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Bowie General > Images Vol. 20

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homebrewPosted at 2025-04-19 14:47:52(4 wks ago) (Bowie General / Images Vol. 20)


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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 20


Mecca is the holiest of places for the Muslim religion. It may just be
that Hansa By The Wall studios is one the holiest places for Bowie fans.
It is a shrine, a landmark from which emerged the creative   genius of
David Bowie. This period he was about to enter arguably was the pinnacle
of his career. The change came first though.  What was Bowie had gone,
he once again shed his skin to replace it with a new facade. This one
was truly shocking to everyone.

In September of 1976 the recording of Iggy Pop's new album The Idiot,
which was mostly written by Bowie, had wrapped up. When Low was released
in January of 1977 the only thing Bowie was willing to talk about to the
media was Iggy. Questions about his own album went unanswered. Bowie was
serious about helping Iggy get the recognition he felt he deserved, and
he subsequently put much of his resources and time into making that
happen. Iggy embarked on a tour March 1, 1977, which was to play Britain
and 16 cities in North America. The tour opened in Britain amid a new
wave of music that was starting to explode. Punk Rock. Personally I did
not view as Punk being new, I found it to be the same old anti-
establishment rhetoric found in Rock N' Roll. Get the "older folks"
shocked and pissed off, which leads to media coverage, you get lots of
attention, your records sell and you make money. Bowie did it, The
Stones did it, Elvis did it and a host of others. What kills me is the
fact that the record buying public are so damn stupid they never realize
the fact that it is "gimmick" marketing, not only that, the same gimmick
works over and over again and the idiots never catch on! How brain dead
can you get? After all these years it is still used successfully by the
likes of Marilyn Manson, Emimen and the rest of the Rappers. Punk just
had a different sound, it was raw, and lyrics more risqué than rock. The
visuals of the punk audience was a big help to promote it with various
fluorescent dyed hair and hairstyles that the public was not used to, it
was spiked. There were studs, piercings, makeup, jackboots, chains, dog
collars, and the one fashion accessory that was mandatory for every
punk, safety pins.

The originator of punk went largely unnoticed during the British leg of
his tour. The press basically ignored him preferring to give the pages
of their magazines to emerging bands such as The Sex Pistols, The Jam
and countless others. True to his word Bowie backed up Iggy by giving up
the limelight and touring with him as strictly a member of his band.
Bowie handled the piano duties as well as sang backing vocals. Not one
Bowie song, with the exception of the ones that were  written for The
Idiot, were ever played on the tour. This was an Iggy Pop tour, not a
David Bowie tour.  The North American leg of the tour opened in
Montreal, in a theatre named Le Plateau. I saw this performance, Iggy
was backed up by two bands on their first American tours. The two bands
I saw along with Iggy were Blondie and The Ramones. May I stop for a
minute? I want to say that I realize just how damn fortunate I am to be
forty four years old. Why? Because I was around in the seventies and
that afforded me the opportunity of a lifetime, which was to be able to
see the bands I saw. Supertramp's first tour, Aerosmith's first tour,
Elton John's Yellow Brick Road Tour, Jethro Tull 74, Cat Stevens,
Strawbs, Yes, Pink Floyd's  Animals tour, The Who with Keith Moon, The
Stones, Iggy, Rick Wakeman and of course Bowie. The list goes on and on.
Zeppelin, Rush, Frampton, you name it. I truly feel sympathy for those
who are into music and missed this era. I mean that with all sincerity.
Someone wrote to me once and said they would give ten years of their
life in a second to see the bands I have seen. That era is gone and has
been replaced by, well you know, just turn on the radio and vomit. I beg
you not to misconstrue this as one upmanship, it is in fact the
opposite, it makes me thankful.

I wish I could write about this tour but I can't remember it as I do
some Bowie tours. Funny, some memories are as if they happened
yesterday, and others, well, not so clear. I remember the Ramones
saying, "Gabba, Gabba, Hey" between each song. They were fun to watch
and so was Blondie even though I knew little of their material. This was
my first Iggy concert and I recall that he could contort his body into
some lovely shapes. I had a copy of Raw Power and The Idiot so I was
familiar with the stuff he sang. There was a racoon tail tied to the
back of his jeans and he was shirtless. I remember him hanging by one
leg from a light tree while singing something I did not recognize.
Bowie's piano was tilted towards the back and I had a side view of him
while he played. He rarely looked in the direction of the audience so
not to take any of the limelight away from Iggy. He smoked a lot of
cigarettes. At the end he walked to the front of the stage with Iggy and
smiled and waved to the audience. His hair was still the same as The
Thin White Duke's however Bowie did not look the least bit menacing.

