Yes, Ron Wood, Bill Wyman, Bowie at Peter Sellers party in '74, links here.
http://www.sfae.com/index.php?pg=303200&c=7

www.bowiewonderworld.com/tours/tourvar.htm

http://www.bowiegoldenyears.com/1975.html

No Stones. But Bowie will be at Coachella. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Coachella-2013-Lineup/325592057549986

sweetcharmedlife wrote on Jan 9^th, 2013 at 8:56pm:


So basically they posted that 'rolling stone' teaser photo just to wind people up?

the comments on the facebook page would suggest that this is - like the Stones one - another spoof line-up.

Seen Bowie about 6 times. Not a single for me but if the rest of the album is rocking, like thay say I'll take it. First time for me was 74.

sweetcharmedlife wrote on Jan 10^th, 2013 at 11:15am:



I'm not sure, to be honest.  I dont think it necessarily follows that they'll wait until the summer. If they're playing 'residencies' these could take place at any time.  I'd personally be surprised if we're waiting as late as June for more Stones gigs.

Not a big surprise, to be honest.

Quite a few albums in the past werent followed by tours (Low, Scary Monsters, Tonight - to name but three)

I only got to see him twice - Milton Keynes Bowl in 1983 and Slane Castle in 1987. He finally played Belfast in 1995 - and I got the flu and for the only time in my life missed a concert because I was sick.  Didn't think at the time I'd not see him perform again!

The inside story of how David Bowie made The Next Day

David Bowie sprang the biggest surprise the pop industry has seen in years by recording his new single Where Are We Now? and a new album in complete secrecy. Producer Tony Visconti, guitarist Earl Slick and others in the know reveal how it happened – and spill more about the singer's plans


Alexis Petridis
The Guardian, Saturday 12 January 2013

David Bowie in his music video for Where Are We Now?
Mystery man ... David Bowie in the music video for Where Are We Now?

On Tuesday morning, the astonishment that greeted the release of David Bowie's first single in a decade seemed almost universal. The shock was not merely that Bowie – long since presumed retired – was back, with an album, The Next Day, to follow in March; it was that one of the biggest stars in the history of rock music had managed to spend two years making a record without even a hint of rumour reaching the wider world. This in an age of cameraphones and gossip websites and social media.

"We haven't seen this before, a real legend dropping the announcement, the music, the photographs, everything in the blink of an eye," says Tim Ingham, editor of music industry magazine Music Week. "At 66, he's run the whole machinery of the music industry and the music media ragged, and he's run social media ragged too. Social media by its very nature demands facts or – in the absence of facts – speculation; if it doesn't know, it'll make it up itself. But the lack of chatter enhanced the PR impact. In terms of a basic product announcement, which is all this is, he's come back with more of a media storm than any other artist has produced in recent years."

At least part of the reason Bowie was able to keep his comeback a secret until the last minute is down to the remarkably low-key nature of his business arrangements: a reaction, long-standing producer Tony Visconti suggests, to the early 70s, when Bowie's management company Mainman "had about 45 people looking after him, or allegedly looking after him", an arrangement that ended in chaos and litigation. Today, his New York office has a staff of one. He has no official manager, relying instead on his business manager Bill Zysblat – a figure "as low-key as you can get," according to Bowie's biographer Paul Trynka – who began life as the Rolling Stones' tour accountant before joining Bowie in the early 80s, and his fiercely loyal PA Corrine "Coco" Schwab. The latter is something of a legend in Bowie mythology and rumoured to be the subject of his song Never Let Me Down. "She's been with him since the mid-70s," says Trynka. "Some of the musicians who worked with him hated her, but they invariably point out she's smart, sometimes intimidatingly so, and utterly devoted to Bowie. He trusts her absolutely."

David Bowie - Where Are We Now? on MUZU.TV.

