lou reed in the 1970s

I recently played a couple of Lou Reed albums from both ends of the 1970s and came to the conclusion that pretty much everything Lou did during that decade was astounding, one way or another, and the pretty much everything he's done since has been decidedly underwhelming. OK, so that's perhaps a huge generalisation, but that's what generalisations are, sweeping and frequently unfair. But in this case, it's true.

After Lou left the Velvet Underground in August 1970 he decided to leave the music business altogether. But a spell working in his dad's office convinced him that a settled-down life wouldn't work, and besides, he was still coming up with songs at a rapid rate.

After some legal shenanigans Lou ended up with a record deal on RCA. Lou Reed - the imaginatively titled first solo album from early 1972 contained a bunch of reworked Loaded out-takes which were remarkable only because they were all vastly inferior to the original Velvets versions. To be fair “Ocean” was pretty good, though the various Velvets' takes of this are miles better. But the new songs were good - “Going Down” is lovely, and “Wild Child” has a real spark. An interestingly patchy album, and one that oddly has not really dated too badly. 

The big one followed. Late in 1971 David Bowie had also been signed by RCA, and he'd made a big deal about saying what an influence Lou Reed had been. The success of the Ziggy Stardust album convinced the RCA suits that Bowie had the magic touch, and, after the less than positive response to Lou Reed, it was decided that David should produce Lou's next record. In fact much of the production of Transformer was carried out by Bowie's guitarist, Mick Ronson, who also contributed the stunning string arrangements as well as playing guitar and piano. Transformer is a strange little record - on the one hand it has stone cold Lou Reed classics like "Walk On The Wild Side", "Perfect Day" and "Satellite Of Love" all of which sound just as fresh today as they did 40 years ago. But on the other hand there are a number of rather pedestrian rockers, such as "Wagon Wheel", and the truly bizarre, tuba-led "Goodnight Ladies". Whilst Transformer is often hailed as a peak of Lou's career, it's hard to see it as little more than a few decent songs, a few ok songs and a whole bunch of luck, being in the right place at the right time, with that year's hot new act behind the desk. It's not really part of the glam rock scene, despite being lumped in due to the Bowie connection, and, crucially, beyond a handful of shows where Lou slapped on the make up, he didn't embrace that scene at all. Lou's next move was something that no-one would have foreseen. He decided to create a concept album, a film for the ears he claimed. And it was to be a double album too!

But when Berlin was released it had become a simple single record, and it received a hugely negative reaction, which had a massive impact on Lou's relationship with the press for ever more.   

In the spring of 1973 Lou had recorded over an hour's worth of material for Berlin, but due to record company pressure he and producer Bob Ezrin were forced to edit the song cycle down to a more acceptable 45 minutes or so. Much of the orchestral work overseen by Ezrin was lost, many of the songs were trimmed, but the core of the album remained, and it wasn't pretty. In describing Caroline's journey from carefree socialite to suicidal junkie, Lou had indeed crafted a film for the ears, but it was a squalid, shocking film. There are moments of pleasure - the giddy whirl of the first "Caroline Says...", the inebriated swagger of "Lady Day", but by the time we reach side two it's despair all the way down until the astonishing redemptive chant of "Sad Song" which to my mind is nothing less than Caroline's departure from this earth to a better place. It's an extraordinarily brave set of songs, and a set which would be unbelievably depressing had the songs not been up to the job. But they are. Every one crackles with invention and cleverness and melodic twists and turns that absolutely grab the listener from the very beginning, and hold your attention to the very end. And just like with a good film,or an absorbing novel, the attentive audient is able to make it through the dark horrors of "The Kids" or the utter blanked out despair of "The Bed" because we have been drawn into the album and are desperate to know how it will end. It's extremely clever, literate, and above all, adult song writing, of the kind that Lou had been promising since the very beginning of the Velvet Underground. It's exactly the sort of continuation of songs like "Waiting For The Man" or "Heroin" that he should have been writing. “Caroline Says II” has that killer line, which Lou delivers so brilliantly - "You can hit me all you want / but I don't love you anymore". It's devastating writing. The level of numbed out pain present in that line is so awful. It's a terribly sad moment on a deeply emotional album.

