Each David Bowie album is unique. Some are universally lionised, some regarded as merely legendary, some, pretentious codswallop. But we all have our favourites. In this series of podcasts, I meet up with writers, musicians, critics and assorted woodland folk, to explore their choice of album in rambling roundelays of free-form facting, anorak-grade geekery, pompous pontification, impassioned argument and highly-contentious chat. I like to think these podcasts exercise the minds of some of the world’s (well, at least the bit I am in) most eminent Bowiebores, my lugubrious interrogations spurring them to wax lyrical and entertainingly – just for you. I hope you enjoy listening to them.
S3 Ep17: Adam Buxton on Scary Monsters
Dec 15, 2020
Show notes
Welcome back to Albumto album with guest Bowie obsessive Adam Buxton! Scary Monsters is a milestone album. It is one I have long wanted to tackle here and I have quite a few thoughts about it. Here are a few of them. David Bowie entered 1980 restless for change and a new sense of purpose. The generally lukewarm reaction to his previous album Lodger clearly prompted an internal audit and the 33-year old artist, on the move from Europe and now soaking up the energy of New York city, felt the time had come to harness the spirit of adventure and experimentation of the ‘Berlin’ era with a scaffold of tough, catchy rock. The songs, constructed by the dream team core combo of producer Tony Visconti, guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis, came together fast. Gone were the conceptual hi-jinks of the Eno era and instead, Bowie crafted these tracks with painterly care and attention. Each has a dynamic chiaroscuro, silhouettes and shadows are everywhere. Bowie’s interest in Expressionism and surrealism filters through these songs that tease the listener, before giving up their charms with sluttish abandon. Bowie recorded the album at a brisk clip in spring 1980, working hard and fast at the New York Power Station studios with his band and assorted guest musicians including left field guitarists Chuck Hammer and Robert Fripp, both of whom left their distinctive fingerprints on the record. The former, with his customised guitar-synths, aroused Bowie with talk of “guitarchitecture”, the latter, a veteran of strange spontaneous sessions for Heroes and Lodger, scrawled atonic graffiti phrases across the title track, Its No Game, Fashion and so on, while a delighted Bowie would give gnomic instructions, “Play like Ritchie Blackmore, without sounding like Ritchie Blackmore!” The lyrical content of the album gives us a fascinating insight within the author’s brain. Clear-headed, relatively sober and facing down the barrel of his 30s (many messianic men feel weird at 33, especially those of self-mythologising bent) and for the first time, seeing the results of his influences on a new wave of foppish romantics. His constituency had always been in the margins of the mainstream, but now, in the sulphurous afterburn of punk, it seemed as if his legacy was everywhere. From the so-called Blitz kids, some of whom he rather smartly re-appropriated for use in the Ashes To Ashes video to his swipes and bitchy asides aimed at the younger generation in songs like Teenage Wildlife and Because You’re Young, it seemed as if the unwilling role as older statesman of rock was sitting uncomfortably. His ambivalence to the generation of ‘Blitz kids’ who followed in his wake, was understandable. Bowie had always valued the courage to move on, look ahead and explore. His cadre of imitators that reached a peak around 1978, 1979 - pale, robotic - staccato of delivery and alienated of mien - irritated him, outweighing any personal gratification and flattery. As Bowie the artist would tend to leg it, on achieving a degree of success and acclaim, Bowie the viable record label investment and going concern was in deep shit, thanks not only to the aftermath of his disastrous mid 70s breakup with avaricious manager Tony DeFries, but generally dismal sales figures. The need to generate serious cash with serious moonlight would dominate the years ahead, leading to questionable artistic decisions and generating much unhappiness for fans, peers, record label and not least, the actor himself. But that was all still in the future. Looking back, we can mythologise 1980 as being the year that Bowie came of age as a recording artist. The self-referential myth-making wove throughout his year. It can be seen in the small, roughly obscured covers of Low, Heroes and Lodger on the Scary Monsters album artwork, the revisiting of ‘Space Oddity’s Major Tom in the astonishing ‘Ashes