"It means you can react to things very quickly, you can do things incredibly secretively, which you couldn't do if it was one of those situations where there are 20 different managers involved," says a source close to Bowie. "When David comes into Britain to do something like his appearance on [Ricky Gervais sitcom] Extras, nobody knows he's here. He's very good at being low-key. How many times over the last 10 years have you seen pictures of him? There have maybe been two or three paparazzi shots of him in a decade. He's not a recluse, but he's seen when he wants to be seen."

His deal with his record label seems equally unique: he has no A&R man supervising his work, which, says Visconti, "is not normal for any star". Even Rob Stringer, the president of the Sony Music Label Group and one of the most powerful men in the music industry, only became aware of The Next Day's existence a month ago, when he was invited to the studio in New York to hear some tracks. "We still haven't given him a copy of the album," chuckles Visconti. "He came to the studio. He was thrilled. He said 'what about the PR campaign?' And David said, 'there is no PR campaign. We're just going to drop it on 8 January. That's it.' It's such a simple idea, but Bowie came up with it."

Tony Visconti @Tonuspomus

So relieved to talk about the new DB album after 2 years of silence on the subject, like a dam broke.
9 Jan 13


Meanwhile, when I contact the British arm of Sony, they won't discuss the project at all, which could be related to rumours that while Bowie's UK PR company, the Outside Organisation, were given notice last Friday, the label itself knew nothing right up until the point at which Where Are We Now? materialised on iTunes at 5am on Tuesday. "They certainly seemed as surprised as the rest of us," notes Ingham wryly.

By contrast, the people who actually worked on the album seem not so much happy as desperate to talk about The Next Day. "I was on the cover of Guitar Player magazine," laments Earl Slick, the Bowie sideman responsible for, among other things, the astonishing soloing on 1976's Station to Station. "It was the Christmas issue, the one you want to be on the cover of, the one that's on the newsstands twice as long. And I'm making a new Bowie album and I can't tell them anything. The only person I told was my manager."



David Bowie Bowie in Paris, 1977. Photograph: Christian Simonpietri/Sygma/Corbis

Tony Visconti, who says he only finished work on the album last week and wasn't expecting it to be announced on Tuesday – "I thought they were just going to put out a single" – also seems delighted to be rid of two years of subterfuge, non-disclosure agreements and, as he bluntly puts it, "bare-faced lies". He told only his partner and his children what was going on. "People would ask 'what are you working on at the moment?'. About a year ago, I started saying well, I'm working on a very big project but I can't tell you what it is. That satisfied most people, but then a few people would say 'it's Bowie, isn't it?'. And I'd go, I can't tell you who it is, even if you said the person's name I can't say yes or no. And they'd go 'it's Bowie'. And I'd go 'no, really it isn't'. I was a little uncomfortable with that, but it was the only way to do it."

Now he's free to gush about the album at will. The elegiac balladry of Where Are We Now? isn't particularly representative, he says. "The album is eclectic, it's got five really blistering rock tracks. The rest is really mid-tempo, mysterious and evocative. He's been obsessed with medieval English history, which, believe it or not, makes great material for a rock song. And contemporary Russian history, which makes a great rock song. The subject matter he choses to write about is amazing. The Next Day is a song about a tyrant, let me leave it at that. One thing the album's got is a lot of substance. You're going to have to listen to it many times, because the lyrical content's going to take a long time to absorb.

He's been obsessed with medieval English history, which, believe it or not, makes great material for a rock song.


"It's got an instantly familiar sound, because the band are rocking away and it's David Bowie's voice. He's singing very low-key on the single. A lot of people have misinterpreted that, thinking that he's going to sound old and frail on this record, but for that song he wanted to sound vulnerable. Big difference. Elsewhere, he's singing in full voice, that voice you hear on Heroes, so loud that I literally had to step away from him in the studio."

Visconti says he wasn't surprised when Bowie contacted him about recording two years ago, despite the fact that the singer had told him barely a year before that he had no interest in making more music and furthermore hadn't written any songs, a statement he now thinks was a fib. "You know, he's an artist, he can't sit on his creativity forever. You could tell from the beginning that the songs were stunning even in primitive form. They were obviously things that had built up over the past 10 years, sketches he had all along."

