What did the early '80s 'best party band in New York' sound like??
Friday, November 3, 2017
This is the STRANGEst PARTY I ev-er been to!
At Last out on Bandcamp!
What did the early '80s 'best party band in New York' sound like??
What did the early '80s 'best party band in New York' sound like??
Thursday, September 14, 2017
A Review or 2 of COME ON
from https://www.angry-mom-records.com/come-on/
Come On - 1978-1979
(Manufactured Recordings)
(Manufactured Recordings)
I just imagined a great band. They have the post-punk bravado of Pere Ubu, the nervous energy of the Talking Heads, the minimal funk of Liquid Liquid, the frenetic jangle of The Feelies, the detached, no-star swagger of MARS, the stripped down harsh guitar minimalism of Arto Lindsay in DNA and the idiosyncratic and whimsical lyrical style of Devo. Oh and they look like a monochromatic Modern Lovers that sing about suburbanism and Mickey Mouse.
Ok, so they exist, or existed rather. They’re called Come On and you need to know about them. Like much of music and / or show business, timing is everything. They were around at the right time. 1976-1980 to be exact, playing at the very same venues The Ramones, Blondie, Television and The Talking Heads played at. David Byrne was a fan and he urged Brian Eno and David Bowie to come see them at CBGB, which they did. However Bowie got tired and Eno said they were “too vertical and not horizontal enough”, (whatever that means) which is his reasoning to their dismissal from No New York. They were supposed to get introduced to Art Garfunkel for chrissakes! Garfunkel! (Maybe that was for the best). They even auditioned Patti Smith’s sister Kimberly to sing but thankfully turned her down for the enigmatic and punk-fueled Jamie Kaufman.
Come On did release 2 singles: the surging, carpet-bombing Don’t Walk On The Kitchen Floor and the UK only Housewives Play Tennis. The latter was so mangled that the band never even saw a copy until a member won it at auction on eBay.
With all of that said, Come On is one of the most important underground groups from the late 70’s punk and no-wave scene. We should be talking about them right alongside The Talking Heads and Patti Smith.
While the band has been archived before on CD, this is the first LP collection of their material. Not only does it include both sides of their officially released singles, but it also includes the original masters of their other studio recordings which until now, were pressed from low-grade cassette dubs. Manufactured Records also managed to put together a beautiful booklet with band history and photos. I expect to have this way-up high on my year end list. Truly fantastic stuff! (Dom)
.........................................
another=
http://www.futuresandpasts.org/post/167963686055/futures-pasts-mrr-413
COME ON were a late ‘70s downtown New York City quintet who released a two-song 7” (“Don’t Walk on the Kitchen Floor”/“Kitchen in the Clouds”) in 1978 that basically set the archetype of jittery and tightly-wound post-punk that art-schooled oddballs across the United States would be following well into the 1980s. If COME ON songs were art made with instruments, the visual equivalent would be something like Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes: minimalist, sharp-angled reflections of the banal minutiae of modern living. A CD-only COME ON anthology has been floating around since the late ‘90s, collecting the one official single, a two-song 7” from 1980 that the band apparently wasn’t aware had ever been released until it popped up on eBay, and about a dozen otherwise unreleased tracks that had been recorded live at CBGB in 1978 and the Hurrah in 1980, and now the entire collection is available on vinyl for the first time ever, as part of Manufactured Recordings’ archival reissue series. The combination of Jamie Kaufman’s buttoned-up, nervously yelped vocals, the intertwining guitar scribble and scratch from George Elliott and Elena Glasberg (the latter was still a high school student when she was recruited into COME ON!), and Ralf Mann’s stutteringly danceable, downtown funk basslines invited more than a few comparisons to the earliest incarnation of art-schooled oddballs-turned-major label new wave paragons TALKING HEADS, which is to say before David Byrne got the giant suit and developed the Afrobeat obsession. And in true More Songs About Buildings and Food style, Kaufman’s lyrics fixated on the mundane and the everyday, chronicling such topics as station wagon-driving housewives playing tennis, banging on the ceiling with a broom when a neighbor’s stereo is too loud at night, being snubbed by Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, and the complexities of the child/parent relationship—imagine Jonathan Richman’s narratives of (sub)urban naivety, if the MODERN LOVERS had formed in the post-(not proto-)punk era, drawn their primary inspiration from TELEVISION rather than the VELVET UNDERGROUND, and existed on the cusp of No Wave’s New York campaign of dissonance and anti-rock reductionism. One of the greatest, most essential American weirdo art-punk bands ever, no hyperbole.