But it was because it required the audience to think, to get involved, to use their emotions, to invest time and effort in the album, that it received terrible reviews. "The worst album by a major artist for many years" was one headline. Today this is baffling. There is a grown up audience for grown up music but back in 1973 pop music was fluffy ephemeral glam nonsense, and Lou's idea of a good record was nothing like that of anyone else. It went out of print for many years because RCA had no incentive to press a second run. Lou, of course, loved it, just as he always cites Metal Machine Music and The Bells as his favourites, perversely and precisely because they are so unrepresentative of his usual work. 

It's odd that Lou has never tried to restore Berlin. Maybe the missing parts are gone for good. Although it's still a fabulous album, and beautifully produced too, it would be fascinating to hear what it might have been.  

But the controversial reviews didn't bother Lou at the time as by mid 1973 he was starting his lengthy detour into hard drugs, and so little of anything bothered him at all. He played the Rock 'n' Roll Animal tour throughout Europe and the USA during the autumn and revelled in the madness of the tour. The final show was recorded and was released in two halves as Rock 'n' Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live over the next couple of years. Both are cracking albums. Nearly 40 years on this is still what live albums should sound like. It's such powerful music. There might be some very obvious bum notes at times and Lou fluffs words all over the place, but it's a great crowd, and the band give such energetic performances. The twin lead guitar attack of Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner is phenomenal and the melodramatic organ flourishes in songs like “Heroin” work incredibly well. Lou's singing is a bit variable at times but it fits with the music, which also wobbles alarmingly in places. Despite this being one of the last shows on the tour the drummer still has a real problem with the opening of “How Do You Think It Feels” - he can't seem to get that intro right. But so what? It's a storming album, a faithful account of a great concert.

Lou was on a slippery slope into serious drug dependency and wouldn't be this fired up on stage for many years. The next few years saw some amazing gigs and but also some truly terrible concerts, characterised largely by Lou raging around haranguing everyone in sight, or else virtually catatonic, being carried on stage and plonked in front of a mic. I have an interesting tape of a 1974 Australian show, which has an incredibly powerful “White Light / White Heat”, and a very weird “Heroin”, all spooky church organ effects, but Lou sounds seriously ill. Really not on this planet at all. The final number is a very odd acappella “Goodnight Ladies” that frankly would have scared the audience into going home...

In 1974 he recorded Sally Can't Dance which became one of his biggest selling albums. Lou found this incredibly amusing as he reckoned that his input into the record was minimal. Perhaps his next album would be an even bigger seller if he wasn't on it all, he wondered. Sally Can't Dance continues with the expansive Berlin sound, but with rather more obviously commercial appeal. The songs were snappier and catchier, though lyrically Lou was at his acerbic best, thus damning almost all the songs from ever being top forty hits.  

The mid 1970's were a terrible time for Lou on a personal basis - the drugs, his bizarre relationship with 'Rachel' - yet he continued to tour. In 1975 his drug habit was apparently so bad that he actually missed a few shows - the gigs continued with guitarist Doug Yule filling in for Lou. The audiences must have been pretty stoned too - allegedly no-one noticed...

Yet musically, even when it doesn't quite work, this mid 70’s work is always fascinating. There's a level of intensity that's missing from many of his other albums, and a sense that anything could happen. There's a tangible feeling of danger, of being on the edge, of listening to something created by someone you really wouldn't want to know...

Coney Island Baby is a very strange album. Ostensibly commercial, slickly produced, with catchy light songs – “Charley's Girl”, “Ooooh Baby”, “The Gift” (which is a really funny song, though it's a wonder it doesn't sink under the sheer weight of its hysterical self referential irony). But then you get the title track, which lyrically is fabulous and very personal and beautiful. Then there is “Kicks”. Possibly the nastiest song Lou had committed to record at this point. It's dreadfully violent and dispassionate, and the use of the party chatter, which slides in and out, is very disconcerting.

