10 Lost Bowie Tracks
October 14, 2011 1:13 PM   Subscribe

Despite multiple reissue campaigns, some David Bowie gems remain out of print – here’s ten of the best.
posted by xod (51 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
I have that box set! I picked it up at a used CD store in Topeka several years ago, packaging and all.

I should really get around to getting it all on my iPod.
posted by rewil at 1:23 PM on October 14, 2011


Is it wrong of me that I wanted to see "The Laughing Gnome" on that list?
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:25 PM on October 14, 2011 [6 favorites]


Yup. Bowie never has done anything for me, and this just confirms that impression.

Except for Young Americans.

Isn't there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?
posted by Billiken at 1:26 PM on October 14, 2011


I love that cover of "Growin' Up"--for me, Bowie covering Springsteen is like having a chocolate-flavored orgasm.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:30 PM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


The notion of "out of print" is an interesting one, moreso with the current prevalence of "unauthorized" archival efforts. If they were ever on a vaguely available medium, they're available online, either through re-sale of one of the recordings, or from some fan who copied and shared it. Brand new copies are not the only way people get music, and to call these tracks "lost" is rather misleading. The "Toy" album was "lost" (and recently "found"), whereas these may be less convenient to acquire.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:32 PM on October 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


I used to do the "Bad Bowie Half Hour" radio show on college radio where the tagline was "Bad Bowie is better than no Bowie." Mostly this meant I played songs from "Never Let Me Down" and "Let's Dance" a lot. That and his early Davy Jones and the Lower Third tracks.

I used to try to be a Bowie completist. I think I stopped once iTunes came out and I realized I had three days of Bowie music.

Also, I have everything on that list.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:44 PM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


I had a dream about David Bowie. I mean, I dream about him all the time, but this dream was particular. I was at a party, just leaning up against a wall, and he came up and leaned up next to me, so close that his shoulder was pushing slightly against mine. It was the "Young America"-era Bowie, the New Wave Bowie with the blond pompadour and narrow silhouette and giant shoulders. And he talked to me, because he knew me, as he always does in dreams.

And then his girlfriend came along. And, because this was a dream, it wasn't Ima, but was, instead, like, a female Bowie. She was tall and angular and severe, with a blonde pompadour and huge teeth, and she leaned up on the wall on the opposite side, rubbing my other shoulder with her shoulder. And I realized: The two Bowie's are hitting on me. They want me to join them for a Bowie three-way.

And I was terrified. I was scared of lady Bowie, and I'm not gay, but, you know, once in the bedroom, whatever New Wave Bowie wants, I'm going to have to do, and I don't know what he's going to want, and I don't know if I am ready. So I'm terrified.

But what can I do? I mean, a chance like that comes along, you can't say no, right? And so me and the Bowies make my way to the bedroom, each holding one of my hands.

I woke up then, like you do from a nightmare. And in my waking life, I've often wondered why I was so afraid in that dream. Sleeping with the Bowies is like any other reckless, wild thing you do in life. You decide to do it or you decide not to, and if you decide to do so, you do it and don't think about it, because what's the worst that can happen?

You could die I guess. But, then, 'm the guy who died in a Bowie threeway, and, if I gotta go, well, I think that's how I would pick to go. I don't know why dream me was so afraid. That was the moment, without me thinking about it, that I have been preparing for almost my whole life, since I bought "Diamond Dogs" when I was 10 years old.

This story is neither here nor there, but this seemed like the place to share it.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 1:47 PM on October 14, 2011 [42 favorites]


Love Ron Wood's guitar on Bowie's cover of Growin' Up. Must have been recorded around the same time that Bowie participated in the recording of The Stones' song It's Only Rock and Roll.
posted by punkfloyd at 1:49 PM on October 14, 2011


Was just listening to "I Pray, Ole" this morning... had no idea it was especially rare. It's a nice little track.
posted by scody at 1:54 PM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


(Also: Bunny Ultramod, I would like to be in your next Bowie dream, please.)
posted by scody at 1:54 PM on October 14, 2011 [3 favorites]


When I was 16, in 1989, I had just discovered that David Bowie (who I loved for his 80s pop hits) had a large back catalog and quite a story. And that Sound + Vision box set had just been released. It was $89. I scraped and saved money from my part time job at a movie theater in the mall, and went to the Sonic Music store on my break to drool over it. Finally, I had enough to buy it, and I bought the cassette version because my car didn't have a CD player.

