|
From
bowienet.com
db1.
(53 years old) You look tired, what have you been up to?
db2. (23 years old) Thanks, you don't look
so rested yourself. I've been
recording a song called Space Oddity. It's a sort of a sequel
to '2001', a
fantastic movie I just saw with my girlfriend Hermione, and
the other half
of my duo, a guy from Yorkshire called Hutch. This Kubrick guy
is fantastic.
So modern, really objective and with this amazing cold eye.
Fantastic.
db1. You've got to learn some more adjectives.
I'm sorry to tell you that
Kubrick just passed on, quite unexpectedly. Hey, go and see
'Clockwork
Orange' when it comes out. It'll change your life.
db2. Yea, well, I doubt it. Andrew Loog Oldham,
the Stones manager has
already lifted bits of the book for a Stones album liner-notes.
I think they
were supposed to do the film.
db1. Ah, but you haven't seen the false eyelashes
yet.
db2. Eh?
db1. Never mind. Have you met Jagger yet? I
can't remember.
db2. No. I was in the same room as him once.
I met Brian Jones though. We
got drunk with Ramblin' Jack Elliot one night. Jonesy uses really
big words
and I don't think he quite knows what they mean.
db1. It's endemic to rock music.
db2. What? Anyway, why would I want to meet
Jagger?
db1. Oh, I'm sure you'd have a lot in common.
db2. But do you remember Hutch, though.
db1. Sure, but he didn't do the record with
you, did he?
db2. No, he only did the demo. He got cold
feet at the last minute and went
back to Yorkshire because he didn't think we would make it in
the biz and he
needed to have a proper job 'cause he's married with a kid and
all that. I
wanted to have it produced by Tony Visconti but he hates the
song, thinks
it's a 'novelty' thing. What do you think?
db1. Biz? I haven't heard that in a long time.
Well, yea, it's kind of a
novelty song, though Visconti has always maintained that he
didn't want to
produce it because he thought it was a cheap shot to cash in
on the
'moonshot' Though of course that's a bit of a fib as here you
are in
February or March recording it and the moonshot won't be announced
until
August. The Americans kept it very secret from the Russians
'til the last
minute, not wanting to be pipped at the post so to speak.
db2. How can you be so sure of the announcement
date?
db1. There's been a series on the TV, 'From
Earth to the Moon', and they've
used all the archives as reference, including press stuff.
db2. So they got there then? What's up there?
db1. Conspiracy theories.
db2. Oh.
db1. You know, the books say that Hermione
has already left you .
db2. Do what? That's rubbish. She's working
on a movie.
db1. I know, and then she's gonna come back
for a while and then go off
again to another movie called 'Song of Norway'. That's where
the problems
will begin. She'll come home around the end of spring and tell
you she's
fallen in love with a dancer she met on the film-shoot in Norway.
db2. Oh God, you're breaking my heart. How
can you be so sure?
db1. I've kept nearly all of the letters we
got throughout the sixties.
you'll write at least two songs about her though, 'An Occasional
Dream' and
'Letter to Hermione'. Mind you, you've not exactly been stopping
at home
yourself have you? You've been putting it about all over the
place. Bit of a
leg-over man aren't you?
db1. You publish all this and I'll sue. ....
Are we happy now?
db2. We're happier than we've ever been. More
than we deserve really.
db1. What do you mean by that?
db2. It took you a long, long time to learn
how to share your life with
another person. We've just about got life in focus now.
db1. Did we get married?
db2. Ha-ha. Yes. Twice. First time because
we thought nothing of it and the
second time because we thought everything of it. What kind of
music are you
listening to?
db2. Oh, Incredible String Band, Velvet Underground,
The Village Fugs and
the Godz, Buzzy Linehart, Biff Rose, shall I go on?
db1. Yes please, it's interesting. I've forgotten
some of those guys.
db2. Leo Kotke is pretty amazing. He plays
12-string, beyond anything that I could even contemplate but
a real turn-on. And it sounds like Buzzy plays one as well.
I can't tell you for sure as I haven't got a sleeve for that
one.
db1. I see that there're few Brits in your
list, no-one you like?
db2. Well, I've got over two hundred records
so I'm just throwing out the
names of people I'm listening to at the moment. I've left out
all the R&B
stuff, for instance, but I still play them all the time. As
for the English
I quite like Tyrannosaurus Rex, Roy Harper and 'Gong'. But since
Syd left
the Floyd there's no-one over here that I'm really into. I used
to be
friends with Marc Bolan a few years ago, but we've drifted apart
a bit. I
bump into him occasionally at Tony Visconti's place. He's always
going over
there to have a bath as the place he's got hasn't got one, I
think. Tony's
producing him. He's doing this sort of elfin king thing which
I don't
personally think will go very far. It's all a bit twee. I'm
more into
mixed-media type stuff. I probably won't end up in rock, more
kind of
theater with music kind of thing. Rock probably doesn't have
that much
longer. Anyway, when I've had my tincture, I kind of like Stockhausen
and
Harry Parch. It's way out stuff but really quite groovy.
db1. Ha-ha. Sorry. I'd forgotten about the
tincture. It's tincture of
cannabis isn't it? You take a dessert spoonful and fly for a
day or so. You
get it from a naughty doctor in Notting Hill Gate, don't you?
I would stop
doing the stuff if I were you.
db2. Oh, it's cool. I wouldn't dream of doing
anything harder than tincture.