Rock'n'Roll Heart is another odd album. Even more lightweight than CIB, but often the songs have a dirtier, grimier side – “Temporary Thing” is very unsettling. “You Wear It So Well”, which is one of my favourites, has a definite air of desperation about it - the singer doesn't sound quite in control. The recent cd version of this version is one of the few cd remasters to have drastically improved the album. The weedy thin sound of my vinyl has been replaced by a crunching bassier ambience, which hugely improves the whole thing.

I have a great bootleg of a 1976 show with trumpeter Don Cherry guesting. Many songs are extended into jazzy jams and although they don't always quite come off, and the free jazz element of Cherry's playing doesn't always fit with the basic rock'n'roll of songs such as “Sweet Jane”, it's still a fascinating and thrilling set. The version of “Kicks” at this show really, er, kicks...

Street Hassle is possibly the oddest of the lot. The basis of nearly all the tracks is live recordings from a show in Germany in early 1977 where Lou played loads of new songs to a bemused German crowd. Some were played twice to ensure a good recording. Some of these tracks, “Leave Me Alone”, “I Wanna Be Black”, “Dirt” had been knocking around for a few years, but once the basic tracks had been weirdly overdubbed, the songs changed considerably. Others, like the totally out there version of “Real Good Time Together” took just the throbbing guitar part as the basis for the song and for Lou to put his vocals over. The full band was harshly faded in half way through. The vocal overdubs remind me of “Lady Godiva's Operation”, in that various levels and mix settings have been used to a disconcerting effect. However, throughout all the weirdness it sounds as if Lou is having great fun. Admittedly it’s a perverse sort of fun as the songs are mostly unpleasant, one chord dirges, with some tuneless harsh singing plonked on top. “Leave Me Alone” is especially hard to get through. Then there is the title track. A song of beauty and grace and delicacy. Totally out of place amongst the grime. One of Lou's most poetic lyrics, a story from the streets, and some unusually personal lines. Later live performances would significantly lose all the stuff about how 'she took the rings right off his fingers...' which at the time Lou candidly said was all true.

In early 1978 a residency at The Bottom Line in New York gave us the fabulous Take No Prisoners. Such a shame more recordings of these shows haven't been released. I love the Stereo Binaural sound on this album. It gives the live band a presence that really leaps off the turntable. The stories, the jokes, the fast snappy put-downs. And the music too. What a great band, able to twist and turn along with Lou's random deviations and flights of fancy. A wonderfully stirring “Coney Island Baby” is one of my favourite Lou tracks - that long ending is beautiful. An amazing “Street Hassle” is another highlight, as is the opening “Sweet Jane”, which kicks harder than any other version I've heard.

1979 - The Bells. Which I love. Can't totally explain why, but there's a great atmosphere on this album - the Stereo Binaural sound probably helps too. “City Lights” is delightful. “Stupid Man”, another of my all time favourite Lou songs, is such an infectious track. Side two is the real meat of the album. “All Through The Night” repeats the “Kicks” trick, by mixing in dialogue and chatter, though thankfully this time the lyrics aren't as scary. The repetitive sax riff is very strong, it really works. “Families” is another oddly personal and very very sad song - again the riff is unchanging which allows you focus on the impassioned lyrics more. Lou sounds on the verge of tears at a couple of points. “The Bells” - a great, if flawed sound poem. Allegedly the whole thing was improvised, including Lou's vocal. The early part of the song is a mess of sounds, guitar synths and trumpets, all descending chords and doom - but it does seem to come together at the vocal section. It's not perfect, bum notes are everywhere, but if this had been polished it wouldn't have sounded anywhere near as good.

A live set from Berlin 1979 contains an even weirder live version of “The Bells”. And some very extended songs – “I'll Be Your Mirror” runs to 12 minutes.... “Waiting For The Man” to nearly half an hour!

The final album this band produced was 1980's Growing Up In Public - a neat selection of short sharp mainly acidic songs. Lou had just met Sylvia who inspired a few rather soppy songs (“Love Is Here To Stay”.... for goodness sake...), and Lou stopped drinking. A few songs stand out – “How Do You Speak To An Angel” is wonderful, and “Standing On Ceremony” is great too, with Lou in character as a parent snapping - 'Please take your hat off!'