Complete secrecy was a precondition from the start: early on, they were obliged to move studios after the owners allegedly leaked information about who was working there. "We told them to keep it a secret and they blew it within 24 hours. We hadn't even started the album but we got a phone call: 'is it true you're making a record at such and such a studio?'. We just denied everything. Even when we made the first demos, we were sworn to secrecy. The three musicians working on them – me, Sterling Campbell on drums and Jerry Leonard on guitar – had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. It was unnecessary with the the three of us, we were long-time Bowie people – if he'd just said keep it a secret and don't tell a soul, we would have done that without signing – but later on, as the crew on the album got bigger, the NDAs were necessary because we didn't know everyone that well. We got lucky with the studio, a place called The Magic Shop in SoHo. Normally there are interns at studios, but whenever we were there, they gave their interns time off. They didn't want them to witness it. When we were working there, they had a skeleton staff of two, which is not normal."

Did the secrecy affect the sessions? "Definitely. We had to talk about it about it as a group, share our experience of the insanity, the frustration. And David would just sit there smiling. The fun we were having in the studio overshadowed all the neuroses, but there definitely were neuroses."

Even with security so strict that when Earl Slick turned up to work on the album last July, not even his own roadie was allowed in the studio – "I told him to pick me up Tuesday at 1pm and drop me off at the studio, but I said, they got guys to haul the gear in at the studio, you just sit in the truck" – Visconti seems astonished than no one found out. "The evidence was there, but no one put all the pieces together. He was photographed near the studio. Over a year ago, he asked Robert Fripp to play on the album and Robert Fripp put it on his blog, something like 'David Bowie's asked me to play on his album but I'm too busy', and no one believed it! If someone was actually monitoring all these leaks, they could have put it together."

I know we have the makings of another album

No one did, enabling an artist who has always thrived on mystique to return in suitably mysterious style. "There might be a lesson in there for the wider music industry," suggests Tim Ingham. "We live in an age when distraction is everywhere, consumers are multi-screening – and multi-screening is actually an acceptable verb – and the industry assumes that to get what marketing departments call cut-through or mind-share for music you have to bombard people: artists are supposed to be in a constant dialogue with their fans, via Twitter or blogs or Facebook. It's a timely reminder that mystique is a valuable commodity. You can perhaps give people more by giving them less."

As for Bowie, Tony Visconti seems confident that The Next Day is a new beginning rather than simply one last hurrah. They ended up recording 29 songs, he says, and even on the deluxe edition of the album, there are only 17 tracks. "We have tracks left over that are really great, that just didn't fit with this batch, so I know we have the makings of another album. And I know he wants to keep recording. I'm not sure when, but I think he'll be back in the studio later this year."


David Bowie Bowie with his wife Iman. Photograph: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for DKMS

Meanwhile, despite the fact that no live dates have been announced for the forseeable future, Earl Slick says he'd like to tour the album. "Of course I would! I'm the biggest roadhog on the planet." He's not holding his breath, he says, but "as far as I'm concerned, anything he says or does could change. Nothing he does surprises me, ever. Never has, never will. When he contacted me about working on the album it was like, what's this about? 'Are you available?' Yeah, I'm available, what's going on? 'Well I wanna do some recording,' – like he was asking you to go have a cup of tea."

In the meantime, he says, he's trying to work out which of the songs on The Next Day feature him. "You gotta understand, I haven't heard the finished thing yet. He was still finishing and polishing the lyrics when I left. I can't actually figure out the titles I've seen. I don't know which ones I actually played on."

The last time Slick heard from Bowie, he says, it was via email: "I got a nice message from him saying 'thank you for keeping quiet'." He laughs. "He knows what I'm like. I'm a Brooklyn Italian, you know what I mean? I got a big fuckin' mouth."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jan/12/david-bowie-how-made-next-day?intcmp...

Great article, Thanks Gazza.

