Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / "Silhouettes and Shadows: The Secret History of David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)"/Adam Steiner [Episode 153]

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"Silhouettes and Shadows: The Secret History of David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)"/Adam Steiner [Episode 153] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Oh, we're totally booked. Rollo. I think I'll leave you. You're
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reading Little Hands. It's time to rock and roll, row down. We
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are totally booked. Welcome to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those about
0:18
to read and rock. Find the podcast at booked on rock dot com.
0:22
Exclusive videos, blogs, links to all of the social media sites, the
0:26
latest rock book releases, and links to all the listening platforms. Adam Steiner
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is a returning guest. His latest book is called Silhouettes and Shadows, the
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secret history of David Bowie's Scary Monsters and Super Creeps. Steiner digs deep into
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this avant garde pop album with new insights and exclusive interviews with close collaborators.
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He's here to share some of the stories behind the album and the tracks,
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which include the hit singles Fashion and Ashes to Ashes. Here all of David
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bowie Scary Monsters and Super Creeps by visiting the show notes page. Adam,
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Welcome back to the podcast. It's great to see you again. Hi Eric,
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Thanks having me again. Yeah Yeah, I had you on for your
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book on nine in Stales. Yeah. Into another Yeah, which which must
1:12
be three years two years ago. It's not fast. I think maybe a
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couple of years ago, maybe I had John. Yeah, it's everything's a
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blur as you get older. So let's talk about this new book. And
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it's on David Bowie's Scary Monsters and Super Creep. So what led you to
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writing the book on this specific album. It's really interesting. I think in
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some respects, it's one of, if not my favorite Bowie album. I
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think it's in there like the one two three kind of thing, which constantly
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shifts and shuffles. And it wasn't it wasn't entirely my gateway Bowie album.
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I kind of started more with Ziggy Stardust and then I come jump forward to
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low and heroes and things. So this came with something of an afterthought.
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The thing that really hooped it for me was that I had my first car,
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had a tape deck, a cassette tape deck, not an eight track
2:05
anyone. And I was in a charity shop or thrift store and they had
2:09
a cassette and it was like one pound fifty or something, and we're talking
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like twenty years ago, and I was like, yeah, great, another
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cassette for the car. David Boye brilliant bought it and then just got really
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hooked on it. You know, this mesmeric album that loops back on itself
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with the reprise of the opening track, and it's only like ten songs long,
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but it's really tight, like forty minutes, kind of like a classic
2:31
record configuration. So yeah, in many ways, it's like a It's an
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album that defines Bowie, if not his best, then perhaps like one of
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his most adventurous phases where he'd done so many varied things. He was able
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to bring together a lot of those conflicting elements from a really restless and energetic
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decade. That's where I want to go next. You're right staring down the
2:57
barrel of the nineteen eighties David Bowie phase, an uncertain future, the blurred
3:00
feelings of optimism with old reflexes of fear and dread. Talk about where boy
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is at this point in his career and how that influences what he decides to
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do musically. Unscary monsters, because he should have been confident, you would
3:14
think, and secure in his career, but that wasn't, so there was
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some inner conflict going on there. Yeah. Sure, I think it's one
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of those classic albums where it wasn't necessarily do or die. But he'd done,
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as we said, he'd done so much in the previous ten years that
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it was hard to know where to go from there. And obviously he was
3:34
an artist committed to not repeating himself, making a point of if not advancing,
3:40
then zigging or zagging if you will, from album to album. And
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nineteen eighty is kind of quite a crucial year for him because it was a
3:49
year in which his divorce from his then estranged wife and she was finalized.
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She was there, obviously from the Ziggy period, and there was a really,
3:59
you know, whatever you might think of her personally, was a crucial
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figure in his career getting off the ground and becoming Ziggy Stardust. So that
4:08
was a significant part of his personal history and personal disruption put to rest.
4:14
He gained custody of his son, Zoe Joe, who we now know as
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Duncan, the film director, and that was a really big thing for him
4:25
to have some kind of family unit or like that relationship with his son.
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And he also was completing the almost completing the end of his recording contract with
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our cea record company, his label who he'd been with for you know,
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more or less ten years and had a really really strong run of successive albums,
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and despite you know, ups and downs in that relationship, Like in
4:50
seventy five seventy six, they offered him a mansion in Philadelphia or something if
4:57
he could just do Young Americans Part two, and he probably balked at that
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and did Station to Station instead, which is you know, thank God for
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that because that's like definitely one of his best albums. And so it was
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kind of a watership thing. It's you know, it's the end of one
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decade, the start of a new one, exciting new beginnings. But also
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he was for him, I think he felt he was getting older and life
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was getting a little bit harder to be competitive in the world of music as
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a chart contender, but perhaps also to be remain competitive with himself as an
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artist and still feel challenged interested enough that he actually was engaged to continue making
5:39
records. And also that's the time when he took on his first major acting
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role as John Joseph Merrick in the Broadway Broadway stage run of The Elephant Man
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Places. Yeah, there's an interesting connection there with the lyrics in the music
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too, which I wanted to ask you about. Yeah, you know,
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what's also interesting is that you're talked about how he's getting older, and I'm
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trying to recall how old he was at that time. I believe he's thirty
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three, thirty three, the same year as he died. Yeah, And
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it's interesting because he's obviously he's not he doesn't want to repeat the past,
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but he's also cognizant of the fact that he needs to get an album out
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quickly. At least that's what he said, because you're right, he's afraid
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that if he ever paused long enough for the dust to settle, that that
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he would be considered a legacy act, you know, if he waited too
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long, which I thought was interesting he's only thirty three, but he was
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also concerned with that, like, let's let's keep going, let's keep things
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moving. We don't want to wait too long. Yeah. I think because
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he had such an intense decade and went in many in different aspects, he
6:48
went from success to success, it was hard for him to sit back for
6:56
too long for fear that he might lose some of that entom, that kinetic
7:00
energy. And I think after nineteen eighty he kind of did. He became
7:03
a little bit listless, a little bit removed from the music, perhaps kind
7:08
of making records for the sake of it without some of that initial spark that
7:12
was there before. And so there was a strange tension there of like trying
7:16
to be affirmative and remain a popular pop musician, which is kind of the
7:21
name of the game of music, but once again to feel creatively challenged and
7:27
engaged. I've got to give credit perhaps to the artist who is responsible for
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that cover too, because it's an amazing cover. The artwork by Edward Bell.
