I've gotta thank Dillo for the reminder that, duh, a bunch of Harpswell Hootenanniers cut a fine David Bowie cover just about 3 years ago! Extra dunce points to me, as "Moonage Daydream", off the 1971 "Hunky Dory" album, was actually the first song that I put on my "to cover" list for the gathering that year. It's a song that blasts out of the gate with a fistful of classic Bowie styling in the LP version: super-cleanly produced, dry crunching rock chords followed by delicate 12-string acoustic and piano and strings; drums pushed way up front of melodic bass; yelped rollercoaster vocal melodies with layered harmonies; lyrical-sequiturs with tons of space imagery and overtones of ambiguous love/ lust/ devotion; a weirdo sax-flute solo; a take-off guitar excursion from Mick Ronson. The whole darn enchilada.
With everybody else doing the heavy lifting, I think we pulled our version off OK. That's Dillo on the Trevor Bolder style bass and Roady on the "Woody" Woodmansey drums. Paul B is on the Wurlitzer and Roger on the lead vocals and lead guitar. I played rhythm guitar and overdubbed the other stuff.
Moonage Daydream (David Bowie cover):
https://app.box.com/s/lbqrnjfxdzvpqtuljv15dby89hxfsgsb
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
David Bowie, "Ashes to Ashes"
Well, if anything qualifies as "unnecessary and half-assed" cover, it's this one, but I figured I'd share. I believe it was the start of 2013 that Roady and I took a stab at "Ashes to Ashes" off Bowie's "Scary Monsters" album from 1980. The song has been a fave for a long time, since my sister brought a copy
home (insert old man voice) "back in the WLIR days, when you had to ask the store clerk to unlock the
cabinet and retrieve the golddang cassette tape for you". That album was confusing and intimidating and mysterious and I just didn't get most of it for decades, but parts of it lodged in the ol' brainpan, and this was obviously the hit.
Anyway, my appreciation for Bowie is bottomless, and when I love a record of his (or, more typically, individual cuts off a record) that love is strong indeed. I honestly wish we had more covers in the vaults, but perhaps in the future...
JK
"Ashes to Ashes" (David Bowie cover):
https://app.box.com/s/273lqmozxapmuap8p9rm
Anyway, my appreciation for Bowie is bottomless, and when I love a record of his (or, more typically, individual cuts off a record) that love is strong indeed. I honestly wish we had more covers in the vaults, but perhaps in the future...
JK
"Ashes to Ashes" (David Bowie cover):
https://app.box.com/s/273lqmozxapmuap8p9rm
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