Q&A: David Bowie Guitarist Earl Slick on Secret New Album Sessions
'There's some rockers on there,' says Bowie's longtime collaborator
     
David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
By Andy Greene
January 25, 2013 9:00 AM ET

David Bowie has worked with a lot of guitarists over the decades, but he always comes back to Earl Slick. They first teamed up in 1974 for the Diamond Dogs tour. When that wrapped, Slick entered the studio with Bowie to record Young Americans and Station to Station. When Stevie Ray Vaughan walked out of the Serious Moonlight tour at the last minute, Bowie called in Slick. After a long break, Slick reunited with Bowie in the early 2000s for Heathen and Reality and their supporting tours.

Bowie called Slick into the studio last summer for to work on his comeback album, The Next Day, but until this month Slick was forbidden to tell a soul about the secret sessions. Rolling Stone spoke to Slick about the new songs, the possibility of a tour and his memories from the famously debauched Station to Station sessions in 1975.

David Bowie's 'The Next Day' Album: A Track-by-Track Preview

A few years ago, did you start to think that Bowie would never record again?
My mindset would go back and forth both ways. One thing I did know is that once you're an artist, you're an artist until the day you die. The urge is always going to be there. I was never sold on the idea that he was done. Never.

How did you first hear about this project?
I heard about it directly from David last May. We were talking on the phone and he goes, "What's your schedule like?" I said, "I'm around. What have you got in mind?" One conversation led to the other, and we scheduled to go into the studio in July.

How did that first session begin?
He had already been working on it, unbeknownst to me. He had already cut some tracks. On my first day it was myself, David, Tony Visconti and drummer Sterling Campbell. We cut some new ones. When we finished those up David played me bits and bobs from the rest of the record. He said, "Oh, what do you think about this or that?" We then picked out some songs for me to play on.

The whole thing was very casual, and it's all done as a group effort. We'll sit down and he'll play me a song and I'll say if I have a part in mind. It's a very give-and-take, very casual way of working. Sometimes he'll play me a little rough sketch on the guitar and say, "That's the idea. Now take it where you want it to go."

How many days were you there?
I was only there for a week. I did all my work in a week.

When was that?
Last week of July, or something like that. All I know is that it was hot as hell outside.

Tony says the single "Where Are We Now" sounds radically different than the rest of the album.
I don't know what the final outcome of the album is, but I know a lot of the stuff I played on was very different than the single.

Are they at all similar to the songs on Heathen or Reality? How would you describe the sound of the songs?
Oh God, I don't know if that man has ever done a record in his life that sounded like the last record he did. Think about it. You do Young Americans and then less than a year later you do Station to Station. You're talking apples and oranges. Those records, they don't even . . . it's a typical Bowie thing. It's unmistakably David Bowie, but as usual, it's unlike . . . Obviously, there's flavors from everything. You might think, "Oh, that sounds like Station to Station and that one sounds a little like Low." But there's no overall sound other than I can tell you it's just another David Bowie album that sounds different than the last one.

Do you know how many songs he used you on?
I haven't heard the album yet, but I'm gonna guess I'm on anywhere from five to seven of those. I've seen the titles these past few days, but they don't mean anything to me. They all had working titles when I was in there.

Can you describe the sound of the songs a little more?
Two of the songs sounded a little Stones-y in the same way the title track from Diamond Dogs had a very Stones-y sound, especially when we played it live. It's not a great secret that I'm a big lover of Keith Richards, so I do have a lot of that in my playing. I did do some rhythms on some of the tracks that were very reminiscent of that.

For the rest of the album, it's a touch of Bowie across the board. There's some rockers on there. I did probably hear some songs that didn't make the album, but there was one with a mid-tempo, almost an R&B feel. I can't even describe it, but it was really cool. It was almost the same tempo as "Wild Is the Wind." I played electric on it.

You've worked with Bowie a lot over the years. Was the process of this one different at all from the other albums?
It hasn't changed in 40 years. I've worked with a ton of people, and he's always the easiest. He doesn't come with a strict, "This is what it is, and you have to play these exact notes through the amp this way." Some artists do that, and that's why I rarely do sessions. I'm just too belligerent.

