but there's a shop on the corner that's selling papier mache

howdy pop pickers

this shall come as (something of) a surprise to several of you regular readers. most of you would be aware, from what i write, of my dedication to exhaustive research and attention to detail, look you see. it is out of character (a bit) for me to simply skim over something, get the basics and move on). but this, as it happens, is what i did, and nearly missed out on a rather special release. 

when they announced (yet) another Bowie release for the year that is 2020, all of the references and comments concerning it - and let "it" be known to be ChangesNowBowie, or however one should write the name - said it was to do with Bowie's reasonably well known of (and extremely heavily bootlegged) 50th birthday gig, back in 1997. all of the comments what i glanced at in passing said it was so, and thus i lost interest. 

for what reason would i lose interest in either a Bowie release, or a (presumably) landmark gig? partially because at only nine (9) tracks it would not be the whole concert, but mostly, having already heard it (refer bootleg comments above), it simply was not any good. i mean, i am sure it was fun for David and his mates, and the cake looked ace, but nothing about the gig as a listening experience was one i ever had any wish to revisit. 

but there, in the greater glory and good of Commodore 64 mode, is my copy. yes, indeed, as (and this makes no sense to me) it is a limited edition, i do indeed wonder where the 2499 other copies are. since i missed the official channels of sale for it, i had to buy it off of the internet equivalent of a car boot sale, for a reasonable and not too profiteering amount north of the initial asking price. oh, if only the official Bowie store would send less mails about baseball caps i would not wear and t-shirts that shall not fit, and more about, you know, his music. 

so, how did this happen, since i wasn't interested? well, the little voice one sometimes hears, whispering impure thoughts from behind your shoulder to your ear (the one which keeps me away from edges of tall structures, cliffs and so forth), suggested i "try" and get it. there is that collector streak in me, one which always insists on gratification. also, it's Bowie, is it not. 

a metaphorical (or whatever the correct word is) alarm bell rang as i inspected the disc, noting the back cover. on it there was a statement to the effect of it being recorded in November 1996, which was not when he gone done his birthday gig. upon placing the disc in the stereo and pressing "play", there was not so much an alarm bell but me (quite) nearly falling over (face first, probably), as it was clear that this was not the less than satisfactory actual birthday concert "proper", but something else. 

i took to that "internet" thing to do some research, and it transpired that i had been a trifle hasty in seeing the words "50th birthday concert" as giving every indication not to pay too much attention. as it happens, and many of you will know this but i did not, these are songs what he did for some pre-birthday gig "session" for the BBC, or similar such broadcaster. oh. 

erm, yeah, so this is superb. no idea why they marketed it so heavily as being pertaining to his 50th birthday celebrations, other than it being "partly" connected. had they thumped on about it in its own right and i had bothered to pay more attention, i would have joined the quasi virtual queue online at midnight, or whenever, to purchase it on day of release. 

just what makes this selection so good? i mean, other than the fact that it's a David Bowie record? well, the best i can describe it is there's an "intimate immediacy" to the songs. with some slight qualification in place, these are mostly what one would have once called "off the beaten track" song selections, although now the term used for non-hit compilations is, for some reason, "deep cuts". much like the VH1 Storytellers set what he gone done a little while after this set, he was clearly in a mood to perform which of his songs took his fancy, and did not give a flying f**k for any commercial considerations anyone might have had. 

the qualification to the above is, of course, the opening track, which would be The Man Who Sold The World. in the 90s it was not quite a time of the frighteningly rapid disposable ways we have today. just north of two years after his demise the shadow of Kurt Cobain still very much lingered in memory, and one of the final images was of him (and of course Nirvana) playing this then really relatively obscure Bowie song on MTV Unplugged. for reasons never expressed (that i am aware of), the Nirvana revival prompted David to all of a sudden include it in sets, when he had not done so for decades. if ever, really, as it was known he was never too pleased with any version of it he gone done himself. 

beyond that, and at the very great risk of "gatekeeping" (which i would have zero wish to do), the set is predominantly characterised by songs which maybe those of us who insist on owning all of the albums would be immediately familiar with. i would suggest, for instance, that many more are familiar with the name, and iconic look, of Aladdin Sane than the actual song. the presence of Shopping For Girls was an interesting one - yet again Bowie, some years after the band vanished, wasn't quite keen on letting the songs of Tin Machine just vanish. 

one real highlight, for me, is the Velvet Underground cover White Light / White Heat. this was a frequent staple of sets, from 70s to 90s (indeed even early 00s i think), and, well, i have never quite liked it "proper live", instead preferring his cover of the same band's Waiting For The Man. anyway, here, in this quasi session, it sounds to me as excellent as how i imagine David assumed it sounded excellent when he did it at bigger gigs. 

infuriatingly this was, then, made a "limited edition" thing. from what i remember only 2500 copies of the CD were pressed, which is an arbitrary number. why? i mean, all that happens when they do this is a huge chunk of that number end up being bought purely by people looking to sell it on ("flip it") for their own profit. no, i do not criticise those who do this, for that's just working the market they are presented with, and also how i came to be able to get it. but if we take it as a given that there is somewhere considerably north of 2500 Bowie fans left in this world, then it is unfair to have some, arguably many, miss out, and strange that the Bowie Estate - or indeed the War Child charity, in this instance - would happily miss out on income. 

my understanding is that ChangesNowBowie is available on those "streaming" services, and probably also available "freely" on the independent music distributors of the internet. great that everyone so inclined to do so can hear it, but really, fat lot of good a "stream" or download is to collectors. even though Bowie was one of the first to predict music becoming a streaming thing (in early 2000 he said it would "one day soon just flow like water"), many of us still want the physical product. especially when it comes with such lovely album art. 

anyway, very happy to have got my hands on a copy!

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!