-Erika Elizabeth
Sunday, June 18, 2017
COME ON Hath Risen Again [ALBUM RELEASE 6/16]
We back from the ashes, with a fine remastered updated
selection of tunes to bemuse and set a'jigging new generations to come
https://comeonnyc.bandcamp.com/
Looks Like:
& At all the usual retail outrets
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Ain't there one damn song that can make me Break down and cry? [¿No hay una canción maldita que me puede hacer romper a llorar ?]
SELECTED YOUTUBE COMMENTS
ON KLAUS NOMI'S
‘VALENTINE’S DAY’ [2008 from 'ZA BAKDAZ']
before someone [maybe our friendly distributor?] had it removed along with all these gratifying comments [to a co-creator comme moi] ...
THERE WERE NEARLY 1/2 MILLION VIEWS OF THE FAN'S VIDEO
THERE WERE NEARLY 1/2 MILLION VIEWS OF THE FAN'S VIDEO
You might imagine the seeming-semi-founded hope that maybe DB did his own surprise version when the titles & song lengths were announced for THE NEXT DAY
[Smiley face, tears]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwA4fFY66nI
-If I had to describe a field of brilliantly colored
tulips to a blind person, I would play them this song.
what a
heavenly song …you are an angel my
sweet nomi !!!
-It's weird, can't think of another adjective to
describe this music, but very beautiful and addictive.
-amazing....he was not only a great singer, but also a
great composer . K. Nomi is one of the finest pop artist ever
-insanely great.. thanks for posting.. thought i'd
never have anything new from Klaus .. this is magic.. thank you!
-I love this song ; wonderful always, thank you so
much Herr Klaus !
-this is beautiful piece of psychedelica. I thought
about the end result of life and wild montains. Jack Kerouac and Allen
Ginsburg were there. I'll sen d this out to my six friends and lovers who od'd
-Sounds a bit like Knockin' On Heaven's Door... cool
· samandy1110 -I really do like it though. It's so simple,
and it actually makes sense. Not to mention how much talent was put into this.
-oh god, I don't normally cry whenever i think about
celebrities dying and stuff, but when i heard this song, i couldnt help it. :'(
Now i can't listen to this song without crying. RIP
-So beautiful
-Christ. Eyes always water...
-wouaoww... exellent i love
-stunning
· ratayska
-j aime trop
· grayinu
-to beautiful for words
-So, melancholy, funny, lonely, beautiful, like his
life, like mine.
-Pretty cool stuff - pure music
· HMLSLLC
-Well I'm not gay and I like Matalica and System if
the down but I like this song.
-KLAUS NOMI IS GOD.
· ratayska
- moi aussi il me fait pleurer ,beaucoup d emotions
et du bien.. ‘me too it makes
me cry, a lot of emotions as well’
-He makes me happy,he makes me cry.!!!!
· dutereq
-very powerful song
-eerie...but very beautiful..........
-this song is very calming if you've had a bad day
-i love the beat and the piano in it!
-This song is sad in a very good way.
-Beautiful man, beautiful song. Bless his heart.
-Oh my god that was beautiful
-What a very unique song. It leaves one speechless.
-This is such a hauntingly beautiful song, most likely
written & performed late in Klaus' life.
-Beautiful. Manly tears are being shed ;_;
-My eyes are moist too...
· OWRBtheo
-This is just wonderful. Wonderful, almost brings
tears to my eyes it does.
· Boompass
-I cried.
· hyarke
fucking trippy
fucking beautiful
I cried
-What a wonderful song...
· Larz9220
-wow this music sounds so nice <3
-nie wiem co to ale piekne =
‘I do not know what is beautiful, but ...’
-Endless... it climbs over the sky!
-I actually kinda teared up at this video...
-Za Bakdaz is a nice final album for Klaus, and this
song is truly beautiful. I love it, even though it's a composite of his real
vocals and samples, it's just plain lovely and odd
-Is the wordless cry in this song a mourning of a
dying person, who doesn't want to go yet, or is it angel's singing about
happiness and peace he found after death?
· 666oddi
-Es gibt viele schöne Stimmen. Aber Klaus Nomi hatte
eine FANTASTISCHE...!!
· PitxiYo
-One of the most important songs in my life.
· hispula
-I hear angels singing...
-zawsze na tym płaczę, ciekawe dlaczego... :*
‘always cry at this, I
wonder why.’
-oh my god!!!!!!!!
-WOW...THIS IS JUST WOW .. :)
· hispula
-I didn't know about Klaus Nomi before but today I
have a new idol... Thank you You Yube!
