new people on that album. Like, I don't, off
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: the top of my head, I don't think any of
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: the musicians on Let's Dance for people that Bowie had
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: worked with before. So I think it was, you know,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: it was a little bit of a fresh start. And
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: I think as you get into the nineties and he
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: started working with people like Mike Garson, who had been
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: part of his band going back to even sort of
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: part of the Ziggy period in the seventies, you know,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: I think it was you know again, I think in
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: the nineties there was that element of of again, I think,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: reconnecting with the people who had been part of his
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: life and his work again, even as he was still
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: working with people who were brand new to him, like
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: the bass player and singer Gail Anne Dorsey, who was
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: just a tremendous contry reader or two some of his
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: later albums. And when you hear his work with those
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: people and and the band that he kind of put
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: together around him, that kind of I almost want to say,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: like a repertory company of musicians that that he had,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: you know, after Reeves Gabrel's and he and Bowie kind
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: of parted ways musically. You know, you had people again
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: like Galeen Dorsey, who had the guitarist Earl Slick kind
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: of come back in sort of take that, you know,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: kind of take that lead guitar space again. And you
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: know he again he had just developed this, you know,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: this terrific band around him. Who could I mean, and
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: and again Mike Garson is the piano player. I mean,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: they could do all the old songs any like, I
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: guarantee you if if Bowie had asked him to do
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: anything from his back catalog, they would have come up
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: with a fantastic arrangement of it. And I think that's
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: kind of what led to Bowie doing the album wanting
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: to do the album Toy, which wasn't released till, you know,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: after his death, but you know, that was really recording
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of his sort of pre stardom songs, and
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: that that I think kind of capped off that again
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: we only sort of appreciated in hindsight, but it kind
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: of capped off that nineteen nineties period of sort of
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: coming back into him into his own as an artist
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: a bit. Calling that period and that kind of early
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: two thousands period, you know, using that that umbrella chapter
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: title A Better Future, I think it points to a
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: couple of things. I mean, one was the fact that
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: he was really you know on album, particularly on the
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: album he then, you know, he was really kind of
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: grappling with a lot of these the big deep questions
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: that you know that you do when you're you know,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: like in you know, when you're in your fifties and
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: you recognize that you're getting older, and you know, he
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: talked about how he trying to make sense of the
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: world that his daughter was born into. You know, his daughter,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: you know, Lexi was born in two thousand and you know,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: she was coming of age post nine to eleven in
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: New York. And I think those those elements surely weighed
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: on him. I mean, he's you know, I guess he
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: was luckier than most because he had this amazing outlet
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: for those concerns that you know, a lot of us,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: you know, don't get to have. So again, he's really
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: so he's sort of considering this idea of a better
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: future for his family, for himself, for everyone, against the
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: backdrop of obviously troubling times. But I suppose also, you know,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: in the title, I guess I'm also kind of highlighting
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: the fact that as he even as he kind of
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: explored these troubling times, his musical future had never been brighter.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: But then also then you flip the script again, and
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: you know, that heart attack in June of two thousand
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: and four kind of cut that future short in a way, which.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: The book finishes out with Oh, four to twenty seventeen's
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: No Plan. I hope that was the album he passed,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: but nobody saw his death coming. In January of twenty sixteen,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: he kept that hidden, didn't he He.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: Really did, and he you know, he was very his circumspect.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, he he definitely confided in you know, Tony Visconti,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: who had Wiscondi had been one of his main production
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: partners in the seventies. You know, look on the Berlin Trilogy.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: A lot of people assume he produced the you know
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: albums like Low and Heroes with Brian Eno. Actually was
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: it was Tony Wisconti, and Wisconti and Bowie kind of
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: reunited kind of in earnest for you know, for Heathen,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: and then they did Reality together. And you know, twenty thirteen,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: when Bowie decided he wanted to get back to music,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: there was Wisconti again.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: And as they were getting the next day is twenty thirteen, Yeah,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: next day?