There's a certain magic when I sit in a room with David. That's why you'll see different guitar players working with him. He doesn't expect me to do what Adrian Belew does. He doesn't expect Adrian to do what I do, or Gerry Leonard, or vice versa. When I'm there, he needs me to do what I do best. "Here's the basic guidelines. What are the chords? Oh, I think it's in the key of G. OK, great." So we sit down, we bang around a couple of acoustic guitars sitting around some espresso and biscotti in the control room, and we just talk it through for a couple of minutes. Then I strap my guitar on and play until we both are happy with what I hit on.

The big question: Any chance you guys play live?
I knew that was the next question. That's another mystery. I mean, the band would love to do it. Obviously, we'd love to go out and do some dates. With David, and this has always been the case, he does what he's gonna do when he's gonna do it. A lot of the time it just comes from nowhere. I mean, I wasn't terribly surprised to talk to him about making another record. I wouldn't be surprised if he did call about live dates, and I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't get the call. I can tell you right now there's no touring plans that I've heard of.

Not enough people appreciated it at the time, but that last tour felt very special.
Out of every tour I've ever done in my life – and that includes David and my own tours – that, hands down, was the most fun I'd ever had. It was the best configuration of guys we'd ever had.

If he calls you tomorrow and says, "Hey, I want to go on a huge 18-month tour," what do you say?
What do you think?

I presume you'd do it.
[Laughs] Of course.

Just a random question. I've read so much about the making of Station to Station over the years – all the drugs and the all-night sessions and the general madness. Is any of it myth?
No, it's not a myth at all.

What's your memory of the single strangest moment?
The whole damn thing was strange! I mean, at the time it seemed perfectly normal to me. But in hindsight . . . I remember one night where we didn't even have the studio booked. How old was I? Christ, I was 24. It was L.A., and we were out ranting and raving every night, just having a blast. I was at the Rainbow Bar and Grill. As we used to say, I was "under the weather." Suddenly one of the roadies comes in. They search the whole place and find me at a back table. He says, "Time to go to work." I say, "It's one in the morning and I'm drunk." He says, "That's OK. David's at the studio. There's a car outside." So I paid my tab, jumped in the car and worked all night. I mean, that was not an unusual thing to happen.

David claims to be unable to recall most any of it.
Trust me, there's a lot of blank spots for me as well. I was living at the Sunset Marquis ,and it would be daylight when I got back. I'd be sitting out on my balcony drinking a beer at 10 a.m., just getting back from work.

Roy Bittan from the E Street Band was on keyboards, right?
Yes.

He always seemed so straight and professional to me. I can't imagine him in the middle of all that madness.
You know why? He's a New York boy, that's why. He's used to being around that. The first time I ever met Roy was in New York while I was working with some band called Tracks or something. I met Roy, and we became fast friends. We were doing Station and it came up that we needed a piano player. David asked everybody in the band and I said, "You know what? Bruce Springsteen and the guys are staying at my hotel. My friend Roy is in the band. Why don't I bring him down?" That's what happened with Roy.

I've always wondered how that worked for him. It was directly in the middle of the Born to Run tour. How did he have time?
I can't swear to this because I have a lot of blanks myself, but I think it was when Springsteen did two nights at the Roxy. It was the same time he was on the cover of Time and Newsweek. He was just exploding, and he was in Los Angeles for a little while. We were all at the same hotel. Again, there's a lot of blank spots, and I don't know if Roy was only in the studio for a day or two.

It's pretty amazing that the album turned out so perfectly.
I gotta tell you, out of every record I've played on, and I've played on a few records, that is still one of my favorites. As crazy as it was, and I can't specifically remember a lot, the memories I have are good. [Laughs] It makes me feel good thinking of the album, so it must have been fun.