-Totally previously unreleased and totally beautiful!
If only Klaus had lived longer... Klaus was an unique talent way ahead of his
time and this song will surely become a classic in the future !
-True genius! His electro pop was ahead of the times,
but this song is from 1983 and sounds like mellow, reverb, 90's bands like the
magnetic fields or galaxie 500. AMAZING!!
-i think it sounds better...
- A timeless beauty - the song and the person!
· 333vasco
-The guy was born a millenium too early. This song is
rather contemporanious. This is gonna be one of those to listen to, over and
over and over.
-A priceless treasure..
· Lunoki
-I can't help but think of David Byrne and Brian Eno's
album, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, when I hear this song. Just
shows you how ahead of the curve Klaus Nomi was when his songs sound so
reminiscent of music that came out only a few months ago. What a great tune.
· bobbyluy
-This makes me cry, its lovely we miss you klaus,
-this song is so beautiful so fantastic , please ,
please send me this song please
· vettae
-a big Nomi fan? I can't even describe the trip I'm
on, or what goes onin my brain (and heart :) when I see him or listen to his
voice. No other human being has ever made such an impression on me in 29 years.
It's going to be my birthday and I guess I will find some Nomi albums ;-)
-So beautiful..... I very love it song...
-i have found something new to obsess over, thanks
It's
over?....Already?...But...but...I don't want to go back to real life!!holy shit! some Klaus Nomi I've never heard ... and so beautiful! Best thing I've ever heard him do! This guy should have been bigger than Jesus... so sad... what a beautiful man he was!
Thursday, April 7, 2016
TO TALKING HEADS 1975 poem
Off top 9:45 Oct. 1975 Sat.
I woke up laughing & all my body was Rooting for itself Hands like pom pom girls No struttin feathers for boys The elastic band of wellwishers Going it & get carried away Radio wires was gone down That didn’t keep us from dancing “It was from fear that all other deviations and evil arose” it said from this book. Slipflower second and it’s got a Magic moment, recollection of the magic The door was flat and they Left it open, the reason was near it on the floor. Their Odors and parts of them wanted to Mingle, that old book when it Fell off give each 3 a clip at the same time Fingers was drawn on wall To point at victims & victors & all who was in there it meant the same different thing. They took it a commune for health of their new kids, them Xs of powder for some bug’s kids. Yah no Yah no -found it to be a luvin’ freedom & (fun) They get diff things, them All going in from the flesh out -the fat one w/ little digits sticks ‘em down to the cooler sand & thinks their hands can feel it enough to look right. (They can’t see and it needs a different expression). They is loved & lovely in that Light they can’t see, like them had brains hanging out to get fumigate. We go “all right” to them funny smells and look to them with slow love. Them caught clips of misunder- stand it on the fuel to the fire and they was have a ladder from their eyebrows touch the floor. When they keep moving, if they was alone, they’d go swayin’. What was it? Goes like: a dumb Open mouth is the root of chaos. Stole it then tries to say what it mean. My bro. go it w/ a arts ‘n’ crafts Belt for me Keep that synapse in the brain Choose yer diction, that reality Post yer bill shit on head of eyes Break it over a clip He can’t keep the beat He can’t keep the beat Send it trace thru black Beam of the charge what come thru you put it on a side It get ready for expression That thing come thru violent You get so berserk inside -It would clip you & fall For them ax grinds? He go it like a fighter We put a snake in He die slow, she slip in innocent River meet a blob of concrete Them expects too much, take floor, go it to piss, Then back for more. Move it thorough & stir That kind of dense action Sweet meeting Get them animals Them got to smell it, touch it Pick it like a flower It’s $ cuts Pull back near a card They call some office. To put our identity past them Offerings, they chose our Sex different It an ornery fucked head & drone ________________________ Talking H. Them need rep Need them flowers Them got fast Has it to be got Money $ You poke around for it Gives you a cut You find it You go and do nothing w/ it You give $ … -dedicated to TALKING HEADS I just unearthed the notebook this was scrawled in… I wrote this spontaneously in a friend’s vacationing friend’s apartment on East 1st Street Manhattan (a stone’s throw from then-new CBGB’s on the Bowery) where I met, became fast with ze Heads... and left them a copy at their loft before returning to Denver ahead of my move to 7th St. dreams in the head of becoming the 4th Head, with luck! That longago weekend in an uptown club basement dressing room I was offered some pure cocaine which seemed to rewire my brain & mood for days, reflected in adopting certain novel speech/language patterns as above! so b'low |
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Bowie Cover 'Slip Away'
https://holycontour.bandcamp.com/track/slip-away-bowie
~ ... ~ ...
