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Bowie meets Springsteen
When Bruce Springsteen played The Tower Theatre recently, announcements
were made of upcoming concerts - when David Bowie's scheduled Civic Center
appearance was announced it was greeted by a large negative roar from the
crowd. It caught off-guard a number of startled onlookers, including the
announcer, who voiced concurrence with the crowd.
Some weeks later, during the recent Beach Boys concert at The Spectrum, the
upcoming pair of Bowie shows were announced and greeted by a contest of boos
and cheers from the crowd. It was obviously as fashionable to support Bowie
as dismiss him. Also, judging by the crowds attracted, a lot of the booers
came too see him anyway.
And at one a.m. Monday morning the 25th of November, David Bowie met and
welcomed Bruce Springsteen while recording his latest album at Sigma Sound.
In an open and candid evening he touched on his recent concert performance
and spoke of audiences and flying saucers.
At seven o'clock Sunday night a group of about a dozen and half Bowie freaks
stood watch outside the main entrance of The Barclay on Rittenhouse Square.
Some had orange, Bowie-cut hair; others just stood with their hands in their
pockets waiting for a glimpse of someone that would make their vigil
worthwhile.
Mike Garson plays keyboards for Bowie, as well as being his musical director.
As we left the Barclay for Sigma Sound Studios on North 12th Street, the kids
outside called him by name. We stopped and talked to them for a few minutes.
One displayed a gorgeous, large matte color close-up of Bowie, possibly from
Monday night's concert.
Mike: That's nice; you gonna give it to Bowie?
Girl: No, I want him to sign it for me!
Mike is a 28 year old keyboard player who's been with Bowie for two years,
has never been with one act that long before, and has no plans to move on. he
comes, very noticeably, from Brooklyn, where his wife is awaiting his return
at the end of this concert tour (about a week) so she can drop their second
child in his lap. "We planned it so the kid'll be born the day after I
get back."
He began playing classical piano at the ripe old age of seven (his three year
old daughter already plays), went from there to jazz, and then to rock. Along
the way he worked for people like Martha and the Vandellas and Nancy Wilson.
A lot of influences: Bach, Beethoven, Art Tatum, Chick Corea, Stravinsky.
And, like Chick, Mike is a Scientologist. Not pushing hard for the cause -
just mentioning that he was sceptical of it for about six months, took the
plunge, and that it's helped him cope both as a musicians and a person.
How did he become Bowie's musical director? "I was playing a gig,
working with an avant garde jazz group, and one night I got a series of phone
calls... the third was from Bowie. I didn't know who he was. I was heavy into
jazz and had never come across him. I played four chords for him and Mick
Ronson... I was hired for eight weeks... That was a hundred and twenty weeks
ago."
The Mike Garson Band opened up the show Monday night. For them, the Spectrum
ShowCo sound was perfect. A tight professional rhythm and blues-jazz-rock set
of opening numbers was greeted first with mild indifference and later with
boos, catcalls, and conspirational clapping designed to drive the group from
stage. Never faltering once, they did their eight warm-up numbers and left
the stage to return for one more after the intermission. Finally, after being
subjected to an incredible verbal barrage, the group faded into the
background and Bowie took the stage.
Bad sound, a weak voice, and shortened muddled versions of older songs
interspersed with poor renditions of his new R&B numbers, combined to
make this show his weakest yet in the city. Audience reaction was kind,
bringing him back.
The next day consisted of bad reviews, bad feelings, and angry phone calls to
WMMR-FM from concert goers who felt that the man had not delivered their
money's worth (or as one leatherneck offered during the Garson's band's warm
up, "Get those ******* off the stage!")
Garson: He liked the show - he didn't know the sound was bad either. You know
we can only hear the monitors blasting away on stage and they sounded fine.
The audience reaction seemed very good... In actual fact, the reviews on this
tour have been better overall than the Diamond Dogs tour.
On Bowie: "He wanted to do something without the theatrics; he may go back
to them, he may not. For this time he wanted to just get our there and sing.
He's not afraid of change, he's always changing... He's full of
surprises."
"On a good night his voice is better now than it ever was."
We arrived at Sigma Sound a little after eight. Producer Tony Visconti was
arched over a mammoth sound board, pressing buttons, being generally pleasant
to the half-dozen engineers and musicians in the control room, and peering
into the large windowed studio directly in front.