7:38
Yeah. Yeah, it's a large scale collage, beautiful, great look
7:44
to it, which in the book cover. I like how you tie that
7:46
in with the actual the book cover. I'm not sure who put that together
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for the book, but it's perfect. That's interesting. The photograph on the
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cover, I don't know if many of people actually realize this. It's not
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Bowie himself. It's a a mannequin model of him looking a bit like a
8:03
sort of hero's type pose with his aunt stretched out forward at the waist,
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as if he's trying to carry something someone, some sort of invisible weight reaching
8:13
out. I don't know, it's it's quite a lackluster kind of pose.
8:16
But there's also maybe a slight sense of yearning to it, and that that
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figure was actually commissioned by the photographer Massioshi Siquita, who is a legendary photographer,
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snapped many of the seminole shots of Bowie in the ziggy stardust era,
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and that's how they first got to know one another through I think it might
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have been Japanese designer who was doing some of Bowie's crazier stage outfits, and
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that relationship continued all through their lives, and Siquita happens to be doing more
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photography with Bowie in Kyoto in nineteen eighty around the time he was doing an
8:56
advert there for a brand of sake. But the point is it's it's a
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really haunting kind of figure because it looks real but it's fake, and you
9:05
can see it's sort of slightly distressed, slightly falling apart. And I don't
9:07
think it made it. I think it fell apart at some point where it
9:11
got lost, so it no longer it's no longer around. It's just Saquita's
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photographs of it. So yeah, it was kind of roughed up, disheveled,
9:20
beauty, elegance, perfection in the figure of the Piero clown who is
9:28
in some respects in first glance, comical, comical, fun, creative,
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open, but also sad, troubled, withdrawn. It's the It's the cracked
9:39
Actor Pason of five. Perhaps let's go from visual now to what we hear
9:43
on the album. It's produced by Tony Visconti, who said there was quite
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a bit of experimentation going on here. More parts were left out than included,
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he said, talk about where this album was recorded and how David approached
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the songs because he was aiming for more pop or entered music, but he
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also encouraged the musicians to explore and help determine where the songs would go.
10:05
It's a really interesting thing. I don't know if most people are quite aware
10:09
of just how quick, literally fast and intuitively Bowie worked in recording sections.
10:16
A lot of his albums are more or less pieced together in two to three
10:18
weeks, give or take, so very much spur at the moment, moving
10:22
from my idea to approach to interpretation, trying different things out. He had
10:28
an idea, he often seems to have had an idea of what he wanted
10:31
to make, how he wanted it to sound, in some respect, he
10:35
couldn't necessarily facilitate that, as in, he couldn't play perhaps the kind of
10:41
riffs that he wanted on guitar, for example. He's much more of like
10:43
a strumming, acoustic rhythm guitarist kind of guy. And that was him having
10:50
the damn trio Dennis Davis, Carlos Alamar and guitar and George Murray on bass
10:56
to lay down the basics of the tracks and them to just feed off of
11:01
his energy and his ideas like that slower, can you do it sadder?
11:07
Can you draw this section out a bit? I think this could be more
11:09
energetic or frenetic, and just little pointers and hint too and there, and
11:13
before they know it, they had like basic tracks down and that took once
11:16
again like a matter of weeks. That was mostly recorded at the power Plant
11:22
Studio in New York, apparently a really great studio in New York. That
11:26
was in February of nineteen eighty and then April, so a good month or
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so later, Bowie and Visconti met up again at Good Earth Studios in London,
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Visconti's own studio, and laid down the majority of the vocal tracks,
11:39
and I think probably did some more overd up some things. And in between
11:43
all of that, you've got you know, Chuck Hammer on there with his
11:46
synth guitar, and you've got Robert Fripp doing his wildly improvisatory guitar that seems
11:56
freewheeling and off the chain, but it's also like really rigorously disciplined and precise,
12:03
And I love his ability to do that, to make really angry,
12:07
energetic, powerful music, but to have a complete mastery over what he's doing.
12:11
So when he does let go, it's almost as if he knows where
12:15
he's going to end up, but it seems like some kind of chaos on
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the fretboard. Yeah, he makes this album such a fun listen. Yeah,
12:24
I'm really rocky and really intense. You know, boys, he wasn't
12:28
on something like Low, so you know, those tracks have some similar kind
12:33
of energy, slightly more melancholy, slowly more downbeat, And as you say,
12:35
I think there's a quote from Carlos Alamar he's saying, like the ambition
12:39
with this album that Bowie said him was kind of hit the listener right between
12:43
the eyes. So really punchy, really tight, short stout songs, nothing
12:46
ambient, nothing that you would necessarily call electronica, apart from you know,
12:52
stuff like ashes to ashes, sections of that, everything kind of moving on.
12:56
It's a lot of songs in there that could have been a single,
12:58
for example, Teenage Life, you know, the great lost Bowie hit that
13:01
never was, but it it endures as a really strong, deep cut kind
13:07
of ballad, you know, comparable to Heroes. The lead track it's no
13:11
Game number one in parentheses and David sings draw the blinds on Yesterday, and
13:16
it's also much scarier. I take that as he's no longer hiding behind the
13:22
characters he creates in the seventies, and he's ready to introduce the real David
13:26
Bowie or David Jones for that matter, the real person to the world.
13:31
What do you make of the song's lyrics? Yeah, I think I like
13:35
when Bowie throws out these really powerful contradictory statements. They seem like an autobiographical
13:41
declaration, but were none the wiser. As you say, he's making this
13:46
strange suggestion that you're obscuring something, but in doing so, it perhaps reveals
13:52
some of the kind of truth. Because you're forced into self reflection. You
13:56
can't you don't have the aura and imagery and the spectacle to hide behind and
14:03
to masquerade quite so easily. I really, I really do wonder how much
14:05
of you know, the real David Bowie get on this record, because we
14:09
don't really get a character. We get from the cover. We get Bowie
14:13
as Piero, but it's like it's partially revealed. It's like a torn curtain.
14:18
So the blind Singer, I think you can take it, you know,
14:22
reasonably literally. And I also think it's it's him moving away from self
14:30
absorption, self reflection, looking outwards more to the world and the state of
14:35
things. So he's one of those great artists where he doesn't necessarily talk about
14:39
exact specific events and times and places in great detail, but he casts his
14:45
net wider and I think looks at more like the sensation, the emotional impact
14:50
on the individuals, So taking things from the macro down to the micro.