[contribution to Bowie songs blog/forum]
Some Riffs on the Uncle Floyd-Slip Away Diffs:
So I entered the world of this stellar tune pretty distractedly, last summer downloading an unknown-about Toy from a forum for free and alliteratively, and what hit me most on premiere listen was that accelerating snare fill at 5 min. mark, and not the many other facets subtly screaming at me: “Masterpiece here, bud!!”
Then on Toy the hook of his updated ‘Baby Loves that Way’ & life distractions crowded out memory of ‘UF’ many weeks…when, post-passing, the Heathen ‘Slip Away’ version became known and captivated me to the point of covering it [which can oft result in a sick-of-it saturation diminishing all the magic/attraction one feels for a song, but not this baby yet] and actually had me timewarpedly buying a physical CD!–surprise used copy found at local shop [naturally cut 3 skipped into cut 4, so returned dang thing]…and now I’m happily exploring the POVs of the perceptive contribbers here and comparing for pleasure the 2 versions for their distinct alchemies!
Must I choose? but I refuse!
The classical appreciator [which DB was also it seems] in me admires the structural niftiness of holding back the ‘twinkle’ chorus til so late as in ‘UF’, making it a little like ‘Hey Jude’ where having the ”Naaa-na-na’s” as long coda –not a repeated chorus– has a sublime symphonic logic [there are ways one could make it a chorus repeating, but such not its fate–a genius-stroke just as it is].
Yet as Chris pointed out ‘SA’ brings that moving chorus in twice as early which creates its own structural strength, and plants seeds of hope for its inev. return–from a competing popsong-craftedness POV. [sacrificing the quirky left-field Cpart quality for more trad. hooky repeating chorus sense.]
‘UF’ thus also appeals to the eccentricity & weirdness-lover/commerciality-hater within,
with its musty attic-conjuring toy keyboard intro-outro and honkytonk old piano and lofi vocal beginning. The understated guitar break-breather on the F-E7-Gsus-F chords gets chopped for ‘SA’—-perhaps a necessary sacrifice IF trim one must, & Levin’s heartwrenching fretless bass filigrees added in ‘SA’ once heard will become integral. But the also integral spoken characters intro [bemoaned aptly above] kind of infuriate when repeating ‘UF’ but one should hear it a few times that way, whilst tripping it is hoped. The backwards-sounding blips and whooshes at fin make for nice touches in ‘SA’ …
So,
For quirks, a touch more cinematicity, originality-experimentalism, symphonic vs pop dynamics…mundane-as-cosmic, trifle-as-treasure objet trouve meets studio balls: UF
-but for anthemic, songcrafted perfection, fitting swan-song status, studio production magic, fewer chances/more labor-of-loved into existence: SA
,,,,,
coda
[it’s a candy mint AND a breath mint]
In all, what a swell double-headed achievement! -as a tribute to this obscure lo-budget quint-american fanboy [‘get home in time to watch and turn on!’–or viceversa] nostalgia trifle/treasure immortalized, mingled with its Lennon-fellow-expat-new dad in Gotham echo, and a busted-up nursery rhyme to make it half-familiar to most all ears from 1st listen…tis quite the wondrous toon.
'…what would YOU do?…'
-Oogie
~ ... ~ ...
[contribution to Bowie songs blog/forum]
Some Riffs on the Uncle Floyd-Slip Away Diffs:
So I entered the world of this stellar tune pretty distractedly, last summer downloading an unknown-about Toy from a forum for free and alliteratively, and what hit me most on premiere listen was that accelerating snare fill at 5 min. mark, and not the many other facets subtly screaming at me: “Masterpiece here, bud!!”
Then on Toy the hook of his updated ‘Baby Loves that Way’ & life distractions crowded out memory of ‘UF’ many weeks…when, post-passing, the Heathen ‘Slip Away’ version became known and captivated me to the point of covering it [which can oft result in a sick-of-it saturation diminishing all the magic/attraction one feels for a song, but not this baby yet] and actually had me timewarpedly buying a physical CD!–surprise used copy found at local shop [naturally cut 3 skipped into cut 4, so returned dang thing]…and now I’m happily exploring the POVs of the perceptive contribbers here and comparing for pleasure the 2 versions for their distinct alchemies!
Must I choose? but I refuse!
