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Let's talk David Bowie guitar sounds.


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For the 'Lodger' sessions, Belew wasn't allowed to know anything about the tracks before Eno hit the record button (the original planned album title was 'Planned Accidents'). Belew would get a count off and then have to start playing. He did 3 or 4 takes over each track (by which point he might have started to figure out the chords or song structure) before moving on to the next one. Eno then stitched together pieces of the various solos. That's why the guitar jumps around so much on songs like Red Sail and DJ.

Some of the other tricks they used on this album were taking the chords from "All the Young Dudes" in reverse order (I forget which song, but you can hear it if you listen for it) and writing a bunch of chords on the blackboard (in alphabetical order or whatever) and then pointing to them one-at-a-time as the musicians were recording the track (on "Look Back in Anger", IIRC).

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My favorite Bowie album is "Diamond Dogs", and Bowie does all the guitar work on that album. No real lead breaks, but lots of excellent, distorted rhythm guitar.

 

 

Yeah he does a lot of guitar work on a lot of the albums, I think. Low, I think, is mostly him and eno.

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Yeah he does a lot of guitar work on a lot of the albums, I think. Low, I think, is mostly him and eno.

 

 

That's awesome. I never knew that. I always wondered how Bowie collaborated with people to make music, if he was not an actual instrument player himself.

 

Also, just saw The Man Who Fell to Earth at a local theater and it was very goooood.

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That's awesome. I never knew that. I always wondered how Bowie collaborated with people to make music, if he was not an actual instrument player himself.


Also, just saw The Man Who Fell to Earth at a local theater and it was very goooood.

 

 

Oh Bowie plays a ton of instruments, actually. His albums aren't under his name for nothing. It's just that on stage I think he prefers to mostly just sing. The reason he had all those personas is cause he is actually quite shy and was more able to act out on stage if he pretended to be someone else. But behind the scenes he's responsible for a lot of the playing himself.

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Oh Bowie plays a ton of instruments, actually. His albums aren't under his name for nothing. It's just that on stage I think he prefers to mostly just sing. The reason he had all those personas is cause he is actually quite shy and was more able to act out on stage if he pretended to be someone else. But behind the scenes he's responsible for a lot of the playing himself.

 

 

Dang, that's cool. You know of any books I could pick up that kind of talk about that stuff? Making the music, and whatnot.

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This DVD of Bowies last tour is great. He's got Earl Slick a the rest of his band playing the hell out of his old catalog, plus some amazing performances of tunes from Heathen and Reality which were excellent records to end his career on. Jerry Leonard on guitar has a huge effects setup and does some really weird stuff.

 

If you are a Bowie fan and haven't seen this yet you are in for a treat.

 

 

Bowie20Reality.jpg

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This DVD of Bowies last tour is great. He's got Earl Slick a the rest of his band playing the hell out of his old catalog, plus some amazing performances of tunes from Heathen and Reality which were excellent records to end his career on. Jerry Leonard on guitar has a huge effects setup and does some really weird stuff.


If you are a Bowie fan and haven't seen this yet you are in for a treat.



Bowie20Reality.jpg

 

Maybe I should pick that up sometime. Luckily I got to see it live, though :)

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I tend to hate bands after i see them in stadium shows, so I deliberately avoided seeing Bowie. He's my idol.

 

This book has a good section on recording Heroes

 

Good Vibrations, Second Edition: A History of Record Production (Sanctuary Music Library)

Mark Cunningham

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I tend to hate bands after i see them in stadium shows, so I deliberately avoided seeing Bowie. He's my idol.


 

 

I saw him back in the 70's & 80's - Diamond Dogs and Madison Square Garden, Young Americans at Radio City and Serious Moonlight at MSG - never saw him again after that. Sorry I missed some of those last few tours.

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Envelop phaser + comp on the rhythm, Electric Mistres/Poly-Chorus on the solo. IMHO.

 

 

It's not really the tone that mystifies me so much as Belew's playing.

 

Also the synth and mellotron blend so well with the lead guitar parts at times it's hard to know what instrument is what. I'm similarly baffled by Remain in Light.

 

Belew sort of plays guitar the same way that Eno plays keys. They work so well together. I don't think there's many other people who can mesh guitar and synth styles so well outside of DEVO or 3RA1N1AC

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Tony Visconti has a bunch of great write ups on his experiences with Bowie on his website BTW.




just click an album. He gives more details on some than others. Reading about Low and Young Americans was rather fascinating.

 

 

That was a great read, thanks!

 

I find it fascinating how they created music, and how talented they were/are. Here is another site with a lot of stuff and interviews from that era http://www.bowiegoldenyears.com/, and a link to everything you wanted to know about the Ziggy & Spiders album http://www.5years.com/

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I tend to hate bands after i see them in stadium shows, so I deliberately avoided seeing Bowie. He's my idol.
This book has a good section on recording Heroes


Good Vibrations, Second Edition: A History of Record Production (Sanctuary Music Library)

Mark Cunningham

 

Ha ha! Funny you say that. I was HEAVILY into Led Zeppelin in the mid-70s - it was practically all I listened to (and Hendrix) - but after I saw them in summer '77 I stopped listening to them, cold turkey. Now, 35 years later, I'm into them again.

Mysterious. :idk:

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Yeah, 'Move On' is 'All The Young Dudes' backwards.


On 'Boys Keep Swinging', Eno got everyone to switch instruments, with Carlos Alomar on drums, Dennis Davis on bass, George Murray on keys on Tony Visconti on guitar, to capture a garage band feel.

 

 

Awesome!

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