14:56
And that's really interesting the way the way he funnels that down, because the
15:00
songs remain really universal, but they also feel very intimate and connected, and
15:05
you can see like his frustrations, his fears, you know, his like
15:09
mini panic attacks, and then his elated feelings. They're not so unrelatable to
15:15
the casual listener, I don't think. And he's sparring vocal lines with a
15:18
female voice speaking in Japanese. Interesting to read in the book. He initially
15:22
intended to sing this part of himself, but he wasn't. The phrasing didn't
15:26
work out. Who is it we hear instead? And can you share a
15:28
translation of what she says that you include in the book? Yeah? Sure.
15:33
Her name is Mishi Hirota, and she was a girlfriend of one of
15:39
the members of Sparks. I don't know if he was at that time.
15:41
She was a friend of Visconti. She happened to be acting. I think
15:46
she was acting in The King and I down the road because his studio is
15:48
in Soho, So not far from the theater district of West Central Head And
15:54
Yeah, I think the idea was they got someone who could literally perform and
15:58
give like aura real backing to it, but to have it in a feminine
16:02
voice. Bowie's argument is that that was some attempt at impairing the female and
16:07
overturning the male chauvinistic hierarchy that they have in Japan like in the West,
16:14
but obviously driven more around discipline and cultural standing. And then in terms of
16:19
the translations, it's really interesting because like a lot of things that the lines
16:23
don't translate perfectly, and so there's there's minute differences of interpretation you can take
16:30
in them. The translation is I don't even want to try to pronounce it
16:33
in Japanese, but I know one of them is I have been excluded from
16:37
reality. Yeah, and I think I think that relates actually to the draw
16:41
the blinds on yesterday, and it's all so much scarier. Maybe maybe it's
16:45
that one, but it's it's really weird. They come out signing quite poetic,
16:48
a little bit abstract, a little bit broken syntax, and it's odd.
16:52
Like the translation when you flip it back to the original lines, they
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seem to reveal the truth or deeper truth from Bowie's lyrics. So I really
17:03
enjoy the aspect of it, because obviously you weren't given the translation. You
17:07
were perhaps supposed to interpret the vibe from the aggression and passion of the voice.
17:12
It is really confusing once again because there's a bit of a Hall of
17:15
Mirror's effect where Bowie is saying to Mishi Hirota, sing it like a man,
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so it's a woman trying to overturn gender cliches, of stereotypes and the
17:26
balance of power by trying to sound more like a man in theory the guys
17:33
and the attitudes that were keeping her down. So there's a strange sort of
17:37
circularity to that. It's not necessarily a reversion a revolution of power. It's
17:44
perhaps a weird kind of feedback loop where the thing keeps going. But I
17:48
just love the Yeah, the weird, the weird translations, because obviously they
17:51
can be tweaked. Different people would translate those lines slightly slightly differently, And
17:56
there's there's great stuff in there around the idea of like being nominated by like
18:00
a superman type figure, like the political shift of authoritarianism. You know,
18:04
it kind of pushes the track a little bit harder than what Bowie was saying,
18:08
And I love that because it, once again it seems to just reveal
18:12
more of the intent behind the song. So yeah, maybe that's why he
18:15
never went forward and put out a definitive translation anywhere. He just let the
18:19
Japanese stand on its own. Yeah, just saying. Robert Fripp is on
18:23
this track. He worked with Bowie in nineteen seventy seven. Heroes right,
18:27
that is the last time he had worked with him. It's it's very much
18:32
like I feel like a Rod Stewart Jeff Beck type of thing that I thought
18:34
they would have made a great duo from there on out. But I don't
18:37
think he ever worked with him again, and you do not. In the
18:41
book. Some thought that his guitar work on this album stood out too much,
18:45
which I don't agree with. Yeah, confrontational, right, that was
18:48
some of the criticism. Yeah, it's almost like it's almost like customer feedback
18:52
because it's it's a really it's a really aggressive, hyped up record. I
18:57
love I love the you know, because you're young, teenage wildlife. They're
19:03
really like hyped up, over dramatic, melodramatic really, but you can't help
19:07
but be swayed by the romanticism of that, even if it is a bit
19:11
tortured and jaded. So there's still some of the old, you know,
19:15
very camp silly, almost cabaret showiness of like Ziggy Stardust era, really,
19:22
which is kind of there all the way through Bowie stuff, to be fair,
19:25
and he never really apologized to that. All feels he has to rein
19:27
it in. But you know, when you look at aspects of low and
19:33
heroes here and there. There are a lot more I see and austere and
19:37
with drawn, But yeah, the inclusion a Frip there seems quite liberating.
19:42
And I just think his guitar sounds brilliant, really aggressive. They're really high
19:48
in the mix, and they seem to sort of like rub up against the
19:52
songs sometimes that Bowie had this like willingness for a really well produced record,
19:59
you know, this Gone. He talks a lot about where he took individual
20:03
pieces of tape and tweaked to snare sound and phased it and all this kind
20:07
of stuff. You know, it's in that sense, it's quite an electronic
20:11
e album. Everything's warped and distorted, and you know, fits into the
20:15
monstrous vibe, and Fripps guitar perhaps speaks to that, vocalizes some of that.
20:21
But yeah, the fact that it's it's way in there in the song
20:23
also makes it a really rocky kind of album that you wouldn't quite hear that
20:27
kind of thing again until to an extent tim Machine. But you know,
20:32
more specifically, things like ninety seven's Earthing Reeves, Gabrell's guitars are really on
20:37
top of the songs there and really blazing powerful distortion. So it's a rare
20:45
kind of thing that Bowie does there. But he makes the record that is
20:48
really polished and nuanced, sound really raw and fierce, and I really enjoy
20:55
that the popdown right podcast. We'll be bad after this. I take the
21:02
wayfarers off and hand them to him. Maybe I really did kill as Sally,
21:06
though I'm positive that any cab drivers I've killed lately were not American.
21:10
I probably did. There probably is a wanted poster of me. At where
21:15
the taxi the place where all the taxis congregate, what's it called. The
21:19
driver tries the sunglasses on, looks at himself in the rear of view mirror,
21:23
and then takes them off. He folds the glasses and puts them in
21:26
his jacket pocket. You're a dead man, I smiled grimly at him.
