47 - David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World - 1970

Side One
The Width of a Circle
All The Madmen
Black Country Rock
After All

Side Two
Running Gun Blues
Saviour Machine
She Shook Me Cold
The Man Who Sold The World
The Supermen


DISCOVERY; I think we need to pop over to Tony's house and see what he's found lurking in the back of his parent's stack of record albums. Tony didn't collect albums at this point. His folks had a fairly contemporary collection so no need I suppose. I think Tony and his older brother Tim would have helped them find the cool records. The Guess Who, Santana, Dr Hook, Three Dog Night. Nothing too adventurous but not a complete disaster either. We got to be friends through 4H and possibly cub scouts so we'd hang out, have sleep overs and me being me, we'd listen to records. The stereo was in the lower level family room. Down there with the sleeping bags having a good look at the Abraxas album art we never got to the very back of the stack of albums. Hiding at the very back of the pile with the other albums nobody listened to was this strange David Bowie album with the cartoon cover. What? No one listened to it??? 

WHERE & WHEN; Once it came to Tony's attention it got my attention as well! Tony claimed it for his own and that's how his album collection got started. At least that's how I remember it. As we all know, an event isn't fixed until it is observed. When observed from different perspectives, two observations, equally valid. I also remember suggesting that if no one wanted it I'd have it.

Tony and I listened to this a lot. We had something we called "treatment" in which we'd lock ourselves in a small room under the stairs with the PA system from our band and favourite record on the turntable. We "studied" a few albums in this way. We even had the PA system hooked up in the back seat of his car briefly. VERY loud! Some records didn't sound good loud. This one sounded pretty good but I'm getting ahead of myself again... rewind the tape.

The band I've just mentioned, we called ourselves Dry Ice, (a name Mr Smith suggested to us because it's a very interesting substance which is neither dry nor ice per se) consisted of myself (guitar & vocal) Tony (guitar & vocal) Robert (piano). We'd meet at Robert's house, practising around the grand piano, songs like "25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago. "Hound Dog" by Elvis I'd imagine. "The Gospel According To Tony Day" was our Bowie number and I wrote a song called "Victor" written about Victor Frankenstein from the monsters perspective. Humble beginnings...

HIGHLIGHTS; The Width of a Circle - All The Madmen - After All - Saviour Machine - She Shook Me Cold - The Man Who Sold The World - The Supermen

STATUS; CD