David Bowie – Divine Symmetry (An Alternative Journey Through Hunky Dory)
I am sure this is something that has been said before, but 1971 was the year when David Bowie started to become David Bowie (soon to be simply "Bowie"). It was very much a bridging year between the folky, sometimes twee pop followed by chunky heavy material and the sharp, trebly, in-your-face theatrical rock of the Ziggy Stardust era. It was also a year that built strongly on the infrastructure those bridges delivered. The character of Ziggy Stardust was conceived in this year to be birthed early in 1972 and here was where that transition began to firmly take place with the eventual release of the Hunky Dory album, one that is roundly considered Bowie's first great one.
However, there was still something a bit tentative and nervous about Bowie, would you believe, as some of his fey live performances exemplify and this burgeoning 4 CD box set takes us on a mightily interesting journey through this seminal album's genesis. A most important thing to remember is that, in 1971, David Bowie was simply not very well known. Indeed, John Peel states in one of his live introductions that more people should know about this talented young man and more should have bought his previous album, The Man Who Sold The World. He was introducing his listeners to an artist that many would be listening to for the first time and really trying to plug him, almost out of sympathy for his lack of success. Yes, difficult to comprehend, isn't it? But it was most certainly the way it was. That is what makes this an even more intriguing collection.
All that said, these releases are often a bit of a difficult listen - a labour of love for Bowiephiles, but somewhat trying for those like me who, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, prefer the finished product. Demo versions are not for me on the whole and that is certainly the case here.
Disc 1 is a seemingly interminable trawl through lots of decidedly ropey-sounding acoustic takes of songs where the finished version was so much better. Yes, a stark, plaintive, slightly tentative early version of Life on Mars is interesting, but that is all it is - intriguing to listen to once. A couple of the takes have such interference to the sound that I thought something was wrong with my system. There are a few curios, though - the opener, Tired Of My Life, upon which It's No Game Pt. 1 from 1980's Scary Monsters album was based, is impressive, as is the gay-cruising, risqué song, Looking For A Friend. King Of The City isn't bad either, or How Lucky You Are but the hippy nonsense of Right On Mother harks back to those strange 1967-68 times. The haunting Shadow Man was a song that would subsequently reappear in various guises. This plaintive ballad which was originally recorded in the Hunky Dory sessions but the original recording was never released. It was re-recorded in 2000 for the abortive Toy sessions, given a torch song-style piano and deep strings backing. The song, lyrically, is very much in the Bowie of 1968 vein and it is hard to see it fitting in on Hunky Dory, to be honest.
Overall the sound isn't great on an awful lot of these (admittedly to a greater or lesser extent), but only the early take of Queen Bitch has a nice, full band bassiness and oomph to it. It's the only one with anything approaching a really decent sound. To be perfectly honest, listening to all these made me think (i) none of the rejected songs would have enhanced the eventual album and (ii) oh to listen to the actual Hunky Dory instead! At the risk of repeating myself, I can't quite see the point of listening to lo-fi/poor quality demos of songs that didn't make the cut and inferior early versions of songs that were clearly improved upon in their eventual versions. It is an exercise in curiosity only. I just can't get past the poor sound, after a while I am craving some "proper" sonic satisfaction.
Far more interesting and sonically satisfying are the live cuts from a gig recorded for John Peel's Radio show which are included - rather pointlessly - in both mono and stereo. Personally, I prefer the stereo, of course. It is most interesting to hear Peel introduce the band - firstly, The Arnold Corn (s) Band and then Mick Ronson's Ronno, both of which were supposed to be having albums released (they never did). Also, Bowie seems quite happy to use guest vocalists on his songs while he plays ether piano or 12-string guitar in the background (comparatively) - Geoff McCormack on Chuck Berry's Almost Grown, George Underwood on a far more rocking Song For Bob Dylan and Dana Gillespie, who transforms a far bluesier, more powerful Andy Warhol. Both these latter tracks in their live incarnations are considerably different from the Hunky Dory versions we have loved for all these years. Song For Bob Dylan is so much heavier, and Underwood imitates Dylan on several occasions, notably on the "voice like sand and glue" line. Dare I say Dana Gillespie makes Andy Warhol her own, knocking leopard-sized spots of Bowie's acoustic rock version. Love that throbbing bassline too.