Boy, was it an education. I still remember how bizarre some of those songs were to me. I was a kid in upper east TN, and had not been exposed much to a wide array of music. I really felt my mind expanding try to wrap itself around the varying styles. To be honest, I didn't really get and/or like a good bit of it. I thought the blue-eyed soul stuff was too cheesy- I hated anything that flirted with disco. The Man Who Sold the World era stuff was too obscure and experimental. But I really loved the Ziggy/Diamond Dogs era.

After the box set, I decided to buy all the Ryko re-releases as they came out. Which means I actually own near all of these rarities... and in fact I had no idea some of them were rare!

Velvet Goldmine, Sweet Head, Lightening Frightening, Dodo... all of those are permanently imprinted on me from the heavy rotation that those box set cassette were on during my late teenage years.

Over the years, I've grown and changed, and I've had a revolving door of "favorite" Bowie albums. But there's always been something new to explore (I just bought the Brecht's Baal album two days ago), and my own experiences have totally changed the way I hear some of the albums I didn't like when I was 16. Bowie has never let me down.(okay... maybe Never Let Me Down, but even that held my attention for a while when I first discovered it.)
posted by kimdog at 2:01 PM on October 14, 2011 [3 favorites]


And I realized: The two Bowie's are hitting on me. They want me to join them for a Bowie three-way.

Rawr!

(That sounds like a scene from Liquid Sky, actually.)

FWIW, nice lossless rips of Rehearsing Sound + Vision aren't hard to find online.
posted by octobersurprise at 2:04 PM on October 14, 2011


I owe Rykodisc a huge debt. They enabled me to fall for Bowie, The Residents, Zappa, Elvis Costello, Mission Of Burma, Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic... For a while if I didn't know a Ryko release I just trusted that it would be great (Bernie Krause! The Anatomy Of A Murder soundtrack!), and if they re-released stuff by someone I already dug I knew I'd be in for SWEET BONUS TRAXXX. That Sound + Vision box moved my world a little to the left in high school.

All that said, the original, speedily withdrawn single version of "Rebel Rebel" should've been on that list. If we're ever in public and this comes on I promise you'll get to hear me shout the missing backing vocals...and probably break out the "rebel, you, NUMBER ONE" ending that he did live around Glass Spider time. Viva Bowie.
posted by mintcake! at 2:08 PM on October 14, 2011


If it doesn't have the banjo version of the Laughing Gnome I'm not interested.
posted by Webbster at 2:22 PM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


"Lightening Frightening" is one of my favourite Bowie songs. He somehow makes a harmonica solo not suck (probably by having a great solo play simultaneously). Shocked that it's been out of print.

Rectify that ish.
posted by stinkycheese at 2:26 PM on October 14, 2011


*"Lightning Frightening"
posted by stinkycheese at 2:26 PM on October 14, 2011


great *guitar* solo
posted by stinkycheese at 2:27 PM on October 14, 2011


I have Sound + Vision...or rather, my older sister had it, so I have the cassettes I recorded from it. That 1984/Dodo version has always been a favorite.

I am a Bowie fan, for sure, but I have to take issue with "Bad Bowie is better than no Bowie"--Black Tie White Noise is soul-crushing.
posted by Kafkaesque at 2:39 PM on October 14, 2011


'Outside' as one of the worst Bowie albums?

Them's fightin' words.
posted by cmyk at 3:14 PM on October 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


FWIW, nice lossless rips of Rehearsing Sound + Vision aren't hard to find online.

It's too bad he never made a full record with Adrian Belew on board. What a great match.
posted by mintcake! at 3:31 PM on October 14, 2011


No Bowie collection is complete if it's missing him taking the piss out of Ricky Gervais.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 3:35 PM on October 14, 2011 [3 favorites]


I guess it was her thing, but what a disappointing thing it was.

She probably thought exactly the same about you.
posted by Summer at 3:36 PM on October 14, 2011


The ur-lost track is Jeff Beck's appearance at the Ziggy Stardust concert for "The Jean Genie".
posted by brujita at 3:36 PM on October 14, 2011


I woke up then, like you do from a nightmare. And in my waking life, I've often wondered why I was so afraid in that dream.