21:30
And you're a yuppie scumbag, he says, You're a dead man, Abdullah,
21:36
I repeat, no joke, count on it. Yeah, and you're
21:38
a yuppie scumbag, which is worse. He starts the cab up and pulls
21:44
away from me. While walking back to the highway. I stop choke back
21:48
a sob my throat tightens. I just want to facing the skyline through all
21:52
the baby talk, I murmur, keep the game going. As I stand
21:57
frozen in position. An old woman emerges behind a threepenny opera poster at a
22:02
deserted bus stop. And she's homeless and begging, hobbling over, her face
22:07
covered with sores that look like bugs, holding out a shaking red hand.
22:11
Oh will you please go away? I sigh. She tells me to get
22:15
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What is freedom of expression without the freedom to offend? It ceases to exist?
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Salmon rushdie, and if we've offended you with this commercial, just turn
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it off for fuck's sake. Up the Hill Backwards the next track, there's
23:23
a push and pull between a bow dilly shuffle in seven or four time in
23:27
some melodic pop sections. You do note the book that Bowie's video for Less
23:32
Dance three years later was a continuation of the gauntlet thrown down by Up the
23:37
Hill Backwards. What did you mean by that? Interesting? Bowie talks so
23:40
often about the album in terms of commitment. So he's sang, we're all
23:45
individuals, and you know, he was such a profoundly individualistic person. He
23:49
lived a weird sort of isolated lifestyle as a rock star, and a lot
23:53
of his earliest songs he says, it's himself deal very much with alienation,
23:57
it's him withdraw inward, reflecting that outwards. A lot of songs are quite
24:03
dark, almost depressing melancholy apocalyptics so often, and then when it comes to
24:08
when it comes to scary monsters and uphill backwards, he's looking at the idea
24:15
of like, yes, you are an individual, and you have your own
24:18
rights and your liberty and that's really important that should never be taken away from
24:22
you. But ultimately we are all, even if it's indirectly investing in society.
24:27
For me, it kind of verges on a version a little bit of
24:30
like socialism communists kind of awareness that he suddenly seems to realize that no man
24:37
is an island, no person if you like, and we all have like
24:41
if not a part to play, then we're all connected and there's there's a
24:45
shared there's a shared investment, and there's taking from society, but there should
24:49
also be some giving back, and that could even just be exchanges of kindness
24:55
and awareness of other people's needs and difference and identity. So I think on
24:59
this album he takes that really strongly, even though he's often mocking, sarcastic,
25:04
frustrated, he's throwing his hands up like I really struggle. I think
25:08
things really fucked. I don't have the answers, but we are all involved
25:14
are in action still counts as a contribution to the problems that we fail to
25:19
address or challenge, and so it makes his push for commitment, or at
25:25
least just an awareness of that in the social political realm, comes back to
25:30
a push against authoritarianism that would have everyone the same, that would have things
25:34
controlled, that would punish minorities. You know, he's he's taking a stand,
25:41
but it's also a very dejected, thwarted, trouble position because he's not
25:47
the leader of a revolution, he doesn't have all the answers. But I
25:52
think he's exposing himself that bit more that he is aware of the world ills
25:56
he does care, but like so many of because he perhaps feels cursed by
26:02
indecision, he had an amazing observation of the world around him. But he
26:07
was also very upfrough and honest about what was going on inside of him.
26:11
Like the title track, which is to me, sounds like a guy who's
26:15
becoming unhinged. As you put it, the song offers us a record of
26:18
a restless and troubled mind. And this is this is where the Elephant Man
26:22
connection comes in. Talk about Boy's influences for the specific track, like the
26:26
nineteen thirty two cult film Freaks and John Merrick, known as the Elephant Man,
26:32
where the quote unquote normal people are actually the villains after all if you
26:37
look at it in that way, they're the ones who are casting out those
26:41
who aren't normal. Yeah, it feeds into don't into the title track as
26:47
you say, scary monsters, super creeps and Bowie in an interview I figured
26:52
what the show's called it, something like Saturday Night Sunday Morning. It's an
26:55
interview shows an eighteen. He's talking about always as you get the ration for
27:00
the title of the album, he's like, Oh, it's some tellogs,
27:03
you know, cornflakes packet or something, and the kid gets a free toy
27:07
and it's like Superman and Lost Ferratis. And the theory is that's not quite
27:11
accurate. There might be something else. But that was the reason and the
27:15
logic he gave. And when you look at his involvement and the deep seriousness
27:21
with which he engaged with the Elephant Man role on Broadway, the amount of
27:25
preparation and just consideration he gave to it. Once again, I think it's
27:30
Bowie highlighting shared vulnerabilities and encouraging a mutual awareness of people being exposed and having
27:40
their identities questioned, and the measure of a society could often be considered kindness
27:48
or the sense of justice with which it treats its weakest or most vulnerable members,
27:55
who are perhaps the most excluded and need the most help. So moving
28:00
against perhaps like the more conservative tradition of self reliance and hard individuality, each
28:06
person looks after their own affairs, and then we happened to bump up against
28:10
one other in the social sphere. But Merrick is obviously a person who faced
28:15
he was disabled, face extreme deficty in life, often shunned, marked,
28:21
and that the thing that Bowie tries to manifest in his role was a his
28:26
mind training so contorting his body rather than using makeup and things contorting his body
28:32
to have the experience or to project the experience of deformity and lack of mobility
28:41
and ugliness, but to highlight what he calls Merrick had a fine mind.
28:47
And it wasn't that he was necessarily a genius or anything, but he was
28:49
deeply sensitive. He was empathetic towards the needs and plights of others, despite
28:55
the many difficulties he faced himself. Yeah, his beauty was on the inside
28:59
the ugliness the rest of the world it was the reverse, yeah, and
29:04
he was articulate. And so it was the call for people not to be
29:07
judged on either case exclusively, you know, but perhaps be taken as a
29:14
whole considered individual. Though there might be lacking in some areas, they had
29:18
other things to offer. And on that basis, people like Joseph Merrick elegant
29:23
man was not a subject to be pitied, but someone who needed support,
29:29
guidance, perhaps kindness, to be elevated and lifted up to achieve their potential.
29:34
And you know, Merrick met all these people, he inspired to some
29:38
extent and influenced them with his grace, putting up with, you know,
29:45
the immense difficulties he faced in daily life, and that was, Yeah,
29:48
that was his kind of inner strength. And I think Bowie really respected that
29:52
and tried to bring it out in the role. Ashes to Ashes number one
29:56
single in the UK should have been number one in the US so much or
30:00
why it wasn't. It's number seventy nine in the US cash box top one
30:03
hundred. I'm not sure what that. I guess that's kind of like the
30:06
Billboard Hot one hundred. These days and this we hear Roy Bittman piano.