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David Bowie 'Likes the Struggle' of Winning Fans, Says Drummer Zack Alford
Onetime Springsteen sideman reveals more about secret 'The Next Day' sessions
     
By Andy Greene
February 1, 2013 8:00 AM ET
Zachary Alford and David Bowie
Frank Ockenfels

For the past year and a half drummer Zachary Alford has been forced to walk around with the secret that he plays on David Bowie's new album. "It's been torture," he says. "Everyone always says to me, 'So, what's David up to?' I just had to shrug my shoulders and say, 'I wish I knew.'"

Now that the secret is out, Zachary is finally able to talk to us about the secretive recording sessions for The Next Day. We also spoke with him about his tenure in Bruce Springsteen's "Other Band" in 1992-'93.

Let's start at the very beginning. Tell me how you first heard about this new Bowie album?
David sent me an email asking if I was available in the first two weeks of May of 2011. It was out of the blue. I mean, we'd been in email contact, but there was never any talk about work.

What was your first reaction?
I said yes. [Laughs] Luckily I was available, so I was just really happy about that. But I didn't know what it was. But whatever it was, I'm available. [Laughs]

Flashback: Bowie Belts Out 'Heroes'

He asked if you were available, but he didn't tell you it was for a new album?
There was a time where I didn't know what it was. He wouldn't even say where it was or what it was. I remember [bassist] Gail [Ann Dorsey] and I talking about it, like, "Oh, did he contact you too?" "Yeah, he contacted me." "What's it for?" "I don't know."

We didn't know if it was a performance or a recording or anything. It wasn't until maybe a week before that he said, "Yes, be here at this studio on this day." Then somehow it leaked out.

What do you mean?
Well, I got an email from David saying, "Do you know a photographer named so and so?" I could find the name, but I don't remember offhand. I said, "No." It's a good thing I didn't know him. [Laughs] Apparently this photographer had called someone from David's office and asked if it was OK for him to take pictures of David at the studio. They were like, "What? Who told you there was even a session?" Obviously, someone from the studio leaked it out. We got an email after that saying, "OK, change of plan. We're doing it at Magic Shop."

By this point, are you shocked to learn that he's making a new album?
Um . . . I'd say I was relieved that he's finally back in the saddle, and I was relieved that I got the call.

Tell me about the first day of recording. Did he lay out his vision for the album, or did you just start cutting tracks?
It was all very matter-of-fact. We weren't allowed to hear any of the songs before that, because he didn't want anything out there circulating. So we basically walked in, and there wasn't much discussion. It's like, "Here's the first tune." Usually he'd play us a demo. It would be a home demo with a drum machine and a synth. Then he'd play a rehearsal demo, because they had actually rehearsed some of the material up from the initial demo stage in November. I guess that was in 2010. And so we listened to both, and then we'd go in the room and start playing it.

Is this you, Gail, Gerry Leonard and David?
Yes, and David Torn. The first week in May we actually had both guitar players, David Torn and Gerry Leonard. Gail was on bass and David was on either synths or he'd play acoustic guitar or piano, depending on the song.

Gerry would hand out charts while we listened to the song so we'd have something to follow, and we could make any notes we needed. We listened to the songs about two or three times, and then it was time to go play it. That was the drill.

I assume David told you that you couldn't tell a soul about the sessions.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He handed out nondisclosure forms for everyone to sign.

Did you even tell your family?
Yes. I told my wife and my kids. But we home-school, so I didn't have to worry about them blabbing it all over school.

It's pretty amazing in this day and age that it didn't get out there.
Yeah. I think it's a real testament to the value of privacy. This is zero promotion. Basically, him saying nothing is almost promoting the record itself.

Being quiet a whole decade and doing no interviews makes him this real mysterious character. It's almost like he's this ghost, and I can understand why he's reluctant to give that up.
In this day and age, people are so distracted that it's hard to show them anything they'll pay attention to. By actually giving them nothing, they want to know more.

I've only heard the single, but everyone keeps telling me the rest of the album sounds much different than that song.
Oh yeah. There's definitely a lot of up-tempo material. That's some kind of Sixties doo-wop-ish material. Although I don't remember a lot of the songs. I mean, it'll be two years in May since we did it. I haven't heard any of it since. I hope to have the chance to hear it soon myself.

