More Listening

I forgot to mention the other day when detailing some of the cheap CDs I picked up in KL that I also got hold of a couple of Bowie albums bundled together at a reasonable price. I’m not sure what led someone to link the studio album Aladdin Sane with the sort of bootleg recording (from a radio broadcast, I think) David Bowie Live Santa Monica ’72 but in some ways it’s an inspired pairing since much of the studio album was written on the American tour partly documented in the live recording. The live band for the tour were essentially the Spiders from Mars band, augmented by the brilliant pianist Mike Garson, who’s all over the studio album – though you can hardly hear him live when the whole band is playing. So basically it’s the same musicians on each recording.

 

Aladdin Sane was one of the few Bowie albums I owned on vinyl – though somehow knowing them all intimately – and, curiously, it wasn’t a great favourite of mine. I thought of it as a bit of a let-down after Ziggy Stardust, despite loving the singles Jean Genie and Drive-In Saturday. At that time I thought it over-produced, though now I’m inclined to see it as a bit of an eclectic mess genuinely trying to capture the mess of Bowie and the band and America in that period. I get a sense of Bowie working at speed, just trying to keep up with his out of control talent and doing almost anything he wanted to musically.

 

The live album, in contrast, has been a bit of a revelation for me, and I find myself listening to it with enormous pleasure. The sound is great for a bootleg, but it’s still a shambles and there are some startling goofs from the players. All this counter-balanced by moments, nay minutes, of absolute full steam ahead, take no prisoners rock magic. The sequence of Moonage Daydream – John, I’m Only Dancing – Waiting For The Man – The Jean Genie – Suffragette City is a reminder of just how exciting Bowie was on stage in this period. (And what a phenomenal player Mick Ronson was.)

I don't exactly feel like a teenager listening to this, but it makes me glad I was once sixteen and had the chance to have my little life enhanced by the whole Ziggy Stardust bit.