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March 26, 2008
Retrohump: The Year of the Scavenger, the Season of the Bitch
It was almost a year ago that I articulated a desire to gradually sift through the mountainous stacks of vintage Bowie footage on YouTube in order to comprehensively tour his every creative spasm and identity tweak. As this is the first I've mentioned it since, I'm sure you're all now deeply stunned by the depth of my master plan and the patience its taken to execute it just so. *cough*
1974's Diamond Dogs ended up being a less cohesive and interesting project than it was originally conceived to be. Following the so so covers record Pin Ups, David holed up to write a musical based on the facist fable 1984. Halfway through, the George Orwell estate put the kabosh on letting letting Ol' Blue Eye androgynize the classic novel for the stage. So rather than scrap the work he'd done entirely, he threw it together with a single or two and some really vague "future gone wrong" work of his own design, releasing the resulting mish-mash as an incoherent record. It's an album without a concrete identity or unifying sound, that's really more of a place holder for greater things to come.
Perhaps it would be more distinctly remembered if its original artwork was allowed to stand. Bowie's stretched out man-hound is disconcerting enough. The original version literally showcasing the dog's bollocks was several brush strokes too far, though it remains a highly sought after commodity among pervy vinyl collectors to this day.
1974 Diamond Dogs TV Spot
This clip is a strange artifact from a historical moment in which money making entities known as major label record companies had commodities known as records, the profitability of which they felt enough confidence in to go ahead and launch prime time commercial advertising campaigns to support them. Not ads for luxury sedans in which the music played briefly in the background mind you, but spots advertising the music itself! In this case totally creepy propaganda that probably just weirded people out.
Despite its opening claim to the contrary, this ain't genocide, this is top shelf rock n' roll...
Hey, remember the Beck cover of this one? Me neither.
David Bowie - "Rebel Rebel"
(promo video)
This psychedelic clip features perhaps the most lackluster persona of Bowie's career, the urban pirate Halloween Jack. According to the lyrics of the album's above posted title track, Jack is a real cool cat who lives on top of the Manhattan Chase building. Due to faulty dystopian elevator service, Jack swings from building to building looking for plunder and bedding wenches with blank faces. From the looks of this clip, his main target for pillage was the women's blouse department at Macy's. Stacked up against the well hung rock star spaceman of Ziggy Stardust or the sadistic coke fiend blue blood of the Thin White Duke era, this is some weak sauce indeed.
The swaggering guitar line that anchors "Rebel Rebel" is not suspect at all though, especially considering that Spiders From Mars' guitar god Mick Ronson was given his walking papers shortly before the record was made. This is Bowie proving himself to be more than just an inspired theoretician. So it's strange that his axe in the video is much like the cane of a strong legged pimp--purely ornamental. If the glitterball riff still had some life, it was clear that even a slightly tweaked glam persona was losing its novelty.
David Bowie - "1984"
(Broadcast live from New York, 1974)
Exit lady pirate, enter smooth Philly soul man. Smack in the middle of a the promotion for a single mixed up record, Bowie pulls a switcheroo that would launch his 70's commercial peak Young Americans. The pivot point was the theme from Shaft-ish would be musical anthem "1984". In spite of its odd totalitarian lyrics, it was conventionally groovy enough to be covered by one Tina Turner on her smash hit record Private Dancer. The blogosphere is good for finding many things and Tina Turner album cuts are not one of them. You'll have to raid your parents record collections to confirm my limited impression that she almost pulls the damn thing off with a frazzled intensity.
What's plain to see in the above clip is that Bowie is coked to the teets. Watch him flutter and shimmy. Watch him repeatedly lick his lips and grind his teeth to nubs. Not surprisingly, he's supremely confident and wildly energetic, so it works quite well. Those who remember the 1976 Soul Train performance I featured in the previous Station to Station themed post can perhaps see rock bottom rushing up to meet our man already.
Another thing I wonder about this clip, labeled as live broadcast from New York, is how that came to be in the first place. Did they just interrupt The Carol Burnett Show in progress to bring you a live transmission from David Bowie? Was this shot for Brit audiences, slammed in the middle of a Benny Hill episode? Can anybody out there fill me in on some era specific info?*
* A commenter points out that the clip is from the Dick Cavett Show, follow their links to watch a jumpy interview...
Posted by Jeff Klingman at March 26, 2008 09:06 PM
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Comments
The "1984" clip is from Dick Cavett's 1974 ABC show. Not, to my understanding, broadcast live. I think the YouTube poster just means he's performing in front of a live audience. Cavett intro here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=R276wnlJ3po
And the rather mesmerizing interview (with walking stick) here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z3ziB4AEcSQ
The whole thing is available on the Dick Cavett Show "Rock Icons" DVD.
Posted by: Urbaniak at March 26, 2008 11:57 PM
Thanks for clearing that up, the labeling was vague.
And that interview very much validates the substance abuse theory, though I suppose most of the footage from around that time does...
Posted by: Jeff K at March 27, 2008 12:38 AM
I agree that Pirate Dave was the least compelling of his '70s personae: it just didn't fit. A pirate can't be built like a twig; he'd be forced to wear a scullery maid's outfit.
Posted by: david at March 27, 2008 02:46 PM