30:11
This is a cool story. He came into the studio after just a chance
30:14
meeting between the guys in the band at the Power Station studio cafeteria. And
30:19
yeah, he had worked with Boi before though he was on station to station.
30:23
So how do they get that ping ponging sound on his piano. It's
30:26
slowly complicated, but Visconti talks about I think putting it through a flanger,
30:33
but also putting it through some kind of putting the sound, recording the sound
30:38
out through like a rotating speaker or something to give it that strange watery,
30:42
shimmery kind of effect, which you know, ashes to ask is mainly because
30:47
of the video. I guess that perhaps in some of the imagery has this
30:51
weird coastal sea sort of vibe. So it's the land, the elements of
30:56
land versus water, pushing back and forth, eating away at one another.
31:00
So I think it makes the sound, makes some of that theme very literal.
31:06
And obviously the songs so much about voyaging being lost in space isolation again,
31:12
and the fact that for all the aspiration and intellectual striving of things like
31:18
the space race, that still human, existential concerns remain, and Major Tom
31:25
ends up lost, dejected, alone, helpless, So he kind of carries
31:30
his problems with him as much as you can try and travel and escape them.
31:36
Adam Steiner is here to talk about his brand new book, Silhouettes and
31:38
Shadows, the secret history of David Bowie's scary monsters and super creeps. In
31:44
Ashes to Ashes, we hear David mentioned Major Tom the lyric Ashes to Ashes
31:48
Funky to Funky. We know Major Toms are junkie strong out in Heaven's high,
31:53
hitting an all time low. He later sings, my mother said to
31:57
get things done better than at mess with Major Time. What is David trying
32:02
to convey here with these mentions of Major Time. It's a good question,
32:09
I think off the cup, it's that it's an easy connection between the first
32:13
David Bowie album, Proper, which has the his initial flop slash hit Slash
32:21
one hit Wonder Space Unity, in which Major Tom's introduced and he goes up
32:24
into space and it's the kind of trendy space race song that Bowie did,
32:30
and then bringing that back down to Earth if you will, that Tom has
32:35
been up in space all this time, isolated, lost, perhaps stuck in
32:40
some kind of addiction. It all gets embroiled in this really quite complex minding
32:45
metaphor that you can you know, you can cut different strands from it and
32:47
see that that's the trajectory of the plot. But it all compounds into this,
32:53
like I said, this theme of isolation, and when you get the
32:59
sense, it's looking back at addiction and the struggles to get clean, to
33:06
stay clean, the need for the corruption, the reliance upon drugs to be
33:12
in an altered state to avoid the harsh difficulties of reality. So in that
33:16
sense it works as a really good metaphor. And the obviously the line about
33:22
you better not messed with Major Tommy, it suggests something about if you're going
33:25
to go down that road of becoming seriously involved in drugs, you have to
33:30
be prepared for the responsibility and the risks that it can get on top of
33:37
you and then dominate your life, rather than you using a drugs as a
33:40
way to augment your life or to heighten your imaginative or sensory perception. So
33:47
it's yeah, it's kind of like a warning from history, and it's already
33:50
sort of too late. It's already happens to Boie and what I like about
33:53
some lashes, And you see this with other artists like nanach Nails and like
33:59
the Hesitation album in twenty thirteen, looking back on a problem which we both
34:04
was just a few years ago, of moving from cocaine addiction to alcohol and
34:09
then eventually becoming clean towards nineteen eighty. So part of the new start is
34:14
that while you come cleaning, you're no longer going to addict, and you
34:19
don't do anything like that anymore. You stay away from addictive recreational substances and
34:23
alcohol, you forever remain trapped in your vulnerability of relapse. But also you
34:30
can never the reason you get clean is to save your life, protect your
34:35
family, have a future free of drugs. You can never deny or forget
34:38
those experiences. They stay with you. The trauma is cumulative. The wounds
34:45
of heal that remain scars. You know, all these kind of analogies.
34:47
You want to throw it, but it never actually goes away. It remains
34:52
a real thing, to the extent that it's psychologically perhaps almost like an open
34:55
wound. There you go, I laid it on, really think that's a
34:59
good one. I like it good answer, good answer, yeah, And
35:01
he could have been an early casualty of drugs for sure. He had really
35:06
reached, really reached a rock bottom prior to the nineteen eighties. The next
35:13
track, Fashion finishes Outside one, number five in the UK seventy in the
35:15
US. Guitarist Carlos Alamar noted that Fashion had its musical roots in Fame itself,
35:22
adapted from the Rift to the Flares nineteen sixty one track Footstomping. David
35:28
would say it wasn't a political song, but the lyrics had others feeling differently.
35:34
The lyrics turned to the left, turn to the right, and reference
35:37
to the goon squad had some interpreting it to be about fascism. Is he
35:42
drawing an analogy between fashion and fascism? Here? What's your interpretation of the
35:46
lyrics? I think so there's there's my restrained answer. I feel. I
35:53
feel it's he's playing with it, and that's part of the greatest one of
35:58
the song. It's it's really good, fun, danceable thing about being one
36:05
together with other people on the dance floor, just losing yourself, engaged with
36:08
a song to the rhythm. It's all about having fun and forgetting, you
36:13
know, forgetting big, heavy, real world concerns. At the same time,
36:16
it's also a song that is quite perhaps satirical, sarcastic and throwing out.
36:22
He teases the line fa fashion and you almost feel he's going to trip
36:28
over and say fascism or fascist, which you know he makes a reference to.
36:31
And it's no game. And it's looking back to his notorious returns in
36:36
the UK and seventy six where he makes a wave from his open top Mercedes
36:39
bends and everyone's like he did a sea Kyle Hitless salute. Oh my god.
36:44
The World War two is barely just over. And I think he's,
36:47
you know, he's taking the piss out of the listener and his critics at
36:52
the same time. And I think his real target is not necessarily pure politics.