After this Lou cured all his addictions, and fully dried out, revamping his life and his band. The next album would be the superlative The Blue Mask, which basically set the template for all following Lou Reed albums - 2 guitars, bass, drums, all recorded crisply with the emphasis on the precision of the sound at the expense of the mood and feeling. The Blue Mask is truly great, but each subsequent album repeated this formula with diminishing returns. Occasional deviations (drum machines on Mistrial, infrequent uses of sax on Set The Twilight Reeling) didn't really alter the fact that the songs generally were weaker, and the interest level was decreasing.

Today it's apparent, to me at least, that The Blue Mask is the last thing of any great value that Lou worked on. There were little successes, such as the John Cale collaboration Songs For Drella, where the old spark returned, but in general Lou's work over the past 30 years has, for me, been progressively duller and less involving. Shame really.

opal evenings

The real value of the iPod shuffle facility is that it throws up long forgotten music, forcibly reminds you what you've been missing, then makes you play old albums that haven't been played for way too long.

Two tracks recently, both from 1988, made me abandon my shuffling and delve deeper into the albums this music came from.

Firstly - "Balthus Bemused By Colour" from Harold Budd’s synth and reverb heavy White Arcades. It's a great piece of music, way too echoey, but that’s what you get if you hang around with Robin Guthrie for too long. The White Arcades is a lovely album, but is perhaps the only Budd record that sounds dated, or rather, of it’s time. All his other stuff is timeless.

But just when I was thinking - I must play the whole of The White Arcades again, I heard -

"Winter Music" by Roger Eno, from Between Tides. Interestingly this dates from the same time as the Budd track, but this one, as with all of Between Tides, really is timeless. The mix of strings and piano on this album is quite magical and although I adore Voices I think that Between Tides is perhaps the better album.

Roger Eno is Brian Eno's brother, younger by some eleven years. He worked with his brother on Apollo in 1982 and in 1985 Brian assisted in the recording of Voices, the ironically titled all instrumental debut album from Roger. The frosty synth embellishments contributed by Brian are excellent and give the album a real sense of a chilly winter’s night. But these also invite comparisons with the piano / synth albums Brian made with Harold Budd and at times Voices veers close to being Son Of Plateaux Of Mirror, a comparison which is quite understandable but is perhaps a little unfair to Roger. Whilst Budd's playing is pretty and sparse, much like the younger Eno's on Voices, in general Roger's piano work relies more on melody and is imbued with a peculiarly English flavour which sets it apart from Budd's minimalist beauty.

Roger worked without his brother on the 1988 follow up album Between Tides. Contributions and production from infinite guitarist Michael Brook, and the addition of gorgeously simple string arrangements mean that Between Tides is a large step away from the wintery ambience of the debut. Most of the pieces are wistfully melancholy, utterly beautiful, calming and reflective in a very English pastoral manner.  

In 1988 Roger Eno, Harold Budd, Michael Brook and electronic zither player Laraaji played a series of joint concerts under the title An Opal Evening. Opal was the record label set up by Brian Eno and his soon to be wife Anthea which had signed all four artists.

These concerts would typically allow for a solo set by each musician with joint ventures and improvs often joining the sets before all four would combine for a finale. The improvisational nature of much of the music extended to the casualness with which the quartet approached their stagecraft. Dr Martin and I saw the show at the Royal Festival Hall at which there was a surprising amount of laughter, not least when Michael Brook announced that Roger Eno would be onstage next, 'when we can find him'. Roger eventually arrived to huge applause which clearly baffled him.

One of the tracks played at the RFH went by the clearly ironic title of "Optimistic Prelude" at that point. A lovely, slightly wistful piece with a repeated piano motif overlaid with gently increasing strings, and a mournful oboe, this piece was wonderful in the hall, and this actual performance appears on Between Tides as "Winter Music".

A later Opal Evening, at a Festival in Lanzarote in December 1989 gave rise to a number of semi-official albums. It seems like the usual Opal suspects played at this Festival, which was televised, either just locally in the Canaries or across Spain, it’s not too clear. The artists, Budd, Brook, Roger E, and Laraaji (plus Peter Hammill, who was also on the bill) obviously gave their permission for the tv broadcast and possibly for the subsequent Spanish only home video of some of the performances, but it seems that was as far as it went.  