The classical appreciator [which DB was also it seems] in me admires the structural niftiness of holding back the ‘twinkle’ chorus til so late as in ‘UF’, making it a little like ‘Hey Jude’ where having the ”Naaa-na-na’s” as long coda –not a repeated chorus– has a sublime symphonic logic [there are ways one could make it a chorus repeating, but such not its fate–a genius-stroke just as it is].
Yet as Chris pointed out ‘SA’ brings that moving chorus in twice as early which creates its own structural strength, and plants seeds of hope for its inev. return–from a competing popsong-craftedness POV. [sacrificing the quirky left-field Cpart quality for more trad. hooky repeating chorus sense.]
‘UF’ thus also appeals to the eccentricity & weirdness-lover/commerciality-hater within,
with its musty attic-conjuring toy keyboard intro-outro and honkytonk old piano and lofi vocal beginning. The understated guitar break-breather on the F-E7-Gsus-F chords gets chopped for ‘SA’—-perhaps a necessary sacrifice IF trim one must, & Levin’s heartwrenching fretless bass filigrees added in ‘SA’ once heard will become integral. But the also integral spoken characters intro [bemoaned aptly above] kind of infuriate when repeating ‘UF’ but one should hear it a few times that way, whilst tripping it is hoped. The backwards-sounding blips and whooshes at fin make for nice touches in ‘SA’ …
So,
For quirks, a touch more cinematicity, originality-experimentalism, symphonic vs pop dynamics…mundane-as-cosmic, trifle-as-treasure objet trouve meets studio balls: UF
-but for anthemic, songcrafted perfection, fitting swan-song status, studio production magic, fewer chances/more labor-of-loved into existence: SA
,,,,,
coda
[it’s a candy mint AND a breath mint]
In all, what a swell double-headed achievement! -as a tribute to this obscure lo-budget quint-american fanboy [‘get home in time to watch and turn on!’–or viceversa] nostalgia trifle/treasure immortalized, mingled with its Lennon-fellow-expat-new dad in Gotham echo, and a busted-up nursery rhyme to make it half-familiar to most all ears from 1st listen…tis quite the wondrous toon.
'…what would YOU do?…'
-Oogie
Monday, January 11, 2016
Us Lads Insane
On David Bowie: a Big Bro to me and I'm sure to many!
Was my first exposure to him in the Penn. University
daily paper review of MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD?
I was a freshman or sophomore psychology major
and it opened: "Schizophrenia is 'in' this year..."
which piqued my interest especially, my brother
having been recently so-diagnosed as he nosedived
from exclusive law school
[Scalia's alma mater + where Bill met Hillary] studies to mental wards and the company of ghosts and invisible ill-advisors...
So I think I bought that album then, but 'Hunky Dory's
appearance and sound had me getting hooked
and by 'Ziggy' was 1/2 ready to get some glitter,
platforms and tights and wave 'Bowie rules'
banners in the streets... thankfully my girlfriend
also could dig the musicality of the guy, was
majoring in Organ [not just mine]. By the time I
was hunting down the only-one-in Denver
[I'd transferred to U of Colo.]
copy of 'All the young dudes' 45 and playing that upon
waking all week, she might have started wondering:
'Is this guy goin' fag on me??'
So the DB albums of that next era were: Aladdin Sane, Pinups,
Diamond Dogs, David Live, Young Americans [from memory]
-not a bad string; I had in this era begun seriously learning & performing originals & covers of out-there folk-rock songs accompanied on my trusty 0018 Martin. The Bowie song I did was "5 Years" --a campfire crowd-jerking tear-pleaser if we do recall myself... and also writing reviews of albums & concerts for a couple college papers and a Boulder Arts magazine. My biggest passions of this era was Bowie though along with Roxy-Eno and many of those Island artists so nutty-great...separating me taste-wise from most conservative Coloradans, and beckoning me back to NYC after a visit there when I met Talking Heads in '75 at CBGB...