36:59
It's more about character, identity, class, the British culture of being
37:05
reserved and withdrawn and sticking to your lines, having your sharp divisions of lower,
37:08
middle, and upper whereas in America, I understand it aside from my
37:13
political philosophy, in America, I think the divisions are more straightened, where
37:16
it's more about how much money you do or don't have, you know,
37:20
and that partly can equate your standing in society, whereas you know the arrogance
37:27
of British culture, for example, is that we go back to old Europe
37:30
hundreds of years. Who are your family, where are they from, what
37:35
did they do? And then there's inherited wealth and inherited title and inherited reputation
37:39
is something that you know, maybe happened five hundred years ago more when your
37:44
ancestor was a knight and did a good deed. And I think he's just
37:49
kicking back against that, kicking against the barbs of the arrogant pricks in their
37:57
middle class enclaves, who are so determined to look after themselves and maintain their
38:01
station and potentially one day climbed the social ladder that they forget about other people
38:07
adjacent to them. They try to ignore and reject people who are different to
38:13
them because they fear change, shifting into their feet and losing their own position
38:19
and obviously kicking down the rungs of the ladder beneath them as they climb up.
38:24
I have to believe too, he was he was influenced by being in
38:28
New York and the fashion world in New Orleans, right, I mean,
38:31
that's just I think that just sparked the created that all of those thoughts went
38:37
through his head. You know, I can seeing that one of those fashion
38:40
shows where all the models come walking out, they all look the same expressionless
38:46
face, and he just I think all that stuff was stirring in his head.
38:50
At least that's my thought. You know. The grove, the groove
38:53
in the song is just kind of relentless crowd rock. It's marching. You
39:00
make a good point about the models. Actually it's the idea of homogeneity,
39:04
or at least fitting in. So the benefit of I mean is that I'm
39:07
an individual, but I'm an individual like these people. These are my tribe.
39:12
To have to be the same weight, the same height, the same
39:15
luck, Yeah, that's the same. You have to have the same look.
39:17
As a metaphor, that really works because it gives people strength and security
39:21
and mutual identity. And as we know, David was, he was big
39:24
into fashion. He loved to a point. Yeah yeah, But at the
39:30
same time, he was not going to be one of those like fall in
39:32
line with the rest. But he did appreciate the look, you know,
39:38
looking I guess, I guess you could say he was against hardcore fashion as
39:43
like the industrialization of creativity. There you go so ideas art imagination being put
39:49
into product, which is kind of what records are. You know, there's
39:52
a lot of them, syntheticness to music, especially pop music, but there's
39:59
always something there should always ideally, there should always be something knowing an arch
40:04
and self aware that you can also be subverting that system while making a really
40:08
fun groovy song like fame or Fashion. The book Down Rock Podcast will be
40:14
back after this Teenage Wildlife. Longest track on the album was seven minutes,
40:21
and it's structurally similar to his song Heroes. Is David reflecting on his younger
40:25
self here because some feel he takes a shot at his imitators, most notably
40:30
Gary Newman, who had a number one single Cars and he was overhyped as
40:34
the Bowie of the eighties. So has he taking a little shot at him?
40:37
Is he also reflecting on his younger self here in this song m It's
40:40
a really good point. I think one of the great things about it he's
40:45
trying to level himself out and saying, look, despite some people think I'm
40:50
a global superstar and I kind of am, I'm also like a strict individual.
40:55
I maintain my own character, my own position, my own private person
41:00
behind the persona which is constantly shifting anyway. So if you can't delineate between
41:06
the two, the mask and the person behind it, then you perhaps buying
41:09
too much into the pop world myth. And I think Newman is a great
41:15
example of someone who Bowie could potentially have a beef with and to beat a
41:20
stick at. But obviously there's loads of other people who were directly inspired by
41:23
him and in turn inspired Bowie, so it became kind of reciprocal to the
41:29
extent that you know, I think sometimes he was stealing aspects from their work
41:34
which had initially been inspired by him, So perhaps it's righteous theft and redistribution.
41:39
So examples something like he talks a lot about he's in his notes like
41:44
Joy Division in terms of the Scary Monster's album, and like he talks about
41:49
like there's a note like get on top of Dennis Davis drum and it's like
41:52
the sort of phased snare sound that Joy Division had particularly on the first album,
41:58
and Known Pleasures and things like She's Lost Control and a band that were
42:02
really really inspired by Bowie and the Berlin Records. And then he's sort of
42:07
staying I really like the effect that he's on their stuff. I'll take that.
42:10
So it's a really weird kind of synthesis of cycling influence there, and
42:15
he's probably aware of hyper aware of that, but also not something you want
42:19
to readily admit to because you want to be seen as a resolute artist in
42:23
your own right. And so I think there was maybe some anxiety and nervousness
42:29
about acknowledging his own debts in turn. But also I think he's trying to
42:34
advocate from responsibility and the idea that he's the king or god of anything or
42:38
any kind of scene. He's like, I don't want to be new wave
42:42
or no Wave, but you know, I'm just David Bowie. That's my
42:44
thing, so I'm not part of anyone else's movement. And there is no
42:47
new David Bowie because there's only meat. So it's weird. He's kind of
42:52
like drawing a line in the sand. They're also saying, I don't want
42:55
people to try and cross this because I can't tell you how it. I
43:00
can't tell you or explain it away because it's art. You know, you
43:04
can talk about it, but explaining it too much you essentially kill it,
43:08
which is why I wrote a Throughing your Page book about the album. And
43:14
it's just the risk of trying to overanalyze what you do. You can't necessarily
43:19
put it into words. It's just something that comes naturally to you do,
43:22
you work really hard at, and it's just what you do. Just make
43:24
it happen. Yeah, And while there's a lot to pull apart and try
43:28
to put back together and make sense of lyrically, also we get some really
43:32
cool as we've mentioned before, some really cool things they do sonically and on
43:37
Screams Like a Baby, there's some cool effects on David's voice on this and
43:44
it's another Franken Signs monster of a song. It's recycled from other tracks and
43:49
you talk about this one and some of the things they do the studio technology
43:52
that they take advantage of on this. Yeah, in terms of what you're
43:55
saying about an old song rejigg it, you know, there's quite a bit
43:59
of that on this album and across you know, lots of Bowie albums where
44:02
sometimes stuff from like ten years ago jumps back. So you've got like the
44:07
last things like nineteen seventy demo of Tide of My Life, who comes some
44:10
of the lyrics from that, just a few choice lines become kind of the
44:15
backbone of the spirit of It's No Game. And then with Scream Like a
44:19
Baby, the title, you know, chance Scream Like a Baby. He
44:23
originally had his soul trio The Astronauts in visage with his girlfriend backing singer in
44:31
seventy four over Cherry and he has some tracks written for them demoed and one
44:37
of them was I Am a Laser And it's a little bit like some of
44:42
young Americans jousting fashion stuff that he would do in seventy five. But at
44:46
that time he has his song and the chorus follows the same melody and it's
44:52
I Am a Laser burning through your mind. And it's like, now you
44:58
can like, well that's crap, because I love Scream like a Baby.