So when Sine Records issued half a dozen cds in the mid 1990s taken from these performances the artists weren’t terribly impressed. But there seems to be some sort of legal grey area here as the cds were apparently dubbed from the tv recording. Obviously these cds weren’t strictly bootlegs as I bought most of them in HMV in Oxford Street, but they obviously weren’t strictly authorized either. And that led to all sorts of made up titles on the discs. Check out Budd’s Aqua for a right old muddle with the track names. Roger’s Night Garden seems to feature all new pieces, so it’s unclear what the titles ought to be, and Laraaji’s music is pretty much untitle-able anyway! Michael Brook says he’s never been paid for his disc, so I guess the others haven’t either.

The sound quality isn’t bad on all of these but while most tracks have the audience / applause neatly faded out there are a few pieces that shake you out of your ambient induced reverie when some overloud clapping crashes in. But… despite all that, there’s some excellent music to be found on these. The Brook one is especially good I think.

Anyway, I have thoroughly enjoyed getting re-acquainted with Between Tides. Lovely music for a quiet evening unwinding with a glass of wine. Perfect.

dali's car - ingladaloneness

The ‘new’ Dali’s Car ep InGladAloneness features Mick Karn’s last recordings before cancer took him from us. 

These songs were created by Karn and Peter Murphy back in 2010 and I don’t really know why it’s taken nearly 18 months for these five songs to be released. But was it worth the wait? Absolutely. It might seem odd to wait nearly thirty years before before crafting a follow up to the 1984 Karn / Murphy album The Waking Hour, but then little these two musicians have done has ever really followed a logical path.

The way the 20 minute ep is structured is very interesting, as it appears to feature Karn less and less, as if he’s gradually slipping from view as the songs progress.

We start with "King Cloud" and "Sound Cloud" which both feature some of that rubbery basswork that so dominated the first Dali’s Car album. But instead of the sparse synthetic percussion and warbly synths from The Waking Hour, the new tracks use Karn’s bass in a much more conventional manner. Most of the instrumentation was added later, under the supervision of Steve Jansen and Jakko Jakszyk. Jansen’s superb playing is a vast improvement over the clunky drum machines of 1984, but part of the wonky charm of the debut album was perhaps the ramshackle method of its construction.

This is perhaps InGladAloneness’s only weakness – that it sounds a little too accomplished.

Jakko adds all manner of guitars and strings and creates a beautiful soundworld not too far removed from that on A Scarcity Of Miracles (the brilliant album he did with Fripp and Mel Collins last year).

Murphy’s vocals are delightfully off beat. Whilst he doesn’t sound quite as loopy as on The Waking Hour, there’s still more than enough Murph idiosyncrasy to keep me happy.

Anyway, whilst the first two tracks are relatively conventional, well, as conventional as could be expected, the last three are more intriguing. "Artemis Rise" takes the original 1984 track "Artemis" as its basis and adds layers of vocals and guitars and Jansen. By contrast "Subhanallah" is pretty much only Murphy and Turkish singer Shengul (she also features on the Murph’s 1999 track "Surrendered") singing an Arabic chant – the title translates as ‘Praise be to Allah’ and it’s absolutely lovely. Gorgeous understated strings too.

The final track starts with some of Karn’s muted bass clarinet, layered and multi-tracked. Then, after a minute or so, a gentle guitar picks out the refrain of "If You Go Away" and Murphy sings the first verse (based very closely on Scott Walker’s interpretation of this Brel song). He sings it brilliantly (and PM has been singing this one in recent concerts too, which must be great to hear.) It’s also extremely emotional. Slightly strange that we only get the first verse, but it somehow works very well, leaving the song sounding half finished, which is very appropriate considering that Karn was taken so ill that he was unable to complete the sessions.

