The Man Who Gave Away The World

The good news is that there is a free 12 track David Bowie CD available on Sunday (29/06) in the UK. The bad news is it comes with the Mail On Sunday. The good news is it could be worse- it could have been The Scum.

The CD has 12 tracks; favourites personally chosen by the man himself including a new mix of Time Will Crawl. Bowie’s own comments on each will be in the paper.

The tracklist includes, Life On Mars, The Bewlay Brothers, Loving The Alien, Time Will Crawl (New Remix), Lady Grinning Soul, Sweet Thing/ Candidate, Win, Some Are, Repetition, Fantastic Voyage, Teenage Wildlife, Hang On To Yourself (Live at Santa Monica, ’72).

Presumably this is all a sweetener for the first official release of ‘Live in Santa Monica ’72’ (recorded during the Ziggy Stardust tour) which is to be released on CD/LP on Monday (30/06/08). But the big question is will there ever be a new LP?

God Save The Meme!

Having had a bit of scout around some of the posts I’d not seen while I was AWOL I noticed there’d been a meme thing what I’d missed… and I rather like memes… they give me a chance to make lists… I wasn’t tagged but I’ll be guessing that this here counts.

The brief would appear to be…
"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to."

I don’t have an iPod put on shuffle (or actually an iPod) and I don’t have anything on the laptop. I just pick a CD every now and again. Then leave them lurking by the side of the stereo, on the speakers, on the turntable, in great stacks on the floor... So, here’s a track each from the discs I’ve been spinning more than others recently… To what extent the music I’m listening to influences the new writing project or if the writing influences the musical choice, I’d be reckoning must be six of one, half dozen of the other, so I’ll reckon. I was going to put some fascinating and erudite blurb but maybe the music doesn’t really need it.

Portishead: Silence (previously entitled Wicca)

from the CD imaginatively named ‘Third’ (2008).

Coruscating, exhilarating, on a ragged nerved.

(Clip from All Tomorrow’s Parties premiere- there’s an excellent soundboard quality download available in various places round the web.)

Lisa Gerrard: The Host Of Seraphim

from the CD ‘The Serpent’s Egg’ (1988).

Ethereal. Always makes me think of deserts…

Portishead: Half Day Closing

from the equally imaginatively entitled CD ‘Portishead’ (1997).

Clip and version from ‘PNYC Live’.

Massive Attack: Mezzanine

from the CD ‘Mezzanine’ (1998).

DJ Shadow Vs. Unkle: Lonely Soul-Guns Blazing Mash-up

from the CD/DVD set ‘In Tune And On Time Live!’ (2004).

Contains language some may find objectionable

Sisters Of Mercy: On The Wire-Teachers-One The Wire

from the unofficial CD ‘Event Horizon’ (Live at the Forum, London) (1998).

The CD has near soundboard quality audio; unfortunately the only clip available doesn’t- it’s from a different gig- recorded on a mobile. On The Wire is a B-side from 1984, of which I still don’t like the studio version but live… it shines. Teachers, a live standard for them since their very first gigs in ’81, is the Leonard Cohen song. I can’t believe it’s nearly 21 years since I bought my first Sisters’ disc. Scary.

Bowie: Heart’s Filthy Lesson

from the CD ‘Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries’ (1995).

Contains imagery some may find objectionable

PJ Harvey: White Chalk

from the CD ‘White Chalk’ (2007).

Sugababes: Stronger

from the CD ‘Overloaded The Singles Collection’ (2006) and ‘Angels With Dirty Faces’ (2002)

Aren’t the strings reminiscent of Unfinished Sympathy? Heartbreaking yet tinged with hope…

Massive Attack feat. Terry Callier: Live With Me

from the CD ‘Collected’ (2006)

(The string led version of the track used on the other video is the better but the Jonathan Glazer directed promo is so appalling I refuse to give it house-room. But if you’re desperate, watch it here- then pluck out thine eyes!).

Public Image Limited: The Order Of Death

from the CD ‘This Is What You Want… This Is What You Get’ (1984)

Contains imagery some may find objectionable
May contain spoilers for the film Hardware (1990)

The clip is a pretty well-concocted assemblage from Richard Stanley’s excellent (and unfairly over-looked) first feature, Hardware. The track, Lydon intoning the same phrase over and over, is like a mantra for the wasteland…

Radiohead: Street Spirit (Fade Out.)

from the CD ‘The Best Of Radiohead’ (2008) and ‘The Bends’ (1995).

Moby: When It’s Cold I’d Like To Die

from the CD ‘Everything Is Wrong’ (1995)

So, that’s where my head’s at this moment I’m thinking. I hope it enlightened if not exactly uplifted…

Ashes To Ashes

Ashes To Ashes, 1980. Directed by David Bowie and David Mallet.

Not sure how to introduce this bunch of random weird but that’s never stopped me before…

I sometimes wonder what made me interested in film and the visual arts in the first place. I tend to get a bit irritated when I see some of these interviews where a big name chappy says ‘when I saw **** I knew instantly that I had to make films’. I just didn’t have that moment of epiphany or, at least, I don't think I did. I never did have much memory of my earlier years and a close encounter with a Carlton 3000 GSi (wonderful blacked out windows it had) did for quite a lot more. For no readily apparent reason recently I’ve been remembering some of those early visuals that really got me excited and interested in ‘that sort of thing’ and I thought I’d tell you about a couple of those that have come back to me because I can’t think of anything better to harass you with I love you all greatly and feel a deep need to share!

The family didn’t get a VCR until maybe ’90 which was much later than everybody else I knew, and cinema was an expensive treat that happened once in a blue moon, but TV- that was readily available and what seemed to really make an impression on me quite early on were the fledgling and, in hindsight, somewhat rough pop promos.

I didn’t like Bowie until right recently but this promo sank deeply into my psyche. Everything in it seemed designed to be interesting: Harlequin, or was it Pierrot? (Robert Powell anyone?), padded cells, fires burning on beaches (very Shelley), the weird colour shifts (like some wild DW CSO), images within images, the negative images, pseudo-nuns, strange religiose marches, ink black seas breaking on post-apocalyptic shores and bizarre fleshly underground chambers… Watching again reminded me how much of it I’d forgotten and how this seems to sum up a nifty chunk of my inner showreel… the odd thing is, for good or ill, I’m not sure if I commit much, if any, of this stuff to paper! Oh, and I love the large bulldozer probably because it reminds me of the times my Dad would take me down onto various sites and I was able watch all the JCBs and Barber-Greenes in action and, in Winter, the Maggy-Deutz's.