Category Archives: David Bowie

1976…and all that

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Hello folks,

am currently on holiday with Mrs. 17 Seconds in Cornwall and two of our friends, while 17 Seconds Towers is looked after by our two cats and a legendary scots bassist. Therefore posts may not be as regular as they have been over the last wee while, but keep checking up.

The other day I was notified by the Fades in Slowly blogspot that they are doing a feature on 1976 and the tracks that could have made the Festive Fifty for that year. The significance being that a) that year as an all-time Festive Fifty, b) the following year was just John Peel’s favourite tracks, and it was only c) 1982 where the votes were just the publics, based on that year.

I’m still trying to work out which three tracks to vote for. I was only born in mid-November of that year, and am coming ot the conclusion that whilst it was the year punk broke in the UK, that there was good non-punk music released that year. This list gives an idea. After all, it was the year of Dylan’s Desire LP, which may well be my favourite Dylan album (yes, even above Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and Blood On The Tracks) and Bowie’s Station To Station, as the man moved to Berlin, listened to Kraftwerk who were about to invent the eighties a few years before they happened, and prepared for being involved in no less than four key LPs of 1977. Bob Marley continued his rise as Roxy went on hiatus. In Ireland and the UK, Thin Lizzy hit the big time. Disco and Punk were not being mixed in at this point, but they were happening and it’s probably quite accurate that this was the year was the quiet before the storm. I may only have been there for the last six weeks of it, but galvanised by punk, this was the year that The Clash, U2, The Cure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees played their first gigs, and my world is still reverberating from that and the aftershock that followed over the next thirty years. Of course, Madonna was still in high school, as presumably were The Slits, and MTV and Hip-Hop were some years off.

Here’s five tracks from that year…

David Bowie -Station To Station

Donna Summer – Love To Love You Baby

The Damned -New Rose

The Sex Pistols – Anarchy In The UK

Thin Lizzy -The Boys Are Back In Town

When is a cover not a cover?

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OK, maybe I’ve just got too much time on my hands, but this question has been occuring to me for a while…And where does that leave prefering one version over another?

First up, ‘China Girl.’ Co-written by Iggy Pop and David Bowie in 1977, it appeared on Iggy’s The Idiot in 1977, and then on Bowie’s Let’s Dance in 1983. I suppose that Bowie’s version is a cover coming technically afterwards, but he did produce The Idiot. And I sorta prefer Iggy’s voice on his version, but i love the bass on the Bowie version. Hmm, go figure…

Iggy Pop -‘China Girl.’ mp3

David Bowie -‘China Girl.’ mp3

And what about ‘Shipbuilding?’ Elvis Costello co-write this poignant ballad about the Falklands’ War, in 1982, Robert Wyatt recorded it first and had ahit with it, then Costello recorded his version for his own Punch The Clock LP in 1983. I like Wyatt’s voice, but Chet Baker’s trumpet is heartbreaking.

Robert Wyatt -‘Shipbuilding.’ mp3

Elvis Costello -‘Shipbuilding.’ mp3

As for this last one, well, I guess it always was a James Kirk track, even if there were twenty years between the version he did in Orange Juice and then recording it for his own solo You Can Make It If You Boogie in 2003. Or was it?

James Kirk -‘Felicity.’ mp3

Please leave any thoughts below…

Edinburgh Festival is Here

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It’s August, which means that it’s the Edinburgh Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe, plus book festival, film festival etc.. Actually, as someone else pointed out, describing the Edinburgh ‘Fringe’ as a ‘fringe’ festival is rather like describing U2 as an indie band or Steven Spielberg as a cult director; it’s been way bigger than the ‘International Festival’ for many years.

As well as the T on the Fringe lineup, for which I have got tickets for many bands, I’ve also been taking in comedy and other shows. Today I went with Mrs. 17 Seconds and our friends Dave and Mark to see the Hull University Big Band, who were fantastic, and not the sort of thing I tend to put on at home, but they were brilliant. On Thursday, another 17 Seconds friend, Rory, had organised tickets for the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain. If your vision is something of a whole load of very elderly people playing George Formby songs then you are well, well out of date. They played a whole range of stuff including ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ by Wheatus, Bowie’s ‘Life On Mars’ and Talking Heads ‘Psycho Killer.’ Oh, and ‘Anarchy in the UK’ by the Sex Pistols. A huge amount of fun, and they don’t take themselves too seriously.

Thanks to Mark, I have a few links below for YouTube which have performances of songs done by the Ukelele Orchestra.

The Good, the bad and The Ugly

Wuthering Heights

Life On Mars?

Oh, and seeing as we’ve had those, how about some originals by Kate Bush and David Bowie themselves?

Kate Bush -‘Wuthering Heights.’ mp3

David Bowie -‘Life On Mars?’ mp3

These links will be up for one week only. Go and see the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain if you get the chance (and maybe you’ll catch them playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’!), and indeed the Hull University Big Band.