It’s a wonderful little ep. Unlike Murphy’s recent songs, unlike Karn’s left field avant garde jazzy albums, so very Dali’s Car, but with a modern, more grown up sheen. The title is slightly annoying, especially in the way it’s all run together but still capitalized weirdly – that sort of thing always annoys me slightly - but musically it is terrific. I wish more of this music existed, but this 20 minute fragment is all we shall be getting. But it’s well worth it, a fitting testament to Karn's talent.

roxy music - stranded & country life

Today’s music is a couple of genuine 100% classics. Roxy Music’s Stranded and Country Life.

Both contain some really top notch songs (among the classics are “Mother Of Pearl”, “Song For Europe”, Street Life”, “Amazona” on Stranded and “All I Want Is You”, “Out of The Blue”, “A Really Good Time” and “Casanova” on CL) and both albums are brilliantly produced with even the weaker songs garnished with delightful little touches. “Triptych” is especially cleverly constructed with both startling choral vocals on the middle section and harpsichords on the opening and closing parts.

Both albums have striking covers (with perhaps CL having one of the most striking covers by anyone, ever), both feature the stunning violin work of Eddie Jobson, especially on “Out Of The Blue”, Manzanera plays a blinder on both (“Amazona” is a real tour de force) and Andy Mackay contributes some of his best ever saxophone work on “A Song For Europe”. Paul Thompson’s drumming is never better (just listen to his power drumming throughout “The Thrill Of It All” or at the start of “Mother Of Pearl” and the sudden switch when the song changes down a gear – brilliant). Ferry’s lyrics are beautifully bitter sweet and perfectly sung (listen to the high notes that he reaches on the gorgeous “Just Like You”). And there are even touches of humour – the backing vocals on “Mother Of Pearl” are terrific – as Ferry sings ‘well I’ve been up all night’ the backing vocals chip in with a sarcastic ‘again?’ which is a very clever touch. Also very funny are the strident German vocals on “Bitter Sweet” as the oompah chorus contrasts brilliantly with the lovely oboe-led verses, and the cry of ‘ahhhh more champagne…’ in “If It Takes All Night” always makes me laugh - the imagery of Ferry smoothly stalking his way round party after party would come to haunt him in later years, but back in 1974 that’s exactly what he was doing.  

Both albums are so good, but for me Country Life just edges out Stranded for position as my favourite RM album. Mainly because of the beauty and self pitying melancholy of “A Really Good Time” which contains one of my all time favourite Ferry lyrics and arguably Jobson’s prettiest violin work.

But whatever, they are both superb records.

bowie 1971

And further to the final Ziggy Stardust show I had fun with a bizarre collocation of Bowie tracks from 1971. This bunch of songs included some demos of tracks that made it to Hunky Dory, some demos that didn't, some other completely finished songs, some rough and ready rehearsals, some sung by DB, some sung by his friends, some excellent, some… not quite so excellent…

The ones I can remember include -

"Rupert The Riley". Yes indeed, a song about Dave’s car… sung by a slightly seedy character David and Angie had met at the Sombrero nightclub called Mickey King. He was apparently murdered in the mid 1970s after some sort of narcotic deal went bad. Anyway, the song is terrific. Daft as heck, but great fun and the beep beeps were recycled nine years later on "Fashion".

"Lightning Frightening" which is basically the song "Dirty Dirty" from Crazy Horse’s 1971 debut album sans Neil. Exactly the same music and arrangement but with Bowie’s vocal melody and lyrics instead. What a cheek. Still not a terribly good song in either incarnation.

"Miss Peculiar (How Lucky You Are)" – a very melodramatic piano tune in a sort of waltz time. With its oddly staged singing this wouldn’t have been out of place in some sort of musical theatre and shows how Bowie’s writing in 1971 was all over the place.

"Lady Stardust" – recorded at the same session in March 1971 as "Miss Peculiar" is this demo version. Which is pretty much identical to the finished version that appeared on the Ziggy album in 1972.