[By the way the summer before leaving I had attended the 2nd Telluride film festival --I worked at the trendy Denver theater owned by the hosts of the Fest.-- where Buck Henry was in attendance, and who'd just shot the MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH flick starring now scary-skeletal Bowie, directed of course by my main man Nic Roeg... I asked Buck what the movie was like and he said "Weird!" I also met/lent a hand [later tattooed] to Kenneth Anger the undergound filmmaker-magician that weekend, and I tried to sell Jack Nicholson some dope and tried --you gotta, after all-- to offer Milos Forman's date Aurore Clement some of Gerald Ford's valium for her toothache... didn't we tell that tale before? -yes on old website]
So living on east 7th Street a few blocks from CB's and the Heads' loft just below Houston was grooviness and cheap then although I was holding a job at movie advertizing agency for a year or 2...during which I was able to attend the agency screening of MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH which was kind of a not-hot property, being so weird, but our client Cinema 5 eventually did release it. I'd say my mission-ready enthusiastic review after the screening to a couple account executives [most the audience was looking round, scratching their heads; here was this wild-eyed/-haired bohemian from the Traffic Dept. clapping, raving "Masterpiece!, Bowie's a-MAzing!"] had a certain % manifesting effect there in the scrolls of realities-possible... Plus the cover art for 2 of Bowie's greatest albums 'Low' & 'Station' were both done in our ad agency's Art Dept., by nameless dudes just doing their job whom I saw & joked with daily...
The next album to enter our lives then in '76/7 was LOW!!! yeah baby---E-fuckin-NO! and Bowie together!! Forgive the shameless 'rainy day feelin again' rip, it was a gas
--that album was what our newformed band COME ON seemingly had on oftenest during rehearsal breaks at PW's loft. He & I were the only real musicians, the other 3 pretty amateurish in a new wave no wave way prevalent-possible-fashionable then...we were pals with & impressed by the example of the Heads.
Me & PW went to Mad Sq Garden for one of the soldout Bowie shows
--hey wait this story is told in full here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071008200524/http://www.heliocd.com/nys06.html
Meanwhile on the first day COME ON had gelled into
a session recording songs w/ band --coincidentally,
my brother had died in a fall from a riverside
mental hospital high window or roof in Maryland,
perhaps tripping-trying to fly, perhaps a victim of foul play
[& not fowl-play haha], perhaps snuffing a demon that had
possessed him...
[from DB's bio:]
"Bowie's half-brother Terry Burns* was in the hospital called
Cane Hill near London. He attempted to kill himself by
jumping out of one of the hospital ward windows,
but he survived [Cane Hill had some wards that
were three stories high], some time after this failed
attempt he was successful in managing to escape
from the grounds of the hospital and arrive down at
South Coulsdon station, where he threw himself in
front of a train." http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=9385
-Weird! we both are nutty-brotherless... but as many
here gather I am to this day drawn to-intrigued by
the reaches and boundaries of madness & creativity.
...So Bowie famously befriended and featured Nomi and
mutual pal Joey Arias on his Saturday Night Live appearance [1979] http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/fred-armisen-pays-tribute-david-bowie-saturday-night-live-n498131
-fine with me because I was working
with Nomi as songwriter, and the connec. was
bigtime action likely to benefit all concerned!
Our drummer PW was also Nomi's manager a while
and accompanied the German to a rehearsal for SNL
---Bowie's drummer was sick/absent, so the thin
duke turned to PW and said: [having seen our band
at CB's] "YOU'RE a drummer, how about sitting in?"
which he did and has a cassette of the songs
from that day [TVC15, Boys Keep Swinging, etc]
to prove it...
Now the tragedy of Nomi's early death from the
AIDS is well known, and threw us all for a loop
and made DB seem prescient for [it seemed callously]
abandoning Nomi after their tv slot, never to
work with him again before his death. [rip]
The Nomi Show, friends and mimes however
evolved into a band called STRANGE PARTY,
with me as musical director and PW on vocals
now & percussion & art direction. After a gig or
2 we met Steve Elson, a California Funk master
sax and flute etc player who became a valuable
SParty member....until his being borrowed by...
you guessed it! -that
heft-challenged white count or baron or whatever he was!!
Yes, Bowie saw us [SP] at Danceteria and soon
had enlisted Steve as his horn man [+ bari sax
of the Borneo Horns w/ Lenny & Stan] on
Let's Dance and Serious Moonlight album-tour.
Steve and Dave became friends, housemating in Canada as I recall just the 2 hornmen together rehearsing-recording
in 'Serious' era... and he was featured many years
later on THE NEXT DAY on his great big cool bari sax.
I'll be writing him this week to see how
prepared he was re 'the sad news today oboy'...
So, David my [adoptive...musical] brother,
thanks for your example and inspiration and
good taste in whom you borrow from, creatively and forgivably,
having given so much... natch! 'nuff said
[[almost]]
my favest DB:
Ziggy
Hunky
Low
STATION
DDogs
Aladdin
Baal, Brecht songs!
.......discovered AD: the masterpiece 'Slip Away'
Least:
[chalk up to the negative "side effects of the cocaine"?]
