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Bowie General > Images Vol. 41

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homebrewPosted at 2025-09-26 19:39:37(6 days ago) (Bowie General / Images Vol. 41)


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Right off the top, happy 50th birthday to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The longest continual running film in cinema history.

These articles appear just as they were posted in the Usenet group alt.fan.david-bowie by group member Jamie Soule aka AladINSAnE. I have made no attempt to alter the formatting, spelling, grammar or edit in any way.

*Images*: Part 41


"More idols than realities."  That line says it all.. It describes the
world we live in more accurately than anything else I've ever heard.
"I'm okay, you're so so." No comment.


There is some rather "nasty" guitar work from Robert Fripp that becomes
the introduction to the title song on the  album. This is quite fitting
actually as Bowie referred to Scary Monsters as a nasty piece of
Londonism Bowie insists that Scary Monsters is based on a character, a
corrupter, who is talking about how he corrupted a fine young mind.
Bowie describes him as, "a criminal with a conscience, having his own
self doubts." There are no doubts however, about the runs that Fripp
performs at the end of the song. No doubts at all.

Bowie once called Ashes To Ashes a 1980's nursery rhyme. He said that he
felt that the nursery rhymes from the 80's will have much in common with
the  nursery rhymes of the 1880's, and 1890's, which were all rather
"horrid." Coming back to Major Tom ten years later was to showcase the
disillusionment of the great dream when they shot him off into space,
according to Bowie. All the great  technology, and wonderful ideas put
him up there, but once he got up there, he wasn't quite sure the reason
he'd been put there. Major Tom was left up there, and now returning to
him ten years later, you can see that the whole thing has soured,
because there was no reason to put him up there. It was technological
ego that put him in space, but for no specific reason. This potpourri of
technological ideas was disastrous, but more disastrous is the solace he
takes in a heroin type drug, with cosmic space itself feeding his
addiction. All he wants is to return to the womb from which he was born.
This explanation certainly adds credibility to Ashes To Ashes being a
nursery rhyme for the 1980's.

From a musical standpoint, Ashes To Ashes offers an almost coming
together of the highlights from previous albums which made his work so
enthralling. When it was released as I single and I would hear it on an
AM radio station, where others were around who were not avid Bowie fans,
I remember thinking to myself that these people literally have NO IDEA
what they're listening to. This reminds me of an incident one time with
my girlfriend when I threw Ashes To Ashes on and told her to LISTEN TO
IT. The reply, one I expected, was, "I've heard this lots of times." To
which I replied," No you haven't, you heard it, but you've never
LISTENED to it."
Right on cue came the puzzled "what do you mean" look that says heard
and listen are the same thing. I of course took that look to mean that
she thinks heard, and listen, mean the same, which is something
personally that I could never understand. Hearing music is one thing,
sitting down to LISTED to it so you get something out of it are not the
same to me. People seem to think if they hear music playing in the
background, and catch a verse, is adequate enough to qualify as
listening to music. Whatever. I told my girlfriend to come over here for
a minute, motioning to the stereo, where I have two sets of headphones
plugged in. As predicted,  I got the "here we go again" look.  Oddly
enough, I seem to get a lot of the "here we go again" look, and not just
from Min, my girlfriend. I seem to get it from all of my friends. I have
noticed that the "here we go again" look is a look unique to each
individual, no two are the same, and each person has their own set of
facial expressions and body movements which accompany it. I've been
studying these looks I get, I want to write about my findings one day.

All I said was, "Listen to the voices," and it didn't take long for
Min's face to light up and express, "WOW!" It was the same expression I
am sure that crossed my face at hearing Ashes To Ashes on headphones for
the first time. I was watching the counter on my cd player pass 1:40,
1:50 and just before it hit 2:00 I tapped her on the shoulder and
mouthed the word, "listen." At 2:03 I mouthed the word, "Here."  What
Bowie has done with the vocals at 2:04 on Ashes To Ashes always stops me
in my tracks, because the effects are stunning. I have often pointed
that part out to friends and said, "Those are voices you know?" Then I
get the "no fucking way, you're crazy" look. It never fails, every time
I replay it for one of the "skeptics," the reaction is a repeated one
from the skeptics before them, "WOW!" That song was wasted on "THEM," if
you know what I mean. Do you know anything about Andy Clark? I ask
because I don't, and I can't find anything on him either. He's the
keyboard player on  Ashes To Ashes, and that synthesizer sound at the
end of the song is beyond wonderful, it is a simple sound, yet extremely
unique in its presentation. I won't get started on Bittan. Then there is
the video. I'll talk about that for sure.

