It's 1969 kids!

This fortnights album is ‘David Bowie’, the second album by (wait for it…) David Bowie. It was released in 1969, but what else was going on that year hmmm? Well, seeing as you asked so nicely:






In January Richard Milhous Nixon became 37th President of “those there” United States. The Vietnam war went progressively downhill and in October hundreds of thousands of people took part in National Moratorium antiwar demonstrations across the United States.
It was the year that British troops were deployed in Northern Ireland. It took a further 25 years to agree a cease fire.




The Beatles gave an impromptu concert on the roof of Apple Records. It was broken up by police and turned out to be their last public performance. This year they also released Abbey Road. John Lennon got so upset about the war in Vietnam that he stayed in bed all week, recorded ‘All we are saying is give peace a chance’ and sent his MBE back to the Queen. Hilarity ensued.

1969 was also the year that the first HIV strain is believed to have reached the USA.





In July NASA landed 2 blokes on the moon. In November they did it again.

The Mariner 7 probe made its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometres). But (ahem) was there life?

Oh, and the jumbo jet made it’s public debut.

Bowie vs Bolan ROUND 2

Last time I shard my distaste for Marc Bolan’s work with John’s Children in 1967 (Psychedelia-by-numbers and a naff lead singer to boot! Arrg Take it away!).
So Bowie stomped home an easy victory with a whole album and some tunes you could hum all released in the same year. Mind you, neither of 'em charted with anything.

So going into 1968 it’s Bowie 1 – Bolan 0.

Right off the bat it’s pretty easy to see who’s gonna' score big this year.
In 1968 Marc Bolan formed acoustic ‘pixie folk’ duo Tyrannosaurs Rex and released 2 (yep 2) studio albums. The first one even charted (no 15 in the UK) where as the Bowster was still yet to have a hit.









To my ears these first two Tyrannosaurs Rex albums are quite patchey and haven’t dated well. But there are some fairly decent songs in amongst the hippy mumbling, so it all compares quite favourably to David Bowie in 1968. Especially as he released…


…. nothin’. Not a sausage.
At least no albums anyway.

He did do this though......



That’s the promo for the original version of ‘Space Oddity’.
It was part of a 30 min film called “Love you Till Tuesday” which (depending on who you talk to) was either recorded in 1968 or ’69 but was so flippin’ awful that no TV stations wanted to touch it. So it stayed on a dusty shelf until the home video boom in 1984. Here’s the cover of the DVD:




Nice huh.

So all things considered, this round goes to Marc Bolan. Bringing the score to 1 all.

Everything could change in 1969!

1967's David Bowie by David Bowie: MBJ's opinion

I really liked this album. I’m under no illusions about it being a timeless rock classic, a musical mile stone or among Bowie’s best work. But still, I like it. Some how it’s got a naive charm all of it’s own. It’s not quite like any other record I’ve heard.



The best moments: ‘There is a Happy Land’ is my favorite song. The melancholy brass and piano put me in mind of Dog Man Star (the classic 1994 album by Suede). The vocal performance is brilliant, especially the gear change between the chorus and the verse. I like the lyrics and the feel of the song which is about longing for a happy place where kids can get on with being kids and are left alone to enjoy themselves. I’m a Christian and this song put me in mind of the deep inner yearning for a better place to be, which the Psalmists express so perfectly, so I found it quite an inspirational song.

‘She’s got Medals’ and ‘Uncle Arthur’ are great little numbers, full of wit and charm and from the same lyrical camp as Pink Floyds ‘Arnold Layne’ and ‘I’ve got a Bike’ (also released in 1967).

‘Come and Buy My Toys’ and ‘Maid of Bond Street’ are my other favorites. These are breezy little songs that whip by in seconds and leave me skipping back to hear them again.



The worst moments:
‘We are Hungry Men’ just stinks. I hate the way the ‘humorous’ spoken monolog comes in immediately after ‘There is a Happy Land’ and totally destroys the feeling the album had built up over the last 5 songs. The problem with this song is that it’s a short joke about saving the world from over population via infanticide and cannibalism, which ain’t that funny Dave. Maybe it could have worked if the tune was something you could hum, no such luck sadly.

‘Join the Gang’ suffers a similar fate. It’s an overlong joke about being part of ‘the scene’. Again it’s not that funny in the first place, the tune isn’t strong enough to carry it and the arrangement (including a mental sitar) is U.G.L.Y!