"Looking For A Friend" from the Arnold Corns sessions. AC was a made up band fronted by Bowie’s costume maker Fred Burrett, who styled himself as the more exotic Freddie Burretti. Although Bowie deemed even that name was too ordinary and for AC purposes Freddie became Rudi Valentino! Although he had the looks, Freddie couldn’t actually sing terribly well, but this didn't matter as DB was basically using Arnold Corns as a front - so he could still keep issuing songs whilst trying to extricate himself from his Mercury Records contract. "Looking For A Friend" was attempted on numerous occasions throughout 1971, firstly with Arnold Corns, then with a mix of the Corns musicians and the Spiders and later still during the Ziggy sessions in the Autumn. It’s a pretty good song, a bit ramshackle but in a good Mick Taylor era Stones manner. Pity it never really got finished.

"Shadowman" – another somewhat ramshackle recording of a terrifically good song. Elements of this were nicked from a Biff Rose tune called "The Man" (Rose was a big favourite of Bowie’s – he also wrote "Fill Your Heart" which DB covered on Hunky Dory). Bowie himself re-recorded the track as a gorgeous Mike Garson led ballad for the Toy project in 2000.

"Man In The Middle" – another Arnold Corns song and mainly sung by co-writer and AC guitarist Mark Carr-Pritchard. Bowie joins in the harmonies and Mick Ronson adds some urgently stabbing guitar work which he then recycled into the main riff of "Hang On To Yourself" later in the year.

"Moonage Daydream" – the earliest version of this song from January 1971 is horridly weak and limp. Nothing like the tour de force from the Ziggy album. This is also peppered with embarrassing Americanisms as DB weedily mutters things like "far out" with very little conviction. The hopelessly lumpen drumming doesn’t help either.

"Bombers" - one of the most famous Hunky Dory out-takes as it was on the album until a very late stage when, for reasons unknown, it was replaced by "Fill Your Heart". It’s another very stagey song and DB sings in an oddly mannered way, but it’s quite good fun in its way.

There are lots of other songs from this hugely prolific period. I doubt that Bowie ever again wrote quite as many songs in such a short period of time; and most of them were absolutely brilliant.

the last ziggy stardust concert

Whilst on holiday I took the opportunity to listen again to my restored version of the final Ziggy Stardust performance. This took place at the end of a very long and successful tour which climaxed at the Hammersmith Odeon on July 3 1973. Bowie may have been worn out but he still delivered a solid show which ended with a special guest (Jeff Beck) and a major surprise.  

It’s a hugely significant gig, probably not one of the best Ziggy concerts, and certainly not one of the best recorded shows. The concert sound was recorded very hastily as the decision to film the show was only taken the day before. Lack of time to set up mics and test the sound balances leave the raw recordings sounding very brittle and thin. This may be one of the reasons that the show wasn’t issued in late 1973 as planned. The tapes sat on a shelf for 10 years until DB finally allowed the film to be issued on video in 1983 along with a remixed and (not very well) overdubbed soundtrack album. In 2005 the film was remastered again for DVD and Tony Visconti spent a long time working his magic on the soundtrack. The 2005 remaster is a big step up from the 1983 release, but there was only so much that Visconti could do. Most of the 1983 overdubs were removed, though he kept some of the added backing vocals on "Moonage Daydream" and "Time" as Ronno’s original vocals were sung off mic.

But even this reissue was incomplete. The DVD features far more of the intro so to the remastered 2005 cd I’ve added the DVD stage announcements and crowd noise. Mike Garson’s piano medley of Bowie tunes which was played as an overture to the gig (and which appeared on the web a year or so back in excellent quality) is now back in it's place at the start of the show. Then I cleaned up the two songs which Jeff Beck refused to allow a release – "The Jean Genie" which slips into "Love Me Do" and which has been available since the mid 1970s on bootleg, and then the version of "Round and Round" which Beck also played on and which somehow appeared in trading circles about 20 years ago. The quality of "The Jean Genie" was fine, it needed a bit of boosting but it’s otherwise a good recording. "Round And Round" is more muffled and rather distant, and there’s not too much that can be done with it, but just as I was about to restore it, a raw sound desk recording of the two Beck tracks slipped out onto the internet. Whilst I decided to stick with the bootleg "Jean Genie" (as it sounded more listenable than the sometimes harsh soundboard), the improved version of "Round And Round" was a marvellous and timely find. 