45:00
But you know that was once again that was like the core melody of the
45:04
chorus, and it just kind of got slotted straight into the new song.
45:07
So it's pretty amazing how he brought things back like that. And there's a
45:10
song it's again a lot of voice warping, a lot of monster ishness,
45:15
monstrosity, and in some ways it seems to tell quite a horrific story of
45:19
like persecution, people being tortured, locked away, denied their rights, you
45:25
know, a ghost of the civil dead, as they say, and it's
45:29
yeah, it's quite a horrific vision of like an authoritarian future and really easy
45:34
to look back at. Bowies influences of nineten eighty four in so many songs.
45:38
This is the one too where you hear his voice the pitch gets turned
45:42
way up. I think it's on this track, yeah, yeah, yeah,
45:45
And there's he has this like continued rant and talking about like swearing in
45:50
the backseat of a card. You just imagine someone being taken away by the
45:53
secret police and then locked in a room. And what I love about it
45:58
It has that nice twist that nineteen eighty four has where people are encouraged to
46:04
inform and turn against one another and to break the bonds of something like love,
46:09
and that's the ultimate failure and treason against our own humanity, you know,
46:15
to reject the ennobling things of our purer better selves. If you like,
46:22
there's a John Lennon connection or influencer and David Bowie that you hear on
46:24
this album. Two Kingdom Come, the track that follows that you write that
46:30
this song shares a similar or share similar feelings with John song Guard with the
46:35
Plastic Cornell Ben you talk about that connection and other areas where you hear Lennon's
46:37
influence on this album. So it's a it's a cover of Tom Verlaine's song
46:45
of Television as you ever heard Marky Moose and and it's from his first solo
46:52
album, and it's the Lane. Seemed to me seems to be sort of
46:55
railing against God but knowing the event the hammer of God or of some kind
47:00
of justice will come down upon him for a sinful life. That's my broad
47:06
interpretation. And Bowie seems to follow the original actually very closely. At first
47:09
I thought he didn't, but he just comes in more with like he's kind
47:13
of like booming Ronnie Specter impression voice. It's a little bit all of sound.
47:16
I really I find it. So we find it really overblown, but
47:19
I find it a really enjoyable song. He once again, given that it's
47:22
kind of bleak, it's almost like about it seems like an existential quandary about
47:27
like being bound to religion even if you're personally against religion, because the sense
47:35
of God's omnipotence, and he's all seeing. I will always find you out,
47:38
even if you're a sinner. There is no escape from God's their main
47:43
bat and so life becomes a bit of a prison. And then also there's
47:47
the idea that Lennon when he when he sings God from plastic Goner band in
47:52
our seventy seventy one, I forget really big, really big influence on the
47:58
record in general, like all style and things. You know, there's just
48:00
such a powerful choice line, is it where Lennon said God is the concept
48:06
prob which we measure our pain, and so even if God wasn't real,
48:09
we still beat ourselves up by imagined moral codes of rightness and wrongness, where
48:19
if you want to take like a Nietzschean aspect to it, sometimes meekness and
48:23
pity are seen as more powerful virtues than independence being a strong character. It's
48:32
very difficult to interpret in natzschair clearly on these points, but it's the idea
48:37
that Christianity can possess quite subversive undermining cruelties while trying to be underbearer of greater
48:46
virtue and killing people with kindness for example, and hypocrisy where the religiously free
48:54
person who denies religion can make informed, independent choices on a case by case
49:00
basis, rather than sticking to the scripture of what is a book and that
49:07
maybe based upon certain true events and true people, but also seemed to have
49:12
a lot of like creative padding the Bible, and yeah, being bound to
49:20
being bound to those codes is not necessarily freeing an informed way of living.
49:27
How about it's a really fun song. Yeah, it is a great thing.
49:30
There isn't a bad song on the album. Actually, we mentioned,
49:32
We mentioned he was thirty three when he made the album Scary Masters, and
49:37
he not only had quite a bit of experience with now being famous and dealing
49:44
with the music the business side of music, but he had some love scars
49:47
there too. He was married in nineteen seventy to Mary Angela Barnett. He
49:52
had you mentioned this before. They had a son, Duncan, who was
49:55
born in seventy one, and it was an open marriage, but it didn't
50:00
work out. They divorced in nineteen eighty and right around the time he starts
50:02
recording Scary Monsters is when the divorce. I think the proceedings begin or end,
50:07
but on the track, because you're young, He sings, because you're
50:10
young, you'll meet a stranger some night, because you're young. What could
50:15
be nicer for you? And it makes me sad, So I'll dance my
50:17
life away. A million dreams, a million scars. Is he warning young
50:22
lovers or does he envy them? Because I wonder which one it is?
50:28
And I wonder when he says there are a million dreams yet a million scars.
50:32
Yeah, can really be really didactic and say that it's both right?