On the evidence here it seems the Bow-Dowg was still figuring out the craft of lyric writing back in ‘67. The words seem to be the focus of the album but he drops some terrible clangers. ‘The Little Bombardier’ has a good tune and a nice little story at it’s heart but is killed stone dead by the rhyme
“We’ve had blokes like you in the station before,
The hand of authority said “no more”,
To the Little Bombardier.”
A talking hand? Talk about mixing your metaphors more like!
A cappella closing track ‘Please Mr Grave Digger’ has equally forced rhymns. Early on it sounds like it could be something interesting with an rain sound effects accompanying Dave-o’s vocal. But it folds under the weight of the repeated terrible rhymes (locket/pocket, etc) and the story doesn’t really go anyway. The song ends before we understand what the protagonist is trying to say. (He’s killed a little girl, he’s about to kill a grave-digger. I assume Dave-o couldn’t find an easy rhyme for his motives coz he doesn’t bother with ‘em).


How many good songs? 9 out of 14
How many terrible songs? only 2 or 3, depends how I feel
Bowie-o-meter: 70 Ziggys

It may be cheesy, but I like it.

Bowie vs Bolan

To add a bit of extra educational spice I’m hoping to listen to what Marc Bolan was up to at the same time as our B-boy. Mind you, I’m not fond of Bolan’s solo stuff so I might get bored and jack it in. But in the mean time,
here’s Bowie vs Bolan: 1967!




















Whilst the Bow-ster was failing to chart with his first solo album,
Marc Bolan was busy also failing to chart with his chums in the band John’s Children.


And just as Bowie was ruining good tunes with clunky rhymes while he got the hang of lyric writing,
who should be up to the same tricks but Marcy-Boy Bolan!

Check out this Bolan lyric from Desdemona:
“Just because Toulouse Lautrec
Painted some chick in the rude
Doesn't give you the right
To steal my night
And leave me naked in the nude”

Naked in the nude? What!!!



As far as I can tell, in 1967 Bolan wrote 4 songs for John’s Children (Desdemona, Midsummer Nights Scene, Sarah Crazy Child and Go-Go Girl), a couple of which are OK.
All of which feature him giving a crackin’ backin’ vocal under dull performances from lead singer Andy Ellison.
All of which are shallow affairs about gettin’ it on with ladies and freakin’ out on drugs.
And all of which sound like cod Psychedelia-by-numbers.
We’re talking ‘Listen to the flower people’ era Spinal Tap folks!



I doubt I will ever listen to John's Children again so I do declare David Bowie the winner of 1967! Yay Bowie!









I don’t fancy his chances in 1968 though….

Oh! You Pretty Things

Well, they are, aren't they. Here in the photo are 19 of the CD's that have arrived in the past few days, from an increasingly annoyed looking postman. The first album is not pictured as it is in my car and I couldn't be bothered to get it, 3 are still on the way, 1 is missing somewhere (my wife has "tidied it"), and 4 exist only in Mp3 form.

All the same, they do look rather lovely don't they. And whose that nestling at the front. Why, its Tin Machine II, which I managed to finally get for a knock down price of £4.20. Thats going straight on Ebay come October....

A little story my father told me

On Tuesday my brother and I had coffee with my Dad and told him about ‘the project’ (you know, David Bowie, 28 albums, 52 weeks, do try to keep up). His eyes went glassy as he was mentally transported back to 1967 and he told us of the day he bought his very first David Bowie album.

He was just a wee teen and he went up to Church Street Market with his dear old Dad. Apparently it was a ‘proper cockney market then, not like now!’ (citation need, as they say at Wikipedia).
And he bought 1967’s David Bowie from a proper cockney at a proper cockney record stall. It cost him the princely sum of 75 pence. Dad couldn’t afford it so his Dad had to help him pay. As it turned out, Granddad quite enjoyed the album’s novelty music hall flavour.
All of which means I am the 3rd generation of Mahbenjah to like Rubber Band.

Mind you, Dad agrees that ‘We are the Hungry Men’ is rubbish.

This town aint big enough....

They've obviously caught the buzz. Sparks, clearly inspired by this project, have a little one of their own. Over the course of 21 nights they will be performing each of their albums in turn, in its entirety, culminating in a performance of their brand new album. Really, this is hugely ambitious - it means hiring a touring band capable of learning up to 250 songs, remembering all those words, and I assume fleshing out the gigs with relevant b-sides and other tracks.

Other considerations - its an interesting exercise in 'fandom' - I am sure the place will be rammed for Kimono My House, but it would take a serious fan to turn up on a school night for one for the many 80's and 90's albums that failed to prick the public mind. If Bowie did a similar event, we'd all want to be there for Ziggy but how many would make the trip for Tonight? Not me mister.

Anyway, this is brilliant.