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).