The video Bowie made for Ashes To Ashes is a masterpiece. And Bowie did
make it. The entire concept for the video, from beginning to end, was
Bowie's, and he drew the story board for the video  by hand, frame by
frame. Bowie directed the video himself, and as a matter of fact this
was his first attempt at film directing. There is one particular scene
in the video that Bowie was quite happy with. He referred to it as,
"organic meeting high tech." This is the scene in the video where Bowie
is sitting with all of these plastic tubes running into him. It was
supposed to be archetypal Bowie said. The idea behind it was a
futuristic colony founded by this human. In that particular scene the
"human" is being "pumped" out of him, replaced by something organic. The
video was  heavily influenced by the artist H.R Giger. Some of you may
not recognize this artist, but I guarantee that you are familiar with
his work. His most well known work was done for film director Ridley
Scott.  Giger drew all of the sets for the movie Alien, right down to
the "Alien." itself, and this won him an Oscar Award in 1980. He has
also done several album covers, the two best known are Debbie Harry: Koo
Koo, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer: Brain Salad Surgery.  Incidentally,
both of these covers were chosen as two of the top 100 best covers of
the century by Rolling Stone Magazine. Overall however, there are a lot
of cliched things in the video, but done in such a way that the entire
video isn't cliched. The video reflects a nostalgia for the future, a
theme that Bowie insists is a reoccurring one in his work. What
interests him is the fact of seeing the future, and finding out that it
is someplace we have all ready been.

Bowie had some other ideas he considered  pursuing on video. One of
these ideas was to edit some film he previously shot, and make it
available on cassette. While staying at the Pierre Hotel in New York
Bowie re-created the set for Diamond Dogs.  He modeled the buildings,
which stood three to four feet high, using clay. The buildings for
"Hunger City" were constructed on tables, with some of them being
intact, while others were crumbling to resemble a city in decay. Using a
"micro" lens allowed Bowie to get the camera down in between the
buildings, where he filmed as the camera zoomed up and down the streets,
and between the tables. He also tried out some animation using these
characters he made. One thing interesting about the characters, is that
they are  all wearing these oversized, awkward, "organic" looking roller
skates. these were used for transportation apparently, because of the
lack of available fuel after the collapse of Hunger City. As we all
know, once again, the cassette did not appear.

"It's all about grim determination," Bowie put it. Referring to the
Disco's he frequented in the early 70's he said that there was a high
powered enthusiasm for fashion, and it was taking a natural course, as
opposed to now. This high powered enthusiasm has been replaced by an
insidious grim determination to be fashionable, almost like a vocation.
There's some kind of strange aura about it. It was this feeling that he
wanted to capture in the song. We almost did not get to hear Fashion,
because it was presenting too much of a problem for Bowie to write, and
therefore almost shelved.  Ah, Ah, Ah, Jamaica, Jamaica Ah, Ah, Ah,
Jamaica. Bowie couldn't get that rhyme out of his head. Worse though, he
could think of nothing to add to it, it wasn't something he could build
on. This was not from lack of effort apparently. He told Visconti that
he was dropping it as a possible track for Scary Monsters, because he
wasn't going to waste anymore time on it. .Visconti told Bowie, "You
can't drop it," and advised him to be a little more patient, obviously
seeing the potential. The next morning Ah, Ah, Ah, Jamaica, had become
Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa, Fashion, and it went on to become a hit.