To Ashes’. It’s the howling anguish in opener ‘It’s No Game (Part One) and the resigned indifference of the track’s reprise at the close of the record. The lurking Pierrot of the cover figure, an affectation that stretched back to Bowie’s days in mime with the Lindsay Kemp company, was also something of a marker, closing the blinds on yesterday as a ‘cunt in a clown suit’. And this was the last time the alchemical magic of Alomar, Davis, Murray and Visconti would burn in the crucible of the studio. Shortly after the album was released, on September 17, 1980, Bowie was starring in a successful Broadway run as The Elephant Man, his close friend and inspiration John Lennon would be dead and the actor would return to his Swiss fastness, to plot yet another about-face. From now on, every album featuring Bowie that was released, would be compared to ‘Scary Monsters’, a millstone around its creator’s neck who, despite the decades of artistic, critical and commercial successes and flops to come, would never again quite match its extraordinary moment and magic. For more Adam Buxton shenanigans, check out his site at: www.adam-buxton.co.uk Subscribe to his podcast here (The 2016 'Bowiewallow' episodes ate especially recommended) https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-adam-buxton-podcast/id1040481893 Adam's cartoon on the making of 'Warszawa' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FODvjYoVEi8&t=58s Chris O'Leary's masterful Pushing Ahead Of The Dame blog special on Scary Monsters at 40 https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2020/10/08/scary-monsters-at-40/
S3 Ep16: Tim Worthington on Holy Holy
Nov 17, 2020
Show notes
Tim Worthington - writer, podcaster and cultural archaeologist - is someone who digs deep and delights in obscure details. So, it follows that in this episode of Albumtoalbum, he chose to eschew the album format and instead, picked an intriguing slice of Bowie history - the 1971 single 'Holy Holy', originally recorded in the weird dead period just after the recording of The Man Who Sold The World in 1970, after a disillusioned Mick Ronson had returned to Hull to work as a municipal gardener, marking out rugby pitches on council playing fields instead of living it up with the Bowie gang at Haddon Hall. David recorded the single for his record label Phillips, with guitarist Alan Parker and bassist Herbie Flowers and despite its very voguish cocktail of sex, black magic and religious torment, nothing much happened. But a year later, when a reinvigorated Ronson and the Spiders were cutting tracks for theZiggy album, they recorded a new, spikier more glam version for the LP, but for some reason, Bowie dropped it from the running order at the last minute, relegating it to the B-side of Diamond Dogs in 1974. In this episode, Tim teases out numerous lines of enquiry leading from Holy Holy and looks at its importance as a pivotal moment in Bowie's fledgling career. As a summation of intent, an assault on the charts, a fabulous slice of black occult glam it succeeds in significance where it failed commercially (as did most Bowie releases at the time. It also suffered an ignominious afterlife, a remake, being shunted onto b-sides and bonus discs. Do please review and share this podcast if you like it and let me know what you think. And if you enjoy it, check out Tim's numerous activities at tomworthington.net and pump up your Twitter by following him at @outonbluesix Thank you all as ever for all the support and encouragement - I do have a Patreon account at @albumtoalbum if you would like to buy me a pie and a pint that would be lovely https://www.patreon.com/user?u=23724958
S3 Ep15: Chris O'Leary on David Bowie (1967) part 2
Sep 22, 2020
Show notes
Let us head back to the summer of 1967 and the second side of the debut album by promising pop hopeful David Bowie. On this side of the disk, we encounter Little Bombardier, Silly Boy Blue, Arthur (uncle Arthur?) a singer in a band, the Maid of Bond Street, the sneezing Mr Gravedigger and many others. Guiding me in this kaleidoscopic quest is my friendly guest, the man behind Pushing Ahead Of The Dame, Chris O'Leary. In amongst the ditties, he tells me something of his own work and the story behind his remarkable chronicle of Bowie's life and work and how he came to assemble it. We also look at religion, God, gender and theatre. All the cool things. I hope you enjoy this episode and if you do, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or your podporium of choice and check out Chris's work at - https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com
S3 Ep14: Chris O'Leary on David Bowie (1967)