April, 1977. Bowie is back in Berlin. The tour is over and he starts
work on his next album at Hansa studios. In addition he will again work
with Iggy Pop on a second album titled Lust For Life. It is a new Bowie
that enters Hansa. The Thin White Duke vanished, abruptly. Bowie is
quiet now, no press,  no RCA and no longer in the company of lunatics.
This period is not documented  Bowie is in hiding  and he has thrust
himself into his work. I am not sure, and I have no way of finding out
short of asking Bowie and he doesn't talk to me. I know this for a fact
because I asked him a whole bunch of questions on BOWIEZOIDNET and I
never got a response. I think it was the questions he didn't like, for
example when I asked him why he sold Heroes to microsoft and Watch That
Man to Tommy Hilfucker when he doesn't need the cash. I also asked him
if we could do lunch. I would have paid. Anyway, I do not know if Bowie
realized at the time how much of an impact Low and Heroes would make on
music. It opened up a whole new concept of which many, such as Gary
Newman, copied. I will go as far as to say that almost every band owes a
bit of thanks to Bowie for how he changed the face of music. He was on
the cutting edge during this period and few artists in the music
industry could even come close to achieving what he did as far as the
innovation. It was fresh. We rarely see fresh innovative ideas in music
anymore like we used to. Jobson, Fripp, Yes, Gentle Giant, Strawbs,
Supertramp, Crimson, Floyd, Sparks, Reed, Iggy, ELP, Wakeman, The Nice,
Hawkwind and that is just off the top of my head. All of them had the
creativity to open up new avenues which expanded the way music can be
approached. Oh, Jethro Tull, I almost forgot, and Genesis as well. What
do we get nowadays? What will happen when these people no longer
produce? Who will take their place? The thought to me is frightening.
There is a certain circle of musicians who are true artists that usually
work with one another. These artist are relatively unknown to most. but
not to many of us in here, as Bowie is one of them. It seems that you
can easily attach links to the people in this circle. Gabriel, Bruford,
Holdsworth, Jobson, Eno, Fripp, Belew, Manzanara, Wetton, Levin, Ferry,
Sylvian, Byrne and many more are all somewhat intertwined, and all are
truly artists. You can tell how good they are because their stuff
doesn't sell and is rarely heard over the airwaves.

Bowie is at Hansa to record Heroes and Visconti had this to say, "Little
did I know at that time that we were spearheading a mini-movement in
modern music." Bowie was totally free on Heroes to expand what was
accomplished on Low, by taking it in another direction. It was an
expansion of the original concepts he mastered on Low and this time the
keyboard drones, tape loops and treatments Bowie had Eno apply were
overlaid with the manic ferocity of Robert Fripps guitar work. A great
benefit was the liberty to do what he wanted again, this time knowing
RCA had to release it.  Two months from now RCA would release Be My Wife
as a single. It went nowhere. I wonder why because I really like that
song, and the video to it is one of my favourites. I guess I am a
minority. I mentioned in an earlier post that Robert Fripp was
originally not scheduled to play on Heroes. He was brought in as Alomar
and Bowie could not accomplish the exact sound David wanted. Fripp is
recognized as one, if not the best, technical guitarist in the world.
Those who know King Crimson's material are well aware of just how
accomplished Fripp is. If I get into a discussion where someone is
attempting to show me a better guitarist the argument is settled by the
playing of the Crimson song Nuerotica and Frame By Frame. I defy anyone
to follow Nuerotica let alone even attempt to play it, and the speed of
Fripp on Frame By Frame is faster than greased lightening. The sounds
that Fripp can get out of a guitar are unique to him and him alone and
he has certainly enhanced the work of Eno, Peter Gabriel, David Sylvian
as well as Bowie and a host of others.

Bowie's new character for all intents and purposes was "human." He
adopted the role of an "artist," akin to the looks of a starving artist
in Paris. Gone were the trappings of a superstar, limos, handlers, the
media and the extravagance of five star hotels, restaurants and
everything you wanted hand delivered by servants bearing gold platters.
Bowie dressed himself now and Coco looked after the household duties and
the meals. I do not know what Iggy did, anything he wanted I imagine.
His hair was back to its normal colour of brown and he sported a
moustache at times. In some photos from that period  I had to look at
twice.  Is that Bowie? Huh. He looks different. This character was the
starving artist of Berlin. His dedication to his work was there but
stronger than ever. The creative drive as well, not afraid to try
something new. Bowie siphoned off everyone, he was not the type who
would not take input from others, he was smart that way. Eno and Fripp
are exceptional talents in their own right so why have the contributions
and creative ideas of one when you can have three.