So you basically only spent three total weeks working on the album?
Yeah.

Can you walk me through your average day of recording? What was the routine?
Well, the routine was very much like going to work. It was a lot of fun for me, because I don't live in the city anymore, but I grew up there. This was a nice way to come back. Every morning I'd stroll through Soho to go to the Magic Shop. I'd show up around 10:30 a.m. David was almost always already there. He'd be in the control room strumming away on something. Then he'd come back when we were all gathered and drinking our coffees. He'd then throw on a demo. Gerry would hand out charts, we'd take notes, and after hearing it two or three times he'd say, "Everybody ready?" We'd say "Yeah," and we'd go in and play it through. We'd only do two or three takes and he'd say, "Either we've got it or we don't."

On one occasion I recall we came back in and he still wasn't happy, so he wanted us to move on. He'd rather keep the momentum going and keep the juices flowing than sit there and hammer out a tune until it's perfect.

So we'd do the first one, then we would break for lunch. Then the same drill. We'd listen to another one, takes notes, go in . . . Usually we'd finish by five or six.

Roughly how many takes do you think you did of most of the songs?
I would say between two and five takes for all the songs.

Is that sort of low in your experience?
That is low, actually. It may not sound like it, but you can do a lot of takes in no time. Because they're all rehearsals. I can't tell you how many sessions I go to and I say, "Oh, wow, let's listen to the third take. That was the best one." And someone will say, "That was actually the sixth take." You forget how many times you've done something. So this was pretty low. On a couple of occasions it was only one take.

You said some of the songs were sort of doo-wop. Earl Slick told me some were Rolling Stones-esque. Can you describe the sound of the songs a little more?
There are a couple that remind me of the Scary Monsters period, because they're a bit more angular and aggressive-sounding, so I would approach them that way, because naturally I'm trying to tie the material into my association of what Bowie music sounds like.

There's another number that's a straight-up country song. There was another one that was based on a blues riff, but we had specific instructions to not make it sound like the blues. There were two songs that sort of had a Bo Diddley feel. I remember specifically shying away from that because I didn't want it to sound like "Panic in Detroit."

Do you know any of the songs titles?
They've changed. The only ones that have remained from my initial days are "The Stars (Are Out Tonight) and . . . is there one called "Ya Ya?"

I don't think so.
I remember "Boss of Me." We cut that with Tony Levin on bass. I remember specifically thinking, "Oh, this one sounds kind of funky. Wouldn't it be great if he played the [Chapman] Stick?" I suggested that, and Tony wasn't thrilled with that, because there were a lot of chord changes. He doesn't like to do songs with chord changes on the Stick, but everybody thought it sounded great. That sounded almost Peter Gabriel-like, like something from the "Big Time" era.

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David Bowie and Iggy Pop Biopic to Focus on Berlin Years
Film will chronicle their collaborations in the Seventies
     
February 7, 2013 11:35 AM ET

Iggy Pop and David Bowie in New York City.
Busacca/Larry

A new biopic titled Lust For Life will focus on David Bowie and Iggy Pop's legendary collaboration in West Berlin in the 1970s, The Hollywood Reporter reports.

Gabriel Range (Death of a President) is attached to direct the movie, which will chronicle Bowie and Pop during the period that resulted in what are regarded as some of their best albums: Bowie's Low and Pop's The Idiot and Lust for Life. Robin French wrote the screenplay based on sources including Paul Trynka's books Starman: David Bowie and Open Up and Bleed: Iggy Pop.

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Berlin-based producer Egoli Tossell said in a statement that Lust for Life "is not a traditional rock biopic, for no one dies at the end," and added that the film's central character will be the divided city of West Berlin, which attracted all sorts of artists, activists and pleasure-seekers during the Seventies.

Bowie's time in Berlin was a central part of "Where Are We Now," the musician's first new song in 10 years, which will appear on his 30th studio record The Next Day, set for a March release. The video for the song shows Bowie walking around the city, revisiting places from his past, including an auto repair shop downstairs from his old apartment.

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