My money is on it being the prospect of having to take it up the Gary Glitter.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:36 PM on October 14, 2011


god bless youtube.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:43 PM on October 14, 2011


I don't know why dream me was so afraid.
Because lady Bowie is Tilda Swinton, and she is terrifying.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:43 PM on October 14, 2011 [4 favorites]


Actually, Angela resembled him.
posted by brujita at 3:44 PM on October 14, 2011


Bowie is another one of those artists who run hot and cold for me. I really love a few of the hits, but find most of the rest of his stuff highly affected and art-school-ish in that "trying way too hard to be relevant" manner.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:27 PM on October 14, 2011


I would imagine a fight over Bowie would involve a flurry of flowing scarves.

If it took place during The Hunger, the fight would involve entire mansions of flowing curtains!
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:37 PM on October 14, 2011


'Black Tie White Noise'...the worst albums by otherwise fine artists

Handbags at dawn.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:42 PM on October 14, 2011


"Pallas Athena" from Black Tie White Noise is a must have for every Bowie fan.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:05 PM on October 14, 2011


In my filtered opinion, Bowie's artistic peak was when he played with (not Gary US) Bonds
posted by Fupped Duck at 5:20 PM on October 14, 2011


Despite multiple reissue campaigns, some David Bowie gems remain out of print – here’s ten of the best.

I read this as David Brooks and I'm all "WTF--David Brooks doesn't have a ten best."
posted by neuron at 6:08 PM on October 14, 2011


My favourite Bowie is the virtual tour guide of London in one of the Gibson novels. His music is OK, some of it very good, but somehow Bowie seems to me more important and bigger than his music.

When AI finally comes, I want my computer to represent itself to me as David Bowie.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:50 PM on October 14, 2011


Awesome post, and Bunny Ultramod that was great. Thanks.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 7:54 PM on October 14, 2011


The alternate version of candidate is one of my favorite Bowie tracks. Fucking rad.
posted by brevator at 8:48 PM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


When people say they don’t like Bowie it confuses and freaks me out in a head tilting way. Probably the same way they feel when I say I don’t care about the Beatles.

I have that Ryko stuff on clear vinyl. I also need to make mp3’s as soon as possible.
posted by bongo_x at 9:20 PM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


These can't be that rare, I checked and had 7 of 10 in my Bowie section.

IMHO the best out of print Bowie is "Bowie at the Beeb" CD3, now discontinued, it's only available as a 2 CD set (I think that went out of print too). The first 2 CDs are pretty awesome rarities like Peel Sessions going back to 1968, but the CD3 was a live concert recorded in 2000. It's my all time favorite Bowie CD. Check out these videos of the concert, and realize that the crappy YouTube audio does not give justice to the performance. The CD is extremely well recorded and mixed.

This Is Not America
Cracked Actor
Ashes to Ashes

Go find the rest. You know where to look. When I found this CD, I think I listened to it, and nothing else, for about 2 months. Maybe longer.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:38 PM on October 14, 2011 [1 favorite]


When people say they don’t like Bowie it confuses and freaks me out in a head tilting way. Probably the same way they feel when I say I don’t care about the Beatles.

LOL I can't stand the Beatles. But oddly enough, I disliked many Bowie albums when I first heard them, and took years to appreciate them. It took an especially long time for me to appreciate Young Americans. I still haven't warmed up to almost everything past Tin Machine.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:48 PM on October 14, 2011


(okay... maybe Never Let Me Down, but even that held my attention for a while when I first discovered it.)

Having only known Bowie from Labyrinth my 12 year old self got to go to his Glass Spider concert in Portland. It was my first real (i.e. non state fair) concert and it was an amazing experience. Never Let Me Down was the first Bowie album I ever bought and listening to it now pulls all kinds of nostalgia triggers so it will always have a place in my collection.
posted by the_artificer at 10:50 PM on October 14, 2011


When people say they don’t like Bowie it confuses and freaks me out in a head tilting way. Probably the same way they feel when I say I don’t care about the Beatles.

Cripes! I love Bowie and love The Beatles, and cannot fathom anyone who doesn't appreciate at least some of their work... in fact, I have a theory that nobody really dislikes either of these artists - Anyone who says so is a liar! On the other side of it, anyone who claims to enjoy rap is also a liar - Damn, I'm surrounded by liars.

In any case, I purchased the Ryko Sound + Vision set back when it came out, shortly before it was announced that Bowie would be performing in my home province of Newfoundland (maybe, 1990? 1991?) I had very little knowledge of Bowie's music at the time, but luckily our local rock stations were promoting the hell out of the concert, and some of the tracks they played really blew me away - not just the hits, but some of the lesser-known songs.