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: Sorry. Yeah. When it came time to do the album
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: that became Blackstar, Bowie confided in Visconti and probably, like
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: he confided in very few others about his cancer diagnosis,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: and he was, you know, had been getting treatment and everything,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: and but you know, apparently a lot of the musicians
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: had no idea what was going on. And there were
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: and there had been rumors about Bowie's health for many years,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean he was sort of perpetually you know,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: there have been just a series of rumors about what's
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: going on. I suppose, ironically in this case, the rumors
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: were at least somewhat true.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: But appearances, he always looked youthful. Yeah, he always looked
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: so he was going to be the guy who's gonna
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: be around till he's one hundred.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: It's ironic of all that. You know, he very famously
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: appeared in The Elephant Man on Broadway in the early eighties.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: I would say, if there was any show he should
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: have been in, it should have been the picture of
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: Dorian Gray, you know. Yeah, he had that element to him.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so so it did come Yeah, it uh.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: I mean when I heard the news, you know it,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean I practically fell out of bed.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: I mean it was. It was shocking, you know, and
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: shocking in part because of course, Blackstar came out January eighth,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, so it was his sixty ninth birthday, and man,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: I listened to you know, I mean I was listening
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: to that album all that weekend. I mean, I remember
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: I was listening to it when I was driving my
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: kids to school that, you know, the day it came out.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: The title track is brilliant.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: Tracks, fantastic, it's I mean, god, God only knows what
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: it's about. You. I mean, you know it's you know
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: it's and that's a you know, it's funny thing. You
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: heard very little public publicly from Bowie in kind of
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: those later years, but one notable exception was at one
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: point Donnie mcaslyn, who was the saxophone player who was
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: kind of the core of musicians for recording Black Star,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: he said, I think it was in Rolling Stone that
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: Bowie told him that the song was somehow about isis
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: you know, the Islamic State. But then apparently Bowie's team,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: through a spokesperson, said no, that is not what it's about.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: It not about the Middle East. But you know, Tony
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: Wisconti has said, I don't know what it's about, like
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: he and he and he's also sort of said that
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: he figured Bowie probably liked it that way, He probably
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: liked the song is kind of inscrutable.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah sure, sure, yeah, yeah, And it was there was
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: a thought that he knew he was dying and he
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: wanted this to be his final act. That wasn't so
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Visconti said that he planned on continuing this.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well I think it's it's yeah, it's it's he passed.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he passed two days after the release of the album,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: two days after his birthday.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: It seems pretty clear. And Wisconti has said this in
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: comments and and look, Viscandi kind of became the latter
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: day sort of voice for Bowie on kind of musical matters,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: like because Bowie just again at a certain point, you
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: just stopped giving interviews and and so on. And but Wiscondi,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: who was obviously intimately involved in making these final records,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: you would would you know, comment and presumably with Bowie's
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: blessing on them. And he talked about shortly after Bowie's death,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: you know, his CONTI you know, talk about how Boie
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: clearly knew this could be his last record. I mean,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: when you're talking about cancer, obviously you got to I
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: guess you've got to be aware of that possibility. But
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: he also recounted talking to Bowie very shortly before Black
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: Star came out, and he recalls Bowie being hopeful, you know,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: and you still try it working on music. So so
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: I mean not just not to take anything away from
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: the achievement. And and certainly it's very easy to kind
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: of look at the things and think, wow, it does
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: certainly look like someone planned this beautifully. But you know,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, you when you look
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: at it. Also in the context you go back to
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: Heathen from two thousand and two, and that's an album
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: that's also very you know, again, it's preoccupied with some
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: very a lot of those questions of mortality are just
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: as prevalent in those albums that can't before. So I
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: mean he was really I think he was. He was
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: working in that space, you know, musically, mentally, emotionally, whatever,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: So it's not surprising that Blackstar would have that feel
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: to it.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: Rock podcasts We'll be back after this. I listen.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: Now, don't go away, ladies and gentlemen, We'll soon be
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: with you.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: So there was a posthumous release called No Plan in
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, which were original songs for his off Broadway
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: musical Lazarus. And then you follow with a look at
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: Bowie's compilations, his live albums. So you really covered all here.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: What can you say about David Bowie that I guess
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: hasn't been said, or your final thoughts on his body
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: of work, which spanned close to fifty five years twenty
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: six studio albums.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: It is such an amazing body of work that it's like,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: you know, trying to do it justice. And and look,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: I think it looked this whole book was I think,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: me trying to do justice, trying to be against one
