Of Sound & Vision

The single release from Low in the first instance was Sound & Vision. A track that I always thought was at least part influenced by German experimental band Can's "I Want More" in terms of riff/structure (probably just me). At least Can performed on Top Of The Pops (no really!) but no promo footage of any kind existed for Sound & Vision. Sadly a memory of Pans People dancing to the track with a blue screened background of a huge blinking eye endures the passage of time, leaving a painfuly persistant legacy retinal burn damage. I think I even saw it repeated on UKGold once (why??).
Odly a promo film for the follow up "Be My Wife" was made during the recording of Heroes. I really do not remember it's circulation on TV at the time, thought it is included in many video/DVD compilations of recent years.
I felt at the time that Be my wife was an odd followup choice. Breaking Glass being the more obvious, though brief cut (Hey it was the height of Punk, it would have scanned).
I do remember Nick Lowe's "Breaking Glass" from his EP called Bowi (Nick figured that Low was a tribut to him-(Low(e))-so his EP was Bowi-without the "e". His breaking Glass was agreat Low-type pastiche & very unlike any of his other work (My Fave of the period was "So it Goes").

Trilogy

1977 was an amazingly productive year, prefaced by work completed in late '76. Low was recorded in '76. Bowie had alread started collaborating with Iggy Pop, indeed "Sister Midnight" had already debuted on the StationtoStation / thin white duke tour. It would later be aired (amazingly) on the Dinah Shore show in the US, & Bowie would play keyboards on Iggy Pop's tour of 1977. The recording of Iggy Pop's "The Idiot" would preface the recording of Low & sonically is a bridge between Station & Low. '77 would also see the recording of Iggy's "Lust for Life" album and Bowie's "Heroes" album.
Much later, in a parallel universe Bowie would borrow back many of the songs he collaborated on with Iggy during the '76/'77 period including a reworking of Sister Midnight which became Red Money on 1979's Lodger. China Girl reappeared on Let's Dance, and Neighbourhood Threat would appear on Blue Jean in 1984.

The Album that fell to earth

It's hard for me to really appreciate that Low was made in 1976, on the closing heels of the StationtoStation tour. The album cover was yet another still from The Man Who Fell To Earth Film, though being a visual pun with Bowie in profile (geddit: Low profile). With side 2 probably much neraer to the missing TMWFTE soundtrack, though it is recounted that probably only Weeping Wall is in any way a hangover from the non-completed album.Bowie says the tapes were scrapped & any ideas were brought foward to the Low recording sessions. In 1991 Ryko re-released Low & included 2 outake tracks from side 2, namely Some Are, a brooding, moody & athmospheric piece with lyrics someowhere between vocalese & concrete lyrics & All Saints (named postumously as it were), a chugging mess of an unfinished sonic idea, probably owing more to mising decisions made in 1990 than at the time )obviously outakes are left out for many reasons, sometimes they just don't work. Oddly Philip Glass would reinterpret some are on his Low Symphony which must have been mighty confusing for any Bowie fan who never availed themselves of the Ryko reissue. A David Richards remix of Sound & Vision awkwardly spoils the mood & tones down the sharp sounding guitar hook. The 808 state remix of said track is maybe a better effort but personally I'd wish they'd all left well alone.

6tracks only?

So ,Fame had wetted my appetite, I guess & Golden Years impressed me immensely, though oddly I was neither drawn to purchase Young Americans or the upcoming Stationtostation (the latter looked poor value, containing only 6 tracks, which to me, was an EP, surely?). Instead I bought ChangesoneBowie, allowing me to appraise extracts of the previous albums, avail myself of both Fame & Golden Years into the bargain. I wasn't greatly moved by the earlier stuff, though it all sounded impressive. So Changesone was my most played purchase for most of 1976. In January 1977 everything changed. I had a short lived paper round & had heard that tracks from the upcoming new Bowie album were to be previed on Alan Freeman's Saturday afternoon rock show. I set a C120 tape going in my parents music centre & rushed my paper round (the local Saturday paper, The Evening Post). Freeman played 5 tracks end to end (in retrospect he probably had a 5 Track preview disc of the album, a great rarity, even now). The 5 tracks from the unrealed Low were all played with no interuptions.
They were:
Speed Of Life
Breaking Glass
Sound & vision
Warszawa
Subteraneans

As the last sounds of Subteraneans ended, there was a long pause before Alan Freeman , sounding lost for words, read the names of the tracks we had heard. I must admit, the sheer "newness" of the sound completely exited me. I don't think I'll ever forget the opening notes of Speed Of Life, a fade up on a song that sounded like you had joined it already in full flow. The shock of a Bowie Instrumental as an opener was followed by the amazingly short, but intense Breaking Glass. Sound & vision was the clear commercial pick & indeed became the single, though Bowie only appears half way into the song, which I believe Charles shar Murray in the music press would describe as "the ultimate retreat song".
The lyrics seemed bleak - "pale blinds, drawn all day, nothing to read, nothing to say". Anyone who has felt the weight of depression, must have known exatly where this was coming from.
Warszawa & Subterraneans, long moody instrumentals featuring bowie's "vocalese", an invented language that sounds real were to change my musical horions forever.
Low was hardly a huge commercial success but by now the music scene was largely obsessed with punk. Bowie semmed disinterested in his music career. This seemed more a cathartic artistic exercise.

firstlistenbowie

The first record that made me pay attention to David Bowie was really FAME.I had been aware of Bowie & was intrigued more by the flirtation with androgyny. In 1975 a run of moderate ranking hits had me intrigued regarding his musical output. Wihtin that year we had FAME, the re-release of Space Oddity (RCA were never adverse to eeking the last possible expendable monies for their artist), though actually an EP, complete with the Hunky Dory Out-take "Velvet Goldmine" and by the end of '75 there was Golden Years backed with Can you hear me (I guess RCA really wanted Young Americans 2 & Golden Years sounded more a throwback/transition sound from Young Americans than did the rest of StationtoStation).

FAME intrigued me from the start. Backwards tape intro, thumping "plastic soul" funk groove, bitter lyrics and that fantastic vocal cascade "Fame, fame, fame, fame...". How did they do that? I mean, at that time there were no samplers, no solid state memory or computer editing. Ok there was the mellotron but rarely did anyone record their own tape frames.I have to assume
Of course, my only access to visual Bowie was just top of the pops on the Beeb & by this period, they were just showing performances on various US TV shows. As I recall, FAME was not the Soul Train performance (That came too late), but another US, pseudo Live performance with Bowie looking mighty pissed off.


Hardly did the song justice (If you've seen the Sould Train miming to Fame and especially Golden years, you'll see the most whacked out Bowie ever- the preamble with the audience has me in stitches- pity we never got to see it at the time in the UK).