Tony Visconti.  Producer, engineer, singer, musician and overlooked.
This man is nothing short of brilliant and the high quality Bowie's
albums have a lot to do with him. His creativity is left as a personal
stamp on every Bowie album he ever worked on, especially Heroes.   The
others include  The Man Who Sold The World,  Young Americans, Low,
Lodger, Scary Monsters and several others. The vocals on the album are
exceptional and a lot of this has to do with Visconti.  Especially
unique are the vocal qualities on the title track. "Bowie histrionics,"
is the name given to the style when Bowie is singing at the top of his
lungs so forceful it almost resembles a scream, with a little falsetto
added in on the last syllables of certain words.  You all know it well.
Like on Heroes. Anyway, Visconti wanted the maximum power of these
"histrionics" to come through on the title track and he achieved this
with a new recording technique, which he invented, and tried for the
first time on Heroes. He placed three microphones at various distances
away from Bowie and had them "gated."  What this means is that the
microphones would only open at a certain decibel level so when Bowie
pushed his voice harder these microphones opened. The result is the full
rushing "explosion" of Bowie's vocals on Heroes as the microphones
opened up.

If one wishes to fully enjoy everything that Heroes has to offer it
takes time, attention, headphones, and several years. This album has so
much to give, yet it is not easily accessible in my opinion. Like Low it
takes work, and I can't think of any work being much more enjoyable.
Heroes can take you places. The chemistry on that album between all who
contributed  to it is superb, and few others can rival it in that
regard.  Listening to it you would think that the tracks were probably
recorded many times before they got them so perfect. This was not the
case. Fripp, Bowie, Eno and Alomar worked so well as a creative unit
that most of the tracks were laid down in ONE TAKE. Yes, one take. That
fact to me is amazing, given the complexity of the material written for
the album, and this fact also is a testament to the brilliance of those
musicians who were involved. If that is not sufficient enough to impress
you you may wish to know that Heroes was mostly all written in the
studio and the lyrics to Heroes were made up as Bowie stood in front of
the microphone. The lyrics, "just came out," according to Visconti.
Should you be a " really tough case " and still need a bit of prodding
to be convinced of just how far ahead these musicians are in comparison
to most, then consider this. I advise you to sit down.  To lay down ALL
of his guitar work Robert Fripp was in the studio a total of ONE DAY.
One day was all it took for Fripp to do his parts. Wait, there's more.
You see, not only did he do his work in a day, he almost turned Bowie
down because he was a bit out of practice since hadn't been playing
guitar for about THREE YEARS. This was because he had been devoting his
playing time to synthesizers and other electronic devices. There you
have it, twenty four hours from a man who hadn't played in three years.
Visconti said Heroes was the best and most positive album he had made
with Bowie. He said things went so well it seemed that they just
couldn't do anything wrong.
Bowie allowed the others he was working with to have a considerable
amount of input, with regards to the material written. This is
especially true when it comes to Brian Eno, as he is credited as a
co-writer on Heroes, Moss Garden, The Secret Life of Arabia, and
Abdulmajid. Eno never heard a finished version of Heroes in the studio
as he had left the sessions before the lyrics were recorded.

Another testament to the capabilities of those who performed on Heroes
is the vast diversity of the tracks. Many albums have one distinct
flavour to them as the songs all "fit" to a similar musical style, or
theme.  Good examples of this are Let's Dance, Young Americans, Hunky
Dory and a few more. Heroes is an exception as the musical styles are
"all over the place." This results in the listener being emotionally
taken just to about everywhere. It is a real adventure. You can drift in
the space between conscience and unconsciousness with Moss Garden and
shocked full of energy with Heroes. Blackout invokes a sense of
tenseness and Joe The Lion can make one manic. Sense of doubt causes
sensations of bleakness and Sons Of The Silent Age a mood of reflection.
Secret Life Of Arabia makes one question, travel to lands unfamiliar,  a
want to discover.