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: fan's perspective, but I think trying to do justice to
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: a body of work that has just been a part
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: of my life. I mean, if my copies of these
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: albums disappeared tomorrow, they'd still I think these songs will
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: still be a part of me, and I think it's
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: still you know, my mind would have been kind of
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: as better off for having had them. But I was
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: thinking though about there was a story though that I think,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: to me just sort of I think it's just like
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: the coolest story about about Bowie. And it was in
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: another after that Buz documentary I mentioned five Years, there
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: was one that focused on the last few years of
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: his life and his work, called appropriately the Last five Years,
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: and one of the people they interview is this jazz
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: musician named Maria Schneider, and his one of the songs
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: that appeared that appeared on Black Star was a song
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: called Sue or in the season of Prime had an
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: earlier version that appeared on one of BOE's compilations, and
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: Bowie did it with this woman, Ree Schneider's ensemble, and
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: when it came time to do Blackstar, she and her
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: group were too busy to do it. But so she
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: suggested that Boie talked to the saxophonist Donnie mccaslyn, who,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: again it was his group. Mchaslyn had performed on the
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: original version of Sue and he had his own group.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: And Schneider said, you know, said to Boie, you should
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: talk to him, because I think should recorded with his group,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: And she recounts Bowie asking her, do you think he'd
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: want to work with me? And it's like and so
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: again this and so you think this guy who was,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: you know, acclaimed in jazz circles, no question, but jazz
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: obviously is not the kind of popular force in music
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: that it once was, and which is unfortunate in many ways,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: I would consider I'm a jazz fan, so you know,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: that's unfortunate that it's maybe not as well known. But
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: but I from the first time I saw that bit
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: of interview and the idea that this man, this artist,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: who had accomplished so much would have that reaction that
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: he would think, oh, that person want to work with me.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: I think it just shows you that he really didn't
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: take anything for granted artistically speaking, you know, that he
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: that he didn't think, well, just because I'm David Bowie,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: that of course everyone's going to want to work with me.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: And you can definitely find examples of that kind of
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: you know, throughout his career. You know, we talked about
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: the boodh of Suburbia a little bit, and you know,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: the initial music that Bowie came up with. The folks
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: making that mini series, the Boot of Suburbia said yeah,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: it doesn't really fit and so and again, someone of
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: his stature, even if maybe he wasn't kind of at
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: the top of his game back then and top of
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: the status, he could have said, look, this is what
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: I did. If you don't want it, that's fine, you know,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: we're you know, but he didn't do that. He went
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: back and he worked at it some more and came
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: up with something that fit better. You know, again, you know,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: kind of whether he was sort of on top down
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: you know, bit down whatever. It seems like he was
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: always pushing himself and just again he didn't take anything
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: for granted, and that to me seems to be like
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: the most striking and maybe valuable thing that you could
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: say about any artist and their achievements.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: David Bowie nineteen eighty three to twenty sixteen. Every album,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: every song. It is out now in the UK through
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: BURNINGSHD dot com. In the US you can get it
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: through Amazon and whoever books are sold. And if you
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: have a local bookstore, look for it there and if
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: it's not there, ask him to to get get a
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: copy in store. And you can find your local bookstore
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: through the book on rock dot com website. And where
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: can people find you online down if they want to
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: reach out to you.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: I know it's not cool these days, but I probably
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: on Facebook more than any other social platform. You know.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: I don't really have time for that single letter one.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: I won't get into the politics of that. Yeah, I
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: don't mind Instagram, though I'm not I'm probably too verbose
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: on balance for Instagram. By I'm on Instagram at dp
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: clease that's k L e E s again. Just don
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: clese On Facebook, I ran into someone once who I
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: had met in passing, and I reintroduced myself and they said,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: I remember you from Facebook, and I remember thinking, yeah,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: no one ever forgets me from Facebook.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I've had my eyes on I've had my
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: eyes on the Fleetwood Mac book and the Dylan book
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: because I've seen it in that Sonic Bond catalog. So
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: I love to having kind of talk about those two.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: Those would be fun time.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know again, I'm not like, I'm not approaching this,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: any of this from a contrarian standpoint, you know again,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: like for like for the Dylan one, for example, the
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: mid nineteen eighties, that is when I became a fan. Again.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: I was aware of him, don't get me wrong, but
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: it was I remember seeing the video for the song
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: Joker Man, and I was like, and I had never