Lets Dance
Tonight
Scary
Lodger--Can a whole album be spoiled by 1 touch?
--'the hinterland the hinterland...', anyone?
the later ones
but NEXT DAY = pretty good
....
PS:
Almost forgot this funny east village tidbit:
must have been '84 or '85--
I lived in a building where on the first floor
was a long minimal bar [REDBAR] that
became pretty trendy-successful as an
art space/architectural
statement as much as tavern, designed by
the bassist of Come On's German friend, and
i ended up opening and stocking it from 4-6 daily.
One Sun. night I let the next tender a
young German woman take over; I go up
to the top floor where I lived and twiddle my thumbs while down in the bar
at 615 she looks up to see a famous customer enter
the empty room---
that Duke, neither fat nor black! He'd heard of the place all the
way back in Berlin where he'd been hanging
that decade...but chose to pop in minutes
after my shift where i'd have gladly supplied
him a Becks --sur la maison-- and said,
'remember COME ON, young fella?, do you KNOW ME?
Seen Steve lately?' or played it low-key-cool more likely.
------------------------------------------
* coincidentally my [only] bro-in-law's name is ....Burns
Was my first exposure to him in the Penn. University
daily paper review of MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD?
I was a freshman or sophomore psychology major
and it opened: "Schizophrenia is 'in' this year..."
which piqued my interest especially, my brother
having been recently so-diagnosed as he nosedived
from exclusive law school
[Scalia's alma mater + where Bill met Hillary] studies to mental wards and the company of ghosts and invisible ill-advisors...
So I think I bought that album then, but 'Hunky Dory's
appearance and sound had me getting hooked
and by 'Ziggy' was 1/2 ready to get some glitter,
platforms and tights and wave 'Bowie rules'
banners in the streets... thankfully my girlfriend
also could dig the musicality of the guy, was
majoring in Organ [not just mine]. By the time I
was hunting down the only-one-in Denver
[I'd transferred to U of Colo.]
copy of 'All the young dudes' 45 and playing that upon
waking all week, she might have started wondering:
'Is this guy goin' fag on me??'
So the DB albums of that next era were: Aladdin Sane, Pinups,
Diamond Dogs, David Live, Young Americans [from memory]
-not a bad string; I had in this era begun seriously learning & performing originals & covers of out-there folk-rock songs accompanied on my trusty 0018 Martin. The Bowie song I did was "5 Years" --a campfire crowd-jerking tear-pleaser if we do recall myself... and also writing reviews of albums & concerts for a couple college papers and a Boulder Arts magazine. My biggest passions of this era was Bowie though along with Roxy-Eno and many of those Island artists so nutty-great...separating me taste-wise from most conservative Coloradans, and beckoning me back to NYC after a visit there when I met Talking Heads in '75 at CBGB...
[By the way the summer before leaving I had attended the 2nd Telluride film festival --I worked at the trendy Denver theater owned by the hosts of the Fest.-- where Buck Henry was in attendance, and who'd just shot the MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH flick starring now scary-skeletal Bowie, directed of course by my main man Nic Roeg... I asked Buck what the movie was like and he said "Weird!" I also met/lent a hand [later tattooed] to Kenneth Anger the undergound filmmaker-magician that weekend, and I tried to sell Jack Nicholson some dope and tried --you gotta, after all-- to offer Milos Forman's date Aurore Clement some of Gerald Ford's valium for her toothache... didn't we tell that tale before? -yes on old website]
So living on east 7th Street a few blocks from CB's and the Heads' loft just below Houston was grooviness and cheap then although I was holding a job at movie advertizing agency for a year or 2...during which I was able to attend the agency screening of MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH which was kind of a not-hot property, being so weird, but our client Cinema 5 eventually did release it. I'd say my mission-ready enthusiastic review after the screening to a couple account executives [most the audience was looking round, scratching their heads; here was this wild-eyed/-haired bohemian from the Traffic Dept. clapping, raving "Masterpiece!, Bowie's a-MAzing!"] had a certain % manifesting effect there in the scrolls of realities-possible... Plus the cover art for 2 of Bowie's greatest albums 'Low' & 'Station' were both done in our ad agency's Art Dept., by nameless dudes just doing their job whom I saw & joked with daily...
The next album to enter our lives then in '76/7 was LOW!!! yeah baby---E-fuckin-NO! and Bowie together!! Forgive the shameless 'rainy day feelin again' rip, it was a gas
--that album was what our newformed band COME ON seemingly had on oftenest during rehearsal breaks at PW's loft. He & I were the only real musicians, the other 3 pretty amateurish in a new wave no wave way prevalent-possible-fashionable then...we were pals with & impressed by the example of the Heads.