Aug 31, 2020
Show notes
Following on from our conversation about Bowie’s final album, this episode of albumtoalbum whizzes us back 53 years to his first, the eponymous debut, released in Britain on June 1 1967. Of course, any other artist in the world might be nervous about releasing an album - a debut album! - on the same day as The Beatles dropped their long-awaited follow up to Revolver, but that's showbusiness baby. Still, one can only imagine the sense of panic felt in the Decca boardrooms, when puce-faced executives heard just exactly what their newest star would be releasing in competition with the Beatles' masterpiece. And history proves that for record buyers hotfooting it to their local disc emporioum, pounds shillings and pence burning a hole in their kaftans, Sgt Pepper beat Uncle Arthur and company hands down, in face of stiff competition from other new releases, which included The Parable of Arable Land by the Red Krayola, the debut album by The Bee Gees and Mr Spock’s Music from Outer Space. Hardly surprising, but still disappointing, when the album barely grazed the charts, reaching 125 in the UK and something even less impressive in the US. ’Aarrghh, that Anthony Newley stuff, how cringey,' recalled a Tin Machine era Bowie in 1990. 'No, I haven’t much to say about that in its favour. Lyrically I guess it was striving to be something, the short story teller. Musically it’s quite bizarre. I don’t know where I was at. It seemed to have its roots all over the place, in rock and vaudeville and music hall and I don’t know what. I didn’t know if I was Max Miller or Elvis Presley’ Max Miller and or Elvis Presley don’t really come to mind when listening to it now. Instead he was consciously creating songs that would span his palette of interests at the time, solid songs that turned out to stand him in good stead for the next year or so as his interests veered towards theatre, mime, Buddhism and the emerging singer-songwriter genre. Here, he flits magpie-like, alighting on this style or that, immersing himself in the art of crafting songs. He’s moved away from the rough RnB of his first few years and is experimenting with characters and scenarios that owe something to the general mood of acid-tinged weirdness of the times. But as we can see, these mini capsules of narratives and characters were like Bowie opening up his playbox for the first time, and donning the first of many many costumes to come. From the slightly Syd Barret esque Uncle Arthur to the chilling spoken word murder ballad of Please Mr Gravedigger, these songs aspire to pretty broad palette, veering between enchanting, entertaining, unsettling and ephemeral. This album is 60s London at its height, Britpsych and sci fi pop jostling with folky sensibilities, Anthony Newley-infused story songs with a Weimar-era Berlin side eye. So in order to look at it further, I’m glad to welcome on board the man behind the best Bowie blog ever, Chris O Leary, whose essays on each song and album in his blog Pushing Ahead Of The Dame have become to Bowie what Ian McDonald’s Revolution In The Head was to the Beatles - intelligent, enjoyably opinonated, well researched beautiful slices of prose that manage to conjure fresh perspectives and insights into Bowie’s work. Chris’s blog has been revised and edited into two brilliant volums, Rebel Rebel and Ashes to Ashes and if you haven’t yet read them or the blog, I strongly recommend you do either immediately after listening to this podcast. As ever, please do share and recommend this podcast where you can and follow the lovely O'Leary on Twitter if you don't already at @bowiesongs
S3 Ep13: Donny McCaslin & Leah Kardos on ★ Part 3
Aug 09, 2020
Show notes
The third and final instalment of our epic conversation with Donny McCaslin and Leah Kardos takes a behind the scenes look at the recording of David Bowie's final album, ★ in New York. Donny tells us what it was like to work on Bowie's demos and how even in his last sessions, David B was as inspired, energised and excited as ever by his music and collaborators. Thanks to Donny for his time and generosity in sharing these precious memories and especially to Leah Kardos for her insights and perspectives on the album. Don't forget to follow them both at @DonnyMcCaslin @LeahKardos and keep an ear out for their latest sonic adventuring. Meanwhile, if you've enjoyed these podcasts, please do share, review and let me know! If you want to send a small something to keep self and dog in biscuits, I do have a Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=23724958&fan_landing=true and all tips much appreciated!