The album was practically finished. The first rough mix had been accomplished
since Bowie recorded the basic tracks some weeks ago, and this week had been
devoted to clean-ups and overdubs. This was the final night in the studio for
the album - the final touches would now be made.
I'm Only Dancing (She turns me on) was being played back. Pablo was in the
studio, overdubbing a cowbell and some chimes onto an already lushly produced
cut. Visconti easily shows his pleasure with the final product as Pablo
finishes up. The cut is full and rich, almost a Phil Spector R&B wall of
sound - Bowie's voice mixed way into the background.
10:30: and the jokes disintegrate into bad puns and poor taste; Tony explains
palmistry to a member of the band - says that the late Bruce Lee's lifeline
(gleaned from a gigantic close-up of his open fist) showed that he should've
lived till 90.
11:30: Out of the corner of the studio comes an old, small brown guitar amp.
Tony proudly announced that it belonged to Chubby Checker and was used to
record the original version of The Twist. He sings, "Got a new dance and
it goes like this..." The amps specialty is a fine dirty sound that you
can't get from an amp unless it was made well about twenty years ago. After
hearing a few licks played through, every guitar player in the room plots its
theft.
Seven minutes to midnight: The door opens and in saunter Ed and Judy Sciaky,
escorting the night's special guest star, a road weary Bruce Springsteen,
fresh off the bus from Asbury Park, New Jersey. Bruce is stylishly attired in
a stained brown leather jacket with about seventeen zippers and a pair of
hoodlum jeans. He looked like he just fell out of a bus station, which he
had.
It seems that one of the tracks Bowie laid down was Bruce's "It's Hard
to be a Saint in the City." Tony Visconti called Ed at WMMR and asked
him if he could get Bruce into the studio. Contacted finally on noon Sunday,
Bruce hitched into Asbury Park, then via the nine o'clock Trailways to
Philly, where Ed met him "hanging with the bums in the station."
Said Bruce of his Odyssey: "That ride had a real cast of characters...
every bus has a serviceman, an old lady in a brown coat with one of these
little black things on her head, and the drunk who falls out next to
you."
An hour later, the time passing with some more overdubs and a few improvised
vocals by Luther of the Garson band (who sings a fine lead and whose vocal
power adds a lot of strength to an already powerful album), enter David Bowie
and Ava Cherry, white haired soul singer for the band.
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David breezes in, takes account of the night's progress,
lets his piercing eyes cast across the room a few times, listens to a tape
and then leaves Tony to his work so as to chat with Bruce.
Five people hunched up in a far corner of the lobby, looking more like the
fans (half a dozen of whom were still standing outside, savoring the
vibrations) than the stars themselves.
David reminisces on the first time he saw Bruce - two years ago at Max's
Kansas City - and that he was knocked out by the show and wanted to do one of
his songs ever since. When pressed for another American artist whose songs he
would like to record (as he did for British artists on the Pin-Ups album),
David thinks a while and replies that there are none. A tired but interested
Bruce lets a grin escape.
The conversation turns to a common problem: Stage jumpers.
Bowie: It doesn't bother me so much that they do it; I just wonder: What are
they gonna do when they get there?
Bruce: Once I was onstage sweating so hard I was soaked with it. Really
soaking wet. And this guy jumps up on stage and throws his arms around me;
and I get this tremendous electric shock from the guitar. This guy doesn't
even feel it! I'm in agony and he doesn't feel a thing; he wasn't feeling
anything anyway; but I'm getting this shock and the guy won't let go.
Finally, my drummer, Mad Dog, comes over and beats the guy off.
Bowie: And the guy went back to his friends saying, "Hey man, Bruce was
really wired"... The worst was when a guy jumped up on stage and I saw
the look in his eyes - all luded out - he was gone. Real scarey look in his
eyes, and all I could think was 'I been waitin' for you. Four years and I
been waitin' for one like you to jump on stage.' And I just smiled at him,
and his eyes got okay again; then I looked closer and saw he was holding a
brick in his hand...
Bowie is a tall skeletal leprechaun. Red beret tipped extremely to one side,
the other revealing a loose patch of orange hair, leaning away from ears that
uncannily resemble a Vulcan's up close. Intense hawk eyes; if they fix on you
friendly it warms the room; unfriendly or even questioningly you're forced to
turn away from them. Red velvet suspenders over high waisted black pants and
a white pullover sweater complete the bizarre outfit, which, like any other,
grows on you as the hours pass.