After the two Jeff Beck assisted songs Bowie stepped up to the mic and thanked the crew and the band and then he said, "This particular show will remain with us the longest, because, not only is it the last show of the tour, but... it's the last show we'll ever do." The following "Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide" is perhaps a little workmanlike musically, though DB gives it everything he’s got. One reason for the rather muted band performance is probably that none of the band (bar Mick Ronson) knew anything about the retirement and they were as shocked as the audience!

In my restoration I used the retirement announcement from the bootleg as the official recording oddly sounds very thin and lacks the atmosphere of the boot in which the utter shock of the audience is extremely clear. 

Anyway, after all that, it’s still a good gig, though perhaps thought of more highly than it should be purely because of the historical significance, rather than the musical quality. Some of the songs are brilliantly played and sung, but some are, frankly, a bit of a mess. There is a real sense that both DB and the Spiders are exhausted. The pre-gig announcements refer to 70 gigs in 65 days which is a very heavy schedule, so it’s little wonder that things are getting a touch frazzled. For example, "Cracked Actor" is pretty awful and "Watch That Man" suffers from too fast a tempo and lack of finesse. On the other hand "White Light / White Heat" is tremendous, "Space Oddity" is genuinely majestic and "My Death" is simply stunning. "Moonage Daydream" is rather marvellous too, as is the very neat medley of "Wild Eyed Boy" / "All The Young Dudes" / "Oh! You Pretty Things". "The Jean Genie" is perhaps a little too enthusiastic and seems oddly sloppy in places (and someone, possibly Jeff Beck, is out of tune) but it is tremendous fun. The retirement announcement still sends shivers down my spine and the stunned and disbelieving crowd is more than audible at that point.

Of course you should never believe anything that David Bowie says - 11 months later he was embarking upon the Diamond Dogs tour, arguably the most ambitious concert tour ever staged in North America. Wish he'd come out of retirement one more time...

neil young & crazy horse - americana

Giving Neil Young and Crazy Horses’s Americana another blast today and perhaps I’ve been a little hasty to dismiss it as a throwaway record. 

This is the Great American Folk songbook as thrashed out by curmudgeonly old men in denim and flannel shirts, standing in a draughty old barn trying to avoid the horse poo. Then the contrary old git has had the gall to overdub choirs and backing vocals as if these songs were actually substantial enough to warrant such treatment. Most of the tunes have been Horsed and so don’t really sound like the more familiar folk songs / nursery rhymes that many of these songs became. Most contain surprisingly dark lyrics that were lost as the songs became sanitized over the long years. Neil has put them back. So lots of death and hangin’ and shootin’ as befits songs written a century and half ago.

I'd say that about the half the record is very very good indeed. Solid Horse. The record works best on the less familiar songs – six minutes of "She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain" blasted out Horse-style is not really my cup of tea, but a song like "High Flying Bird" sounds exactly like the sorts of Neil / Horse tracks that found their homes on Zuma or Ragged Glory. Some of the songs are perhaps too long – at 8 minutes "Tom Dula" is maybe twice as long as it needs to be – but others work well at their lengths. For example, "Travel On" is nearly 7 minutes but doesn’t seem like it.

The oldest songs are from the 1800s, "Oh Susannah" (which was later reworked in the 1960s as "Venus" – you know, ‘she’s got it, oh baby she’s got it…’) and "Clementine" both sound great as done by the Horse. If those good ol’ frontiersmen back then had had access to whacking great Marshall stacks, Billy Talbot’s monstrous bass, Poncho’s growling guitar, Ralph’s thudding drums and Neil’s faithful Old Black guitar, then these good ol’ folk songs would have sounded exactly like this.

Still not sure what to make of the Horses’s electric doowop attack on "Get A Job" (a relative newie from the 1950s) although it’s worth noting that Billy and Ralph started their careers singing doowop on street corners with Danny Whitten as Danny and the Memories in the early 1960s. "God Save The Queen" still completely baffles me, however. What on earth were they thinking? But on the whole the album is growing on me and it certainly blows the cobwebs away.