S3 Ep12: Donny McCaslin & Leah Kardos on ★ Part 2
Jul 06, 2020
Show notes
Welcome to the second of a megachat with musicians Donny McCaslin and Leah Kardos, as we discuss at length the life and times of the final epic album, 2016’s ★ 2016’s ★is a dense, darkly textured epic that reveals Bowie in full flight as a musician, improvisator, lyricist and performer, a tour de force that demonstrated that Bowie was as much at ease with his past as he was with his present. A remarkable accomplishment indeed, of course, for as we know this was Bowie’s farewell. And what an album ★ is. Like Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen, Bowie left us with a complex and astonishingly powerful final statement. It’s the sound of an artist at the top of his game, confident, with nothing to prove and that fertile, quicksilver mind running at full throttle. It was clear that Bowie wanted something different, yet again, for ★ and in New York based jazz saxophonist and bandleader Donny McCaslin, he found it. An acclaimed composer, performer and lynchpin of the experimental jazz scene, McCaslin’s love of improvisation and passion for ensemble playing created a secure, inspiring pocket around the singer, from where he emerged with some of his greatest tunes. Bringing us a melange of styles from avant-jazz to electro beats, reflective acoustic strumming to theatrical overtures (very much in Bowie’s mind as he was simultaneously preparing the stage show ‘Lazarus’), ★ remains not only the ultimate masterpiece of Bowie’s recording career, but the last masterpiece he would ever do. Also joining us on this episode is Leah Kardos - composer/producer, and music scholar and currently senior lecturer in Music at Kingston University near London. She’s co-founder of the university’s Visconti Studio with the one and only Tony Visconti and also runs the Kingston Uni Stylophone Orchestra (the only group of its kind in the world). She is currently writing a book about Bowie's late-period work (2013-2016) called "Blackstar Theory: David Bowie's Death Art", out next year from Bloomsbury Publishing. Thanks are also due to the wonderful David Bowie Glamour Fanzine, without whom this podcast would not have happened. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do share and comment, it's really appreciated :) https://leahkardos.bandcamp.com/merch http://www.donnymccaslin.com/ https://davidbowieglamour.wordpress.com/latest/
S3 Ep11: Donny McCaslin & Leah Kardos on ★
Jun 21, 2020
Show notes
2016’s ★is a dense, darkly textured epic that reveals Bowie in full flight as a musician, improvisator, lyricist and performer, a tour de force that demonstrated that Bowie was as much at ease with his past as he was with his present. A remarkable accomplishment indeed, of course, for as we know this was Bowie’s farewell. And what an album ★ is. Like Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen, Bowie left us with a complex and astonishingly powerful final statement. It’s the sound of an artist at the top of his game, confident, with nothing to prove and that fertile, quicksilver mind running at full throttle. It was clear that Bowie wanted something different, yet again, for ★ and in New York based jazz saxophonist and bandleader Donny McCaslin, he found it. An acclaimed composer, performer and lynchpin of the experimental jazz scene, McCaslin’s love of improvisation and passion for ensemble playing created a secure, inspiring pocket around the singer, from where he emerged with some of his greatest tunes. Bringing us a melange of styles from avant-jazz to electro beats, reflective acoustic strumming to theatrical overtures (very much in Bowie’s mind as he was simultaneously preparing the stage show ‘Lazarus’), ★ remains not only the ultimate masterpiece of Bowie’s recording career, but the last masterpiece he would ever do. Also joining us on this introductory episode, where we set the scene and get acquainted with Donny, is Leah Kardos - composer/producer, and music scholar and currently senior lecturer in Music at Kingston University near London. She’s co-founder of the university’s Visconti Studio with the one and only Tony Visconti and also runs the Kingston Uni Stylophone Orchestra (the only group of its kind in the world). She is currently writing a book about Bowie's late-period work (2013-2016) called "Blackstar Theory: David Bowie's Death Art", out next year from Bloomsbury Publishing. Thanks are also due to the wonderful David Bowie Glamour Fanzine, without whom this podcast would not have happened. https://leahkardos.bandcamp.com/merch http://www.donnymccaslin.com/ https://davidbowieglamour.wordpress.com/latest/
S3 Ep10: Guy Pratt on Lodger part 2
May 29, 2020
Show notes