In fact, Bowie grows and fleshes out as the hours pass. From the secluded,
mysterious figure portrayed by the press into a man of odd habits, but more
personable as some time passes between you.
After an hour, I couldn't understand how Mike Garson could say he was easy
and friendly to work with; very short and direct in his instructions to the
band as he stands with Visconti at the board, overseeing some back-up vocals.
After a few hours, a break, and some chatter about flying saucers, the person
seeps through. A real person.
The studio is a warm, fur covered cavern at three a.m. Heads and bodies sway
in time to a slow one. Yellows, blues, reds, and greens dimmed as low as
possible light the control room and studio. The control room is a starship
with endless banks of futuristic controls; punch panel, mixing decks, tape
decks, blinking lights. A starship manned by a motley bunch of pirates.
Obviously hijacked.
The talk turns towards the sound last Monday at the Spectrum. (Bowie:
"It's the pits. The absolute pits.") Visconti is assigned to work
on its improvement. A five o'clock sound check will be of little use since
it's brought up that the acoustics change tremendously when the place fills
with fourteen thousand sound absorbing bodies.
If anyone can look tired and energetic at the same time, it's David. Part the
curtains in the studio and the silent sentinels below come to life and wave
frantically; their big moment - contact with the event.
Bowie tried to record a vocal solo. It sounds terrible, the voice is hoarse
and tired. "It's much too early yet - I'm not quite awake... I won't be
able to record anything till about half past five."
He re-enters the studio and wraps a set of incredibly long, slender fingers
around a cold steak sandwich (never having encountered one before, he was
taught the correct hold and given seven different explanations as to what a
hoagie was).
More on the Spectrum: "I was dreading it really. Everybody whoever
played there warned me how terrible it was. I don't think you can get good
sound there, but we'll try."
After a promise to meet again and talk further in New York, Bruce heads off
with Ed and Judy for a five a.m. visit to the Broad Street diner. Max's
Kansas City had been his first professional gig. Bowie was in from the start.
Bruce leaves without having heard his version of Saint. The feeling is that
it's not ready yet.
Bowie: "There's one that you people probably haven't
even heard of here, 'cause the U.S. government threw a blanket over it. It's
all over Canada though... happened about three, four weeks ago in Akron,
Ohio. Same sort of thing that Prof. Carr is saying happened at Patterson Air
Force Base. There was a decompression accident and they have a ship and four
bodies: three feet tall, caucasian, although weathered all over to make up
for it, same organic stuff: cocks and lungs and such, but different, bigger
brains.
"You know Barry Goldwater is resigning from politics to become President
of a UFO organization... he's not really resigning from politics, he just
realizes they can't keep it all secret much longer and he wants to be at the
top when it breaks. It will break soon."
Next on the Bowie agenda is a long voyage down the Amazon; David will not fly
and his next concert tour is in Brazil in January. Maybe the long boat ride
will ease that throat. On some tracks of the new album (a single record which
may include the Springsteen tune) his voice is clear and firm. On others it's
mixed way back, so that Garson's group and the full production overpower a
weak, hoarse attempt.
There is however, not a bad cut on the album. Hell, you can even dance to it.
As the sun came up and David talked on a bit of the Russians and their 3,000
flying objects sending communicative signals into space (Klattu Barrada
Nikto?), the room took on the warm perspective of the remnants of an all
night talk-rap-fantasize session. The kind where you come away fulfilled, for
no other reason that you felt you got to know a handful of people a bit
better.
A warm room, hard to leave. But work was about to resume, the sun was getting
higher, and the deadline for his resume becoming tighter and tighter. A firm
handshake, as firm and strong as Bruce's; they are much alike.
Outside, a dozen sentinels are huddled in cars, standing on the sidewalk,
sitting on the steps, waiting for a little of the magic to pour out. This is
Bowie's final night in the studio. When he leaves, they'll get into their
cars and beat him to the Barclay. One last look at the man who makes his
albums in Philadelphia.
David Bowie has plummeted from Mars and crashed somewhere
to the left of disco-music. The lash Gordon-styled rock’n’roller traded in
his unisex space costume for a double breasted tweed waist coat, baggy pants
and – believe it or not – a shillalah.
MIKE McGRATH
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