Me & PW went to Mad Sq Garden for one of the soldout Bowie shows
--hey wait this story is told in full here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071008200524/http://www.heliocd.com/nys06.html
Meanwhile on the first day COME ON had gelled into
a session recording songs w/ band --coincidentally,
my brother had died in a fall from a riverside
mental hospital high window or roof in Maryland,
perhaps tripping-trying to fly, perhaps a victim of foul play
[& not fowl-play haha], perhaps snuffing a demon that had
possessed him...
[from DB's bio:]
"Bowie's half-brother Terry Burns* was in the hospital called
Cane Hill near London. He attempted to kill himself by
jumping out of one of the hospital ward windows,
but he survived [Cane Hill had some wards that
were three stories high], some time after this failed
attempt he was successful in managing to escape
from the grounds of the hospital and arrive down at
South Coulsdon station, where he threw himself in
front of a train." http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=9385
-Weird! we both are nutty-brotherless... but as many
here gather I am to this day drawn to-intrigued by
the reaches and boundaries of madness & creativity.
...So Bowie famously befriended and featured Nomi and
mutual pal Joey Arias on his Saturday Night Live appearance [1979] http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/fred-armisen-pays-tribute-david-bowie-saturday-night-live-n498131
-fine with me because I was working
with Nomi as songwriter, and the connec. was
bigtime action likely to benefit all concerned!
Our drummer PW was also Nomi's manager a while
and accompanied the German to a rehearsal for SNL
---Bowie's drummer was sick/absent, so the thin
duke turned to PW and said: [having seen our band
at CB's] "YOU'RE a drummer, how about sitting in?"
which he did and has a cassette of the songs
from that day [TVC15, Boys Keep Swinging, etc]
to prove it...
Now the tragedy of Nomi's early death from the
AIDS is well known, and threw us all for a loop
and made DB seem prescient for [it seemed callously]
abandoning Nomi after their tv slot, never to
work with him again before his death. [rip]
The Nomi Show, friends and mimes however
evolved into a band called STRANGE PARTY,
with me as musical director and PW on vocals
now & percussion & art direction. After a gig or
2 we met Steve Elson, a California Funk master
sax and flute etc player who became a valuable
SParty member....until his being borrowed by...
you guessed it! -that
heft-challenged white count or baron or whatever he was!!
Yes, Bowie saw us [SP] at Danceteria and soon
had enlisted Steve as his horn man [+ bari sax
of the Borneo Horns w/ Lenny & Stan] on
Let's Dance and Serious Moonlight album-tour.
Steve and Dave became friends, housemating in Canada as I recall just the 2 hornmen together rehearsing-recording
in 'Serious' era... and he was featured many years
later on THE NEXT DAY on his great big cool bari sax.
I'll be writing him this week to see how
prepared he was re 'the sad news today oboy'...
So, David my [adoptive...musical] brother,
thanks for your example and inspiration and
good taste in whom you borrow from, creatively and forgivably,
having given so much... natch! 'nuff said
[[almost]]
my favest DB:
Ziggy
Hunky
Low
STATION
DDogs
Aladdin
Baal, Brecht songs!
.......discovered AD: the masterpiece 'Slip Away'
Least:
[chalk up to the negative "side effects of the cocaine"?]
Lets Dance
Tonight
Scary
Lodger--Can a whole album be spoiled by 1 touch?
--'the hinterland the hinterland...', anyone?
the later ones
but NEXT DAY = pretty good
....
PS:
Almost forgot this funny east village tidbit:
must have been '84 or '85--
I lived in a building where on the first floor
was a long minimal bar [REDBAR] that
became pretty trendy-successful as an
art space/architectural
statement as much as tavern, designed by
the bassist of Come On's German friend, and
i ended up opening and stocking it from 4-6 daily.
One Sun. night I let the next tender a
young German woman take over; I go up
to the top floor where I lived and twiddle my thumbs while down in the bar
at 615 she looks up to see a famous customer enter
the empty room---
that Duke, neither fat nor black! He'd heard of the place all the
way back in Berlin where he'd been hanging
that decade...but chose to pop in minutes
after my shift where i'd have gladly supplied
him a Becks --sur la maison-- and said,
'remember COME ON, young fella?, do you KNOW ME?
Seen Steve lately?' or played it low-key-cool more likely.
------------------------------------------
* coincidentally my [only] bro-in-law's name is ....Burns
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