50:37
You know? Once again another another classic Bowie contradiction. Isn't that the whole
50:43
risk of falling in love? Right? That's the whole risk. I guess
50:46
the curse of the young lovers. Younger lovers is that everything is new and
50:52
it's this amazing pound wonderful experience, so it will always perhaps see him with
50:57
hindsight as the most important, most righteous, if you like, love that
51:02
people have experienced because it was new and it was the first time and so
51:06
on, and then no other love can necessarily compare with that. But that
51:12
could be the very thing that kind of clouds you at the time into thinking
51:15
this is something brilliant and amazing, but it's simply that you're experience in experience,
51:20
and you don't necessarily know what love means, which obviously includes things like
51:23
patience, got helpers and sacrifice and kindness and compromise and all those kind of
51:30
like given takes that people have to have an enduring relationship with someone. It
51:36
can't just be based purely upon attraction all the good stuff, because with the
51:40
good stuff comes naturally occurring bad stuff and real life shit. So yeah,
51:46
it's there's a wistful melancholy to it, and so perhaps it's a warning once
51:52
again, a bit like teenage wildlife against that wilful naivety. But also if
51:57
there's a sense of slight jealousy cheering them on, good for you always young
52:02
ones, all that kind of stuff, and it you know, I think
52:07
all kinds of listeners. It makes it be powerful if you're if you were
52:09
younger, it's perhaps the inspiration of like, yes, this powerful feeling of
52:15
being swept off your feet, that's what love is like, and then the
52:17
older listener being like, yeah, love is amazing, but which you've had
52:22
your heartbroken and then you'll never want to fall in love ever again, right
52:25
because you're young. It's so euphoric, But it's because you're young, that
52:30
you're just you have no idea what you're in for. The album finishes with
52:35
It's No Game number two, and here we have melancholy and David's delivery,
52:38
which his range in this album is also something to be noted. It's so
52:44
it's melancholy as opposed to the fury. On the opening track, Tony Visconti
52:47
says, it's the exact same backing track as number one. It's just altered,
52:52
slow and adjusted with some various effects. Then he used mixing in different
52:55
overdubs to make it sound removed from the original version. And this is what
53:00
you're writing the book quote. The song appears to conclude the reel of Current
53:04
Affairs programming through the lens of a video Nasty introduced with It's No Game number
53:09
one, we are seeing late night repeats of the horror inhabiting the inertia of
53:14
the spectator. Like them, we have seen too much and turned into the
53:17
same semi visible figures, crouched in shadow, frozen into silhouettes. Beautifully written,
53:23
and in the first It's No Game, we hear a tape winding up
53:28
in a frenzy. With number two, it's it's playing out and you can
53:32
hear it snapping. Yeah, yeah, only this, you know, it
53:37
slows to a halt. What do you make of the album's ending track.
53:40
Is this aman who has purged and released the monsters of his past? Is
53:45
the exhausted but ready for a new phase? Possible? Really good question.
53:49
I always struggle with it. I like, you know, the first one,
53:52
the first it's in a game, is so powerful, so intense.
53:54
It kind of like blows your head off and it's like, oh my god,
53:58
he's screaming, and then he's singing and he's whooping and yelling. It's
54:00
like and you know, it's like dive bombing guitar and stuff. It's just
54:05
crazy. And then it's something of a come down. It's something that let
54:08
down, And maybe that was the point. Maybe it was to show the
54:12
flip side of the hype, where it's resignation and defeatism and melancholy and sadness
54:19
and the realities of struggle that kick back against you when all your revolutionary zeal
54:27
and things are gone. And so in that sense it is actually powerful and
54:30
perhaps it's necessary, like you said, with the tape metaphor that Visconti puts
54:36
in to conclude the album properly and balance things out a little bit, because
54:39
so much of it is so so much of it is quite melancholy but also
54:43
just so extreme and erratic, as you say, you know, Bowie going
54:46
all over the place and quite fragmented imagery. Not many of the songs are
54:52
entirely that neat and clear and unambiguous. Right, So yeah, maybe it's
54:59
the great level that the album needed. And it's fascinating to wonder like what
55:02
he might have ended or how he might have ended it otherwise, because it's
55:06
said, look, there's a look quite a lot of like especially the first
55:08
half. A lot of people say, like prefer the first half, and
55:10
I'm like, for fuck's sake, like it's an album, you know,
55:13
you need to kind of just listen to it through, like embrace the embrace
55:16
the other stuff as like genuine deep cuts, even though they're not quite so
55:21
out there or thrilling or confrontational, you know, rough and smooth whatever.
55:25
But yeah, maybe maybe it's a necessary part to conclude that, because otherwise
55:31
where would Bowie go with it? But it's but it gives it the strength
55:36
it just ten tracks, you know, own Bowie albums are short and they
55:37
usually have a cover. It's a really unique thing about him. It's weird.
55:40
These albums are quite succinct, and it's it's no, it's it's really
55:45
well measured, it's really balanced. It's really nicely paced, you know,
55:47
despite the extremity at the start. Perhaps the second side takes you a bit
55:52
deeper and is perhaps more open and less rough and obstructive. But it's a
55:59
really short, sharp record, you know. It's a classic thing of like
56:01
for me, a classic records, Like it's ten songs tops and about forty
56:06
minutes or so. It's kind of perfect thirty seven seconds according Yeah, and
56:12
it doesn't say it's welcome. It's not indulgent. There's no instrumental ambient things
56:16
on here. You know, even though it's believed Crystal Japan that I alluded
56:22
to earlier, the great like B side was recorded at the same time Bowie's
56:27
like, it just doesn't fit. There's nowhere for it to go. It
56:30
would actually really fuck up the album to beyond them and peopleould be like,
56:31
oh is he doing Low and Heroes again? Half and half or whatever.
56:37
It just doesn't It's a great song, it's fantastic. I love it,
56:39
but it doesn't really make sense on the album, so he had to go
56:44
somewhere with it, and perhaps his truly revolutionary thing was to flip the song
56:49
back on itself and reprise it. You know, well the Beatles did.
56:52
Yeah, ablution reading the book. Like I said before, just a whole
56:55
noble appreciation for the album, and I gave it a listen from start to
57:00
finish, and you do listen to it differently once you get into what is
57:05
it that David Bowie is saying here? And I think he wants you to
57:09
He wants you to guess and forever be contemplating it and trying to figure out
57:16
what it is. You're probably you could listen to this album ten years from
57:20
now and think differently than you're thinking about it now or that you did ten
57:22
years ago. Yeah, that's that's a really nice weak look at it.
57:25
That thing's revolved. There aren't definitive answers. You get a lot from it.
57:30
You can't always exactly say what that is, but you're like, oh,
57:32
it really moves me and it inspires me and it challenges me. And
57:36
it's like if you can say that about an album, it's got a lot
57:39
going for it. I have a great artist. Yeah, if you're like,
57:43
oh, it has really good tunes and I can do this. I'm
57:45
not in my head listening. Yeah, And like it can't all just be
57:51
that way because life isn't like that way, And like, how would the
57:52
record have deep universal appeal that relates to reality and fantasy? And where they
58:00
two there's two things collide, you know. Another book is out now,
58:02
Silhouettes and Shadows, The Secret History of David Bowie, Scary Monsters and Super
58:07
Creeps. It's out through Backbeat Books, available wherever you get your books.
58:10
A link to purchase a copy in the show notes page and where can people
58:15
find you online? Adam based places via my website www dot Adam steiner st
58:22
e I n e R dot UK. Easy enough, Adam, thanks for
58:28
being on. I looking forward to having your background again soon down the road.
58:31
Great. Thank you, Eric. That's it. It's in the books.