The box set made me a fan, and his concert remains one of the greatest things I've ever experienced...still hard to believe I got to see Bowie perform live (in NEWFOUNDLAND??).

To this day, the Sound + Vision set remains one of my favorite box sets, right alongside Richard Thompson's great Watching the Dark. There's hardly a dud on the album (even the delightful non-song "Don't Sit Down" makes me laugh every time) , and I subsequently purchased most of the remasters as they became available, and also am one of the few people who loved Tin Machine... sadly, Bowie lost me after that first Tin Machine album, but wow, what a fantastic body of work!! Sometimes I'll go a year or more without playing a Bowie tune, and then I'll put in an album, and fall in love all over again.
posted by newfers at 3:15 AM on October 15, 2011 [1 favorite]


I'll just leave this here.
posted by punkfloyd at 5:36 AM on October 15, 2011


His cover of Port of Amsterdam is positively haunting and I would have put it on that list.
posted by punkfloyd at 5:40 AM on October 15, 2011


Can someone out there PLEASE upload copies of these for me :(
posted by milarepa at 7:15 AM on October 15, 2011


OK, it's a bit of a derail, but I'm pretty fond of the cover of "Modern Love" that Marie Mazziotti does at the end of JCVD.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:44 AM on October 15, 2011


So I honestly had no idea that BTWN and Outside had followings. I always just figured they were looked at as Never Let Me Downs for the mid-90's, and I'd like to offer a humble apology.

There's no accounting for taste, is there? Count me among those who not only like Outside, but think it's some of DB's very best work - right after the Berlin trilogy and Scary Monsters. Of course, I modified it long ago - I took out all the spoken segues, which were horribly distracting and terribly misguided (IMHO - I'm sure someone will jump in here and tell me how those are the best parts!). BTWN, while flawed, is still better, IMHO, than anything else DB did in the 90's outside of Outside - when it came out, I listened to it for at least two months straight, and still love it today. And I say this as a DB fanatic since the 70's - been to concerts, have all his published work (including the stuff in mentioned in the FPP), and tons and tons of bootlegs and concert footage. Meanwhile, I avoid NLMD like the plague - only have it because I'm a DB completist. So, horses for courses.
posted by VikingSword at 11:18 AM on October 15, 2011


>I love Bowie and love The Beatles, and cannot fathom anyone who doesn't appreciate at least some of their work…<

Ah, there’s the rub, "appreciates". I appreciate the Beatles, I just don’t care to listen to them.

I look at the spectrum going from head music on one end to crotch music on the other. The Stones are crotch music (as are the Ohio Players and Motorhead), the Beatles are toward the head end, down near the Talking Heads and Rush. I appreciate the craft and the inventiveness, but I never screamed, cried, wrecked a car, had sex in a public place, threw a glass across a crowded bar, or got in a fight while listening to or inspired by a Beatles song. (And now you know how I spent my early 20’s). I think passion has something to do with it.

Bowie is crotch music pretending to be more head music than it really is.

Funnily, many of my favorite artists are hugely inspired by the Beatles. And I am a Wings fan.
posted by bongo_x at 9:05 PM on October 15, 2011


Bunny Ultramod; that would have been Angie.
posted by adamvasco at 2:27 AM on October 16, 2011


WRT individual taste and not understanding how someone can not enjoy the music of a particular artist: intellectually, I understand how people can have different tastes and so forth, so with me it's not that I can't believe that someone doesn't like the Beatles, it's that I'm sad (and I swear I'm not being condescending here) that they don't get the same amount of sheer balls-to-the-wall joy that I do out of "Lovely Rita" (just hearing the opening chords can drive me out of a deep funk so fast that the wheels smoke), or catharsis from "She's Leaving Home," or... well, you get the idea. I just hope that you have songs that perform similar functions for you, even if one of them is "My Sharona," which, if it had a physical body, I would gladly drive a stake through its heart, cut its head off, and bury it at a crossroads under the new moon.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:54 AM on October 17, 2011


If one were to want to get a copy of Lightning Frightening where would one go to do that?
posted by codacorolla at 8:40 PM on October 20, 2011


Here is the tune and here is what you need. Good Luck.
posted by adamvasco at 12:19 AM on October 21, 2011


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