I used to pop pills when I was a mod but I've stopped all that
now. You
won't see me trying heroin or getting strung out on cocaine
or anything like
that. I think too much of myself.
db1. Well, we will leave that one for now.
It makes me too sad. Phillip
Glass will be coming to Britain next year, go and see him, you
might like
him. There'll be a young student in the audience that you won't
meet for a
bit but things will happen when you do, name of Brian Eno. By
the way,
you've got over four thousand Vinyls now.
db2. Blimey! Glass did you say? O.K. I'll watch
out for him.
db1. You're going to America in the next while.
What would you expect to
find?
db2. Well, of course, It's my fantasy home
isn't it? All my life I've dreamt
of going there. I used to lie under the covers when I was about
nine or ten
and listen to everything on the American Forces Network, AFN.
They would
play the top ten records and do little plays based in 'Springtown'
- USA'
and I would put myself into the play in my head and be living
there, and
drink sodas and drive a cadillac and play sax in Little Richard's
band and
all that. I expect it's a lot different from my imagination
though. I'm a
little bit wary of all the violence at the moment though. There's
been this
huge thing about gun control ever since the Black Panthers started
carrying
them in public. It's really ironic because, apparently, you
can carry guns
in the street in California as long as they are on display.
And no one
thought twice about that law but as soon as a black guy took
advantage of it
they scream about changing the law. Typical isn't it? And it
doesn't seem
like the Panthers have used their guns very much, if they have
it's nearly
always in self-defense. Anyway, Power To The People, man! It's
no good
reading the straight press for information though, 'cause they
write on the
side of the pigs. The International Times is the best source.
Also, there's
been this Manson murder thing and it's freaked out all the Hollywood
straights. So it's all the violence and stuff that's a bit scary
really,
but I'm still going to see the Velvet Underground if I can.
I've got to talk
to Lou Reed, he's the singer, because I really dig the way he
writes about
street life, no-one else is doing that in rock y'know? And I
think I can do
a similar kind of thing but, like, make it more English. I suppose
they've
got rid of all the guns now, yea?
db1. It's too depressing, don't let's go there.
And I don't want to 'bring
you down' but Reed has already left the Velvets. Now, something
very funny
is going to happen to you. You won't think it funny, just humiliating,
but
you'll look back on it as really good. You'll be told about
a gig by the
Velvets at the Electric Circus when you first get to N.Y. and
you'll go.
They'll do all the songs that you know plus some new one's from
their album
'Loaded'. As there are only about one hundred people in the
club, you'll be
right at the front, by the stage, singing along with them, trying
to show
Lou that you know all the lyrics. After the show, you'll knock
on the
dressing-room door, (they're not 'famous' enough to have security),
and John
Cale will answer. You ask if you can speak with Lou Reed and
Cale smiles
and says "Sure". Lou slips out of the dressing room
and you both sit on a
bench that's placed on a side wall in the club. You chat to
him about how
you think you're probably the only person in London to be a
major fan and
how you had a copy of their first album before it was even released
in
America. You also ask about the meaning of some of the lyrics
and how the
distorted sound on their records was made. Lou, for you believe
it to be
him, replies thoughtfully and with charm . You chat for a good
fifteen
minutes until Lou says he has to go. You float off into the
night, a fan
whose dream came true. The next day, one of your new-found N.Y.
friends
tells you that Lou has not been with the band for quite a while
and that the
new singer, Doug Yule, kinda looks like Reed. You will be gutted.
db2. That's awful. I'm definitely not going
then.
db1. Oh, but you will. Our conversation isn't
really taking place, you see.
I'm merely typing it.
db2. I can feel you putting the word 'hours...'
in my head. What's that?
db1. It's our new album, or CD as it is these
days. It's vaguely a 'Songs
for A Generation' I suppose. Some of it is drawn from you, but
most of it is
a sketch of how guys of my age feel about looking back and where
they are
now.
db2 I know where I am. I'm trying to make up
my mind whether I want to be a
rock star or write musicals. I'm being pulled in all kinds of
directions.
My manager, Ken, wants me to do the all-round entertainer route
and when he
can't get me rock gigs he keeps trying to push me into cabaret
because he
says that I could make some good bread doing that. I don't know.
Maybe he's
right. He certainly doesn't seem to understand what I do want,
though.
db1. Which is what?
db2. I don't know. Everything. Do you think
of me fondly... or...I
dunno...at all?
db1. Not that much, I'm afraid. But when I
do, I get scared for you. You'll
put yourself through so much unnecessary stuff. But you'll survive.
You'll
leave Ken this year, well, you virtually stopped working with
him last year.
But don't forget that though you both had completely different
ideas about
what you should be doing, he stuck by you. He lent you money
whenever you
needed it and showed a great deal of enthusiasm for all your
crazy ideas.
Look, a word of advice. Don't get so obsessed with your work
that you
neglect to have a personal life of quality. You're an addictive
personality
and the work is going to take over.
db2. I thought you said you're typing this?
Nothing's gonna change is it?
db1. Quite right, of course. I'd forgotten
that. It seemed quite real for a
minute or two there. There's so much I'd like to talk to you
about, mime
(snigger) the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Le Kilt Club, the Sombrero,
how the
Bread and Puppet theater got under your skin... and is it true
you met Jim
Morrison in London? At the Roundhouse. Your love life, all that.
db2. Why don't you tell me all the things that
are going to happen to me and
I can write an album around them?
db1. Hey, that's my idea. You've got your own
albums to write. Mark my
words.
c david bowie 1999
|