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: seen the or heard the like, not really and you know,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: and so I think, you know, doing that book, which
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: that came out. I guess it's been years ago. It's
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: been over three years now, And for me, it was
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: about kind of getting to the heart of my fandom,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: you know, because look, I know intellectually, you know, my
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: head knows these albums are not particularly respected. I can
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: even say, yeah, I understand why not in many cases,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: but I also wanted to go into them with an
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: open mind and open ears and see the virtues where
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: they were there and and acknowledge the shortcomings of course.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: But but I think that sometimes with Dylan in particular, Uh,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: I actually had Uh. There's a certain writer about Bob
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: Dylan who when I would and I'm not going to
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: name the name, but whenever I would read their stuff
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: about him, they always seem to be so hyper focused
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: on all the songs they left off and these this
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: alternate version and that alternate version, and they never seem
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: to want to talk about the album as it was.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: And I thought, well, I haven't say, let's do we
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: have to go down all these what if rabbit holes
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: of like, Okay, maybe we live in a multiverse, maybe not,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: but but we don't have to, like we don't have
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: to like pretend we do for the sake of talking
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: about this amazing artist. Like sometimes let's just let's just
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: talk about what's out there. Let's say he wanted to
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: release you know, he wanted to Infidels to have these
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: eight songs on them.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: Well, I like Infidels.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeahs as do I my you know, my unpopular
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: Dylan opinion. I don't happen to think blind Willie McTell
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: not being on the album really like somehow it's some
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: mortal wound to the record.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: That one, right, Yeah, and then it ended up years
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: later on a box set.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: But you know, I think and in particularly you look,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: it was that that period, you know, because because I'm
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: covering the eighties, I'm coming in right in the middle
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: of the born again gospel period and which is not
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: not the most beloved, to say the least, But you know,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: that was one I came away thinking, look, I don't
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: I certainly don't love every song here, and you know,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: Saved is never gonna be my favorite Bob Dylan album,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you that for nothing. But I also came
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: away with it thinking that this was still these were
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: deeply felt albums and every album you know, and it's
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: really two a one. You tell you name any Dylan
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: album for that period, and I will tell you a
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: genuinely terrific track from it, you know, because that that's
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: just how it works. Again, his most consistent period, no
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: one of his most interesting, though, I've got to say,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: And so yeah, I would love to talk about that
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: Fleetwood Mac. Look, you know that the thing with Fleetwood
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: Mac is who do you believe? Who do you believe
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: about what story? And that was tricky because you know,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: you wanna, you know, you want to recognize that, Yeah,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: Lindsey Buckingham was not probably a good person to be
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: around in a lot of cases. He was also the
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: person who kind of you know, carried the band on
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: his shoulders for the album Tango in the Night, So
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: you know, and I too, Yeah, it's you know, so
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: it's it's you know again, I'm trying to be you know,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: you try trying to be you know, fair in mind.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: And look again, and I think, look, I think, you know,
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: Stevie Nick's booting him from the band as she did
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen. I think that was monumentally uncool. But
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: you know what, at the same time, I can also
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: look at some of the criticism that Stevie Nicks received
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: for some of her songs, you know, in the eighties,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: and say, you know, hold on a second, that that's
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: just that's just bullshit, like that like stuff is just nasty,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: like not not even criticizing the song on its merits,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: but just like but we can just sort of tell
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: this is like a it just some of the things
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: just felt personal and you think, you know, so again
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: I was, I think, I I look, I I'm I'm
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: not someone who could just write about any given artist
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: like I think I went into those books with I
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: think a sense of purpose is maybe the best way
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: to put it, because because again because of just my
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: my love of that time, maybe feeling that some of
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: these periods were underrated or whatever it was, and because
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: I think I needed to because if I'm going to
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: spend months to a year or more almost two years
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: in the Bowie case, I better be feeling it.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, yeah, congrats on the Bowie book, and I
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: look forward to reading the other two and we'll have
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: you back on and discuss those those two other books
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: that be interesting to get a deep dive into those.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: So don please thank you so much for being on
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: the show.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: Eric.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: It's so great. You know, I'm happy to say, you know,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: I've got the book in hand. It's amazing I to
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: be real and to get to talk to someone about
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: it and really just have a great conversation about it.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you making the time for me. That's it.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: It's in the books.