This is going to sound idiotic but I don't know how to put it another
way. Limited vocabulary is a curse to me. A lot of thought went into
Heroes. I know, into EVERY Bowie album, except "those two" in the
eighties. I mean it is exceptional on Heroes, the thought behind each
track. It is the characteristics of the Devil and an Angel that emerge
on Beauty And The Beast. While in Berlin Bowie suffered a series of
"blackouts" from the consumption of alcohol. On one occasion he suffered
chest pains that were at first thought to be a heart attack, later it
was diagnosed as anxiety. Hence the line, "Get me to the doctor."  The
line, "Someone's back in town, the chips are down," could be a reference
to Angie's appearance in Berlin and an incident with Coco. Angie,
blaming Coco for the everything, including the breakdown of their
marriage, went on a rampage at the apartment where Coco, Iggy and Bowie
were living. She cut up Coco's clothes and tried to set them on fire
with vodka, broke some items and rumour has it threw her bed out a
window and into the street. Joe The Lion. The story behind this song is
one that I am sure you will find, as I did, extremely bizarre, as well
as intriguing. This is all true, and if you happen doubt it then a quick
search on the Internet will provide you with the confirmation that I did
not make this up. Besides, this is so bizarre that not even I could have
dreamt this up. I'm serious, and I can dream up some really imaginative
things at times. Don't even ask.

The song, Joe The Lion, is written about a real life person who goes by
the name of Chris Burdon. Mr.Burdon is an artist, but of a special
school called Visual Art. These are the artists who create what I term
"public spectacles." You are familiar with them, the ones who wrap up
entire buildings in coloured paper, cover the ground with five thousand
yellow umbrellas or cover huge areas with cellophane. Chris Burdon is of
a special breed of visual artists as he is one that incorporates the use
of his body as an art form. He is a Visual Body Artist. His "art"
incorporates the use of his body to portray the subject matter.  I will
use one of his presentations which  was called "Shoot" as an example.
This presentation involved Mr.Burden standing still in a small room of
an art gallery and then having a "friend?" shoot him in the arm with a
22 calibre hand gun. One of his artistic concepts was a five hour film
he had made.  The film begins showing him being sewn into a mailbag,
then the mailbag was tossed in the middle of an extremely busy highway.
He laid on the highway inside the bag for a total of five hours and
somehow survived. Now, if you are a person who is interested in this
area of art and would like to examine it closer then I have some
fabulous news for you. You can actually have an opportunity to  get a
real "feel" for this work if you so desire and I am delighted to be able
to tell you that Mr.Burden WELCOMES AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION! If you want
to YOU can  PERSONALLY become ACTIVELY INVOLVED in one of the exhibits.
Here is an example of one of those exhibits Mr.Burden constructed so the
audience could become involved. The artistic presentation involved a
chair with a small rack in front of it. Now, on the rack was a loaded
45  calibre handgun that was pointed at the level of the head of anyone
who sat in the chair.  The gun had a timing device on it that would make
it fire, with the timer set from "now," until some time in the future.
People were welcome to sit in the chair and since no one knew when the
timer was set for there was a chance that if you sat down you would get
your head blown off. The point was so you could say that you did it and
survived.  The line, "Nail me to my car," in Joe The Lion refers to a
particular piece of Visual Body Art performed by Chris Burden. In this
piece Burden had himself crucified on the back of a Volkswagen Beetle.
He literally had himself nailed to the car. Speaking of nails,  for the
love of his art form he once tried to swallow a ten inch nail. Does that
surprise you at all? I didn't think so.

Heroes. Two lovers by the wall. In Bowie's words" There were two lovers
standing by the Berlin Wall. An East German watch tower stood high above
them, manned by armed guards. Why did they choose the gun turret? I
assumed their motive was guilt, thus the act of heroism in facing it."
This version is probably romantic fantasy and in all probability did not
occur exactly how he says. He may have seen a kiss by the Wall, however
it was less of a random incident and not between two people strangers.
The kiss was a flirtatious one between Antonia Maas, who sang backing
vocals on Heroes and Tony Visconti. According to Tony on their return to
the studio Coco said to him  "We saw you walking by The Wall and that's
where he got that idea from." The inspiration for the song  probably
came from one of Bowie's favourite artists, Otto Mueller. Bowie visited
the Br cke-Museum on several occasions, and three paintings in the
museum inspired Bowie's visual work during this time period. One of
Mueller's paintings is Lovers Between Garden Walls. This painting
portrays two lovers next to a wall

WARNING: I AM GOING ON A TIRADE. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO LISTEN TO IT SKIP
THE NEXT PARAGRAPH FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR OWN SANITY.