The legendary bass player to the stars Guy Pratt joins us for a wonderful succession of amazing tales, rock and roll anecdotage, fashion advice, Floydian digressions and hot takes on Lodger in this second part of our megachat extravaganza! 1979's 'Lodger' is an often underrated album but upon further inspection, this blend of new wave, electrorock, globally-inspired music and esoteric experimentation stands the test of time. It's a shift away from the previous two 'Berlin' albums and probably the most Eno-esque of all Bowie's records, until 1995's '1. Outside'. The tough line up of Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis and George Murray are on top form and our man Bowie sounds, in turn, edgy, expansive, impassioned and artful. Joining me to discuss this superb moment in Bowie's career is the legendary boss of the bass, Guy Pratt who since the early 80s has been boosting the bottom end for Robert Palmer, Bryan Ferry, The Smiths, Icehouse, Coverdale/Page and in a relationship spanning over thirty years, various permutations of Pink Floyd. Today, he plays with Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets band, who bring the magical era of Syd era Floyd to the stage. His 2009 autobiography, 'My Bass And Other Animals' is one of the finest, funniest and most enjoyable accounts of a life out on the wilds of the rock scene at its most debauched and delightful best. Guy has also been in the enviable position of having supported Bowie in 1983, as part of Australian art rockers Icehouse, in the midst of a fan scrum with him in Rotterdam and having Bowie meet his mum outside a caravan full of coke-deranged Australians. He also played bass on Bowie's last ever UK appearance, when he joined Dave Gilmour and band for 'Arnold Layne' and 'Comfortably Numb' in London's Royal Albert Hall in 2006. This recording, done under lockdown via Zoom, picks up towards the end of side one of Lodger, and makes it to the end of side two via the scenic route. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed talking to Guy! There are occasional groans from my dachshund, the worst of these have been removed. Check out guypratt.com for news, info and updates on all things Guy Pratt and look up his Lockdown Licks on YouTube and get the inside scoop on how to play some of his best-loved licks and lines.
S3 Ep9: Guy Pratt on Lodger part 1
Apr 23, 2020
Show notes
1979's 'Lodger' is an often underrated album but upon further inspection, this blend of new wave, electrorock, globally-inspired music and esoteric experimentation stands the test of time. It's a shift away from the previous two 'Berlin' albums and probably the most Eno-esque of all Bowie's records, until 1995's '1. Outside'. The tough line up of Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis and George Murray are on top form and our man Bowie sounds, in turn, edgy, expansive, impassioned and artful. Joining me to discuss this superb moment in Bowie's career is the legendary boss of the bass, Guy Pratt who since the early 80s has been boosting the bottom end with the likes of Bryan Ferry, The Smiths, Icehouse, Coverdale/Page and in a relationship spanning over thirty years, various permutations of Pink Floyd. Today, he plays with Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets band, who bring the magical era of Syd era Floyd to the stage. His 2009 autobiography, 'My Bass And Other Animals' is one of the finest, funniest and most enjoyable accounts of a life out on the wilds of the rock scene at its most debauched and delightful best. Guy has also been in the enviable position of having supported Bowie in 1983, as part of Australian art rockers Icehouse, in the midst of a fan scrum with him in Rotterdam and having Bowie meet his mum outside a caravan full of coke-deranged Australians. He also played bass on Bowie's last ever UK appearance, when he joined Dave Gilmour and band for 'Arnold Layne' and 'Comfortably Numb' in London's Royal Albert Hall in 2006. This recording, done under lockdown via Zoom, gets halfway through side one of Lodger, with many many digressions and much deviation on the way - and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it! Stay tuned for Part 2 imminently Check out guypratt.com for news, info and updates on all things Guy Pratt https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bass-Other-Animals-Guy-Pratt-ebook/dp/B001NLKY5G/ref=sr_1_1?crid=FB2HVV7IX4UW&dchild=1&keywords=guy+pratt+my+bass+and+other+animals&qid=1587652109&sprefix=guy+Pratt%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-1
S3 Ep8: Stuart Maconie on Diamond Dogs part 3
Apr 12, 2020
Show notes
With our tin cans and string stretching across the locked down nation, Stuart and I return to conclude our scuttle through the dark underworld of Bowie's Diamond Dogs. In this episode, we rattle through what we quaintly call 'Side 2', taking in the soul-inflected death disco vibe and pondering its debt to Orwell. Along the way, we look at the disparate influences that come into play and touch on disco, soul, claret, Stormzy, the Arctic Monkeys and Chas'n'Dave and debate the burning issue of the day - viz. Is it "reason" or "treason"? Find out more ... in NINETEEN EIGHTY FOOOURR
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