One thing I have noticed is that there is no "middle" ground when it
comes to Teenage Wildlife, Bowie listeners  either really like it, or
really dislike it. I have also noticed that you would have more success
moving Mount Fuji, than to get those who dislike this song to come out
of their coma. Hear that Buffer The Rouge? That was addressed to a
friend who has been asleep for quite some time, and meant in jest. Bowie
says that Teenage Wildlife is addressed to a mythical teenage brother,
if he had one, or maybe his own latter day adolescent self. He once said
in an interview that it was written for his son. Lucky kid. Bowie has
always been impressed with archetypal songs and sets out to write them
from time to time, calling Teenage Wildlife one of the more successful.
Archetypal means completely original, or  imagery  that is symbolic and
has been derived from past experiences. Now, in case you feel that I was
attempting to showcase my vocabulary, well, you better think again. I
just went and looked up the meaning of "archetypal," because I didn't
know what it meant. I put the definition in here just in case there are
others out there like me, it saves them from having to go and look it
up. The song is an approach to a young mind that has not been forearmed
to all of the hypocrisies he will encounter, and the stubbornness to
change that people have, and to accept change, to flow with it. Bowie is
of the opinion that this refusal to accept change results in people
becoming reactionary, they fight against it, and this leads to all of
the terrible conflicts we have around us.

"I don't believe in this high tech society at all. I don't believe it
does exist, I think it's a great myth. I think the thought of high tech
songs, high tech music, computer buttons, whatever. It's not like that
at all. It's on a very emotional people level, flesh and blood. One see
it becoming terrifyingly real, anti tech. The old symbolic street
fighting thing will not be as symbolic as it was, but it will become a
reality. One can foresee that in the dreadful 80's." I pulled that out
of an interview which was done in 1980. Bowie was talking about the
track Scream Like A Baby. It made me rather happy when I first read it,
because it is a statement that I could not agree with more. It was also
insurance that I would never have to worry about Bowie getting immersed
in the never ending flood of high tech. He was absolutely right when it
comes to high tech music, and the point is so simple that I refuse to
see how it can't be understood.  Bowie is right, "It's on a very
emotional people level, flesh and blood." It's all about EXPRESSION,
and  I fail to see expression, emotion, energy, ideology, suggestion or
thought come from a Sony SE-MM612-7E  sound replicating interface. A
quick tour to get yourself aquatinted with all of their technological
"advances" in the making of music, amount to some very interesting
reading. That is of course if you take interest in those whose concepts
of music are best described as ridiculous.

The possibilities now exist of an credit on an album reading, "David
Bowie -  Data entry instruments."  Oh, and that isn't the work of my
imagination either, courses are offered at some major universities on
that subject alone. While looking around to get myself further
aquatinted with the concepts of high tech music I stumbled upon this
piece of wisdom. " Whereas a previous age imagined music in terms of
real instruments (acoustic, mechanical devices like pianos or violins)
and concert halls, most of the music we hear today can be described as
electronicor at least requiring electronics." I'm confused. What does
"previous age" mean? To me previous means an era gone past, one that has
been replaced. What does it mean, "we imagined music in terms of real
instruments?" I don't imagine music in terms of real instruments,
MUSIC IS MADE WITH REAL INSTRUMENTS. In case this person hasn't caught
on, music is made by musicians who play real instruments, not by a
computer which has no talent. Then I found this, "The goal, quite
simply, is to produce a "digital Stradivarius," an electronic musical
instrument distinguished by the sound, feel and look of the violins
produced 300 years ago by the legendary instrument maker Antonius
Stradivarius." Why? Why, try to replicate that which exists? If you want
the sound, then get THE REAL THING! Last, I found this, "We have hooked
up two joy sticks. One controls the texture...how many notes are being
played?...is it chords or melodies?...is it running up and down the
keyboard? The other joy stick controls the harmony and things like
rhythm. The user guides the machine as it composes. You don't have to
remember all the controls since you get the feel for what happens when
you move the joy sticks around." Can you imagine the "artistic
expression," and the "feel" you're going to get from someone "playing"
two joysticks? Bowie is so right, too bad he doesn't think the same way
about user pay Internet sites.

Scream Like A Baby Bowie describes as "future nostalgia," meaning taking
a past look at something that hasn't happened yet. I like that.


Aladinsane.

To...............Hmmmmmmm...................

*BACK TO THE INDEX <index.htm>*


""I don't begrudge any artist for finding an audience"
- David Bowie abt. 1987
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