In my opinion I do not care if this kiss was between Visconti and Maas,
or anyone else for that matter. Who the kiss was between in not
relevant. What is relevant though is Bowie did give us a story line to
Heroes, one of his best pieces of music in my opinion, and you can see
the story unfold as you listen to it. Heroes is a powerful song and it
is personal to me as it came out at a special time in my life. I have
very deep and sentimental memories attached to it. I think everyone has
a song in their life like that. Now when I hear Heroes I am told that I
am to visualize products made by Microsoft, or think of FTD Florists all
because Bowie sold the rights to the songs to these corporations. The
lovers have been replaced by the Windows Operating System. Now, I
realize they are HIS songs and he is legally free to do what he wants
with them, which in turn gives him the rights to have reverence for his
work, or disrespect it. How much money do you think he got? He is worth
975 MILLION DOLLARS IN US FUNDS. Did the money from the rights to Heroes
make a big difference to his net worth? I highly doubt it. Better still
is the question, "Does he NEED the money?" My uneducated guess is no, he
does not need the money. I consider him selling Heroes an absolute
disgrace, it is repugnant. Heroes, a powerful and romantic piece of
writing by three genius artists  has been sullied for the sake of money
he does not need. I shrivel up with rage at the disrespect he has for
his art and in turn he has lost some of the respect I have for him.
Consider this. I wonder how Fripp and Eno like having their work used in
television commercials selling flowers and Microsoft products. I bet
they are delighted and I wouldn't blame them if they never spoke to him
again I guess Heroes isn't about two lovers, I am to think differently
about it. It is about selling me consumer products. If this is the case
then WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE? Bowie has earned a credibility
problem with me.    I will not apologize for my opinion about this
because my opinion is a clear demonstration that I care and have respect
for art, even when those who created it fail to. Hear that Bowie? We can
buy Microsoft for ever and ever.

END OF TIRADE

I find Moss Garden to be hauntingly beautiful and the Japanese style
very unexpected .
Neukoln was named after the Turkish neighbourhood where Bowie lived and
the correct spelling is 'Neukolln.'  Philip Glass's destroyed it on his
horrid "Heroes" Symphony. Secret Life of Arabia. Brilliant piece, they
say the song is about the movie 'Lawrence of Arabia' but I don't know, I
have  my doubts. And speaking of doubt, well, Sense of Doubt. Do you
like this? I hated it but it grew on me and now i "get it." I admire him
for playing it on the 78 tour. The track Sons of the Silent Age I find
underrated, highly underrated. The chorus was conceived by "the cut up"
technique and it is sung beautifully. When he played this on the 87  Big
Red Glass Arachnid tour he sang it perfectly and then let Peter Frampton
sing the chorus. All I could think of was killing him. I wanted to wring
his fucking neck. Man, was I angry. Oops, I forgot, I still am. V-2
Schneider kicks ass.

In July Bowie was off to Paris for the French premier of The Man Who
Fell To Earth and then went for a brief holiday in Spain with Bianca
Jagger in tow. September was especially busy for Bowie with two TV
appearances and one tradegy. On September 9th Bowie appears on Marc a
Grenada TV show with Marc Bolan as the host. Bolan and Bowie perform a
version of Heroes and this is the only time they publicly appeared
together. Bolan was drunk and fell off of the stage. On the same day
Iggy Pop's Lust For Life is released by RCA. Bowie is back in a TV
studio on September 11 and this time with someone you would never
expect. I know I was shocked to see David Bowie on The Bing Crosby
Christmas Special. As much as Mr. Bowie should seem out of place
surprisingly, as always, he pulls it off with the typical "Bowie charm."
He looks completely "normal," human so to speak in a short sketch with
Bing. Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy is the song they perform
together and Bowie's voice is remarkably beautiful with falsetto in the
duet. Bing Crosby sounds like a set of used tires, and believe me, I am
being kind. My apologies for insulting the tires. I wonder what would
have happened if they sang White Christmas? I mean, when Bowie heard the
word "White" would he sing, or go get coke? The Heroes video is played
on the show, and this is the first time I ever saw it. I describe it as
visually powerful and it does justice to the song as it sets a mood of
bleakness yet beauty shines through it. Bowie acts well in in the video,
his posture and facial expressions are commanding and that further adds
to the emotion conveyed by the music. My parents saw it too and although
exposed to Bowie, not by their choice, failed to be impressed with the
video. I wonder how other people who were middle age, the majority of
viewers, liked it? I bet it fucked up a few people because  Bowie and
Heroes do not mix well with Santa, Bing and Christmas. I know Bing
didn't like it, as a matter of fact he died a month later. Looking back
on all this I wonder if I got the wrong message that the video was
trying to convey.  After seeing the video I didn't feel like buying
anything from Microsoft. Maybe I'm not very intelligent and I just
didn't "get it." Hmmm? Now, I read someplace that apparently Bowie made
three videos from the album and those were Heroes, Sense of Doubt, and
Blackout.  The place I got this information from says that Blackout was
never released and that would mean that Sense of Doubt was. I find this
interesting because I have never seen this video or even heard of it
before. This information may be wrong. Five days later tragedy strikes.
On September 16, 1977, Marc Bolan is killed in an automobile accident.
This news devastates Bowie. He is visibly shaken at the funeral on
September 20. He set up a trust fund for Marc's son Rolan, who lost his
mother, Gloria Jones as well as his father in the accident. The Marc
Show featuring Bowie as a guest aired on September 30th.  When he was in
London, Bowie went and visited some of his old haunts, one of them being
Haddon Hall, where he once lived with Angie, Ronson and a host of others
who were in and out consistently.  His previous landlord saw him and was
delighted that David was so sentimental that he had thought to come
back. He handed Bowie a bill for unpaid rent.

