David Bowie – Boys Keep Swinging
For the first edition of Old Fruit of the new year I have turned to the artist whose music has been receiving a very pleasing amount of attention around the tenth anniversary of his death. Bowie’s catalogue is an immersive maze once you get into it and I sense that the deep diving of his audio creations has only just begun. I did not see any credibility in a Guardian article claiming his influence is on the decline, you cannot measure the value of an artist like this on Spotify streams alone. Besides, skim away the pop hits of his 1983-86 period and you have to accept he was mostly an act outside of the mainstream, spearheading trends rather than following them. But, Bowie was also a master at infiltrating the popular arena even when the sound was edgy or abrasive. A rare trick aided by his willingness to appear in comedic TV skits such as this one, on the Kenny Everett Television Show.
David Bowie – White Light White Heat
Ask any serious David Bowie fan what they thought of the 1987 Glass Spider tour and chances are the feedback will not be that positive. Perhaps, more than any other time in his career, this was the moment when he was creatively drinking from an empty cup, with that years ‘Never Let Me Down’ album offering little to inspire. So, he presented a show high on scenery, props and choreography with a slick band at a time when appetite for eighties excess and tinny synths had all but dried up, especially in the underground and alternative scenes close to Bowie’s heart. Certainly, concert recordings from that year do have a little of the Spinal Tap doing ‘Stonehenge’ about them, especially the spoken dialogue that introduces ‘Glass Spider’ itself. That said, with a guitar line up on some dates that included the double kick of Peter Frampton and future Bob Dylan mainstay Charlie Sexton, the shows had their moments, like this energised scrub down of a Velvet Underground classic.
David Bowie – 5.15 The Angels Have Gone
The late careers of many a 20th century music icon have much in the way of undiscovered treasure, it seems that the bigger the impact of the early years the more likely it is that quality later work will be overlooked or underappreciated. I include Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen in this list but it does absolutely apply to David Bowie. If you look at the final twenty years of his life, bearing in mind he took eight of those away from music, then the final seven albums in the catalogue present some of the best produced, most engaged, switched on and ultimately exciting music of his career. Starting with ‘Earthling’ all the way up to ‘Blackstar’, and I am including, unreleased at the time, ‘Toy’ in this because it is so good, and these alone represent a body of timeless work to match the best of all but the upper echelons of music artists in our time.
David Bowie & Cher – Young Americans Medley
The prime time TV studio medley of hits type performance might be the domain of far smoother operators than Bowie, it is the kind of thing you would expect from Neil Diamond or Tom Jones rather than the man who made music with Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Trent Reznor. But he wasn’t labelled a chameleon for nothing and the brilliant thing about this performance, rather than the medley itself which has so many rough joins it should be sent back to carpentry school, is the way David plays it totally straight without a hint of irony or detached cool. Just like Cher, he throws himself into it and in doing so delivers an improbable moment of music TV gold dust.
Tin Machine – Heaven’s In Here
Whilst the new documentary about Bowie’s later years, ‘The Final Act,’ has a lot to recommend it, I did feel it miscast the Tin Machine era of 1989-91 somewhat. It is very true that the UK music press especially ripped them apart and mocked Bowie’s attempts at fading into the background as a band member. It was like they felt he was being dishonest, just wanting him to be who he is rather than dictate that writers had to accept this new framework. It is a mystery that the more clued up journalists did not see that he was just feeling the times in an era when baggy and grunge alternative culture were rebelling against the pop star trappings and trying to reprioritise music. I feel that the documentary should have reflected more how Tin Machine were a fairly well executed idea, and a vital shake down for the fringes of Bowie’s audience that he probably rightly feared would hold him back creatively. And as this clip proves, the band did indeed have some very good moments wherein Tin Machine’s David adopted the front man role with real engaged commitment.
David Bowie – Let Me Sleep Beside You
We close this edition with a little sixties London pop gem from the future space cadets early years. This is exactly what I mean about the appreciation of his life’s work still being in its early days. Before he first troubled the charts in 1969 with ‘Space Oddity’ David made a lot of great records, of their time but without ageing badly, including a Deram album, that did not register commercially at all. Today, time has levelled things out to the extent that tracks like this sound like a whimsical, British psych era, colourful pop nugget. It matters little that hardly anyone heard it in 1967, it has risen over the years, just as several others from this period have, to a place of belonging in the vast, varied and vital David Bowie catalogue.
Fruit Tree Records 