There is something delightfully rough and ready and off the cuff about this live performance and you feel that a good time was had by all, even though it was clearly a suck it and see exercise. Bowie and his band are most definitely a work in progress. Give me these ballsy live cuts instead of the demos anyday, however. The sound is infinitely better, making them much more interesting. The whole dynamic between Bowie and the band is nothing like that of just over a year later when The Spiders From Mars were in full flow, captured on the live at Santa Monica CD. Listen to it - most illuminating, particularly how shy the soon-to-be all-conquering Ziggy is.
The material from Bob Harris's Radio One "Sounds Of The Seventies" show is impressive with a nice, clear sound quality and the song selection is starting to approach the line-up of those eventually chosen for the album, and they are performed well too, nearer to the finished sound. There is a real appeal to these cuts, I must say. They only feature Bowie and Mick Ronson, by the way.
Unfortunately, after a good, clear start, sound-wise, it all goes pear-shaped during The Supermen (the last acoustic number) and this continues on and off once the band - drummer Mick Woodmansey and bassist Trevor Bolder - join proceedings for Oh! You Pretty Things onwards. It becomes pretty much unlistenable from this point on. Knowing Aylesbury's Borough Assembly Hall as I do, it is hardly surprising the sound was dodgy. It was a tiny place, really.
For more information about this gig, click this link - https://www.aylesburyfriars.co.uk/davidbowie71.html
Now, this is where it gets very interesting for me. The sound improves on several songs from the eventual album described as the BOWPROMO Mix. These were prepared to present to RCA to convince them to release Hunky Dory. I must say it is a huge relief finally hear some improved sound! Love that warm bass on Kooks. These are followed by several other alternative versions, mono versions and new 2021 remixes. Included in this section are two proper Bowie rarities in Bombers and the excellent, bassy and mysterious Lightning Frightening, now finally available in good sound. They previously appeared on the 1990 RYKO CD releases and were comparatively lo-fi. Now they come booming beautifully out of my speakers.
Lightning Frightening is a quirky outtake from 1971 which features Herbie Flowers on bass and Bowie on saxophone. It is an odd slice of hippy-ish blues with some strange lyrics saying "I'll give you back my farmland, I'll give you back my house..." in some sort of bucolic protest. It features some appealing bluesy harmonica and lively saxophone that make it quite a catchy number. I can't imagine it fitting either Hunky Dory or Ziggy Stardust however. A guitarist called Mark Pritchard contributes a convincing solo near the end. The song is said to seriously resemble Crazy Horse's Dirty, Dirty, which was released in the same year and listening to them both one after the other, you can definitely hear the similarities, more in the music than the vocal. Bowie was going through a Neil Young phase in 1971 so it is probably no coincidence.
Bombers was a song from the Hunky Dory sessions that is full of lyrics about nuclear bombs, sirens and wastelands and the like. It has a liveliness and a post-apocalyptic lyric that suited Ziggy Stardust, musically, but its vocal is hauntingly plaintive, in that typically sixties Bowie style. There was plenty of that vaudeville, music-hall hamminess that Bowie had ditched by the time Ziggy was recorded. The track was apparently going to open "side two" of Hunky Dory instead of Fill Your Heart. In many ways, I would have preferred it, but there is something of the sixties whimsicality to it that irritates me a little, so maybe not.
The 2021 alternative mixes of several songs are all most listenable, but not particularly different from their originals - not enough to make you go "wow!"
Overall, however, it is this final batch of songs (basically CD4), the stereo John Peel live material and about four of the early demos (all previously unreleased songs) that will remain on my cherry-picked version of this collection. That's what it's like with these sets - scrabbling around searching for diamonds. My haul has been pretty good here, I must say, about a third of the material, which is good.
Check out my Hunky Dory review here.