While Bowie was in Berlin RCA did not receive too many postcards
scribbled with the, " Having a wonderful time, I wish you were here
"sentiments on them. I don't believe any were lost in the mail either.
They hadn't heard much from Bowie since January and relationships
between the two were rather strained after the hassle between them over
the release of Low. Bowie's failure to do any promotion for the album
did not improve matters. Low sold 279,050  ( Fig.1983)  copies in
America and that was not a very Impressive number as far as RCA was
concerned. Bowie felt the responsibility for the poor sales figures were
solely due to RCA's failure, in his opinion, to support his work. Bowie
did not feel RCA was spending anywhere near the money they should have
to promote his albums. I do not think the two were missing each other
much. Especially Bowie, as he now got advances of $200,000.00 per album.
Right now he didn't need RCA.

They were absolutely positively absolutely certain it was revenge. Those
tracks on side two had to be left over from the Low sessions, fucking
outakes probably. They were convinced, and it  was not a happy day over
at RCA Records And Tapes when they heard Heroes. Again, nothing
marketable, and like Low, side two was a wasted effort in their opinion.
Some executives started referring to side two of Low and Heroes as
"sound effects." That's what Bowie was making now, sound effects
records. Having no other choice due to the terms of Bowie's contract
Heroes was released on October 14, 1977. The reviews came back to RCA.
It didn't look good. The first thing that they thought of the back
catalogue, something Bowie despised. Let me explain. With the delay of
Low , missing the Christmas shopping season, RCA believed that they had
lost a lot of money. After all, their one Christmas release from a major
artist was supposed to be Low, and if these problems were anticipated
they could have selected another artist. In order to recoup some of this
money RCA started  re releasing tracks from his albums as singles
without consulting Bowie. What was worse than that was the fact that on
these singles, even the singles from new albums, Bowie never had any
input as to what was placed on the "B" sides.  Bowie did not approve of
their choices. I personally have to agree with him. I think that "B"
sides should be in the same flavour as what is placed on side "A," I
mean it should fit. Singles that were released such as Changes/Andy
Warhol, Starman/Suffragette City and Fame/Right all fit together nicely.
RCA was not very good at matching up tracks to be released together. For
example  these are some that were released without telling Bowie,
Diamond Dogs/Holy Holy, TVC15/We Are The Dead and Knock On Wood/Panic In
Detroit. They don't fit together very well,  about as well as Bowie/RCA.

David Bowie did not believe that RCA understood him as an artist and
therefore felt that they did not support his work. Instead of the
freedom he thought he should be allowed in order to produce, they did
the opposite and instead attempted to put restrictions on him. What
bothered him the most was that they did not "trust" his work, meaning
that they thought his work was not what it should be and I can
understand how this must have insulted Bowie. What "not trusting" means
is that they believed his work was not going to rake in millions for RCA
because it was not "pop" enough. What this was really telling Bowie was
in effect,  " David, stop producing albums with depth and quality
because these cater to a small select audience only, and we can't make
millions from them. We want you to lower your standards a put out "pop"
music with a nice beat like everyone else does. We don't care about
music, we just want you to turn out hits. Do not write what you want,
write what will sell. We don't care about your work, we care about money
and you are signed with us for one reason only and that is to make RCA
Records And Tapes a return on the investment we have in you." The
problem is they didn't understand. NOBODY UNDERSTOOD. Well, nobody
except a few.


AladINSAnE

To be continued........


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