I just received my first one for Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" album. Looks great.

And I'm really excited to see that my favorite album, David Bowie's "Low" is getting the treatment come October.

I've read tons about this period in his career, but it'll be great to have an entire little book devoted to the subject.

Synopsis

"One day I blew my nose and half my brains came out." Los Angeles, 1976. David Bowie is holed up in his Bel-Air mansion, drifting into drug-induced paranoia and confusion. Obsessed with black magic and the Holy Grail, he's built an altar in the living room and keeps his fingernail clippings in the fridge. There are occasional trips out to visit his friend Iggy Pop in a mental institution. His latest album is the cocaine-fuelled "Station To Station" (Bowie: "I know it was recorded in LA because I read it was"), which welds R&B rhythms to lyrics that mix the occult with a yearning for Europe, after three mad years in the New World. Bowie has long been haunted by the angst-ridden, emotional work of the Die Brucke movement and the Expressionists. Berlin is their spiritual home, and after a chaotic world tour, Bowie adopts this city as his new sanctuary. Immediately he sets to work on "Low", his own expressionist mood-piece.


[Edited 8/15/05 16:00pm]

i really like the one about sign 'o' the times, though i don't think it's very fashionable to like it because it's more of a personal memoir than it is a book full of hard facts. i thought it was a quick, charming read and the author's memories and experiences were very similar to my own where that album's concerned. i highly recommend it, but don't think you're gonna get a mini-Vault or DMSR.

i'm excited to read the Low book!

Anxiety said:

I do sometimes really like a more personal take on things. I know the facts pretty well, so this should be interesting. I really liked that "Low" inspired book/CD combo you got for me, so this should go along quite nicely. You ever get that book "The Passenger" about his Berlin period?

GangstaFam said:

i REALLY wish i could get my hands on a copy of "the passenger".

have you seen bowienet lately? there's a great snippet of an interview with bowie about kraftwerk and the berlin years. he said lots of great stuff.

shame on me: i didn't know 'station to station' was about the stations of the cross! i knew that was meant to be a deeply spiritual album, but i really did think it was inspired by kraftwerk, which were in turn inspired by him. shows what i know.

station and station and low are my favorite albums..which proofs cocteau long ignored quote of the aftermaths of torture true beauty comes out of..or something like that..

Anxiety said:

I'm sure with Bowie there are always multiple layers of meaning. The electronically driven intro of "Station To Station" doesn't resemble a train for nothing. And of course, it could be seen as a metaphor for him moving back from the U.S. to England - "the European cannon is here!"

Oh and I never check bowienet anymore. I really should start visiting there again.

GangstaFam said:

well, that's true too. bowie can sometimes spread the bullshit on a little thick, especially in older interviews. but with the overt spirituality in "word on a wing", which is basically a love song to god, i can see how "station to station" could be about the stations of the cross. it would make sense, at least as some kind of drug-addled double entendre.

Anxiety said:

Yeah. Bowie did seem shaken to his core around '76/'77. Not surprising he turned to religion. It seems like the whole of those 2 years was just one long near death experience for him. I'm glad he pushed and pulled himself so hard during that time and sacrificed so much for his art, cuz it really is his most interesting phase. As sad and pathetic of a character that he became around that time, I do admire him for the lengths he went. But the guy's lucky to be alive!

GangstaFam said:

i just see him as going way into the wilderness around that time. i don't see him as pathetic as i see him as, i don't know, going into his own personal "interzone", which may well have been on his mind, william burroughs fan that he is. i admire the fact that he turned to religion, but that he explored it in such a large scope. not just western or eastern religion, but the whole sceope of spirituality was something he seemed to be fascinated with in his journey for some kind of repair in his life. whatever he did, it seemed to work...eventually, anyway.

Anxiety said:

Yeah, maybe pathetic is a bit harsh. Cuz I really am most fascinated by him around this time. But getting down to less than 100 pounds, his fallout with Angie, the extreme behaviour, the right wing leanings, the crazed look on his face half the time, how wrecked he looked in the "Be My Wife" video - all of that adds up to someone truly tortured. But I'm thankful to him for going there. The pain you hear in the STS ballads and most of Low is so tangible, I hurt right along with him. I think that was about as revealing as he gets, and ironically much of it was done with little or no words. I hear it in Heroes, Scary Monsters and especially Heathen too - the real Bowie. Knowing his personality, it had to be a painful process for him to put that much of himself out there for the public to see.

Anybody know what other books are available in this series?

GangstaFam said:

ta da:

http://rateyourmusic.com/...d_is_13570

Anxiety said:

Thanks! I want that Ramones one bad.

Mmmm
I am certainly going to flip through this one...

Low is my alltime fave Bowie album.

HamsterHuey said:

moi aussi.

I have the SOTT ones. Nice personal read. I plan on getting several more such as Radiohead:OK Computer, Pink Floyd and more.

DiamondGirl said:

i'd like to get a few more of 'em. heck, i'd love to WRITE one of 'em.

i'm not sure what album i'd want to write a long essay about, though.

Anxiety said:

Me too! And I could see you doing one as well. I felt like ocntacting them at one point in time. Like you said, I don't know which album to do since they already did SOTT lol. If it were to be a Prince related tome', I'd pick 1999. Unrelated who knows? U2, Stevie, Rolling Stones' Exile ON Mainstreet?

DiamondGirl said:

i thought about eurythmics' "savage" or maybe a laurie anderson album, though that could get REALLY complex...

Anxiety said:

Laurie Anderson would end up being a thesis or dissertation. Just on O Superman

Will they let just anyone write one of these books and publish it if it's good enough? That'd be great! I'd love to do Bjork's "Vespertine". I could really get inside that one. Or "Maxinquaye". Or "Boys For Pele". I think the 2 most interesting ones of Prince's and Bowie's careers have been done. Although I think I could really do "Lovesexy" some justice.

And Anx, you should do "Emporer Tomato Ketchup".

GangstaFam said:

well, i think they look for people who have a bit of music writing history to write these books - the prince book was written by a guy who i've noticed has written several articles on prince in different magazines. i like his style.

GangstaFam said:

i love that album, but i don't know if i could write a book-length essay on it. i'd have to think of an album that brings up lots of memories, stories, feelings - something that i've lived with for a long time and i could talk about at length. that's what brought "savage" to mind. i also considered swans' "the burning world" and deee-lite's "dewdrops in the garden".

Anxiety said:

Maybe you could expand some of your thoughts from your original essay about "Purple Rain" and "Ziggy" into full-fledged books.